Rifle amp vs Corrosive projection

[Drag0nChaser]

So basicly i dont get it, which one is stronger?, the 3% difference in str put aside.

Lets say your using CP, CP only affects armor.

Enemy has 100 armor and 100 hp:
with CP enemy now has 70 armor and 100 hp.
Rifle Amp theoretical values: 73 armor and 73 hp.

The thing is, CP does not work that well vs high lvl corpus in the void, making it so that Rifle amp gives more damage in total then CP.
For ember WOF i assume its best to have CP to farm EXTs fast because its a direct buff to WOFs weakpoint?.

Is there some kind of formula which changes your primary weapon damage value depending on what type of armor the enemy has?, what is your reason/explenation to bring CP over Rifle amp?.

Also is Rifle amp multiplicative?, shouldnt Rifle amp be way more powerfull?, simply from the standpoint that its a direct buff VS ALL enemies instead of just specific ones.

-- Note: assuming a public random team, no 4x CP team 99% of the time --

Edited April 12, 2016 by Drag0nChaser

[Burgingham]

First of all Corrosive Projection scales with enemy levels, Rifle Amp does not. So basically in most endless missions or in any mission from a certain level forward you want CP.

 

Second the Wiki states (and I have not done any testing myself, so I will just have to believe this) that with just Serration taken into account and no vulnerability to damage types CP will be better at an armor value of 134 or higher. Vs a unit you get the perfect 75% damage bonus against - because you are using the right damage type - it will be 536 armor.

 

A Heavy Gunner already has 500 armor at his base level. So yeah...

 

Here is the formula how armor scales: Armor = Base Armor × (1 + ((Current Level − Base Level)^1.75 ÷ 200))

So you can check the individual enemy units and see for yourself when CP becomes better.

 

Even in the Void where you have heavily and not so heavily armored units mixed together you want to bring something against the heavily armored ones, just because the damage reduction from their armor is so massive that you will only deal a few % of your initial damage if you do not reduce their armor. So I would prefer taking a Bombard out quickly and taking half a second longer vs a Crewman over getting shot at by the Bombard for 20 seconds while I am wiping out all the crewmen easily.

Edited April 12, 2016 by Burgingham

[Trichouette]

Corrosive projection.

The answer is always corrosive projection.

And if you find corpus tanky... you're having some trouble with your mods.

 

And why corrosive projection instead of rifle amp ? Because in high level their armor become so incredibly high the tiny bonus from rifle amp is ridiculous.

[Giantconch]

15 minutes ago, Drag0nChaser said:

Ya i see, has anyone figured out at what lvl enemies need to be to beat CP?, because just thinking about the numbers alone i cant see how CP can beat Rifle Amp anytime soon. At say lvl 100, the shear fact you clear trash faster means allot of damage reduction, the lvl where peashooters kill you.

 

Corrosive projection cannot be defeated basically. It removes XX% of the armor, not 100 or 1000 armor. The XX% scales with enemy level. If an enemy has 1,000,000 armor, it will lose XX% of that armor from corrosive projection.

[Fifield]

Firstly, it's a myth that Corrosive Projection is important if you're soloing.  The following chart shows why:

One Corrosive Projection means 30% less armour.  The difference between the 200 armour turquoise line and the 150 armour purple line is just less ie the damage boost from one Corrosive Projection is about +18%.  This however is higher than Rifle Amp, which comes in around +12%.

Multiple Corrosive Projections have a multiplicative rather than additive effect.  2 Corrosive Projections is the difference between the 500 armour orange line and 200 armour turquoise line ie about +50%. 3 is the difference between the 500 armour orange line and the 50 armour red line ie +200% damage. Lastly, 4 can increase your damage 1000%.

These figures aren't terribly accurate, but illustrate the difference between one or two Corrosive Projections and three or four.

So what to take when solo?  Shields don't scale like armour so Shield Reduction is only worth taking versus augmented-shield Corpus Sorties.

Steel Charge is often the best pick, providing a 60% base damage boost for melee and 2 extra capacity.  Energy Siphon is overshadowed by the focus energy regen but is still a good choice for newbies who don't have energy pads.  Rejuvenation does the same for health.  But getting the right weapon damage type is far more important than your aura (corrosive vs Grineer, magnetic vs Corpus, gas vs Infested)

In groups: Similar aura choices vs Corpus and Infested.  But always 3-4 Corrosive Projections vs Grineer or Void.

 

Edited April 13, 2016 by Fifield

[bandigood]

CP works with any levels enemies (cut % armor), RA has end because its just add 1/4 additional damage.

[Drag0nChaser]

5 minutes ago, bandigood said:

CP works with any levels enemies (cut % armor), RA has end because its just add 1/4 additional damage.

