IS argon scope HONESTLY worth?

[Epsik-kun]

9 hours ago, XenoKatsuo said:

Math? what math?

Saying Bladed Rounds is a "run-away winner" compared to Argon Scope is a bit of over-exaggeration.

However, the reason why critical damage percentage is better than the same amount of critical chance percentage lies in the nuances regarding modding and critical damage calculation.

Mainly, what the game considers to be a "critical damage multiplier" for the purpose of calculating damage and for the purpose of modding aren't the same values.

The formula for average damage with crits looks like: [Total Damage] * ([Base Multiplier] + [Critical Multiplier] * [Critical Chance]);

[Base Multiplier] here is the regular damage of the attack - 100% or simply 1.
While [Critical Multiplier] is the additional damage the critical attack deals.
As you can see, [Critical Multiplier] and [Critical Chance] here has exactly the same weight as another as we are using the product of both.

However, [Critical Multiplier] in the formula is not the same thing players can see in their Arsenal. Because what Arsenal shows already accounts for the [Base Multiplier].

So, if Arsenal shows critical multiplier of 2 it means that regular (yellow) critical hit will deal its regular damage and then exactly the same amount on top of that. So the actual in-game multiplier for calculating crit damage is x1 - this multiplier will scale off the critical chance (over 100%, 200%, 600% - you name it) and not the x2 shown in the Arsenal.

However, all the sources of +% Critical Damage increase the corresponding value by taking the numbers from Arsenal. So, using Vital Sense on x2 crit weapon will result in an x4.4 multiplier. The part that will scale with crit chance is x3.4 because x1 accounts for the basic damage of a regular shot. It means, that additional crit damage went up by whopping 240% instead of the expected 120% because previously we had to deal with the additional crit damage of x1.

Meanwhile, using Point Strike instead of Vital Sense would've increased the critical chance by 150% which translates to the expected 150% additional critical damage increase - on the average, of course.

The higher Critical Damage multiplier rises, the closer it comes to Critical chance, but it still remains strictly mathematically better. 

Still, even disregarding the "consistency" factor of Argon Scope, it does have an advantage over Bladed Rounds on the weapons that can't reach 100% crit chance otherwise that I have stated before - critical headshots. 
Warframe Builder does not account for critical headshots which have the extra x2 damage multiplier on top of what regular headshots provide.

For instance, Soma Prime with regular critical build will perform better with only Argon Scope than it will with only Bladed Rounds if the player lands at least 20% of their bullets as headshots.

Regarding the buff sustain problem, in a horde-based shooter, it is much, much easier to sustain Bladed Rounds than Argon Scope without hurting own performance. Killing only Gunners/Bombards in Simulacrum often creates an incorrect impression of a weapon.
However, there are some cases (notably boss-fights) with conditions favoring Argon Scope. For example, Tyl Regor fight.

[XenoKatsuo]

Thanks for the reply. You broke things down and made it much clearer, giving the pros and cons of both mods.