Actual graphs not included

Critical damage has always been an obscure field in Borderlands. I did some research, and here are my findings.

I'll start with the results, because that's what we all want:

Contents 1 Results 1.1 Weapon Multiplier 1.2 Zone Multiplier 1.3 Other interesting tidbits (melee) 1.4 Other interesting tidbits: "1" 2 Conclusion 2.1 Future research 2.2 Future work 3 Study 3.1 Lava Crab Worm 3.2 Bandits 3.3 Skags 3.4 Spiderants 4 Bonuses, Deadly, Sniper, Ranger 4.1 Proficency, +X% Damage, +X% BulletDamage 4.2 Deadly 4.3 Ranger & Sniper Com 4.4 Bessie 5 Final Formula 6 Talk

Results Edit

The formula for critical damage is defined as:

CriticalDamage = BaseDamage * (1 + ZoneMultiplier + WeaponMultiplier)

Where:

• BaseDamage: The base damage you'd do against an un armored opponent
• ZoneMultiplier: A multiplier defined by the opponent.
• WeaponMultiplier: The multiplier as defined by the weapon card.

What we have discovered: The existence of "ZoneMultiplier", which stacks additivelly with the weapon's multuplier.

Weapon Multiplier Edit

This is what we all know and love:

• Pistols, Shotguns, Rifles: +0% Critical Damage.
• Revolvers: +100% Critical Damage.
• SniperRifles: about +200%.

Zone Multiplier Edit

This is the new field:

• Bandit heads: +150% damage.
• Skags: +300% damage.
• Crab Worms: +2900% damage.
• Spiderants: +200% damage.
• Badasses: +100% ?

There appears to be an upper bound on the amount of damage a skag can take

Other interesting tidbits (melee) Edit

The critical weapon multiplier of the player's melee is the same as the weapon that player is carrying. This doesn't mean bladed weapons are useless, as the damage multiplier ALWAYS applies, but if you are going to melee an opponent, and you don't have a bladed weapon, at least carry a sniper.

Other interesting tidbits: "1" Edit

There is a "1" in the above formula. Note that depending on your point of view, you can integrate that 1 into the two other fields, for example:

• WeaponMultiplier: You can consider that ALL weapons get a base +100% damage, and then the card's +X% stacks on top of that.
• You can consider it as a part of ZoneMultiplier, and bandit heads really take +250%.

It is really just a matter of point of view. I think from a strick mechanical point of view, it belongs inside "ZoneMultiplier", as shown by the Crab Worms, which take 29x damage. Why 29? Why not 30?
However, from a human point a view, I think the "stand alone" 1 represents quite well the "BaseDamage" that a creature should normally take from your weapon, and is what makes the most sense.

Heck, you can even "extract" 1 from the "ZoneMultiplier" and put it into "WeaponMultiplier". Doing both gives a good correlation with the current Critical hit page's data.

Conclusion Edit

• The above formula has been consistently accurate for me. It perfectly explains why some users report "+100% base", while others report "+150%". It also explains why some users report that the Bessie is actually "+650%" or "+750%". Specifically, it is +500% and when you shoot a Bandint in his face, he takes 750% damage according to the formula.
• A note of interest is that the ZoneMultiplier is additive.
  • Firing a sniper at a lava crab worm is nothing short of retarded. You are better off with an automatic weapon (SMG/Machine Pistol), or a burst weapon (shotgun/Combat Rifle/Masher). Even if you are going for a damage competition, you are better off with point blank matador.
  • Regarding skags, I think the most important is to just unload with the weapon you have in hand.

Future research Edit

• Study the Bessie specifically, to find out if the multiplier is correct (which I suspect it is). Edit: Done. 500% is correct
• Study other opponents, such as Lance, and in particular, Crawmerax and Baddasses.

Future work Edit

Re-write critical damage. The page is not top notch. As for the mechanics section, it is just plain wrong (bit I wrote it, so I'll take the blame for it)

Study Edit

To create this study, I made the above assumption, and tested it using various weapons on various creatures, firing at both body and critical spot. The character in question had 0 proficiency for all weapons, no skills and no mods, of course. The results were not too hard to interpret actually:

Lava Crab Worm Edit

This was pretty straight forward:

weapon type	Card Damage	Body Damage	Critical Damage	Crit/Body	Aprox. Equiv
Repeater	68	163	4868	29.86	1+29+0
SMG	34	82	2454	29.92	1+29+0
Revolver	84	204	6299	30.87	1+29+1
Sniper	233	563	17990	31.95	1+29+2
Sniper	276	667	21341	31.99	1+29+2

This chart shows quite perfectly that Crab worms take +29x damage, and each weapon's individual +0/+1/+2 critical multiplier.