Ya i see, has anyone figured out at what lvl enemies need to be to beat CP?, because just thinking about the numbers alone i cant see how CP can beat Rifle Amp anytime soon. At say lvl 100, the shear fact you clear trash faster means allot of damage reduction, the lvl where peashooters kill you.

[ashrah]

corrosive projection that is essential aura for anything over lvl 50

[[DE]Momaw]

52 minutes ago, Liljeman said:

Just keep in mind there are ways to bypass and remove armour, CP isn't the only solution to deal with lvl 80 grineer with tons of armour

None of the other ways to remove armor apply to every enemy, and when you're fighting high level enemies with 90% damage reduction, you need remove armor from every enemy. Corrosion only affects whatever you are shooting at, and limits your weaponry options to the handful of guns that are both rapid-fire and high-status. Shuriken augment only affects 2 enemies in front of the Ash who casts it (and Ash has Bladestorm anyway, which ignores armor), Sonic Boom augment is clumsy because it throws enemies all over the map, Link augment only affects max of 3 enemies near Trinity and requires a specialized build that cuts into Trinity's general playability.

There are ways to deal with armor other than CP but they all have serious costs and negative aspects. CP isn't the only solution, it's just objectively the best any time you have a squad full of people who can all bring it.

 

As far as Rifle Amp goes, the problem is that it stacks with Serration. It's not actually +27% damage unless you haven't got Serration equipped (???).  In real final damage, it's a 10% bonus.

Comparing an entire squad worth of Rifle Amp (+40% damage) to an entire squad of Corrosive Projection, obviously CP becomes the better choice any time the enemy has a damage reduction higher than 40% from armor. This can happen as soon as level 1 for a heavy gunner (armor rating 500 = 62.5% damage reduction). Even if you're using ideal damage type (corrosion), heavy gunner stops taking "more" damage from corrosion by level 30, and has 40% reduced damage by level 55 (the point at which sorties start). Using non-ideal damage types makes this happen much faster.

Edited April 12, 2016 by Momaw

[groznez]

Short answer: Corrosive Projection is much more powerful in the void.

 

Long answer: There are multiple reasons why one should always use CP instead Rifle Amp if possible. Biggest reason is that if you have four people with CP enemies don't have any armor which makes killing them a lot easier in higher levels. Even sone or two CPs can make a lot of difference though. But lets go through it with actual numbers.

2 hours ago, Drag0nChaser said:

--Snip--
Lets say your using CP, CP only affects armor.

Enemy has 100 armor and 100 hp:
with CP enemy now has 70 armor and 100 hp.
Rifle Amp theoretical values: 73 armor and 73 hp.

---Snip--

Firstly this example is completely wrong. Rifle Amp doesn't affect enemy health or armor in any way. Here is how it actually goes:

Most important thing to note is that Rifle Amp only affects weapons base damage. Not the final damage after all the mods. In other words it doesn't provide 27% boost to the damage you see in arsenal after you have put all your mods in. It only affects base damage without mods. Similar to Serration or Heavy Caliber mods. According to wiki the actual damage boost to your weapons final damage (after all mods) is only 6,3% with maxed Serration and maxed Heavy Caliber. Final note from wiki without any damage type modifiers Rifle Amp provides more damage against enemies than Corrosive Projection if enemy has less than 134 armor. Thing to note is that even Corrupted Lancer has more armor (200) at level 1. Even with max 75% damage type bonus Rifle amp is better only if enemy has less than 536 armor. Corrupted Heavy Gunners and Bombards have 500 armor at level 1.

Next thing to note is how health and armor scale with level and how armor gives damage reduction. Firstly armor value of 300 will reduce incoming damage 50%, so only half of the weapon's damage is inflicted in total. At 600, enemy will receive only 33% of a weapon's outgoing damage. At 900 armor, enemy will only receive 25% of weapon's damage. This obviously goes on as long as enemy level raises. Enemy armor scales using following formula: Armor = Base Armor * (1 + ((Current Level − Base Level)^1.75 *0,005)). Base armor is the armor value you see in codex. Base level is the level enemy starts to spawn for example level 8 for Corrupted Heavy Gunner. So lets calculate armor for both level 20 Corrupted Lancer and level 20 Corrupted Heavy Gunner. Rounded up armor for Lancer would be 200 * (1 + ((20 − 1)^1.75 * 0,005)) = 373 and for Heavy Gunner 500 * (1 + ((20 − 8)^1.75 * 0,005)) = 693. So as you can see even at level 20 you would do less than 50% of damage to Corrupted Lancers and less than 33% damage to Corrupted Heavy Gunners (takes only 30% of damage to precise) . Enemy Health Scales as follows Current Health = Base Health * ( 1 + ( Current Level − Base Level )^2 * 0.015)), Base Health is again the health value you see in codex. Lets now calculate health for the level 20 Lancer and Heavy Gunner. Lancer: 60 * ( 1 + (20 − 1)^2 × 0.015)) = 385 and Heavy Gunner: 700 * ( 1 + (20 − 8)^2 × 0.015)) = 2212. So With Heavy Gunner at level 20 you have enemy that has 2212 health and he takes less than 33% damage from your gun.

