Viral damage work differently on Beam weapons?

[Faultron]

I have tested 2 guns today. Ignis wraith and zenith. Both on same mod setup (100%+ multishot on both guns) and multiple enemies lvl 100 SP. When i used the zenith i couldnt belive, but viral+heat was superiror vs basicly anything, even vs heavy armored units. So i decided to not using corrosive+heat.

Ok. Than i switched to ignis. Viral+heat underperformed on the ignis and i dont understand why. On paper everything is the same, yet the dmg is not there and corrosive+heat was better vs something like corrupted heavy gunners. Vs Rogue culverin same results, but more "close".

I dont understand, can someone explain whats going on? Is the slash dmg from zenith that made the difference or what?

Edited April 12 by Faultron

[maaleru]

It's prolly not about  raw damage, but  slash status procs.

 

[FiveN9ne]

Put Hunter Munitions on Ignis and try again

[Zakkhar]

Ignis has only 1 element - heat. If you mod to viral heat, thats is 2. It may hurt your Gun CO stacks compared to Zenith that has IPS and high slash weighting (I assume we are talking about auto mode). Also it has slightkly lower fire rate (but its aoe, compared to Zenith single target, so comparing them on single target is not a good idea). Ignis has much smaller base damage as well (because again, it is aoe).

Ignis needs Hunter Munitions and crit scaling to perform on SP, have in mind that Status chance is not as important because viral can only stack to 10 and you will more likely have higher weighting of it than heat.

It is not the slash damage that made the difference but slash status proc (Bleed) that does True damage (ignores armor redution, units on SP have it in high 90%'s).

SImilarly Viral+Heat comp is not about the damage type, but about the status proc it offers. Viral increases the damage from 100% on 1 stack to 325% on 10 (max). Heat decreases armor by half and offers infinitely stacking Damage over time.

Viral+Heat will not work as well on a weapn that has very low status chance and slow fire rate (eg. Zenith single shot mode).

https://warframe.fandom.com/wiki/Status_Effect

 

Edited April 13 by Zakkhar

[(PSN)slightconfuzzled]

You may, want to give more build info, screenshots, or video demonstration or just generally more info. Like there is so much that can vary weapon performance and output, and you did give some info, but eh. Like threads like this often pop up, and sometimes a person may be using Critical Delay, and thats okay, but sometimes certain weapons may prefer the fire rate over the extra crit, but then for certain specific reasons. There is also testing the weapons and mods in a relative vacuum (like you attempt to make certain things equal) versus the idea of comparing the builds that take into account strengths. Then yes also factors like slash damage and where/how you are getting that, as well as potentially elemental weighting, and how Ignis already comes with heat, and then what exactly does "superior to everything" necessarily mean. Upfront damage, tick damage? What do the results look like further in Steel Path? Which weapon hits max stacks of Viral first? Against singular enemies or mods? 

I also say may, because personally I don't actually care too much about these specific weapons, beam weapons do have some general differences, but I would just say look at the wikia, I am too lazy to try to write down precisely and accurately, but potentially someone else can look at your info and provide explanations. Like I haven't used Ignis since prior to some of the headshot changes, and I personally always thought Phantasma was generally better for Steel Path, but one obvious ignis Wraith strength is its ability to hit multiple enemies, but IIRC you may want to increase its fire rate, and if comparing to a weapon that has a way to proc slash, be mindful of that with comparisons. Also sometimes, on paper, everything being the same, isn't necessarily... Weapon comparisons can be nuanced, not just weapon to weapon, but build to build. Especially when you consider weapon strengths/weaknesses and how you want to play into that, with say Bane mods and how they affect procs, and mods like hunter munitions, how multishot works, bodyshots versus head, innate weighting... There is a lot of stuff to consider and be aware of. 

Even as someone who enjoys and really gets into numbers and comparisons and stats and all that, even I often just turn my brain off and just go off "feel", because of the amount of work that can be delved into.