What Makes the Pox such an Effective Status Weapon?

[Tizodd]

Maybe a noob question but I'm genuinely confused about this...

I built the Pox when it was released and threw a few forma on it to see how much damage I could get out of it.  I had no idea it would be such an effective status weapon...and I honestly don't understand what makes it so effective compared to other status weapons.

In the Simulacrum my Pox tears through level 140 Bombards and Heavy Gunners like it's nobody's business.  Meanwhile, my Ignis takes forever to kill them and never manages to completely strip their armor (yellow armor bar never turns to red health).

Pox:

Ignis:

I'm looking for help from some of you number crunchers out there because I don't get it.  Why does my 3 forma Pox (90% status chance secondary) shred armor so much faster than my 5 forma Ignis (104.5% status per second primary)?

Does weapon damage play a factor in status application?  The Pox does more damage per shot, but the Ignis appears to be more likely to proc a status based on its status %.  But in practice, the Pox procs constantly and the Ignis...just doesn't.

Looking for someone to shed some light on this and tell me what I'm missing.

edit: To clarify...my question isn't about why the Pox kills faster.  My question is about why the Pox applies status more often even though it's status % appears to be the lower of the two.

Edited September 6, 2016 by Tizodd

[Vali]

The issue here is because Ignis is a beam weapon, which applies status per second, so its limited to only apply a status in a certain duration. Pox however causes status at its own rate. Ignis has the AoE which Pox lacks, but Pox simply has the multiple status application for a single target or small crowd. 

[Barely_Ironic]

Look at your damage numbers, your Pox does 3,808 total damage and your Ignis does 659.7 total damage per second. That's just it. 

The Corrosive damage does extra damage to Ferrite armour, so that 2,800 compared to 446.9 is MASSIVE

Edited September 6, 2016 by slamdanked

[zaxiade]

I think in a simple way of speaking, cause i'm unsure of what the terms are actually called, but the damage over time from the gas it emits seems to heavily output damage from full on contact if that makes any sense. Its like stacking status?

Either way it's a really amazing secondary and is super useful.

Edited September 6, 2016 by zaxiade

[Tizodd]

Just now, slamdanked said:

Look at your damage numbers, your Pox does 3,808 total damage and your Ignis does 659.7 total damage per second. That's just it. 

I'm not asking about damage.  I'm asking about status.  The Pox applies status more often even though it's status chance is lower.

[Deatherage_]

power creep nuff said

[Barely_Ironic]

3 minutes ago, Tizodd said:

I'm not asking about damage.  I'm asking about status.  The Pox applies status more often even though it's status chance is lower.

Pox also leaves a cloud that does a damage tick every second, with 90% status chance, as well as the additional hit, with multiple Pox projectiles involved it'll be hitting enemies more often than your Ignis

In other words, if you hit an enemy with all 4 Pox hits, they'll be taking about 4-5 hits a second, with a 90% status chance you're looking at them having 3-4 procs a second

Edited September 6, 2016 by slamdanked

[Tizodd]

1 minute ago, slamdanked said:

Pox also leaves a cloud that does a damage tick every second, with 90% status chance, as well as the additional hit, with multiple Pox projectiles involved it'll be hitting enemies more often than your Ignis

 

I'm aware of the Pox toxin cloud, but that doesn't explain why it removes armor faster.

Afaik, the toxin cloud is always toxin...it doesn't combine with the other elements on the weapon.  The regular attacks combine elements, but the cloud is always just toxin.

[NekroArts]

12 minutes ago, Tizodd said:

I'm not asking about damage.  I'm asking about status.  The Pox applies status more often even though it's status chance is lower.

The rate of fire maybe?

[Tizodd]

Just now, NekroArts said:

The rate of fire maybe?

Even more reason why the Ignis should apply Corrosive more often.  The Ignis rof is 19 and the Pox rof is only 3.33.

[OvisCaedo]

I've heard that the procs from a weapon are weighted based on the ratio of the damage types. Pox looks like it's got almost three times as much corrosive as heat damage, where the Ignis has a bit over twice as much corrosive as heat damage. So the pox's status procs are probably corrosive instead of heat a bit more often.

The bigger thing is probably just that the ignis is not actually very fast at applying status. It gets very good chance, but rather than being rate of fire based, its status chance is per second. I don't really know how the Pox work, but I'm assuming they manage to have proc chances more often than once a second.

Edited September 6, 2016 by OvisCaedo

[NekroArts]

I think I may get it. Ignis inflicts status proc every 1 second flat, but Pox inflicts status per hit. So if you hit a target multiples time in under one second with Pox you shred the armor faster.

[Camelslayer]

The Pox is amazing at causing a large number of status procs in a very short period of time. 

For your build in general, you have Corrosive on, which lowers armor permanently. You can shred level 140 enemies because you're completely removing their massive amounts of armor. It's like hitting a crab with a hammer- really hard on the outside, super squishy afterward.

[AXCrusnik]

It's definitely beam vs on hit status mechanics. 100% chance per second vs 90% on hit, and can hit multiple times per second.

[Misgenesis]

Pox's clouds actually do proc whatever else element you have on it.

