Hek Testing, Or The Power Of Corrosive Procs

[Darzk]

Okay so from this thread, SortaRandom suggested a Rad/Puncture setup might be superior to Corrosive/Fire. 

Slightly off-topic for this thread, but if you feel like going full-out Grineer-destroying without 4xCP on and you happen to have that one event mod, then Puncture+Radiation will work wonders on this weapon due to massively increased damage against both Ferrite and Alloy armor.

 

It'll get noticeably weaker against Corrupted Ancients if you're trying to hit them from a really long range, but IMO, the boost against heavy gunners, bombards, and even fusion moas / attack drones (the four tankiest Void enemies) is more than worth it. Definitely worth considering on any Puncture-focused weapon.

Actually this is advice I'd give for the Vaykor Hek. The basic Hek has a significant pellet count and # of procs per shot, and the armor removal from multiple Corrosive procs will more than make up for the weaker multipliers against Alloy, while still being an extremely effective damage type against Ferrite and Ancients.

 

And Rad/Puncture is pretty weak against Moa's shields, which make up 50% of their health pool; don't think a slight boost to robotics is going to help that much - it's pretty equal.

 

Someone actually did some testing of this exact comparison once, think it ended with Corrosive/Fire about 85% as effective as Rad/Puncture against Bombards, but double the effectiveness against Gunners. I was originally in the Rad/Puncture group too :D

 

Also note that both Heks are ~65% Puncture so the raw damage is a bit less than an element. Still, the better modifiers on Puncture damage helps.

Thanks a lot for the info!

By the way, do you happen to have a link to the corrosive/fire vs rad/punct testing thing? I feel as though the 75% Alloy armor ignore on Radiation should have a bit more of an effect than that against Bombards. Or is the difference because of the low Puncture damage percentage on the Hek specifically?

I was pretty sure the Corrosive procs would make up the difference, but was unable to actually find my source. So I went ahead and did some testing myself. I'm a fan of the 6 shot setup (and had the forma for it) so I kept Ammo Stock installed.

 

The builds:

Rad/Puncture (R/F)

Corrosive/Fire (C/F)

Corrosive/Fire with proc mods (Cv2)

 

The results are below:

Vs. Level 100 Bombard

R/P = 7 headshot, 13.5 body

C/F = 10.5 headshot, 16 body

Cv2 = 9 headshot, 15 body

R/P is 34% better than C/F, 20% better than Cv2

 

Vs. Level 80 Bombard

R/P = 4 head, 7 body

C/F = 8 head, 10.5 body

Cv2 = 4.5 head, 11 body

R/P is 75% better than C/F, 35% better than Cv2

 

Vs. Level 50 Bombard

R/P = 1 head, 2 body

C/F = 2 head, 3 body

Cv2 = 2 head, 3.5 body

R/P is 75% better than C/F, 87.5% better than Cv2

 

Vs. Level 100 Gunner

R/P = 25 head, 49 body

C/F = 7 head, 12 body

Cv2 = 8 head, 11 body

C/F is 283% better than R/P, about the same as Cv2

 

Vs. Level 80 Gunner

R/P = 11 head, 21 body

C/F = 4 head, 8 body

Cv2 = 5 head, 7 body

C/F is 169% better than R/P, about the same as Cv2

 

Vs. Level 50 Gunner

R/P = 2.5 head, 4 body

C/F = 1 head, 2 body

Cv2 = 2 head, 3 body

C/F is 125% better than R/P, 75% better than Cv2

 

Vs. Level 100 Ancient

R/P = 2 head, 4 body

C/F = 1 head, 2 body

Cv2 = 2 head, 3 body

C/F is 100% better than R/P, 75% better than Cv2

 

Vs. Level 100 Fusion Moa

R/P = 2.5 head, 3.5 body

C/F = 2 head, 3 body

Cv2 = 3 head, 4 body

C/F is 20% better than R/P, 40% better than Cv2

 

TLDR for all of this:

Rad/Puncture was more effective against Bombards, dealing 30%-75% more damage than the Corrosive setups depending on the level range; it was more relative damage at lower levels, as the Corrosive proc began to catch up at higher levels.

 

However, the Rad/P setup was much worse against Gunners, with the Corrosive/Fire setup dealing anywhere from 2.25x damage to almost 4x as much as Rad/P. It took nearly 50 bodyshots to kill a level 100 Gunner; that's completely unusable in-game. The Corrosive setups were making kills inside two clips.

 

In addition, the Rad/P setup dealt roughly half as much damage against Ancients and ~20% less damage against Fusion Moas.

I wouldn't recommend building Rad/Puncture; the Corrosive proc is too valuable to pass up on.

 

60%/60% vs 90%s

Another interesting observation I made from this testing is that the proc-oriented build was nearly as effective as the setup using 180% Corrosive, and can be set up with half as many Forma needed. It's certainly an option, and I'd bet it would pull ahead if tested at even higher levels. The bodyshot damage was scaling from like 20-30 per pellet on the first shot (against level 100's) and scaling up to ~500+ per pellet on the shot that killed them. You'll note that the testing data that the 60%/60% setup pulls ahead on bodyshots when the procs start to overcome the additional Corrosive damage.

Edited October 23, 2015 by Darzk

[ThePredicament]

Proc is the operative word, especially since those 70 and 96 aren't truly what it says they are (read: Strun Wraith). Completely agree with this testing though, armor in later levels is much more of a problem. But there are many factors that people need to think about before setting up their weapons, such as armor stripping abilities, etc.

[JoMenton]

great job as always

 

thx

[ThunderZsolt]

thanks for sharing!

 

i'm a little sad though, that the result is corrosive beating everything else again ;-(

[(PSN)CoolD2108]

Testet something similar on my synoid gamma.

1:100.

Great job on that one

[shut]

Thanks a lot for doing all this testing!

Time to remake my hek build.

Edited October 23, 2015 by SortaRandom

[Karamethien]

My Hek with radiation build needs 6-8 shots or so to kill 1 G3.

 

My Hek with Corrosive build only takes about 2 shots to kill 1 G3.

 

Using nova both times.