Finally lets compare how the two auras work against the level 20 Corrupted Heavy Gunner. Rifle Amp gives 6,3% damage bonus (with serration and Heavy Caliber maxed) to you weapon. Total damage is then reduced 70% by the armor of the enemy. Corrosive Projection reduces enemy armor by 30%. Instead of having 693 armor the Heavy Gunner has 485 armor which means it armor only reduces 62% of damage. In conclusion Rifle Amp gives 1,89%  extra damage against level 20 Heavy Gunner while Corrosive Projection gives 8% extra damage. Since Most hard to kill enemies in the void are Heavy Gunners and Bombards (both are armored) I think every bit of extra damage against them counts. But that is just me.

Again if you have two CPs auras this would be 60% armor reduction which would be much more effective. With four auras there would not be any damage reduction from armor since armor would be eliminated completely.

 

Edit: Corrected typos and one math error.

Edited April 12, 2016 by groznez

[[DE]Momaw]

18 minutes ago, groznez said:

Even with max 75% damage type bonus Rifle amp is better only if enemy has less than 536 armor. Corrupted Heavy Gunners and Bombards have 500 armor at level 1.

Kind of wandering off the point, but for your own edification, armor is a little more complicated than this.  If a target is weak to the damage type, it not only does increased damage, it also reduces their effective armor value.  So, against ferrite armor, corrosion damage not only starts out with a 75% bonus to final damage it also reduces the target's armor rating by 75%.  You can test this yourself:  Take a lanka and remove all the mods.  Why Lanka? Because its base type is electrical, which has no modifiers against ferrite armor. Put on Stormbringer (damage 997) and shoot a level 100 heavy gunner.  I saw 39 damage inflicted, a damage multiplier from armor of 0.039117 (armor rating of 7369).  Replace Stormbringer with Infected Clip to do an equal amount of corrosion damage instead of electrical.  This time I saw 249 damage inflicted. Divide by 1.75 to remove the bonus from being corrosion, and that leaves us with a raw 142 damage before the elemental bonus...

To verify, if we start with the 7369 armor and multiply by 0.25, the gunner should have effective 1,842.25 armor, a damage multiplier of 0.140039678.   997 damage * 0.140039678?   139.  Close enough to our observed 142 to call it confirmed, I feel.

This is why using the correct elemental types is very VERY much more effective against armored enemies.  But still not enough to beat CP at high levels.

[groznez]

22 minutes ago, Momaw said:

Kind of wandering off the point, but for your own edification, armor is a little more complicated than this.  If a target is weak to the damage type, it not only does increased damage, it also reduces their effective armor value.  So, against ferrite armor, corrosion damage not only starts out with a 75% bonus to final damage it also reduces the target's armor rating by 75%.  You can test this yourself:  Take a lanka and remove all the mods.  Why Lanka? Because its base type is electrical, which has no modifiers against ferrite armor. Put on Stormbringer (damage 997) and shoot a level 100 heavy gunner.  I saw 39 damage inflicted, a damage multiplier from armor of 0.039117 (armor rating of 7369).  Replace Stormbringer with Infected Clip to do an equal amount of corrosion damage instead of electrical.  This time I saw 249 damage inflicted. Divide by 1.75 to remove the bonus from being corrosion, and that leaves us with a raw 142 damage before the elemental bonus...

To verify, if we start with the 7369 armor and multiply by 0.25, the gunner should have effective 1,842.25 armor, a damage multiplier of 0.140039678.   997 damage * 0.140039678?   139.  Close enough to our observed 142 to call it confirmed, I feel.

This is why using the correct elemental types is very VERY much more effective against armored enemies.  But still not enough to beat CP at high levels.

I know armor is affected by damage types. I should have said that my example is simplified because I have no way of knowing what weapon or damage types person asking the question is using. Also I didn't take into account stuff like corrosive or viral procs which also would hugely affect damage dealt to said gunner. This is because two reasons firstly I'm lazy :) and because it might make it little too complicated explanation for the question that was asked.

[Drag0nChaser]

Tnx for the amazing info guys. Sure i forgot about scaling, but this covers everything i needed to know. Tnx tennos!, stay safe.

Edited April 12, 2016 by Drag0nChaser

[Liljeman]

4 hours ago, Momaw said:

There are ways to deal with armor other than CP but they all have serious costs and negative aspects. CP isn't the only solution, it's just objectively the best any time you have a squad full of people who can all bring it.

Agreed.

If my calculations is right, isn't 3 CP with Coaction drift enough to remove 100% of the armour?

[Liljeman]

Just keep in mind there are ways to bypass and remove armour, CP isn't the only solution to deal with lvl 80 grineer with tons of armour