[Eric1738]

High base status chance and continous DoT help a lot. Also weapons like Ignis have their status chance as % per second, which is not very frequent at all.

[SharkPot]

Pox is not your standard status wep. From your post it also seems you haven't used torid. Torid and pox are essntially the same. The reason pox is able to shred faster is because pox deals a part of damage on impact, and remaining on ticks as gas cloud aoe. Each tick can proc so theoretically one pox can potentially remove all armour.

[Ceryk]

The simplest answer really comes down to the fact that the Ignis is not a actually status weapon. I don't have the mechanics down in a way I can break them down in great detail, but you are getting far more procs out of the Pox than you could possibly hope to out of the Ignis, which as I said, is not really a status weapon because of the way Beam weapons work.

Beam weapons do Status per Second. So with your build, every 1 second you have a guaranteed status proc with a 4% chance of a second one.

With the Pox, it's initially based on Status per Trigger Pull and each projectile has a chance to proc, then Status per Tick from the cloud where each tic has a chance to proc. So in the same time span, you are getting at least 2-3x the number of procs as you'd get from a Beam weapon with 100% status.

Edited September 6, 2016 by Ceryk

[R34LM]

Any Status per second weapon will be slower, because you will only get one proc per second. With these things, you proc every time it hits, based on your fire rate.

[Numbsky1]

It has been said multiple times already beam weapon proc STATUS PER SECOND so even with a theoretical rof of 1.000.000 you will only proc 1 status effect per second. Other weapons are not plagued by this trouble and are checked for status procs once per hit. Ignis is good for many things but a rather bad status weapon, which actually flies fully in the face of its purpose. People have been asking for a change to beam weapons for a long time, so far to no avail. The meta however has moved well beyond Amprex, Synapse and Flux Rifle to still warrant concerns of them getting OP by a change to beam weapons status application. 

Edited September 6, 2016 by Numbsky1

[Eric1738]

11 minutes ago, Numbsky1 said:

It has been said multiple times already beam weapon proc STATUS PER SECOND so even with a theoretical rof of 1.000.000 you will only proc 1 status effect per second. Other weapons are not plagued by this trouble and are checked for status procs once per hit. Ignis is good for many things but a rather bad status weapon, which actually flies fully in the face of its purpose. People have been asking for a change to beam weapons for a long time, so far to no avail. The meta however has moved well beyond Amprex, Synapse and Flux Rifle to still warrant concerns of them getting OP by a change to beam weapons status application. 

I think beam weapons deal 3 damage instances per second so technically you can get 3 procs per second at maximum.

Edited September 6, 2016 by Eric1738

[Vali]

14 minutes ago, Numbsky1 said:

It has been said multiple times already beam weapon proc STATUS PER SECOND so even with a theoretical rof of 1.000.000 you will only proc 1 status effect per second. Other weapons are not plagued by this trouble and are checked for status procs once per hit. Ignis is good for many things but a rather bad status weapon, which actually flies fully in the face of its purpose. People have been asking for a change to beam weapons for a long time, so far to no avail. The meta however has moved well beyond Amprex, Synapse and Flux Rifle to still warrant concerns of them getting OP by a change to beam weapons status application. 

Actually you can make status chance for beam weapons go over 100%, so if you hit 200% you'd apply 1 status every half second, theoretically at least. 

Ignis/Amprex is better for applying a single status over a large crowd, other status weapons are suitable for applying multiple statuses to a single target. 

Edited September 6, 2016 by Agentawesome

[Racter]

The clouds proc whatever you modded for, and they stack. Beam weapons can only proc once a second.

[Lendalas]

4 hours ago, Tizodd said:

Afaik, the toxin cloud is always toxin...it doesn't combine with the other elements on the weapon.  The regular attacks combine elements, but the cloud is always just toxin.

This is where, I believe, you are wrong. I'm using a Gas/Electricity Pox build with a 100% status chance. Every once in a while I toss the squids not at the enemies but at where they will be in a second or two. Once they enter the gas cloud they will get electrocuted. Try it out for yourself. The gas coulds of Torid and Mutalist Cernos have a chance of proccing whatever element is on the weapon too, it's not always just toxic.

Edited September 6, 2016 by Lendalas

[LyZARC]

You have to use status mods!And mods to have as result toxin cloud!Gas cloud is a good option!Its a good 2ndary DPS weapon...but...its problem is that you ll always not have ammo even with a Primed Pistol mutation mod!20 ammo for this weapon is not enough!

Edited September 6, 2016 by LyZARC

[Tizodd]

3 hours ago, Lendalas said:

...I'm using a Gas/Electricity Pox build with a 100% status chance. Every once in a while I toss the squids not at the enemies but at where they will be in a second or two. Once they enter the gas cloud they will get electrocuted. Try it out for yourself. The gas coulds of Torid and Mutalist Cernos have a chance of proccing whatever element is on the weapon too, it's not always just toxic.

Okay after messing around a bit more, I think you're right about this.

It's weird because the cloud still seems to be doing only toxin damage but it will keep procing corrosive/heat or magnetic/toxin with each tick depending on my loadout.