Bandits Edit

The second test was with low level bandits in front of Bonehead's. Note of interest, I tested all local bandit types (thug/raider/midget), which all took the same amount of damage.

weapon type	Card Damage	Body Damage	Critical Damage	Crit/Body	Aprox. Equiv
Repeater	68	163	406	2.490798	1+1.5+0
SMG	34	82	205	2.5	1+1.5+0
Revolver	84	204	712	3.490196	1+1.5+1
Sniper	233	563	2530	4.493783	1+1.5+2

Again, not much to say, the results speak for themselves. Bandits +150%

Skags Edit

I tested with the alpha skags at the end of the "The Lost Cave". I chose them for their resilience, and because they are the only Skags I can get to reliably scream.

weapon type	Card Damage	Armor Damage	Body Damage	Critical Damage	Crit/Body	Aprox. Equiv
Repeater	68	29	163	650	3.9	1+3+0
SMG	34	15	82	328	4.0	1+3+0
Revolver	84	36	204	983*	4.81	1+3+0.8**
Sniper	233	99	563	983*
Sniper	276	117	667	983*

Unfortunately, it would appear there is an upper bound to the amount of damage an (alpha) Skag can take. However, the formula still holds for Pistols and SMG, and we can see that the Revolver's critical damage, while bounded, is higher than the SMG's 400%. Conclusion: Skags: +300% EDIT: I've further tested this with higher level Alpha skags, and I'm still getting an upper bound to how much damage their mouths can take from a single shot. Come to think about it, I don't think I've ever 1-shot an alpha...
I'm going to try to Bessie a really low level Alpha, and I bet it won't kill it.

Spiderants Edit

Spiderants were harder to test on, because I could not get a direct feed on the "body damage". Nothin a bit of extrapolation can't fix though ;)

I tested on Workers, Queens, and a Baddass Corrupter which took a critical blast of all my weapons :o !

Here are the results for all 3:

+ Worker

weapon type	Card Damage	Extrap. Body Damage	Critical Damage	Crit/Body	Aprox. Equiv
Repeater	68	105.4	317	3.007590133	1+2+1
Revolver	84	130.2	529	4.062980031	1+2+1
Sniper	233	361.15	1828	5.06160875	1+2+2
Sniper	276	427.8	2168	5.067788686	1+2+2

+ Queen

weapon type	Card Damage	Extrap. Body Damage	Critical Damage	Crit/Body	Aprox. Equiv
Repeater	68	105.4	317	3.007590133	1+2+0
Revolver	84	130.2	529	4.062980031	1+2+1
Sniper	233	361.15	1828	5.06160875	1+2+2
Sniper	276	427.8	2168	5.067788686	1+2+2

+ Baddass Corruptor

weapon type	Card Damage	Extrap. Body Damage	Critical Damage	Crit/Body	Aprox. Equiv
Repeater	68	97.24	195	2.005347594	1+1+0
Revolver	84	120.12	366	3.046953047	1+1+1
Sniper	233	333.19	1350	4.051742249	1+1+2
Sniper	276	394.68	1601	4.056450796	1+1+2

We can see the "base" +200% damage for spiderants quite well, and a +100% (only) for the Baddass. I'm really happy at how well my formula held up.

Bonuses, Deadly, Sniper, Ranger Edit

I did some extra research to study the effect "stuff" on critical damage. The results are astounding (IMO):

Proficency, +X% Damage, +X% BulletDamage Edit

All the above effects have a direct effect on "BaseDamage", and the effect on the cirtical is thus geometrically the same.

EG: +75% damage will result in an overall +75% Damage on a critical hit.

Deadly Edit

For starters, I found that Deadly's Bonus was arithmetic. It can be written in the form:

CriticalDamage = BaseDamage * (1 + ZoneBonus + WeaponBonus + DeadlyBonus)

The catch is the "Deadly"'s bonus description is WRONG and actually gives 2.5x times what the skill says.

I have tables full of numbers, but to make it simple, at level 5, Deadly will actually give a +75% Critical Damage Bonus (!) A pistol that normally hurts 121, on a Bandit:

• Without Deadly: 303 damage : 121*(1+1.5+0)
• With Deadly: 393 damage : 121 * (1+1.5+0+0.75)

This shows that:

• A) Deadly is an incredibly powerful skill
• B) Deadly tends to be (relatively speaking) more effective with low critical damage weapons, than, say, sniper rifles.

This was thoroughly tested on Skags, Bandints, Crabs, and I 100% guarantee accurate data.

Ranger & Sniper Com Edit

Here is the data I used, extracted from bandits.

Here:

• Deadly = +75%
• Sniper = +85%
• Ranger = +54%

	Card	Base	Head	Sniper	Ranger	Deadly	DeadlySniper	DeadlyRanger
Dove	61	121	303	303	303	393	393	393
Razor	248	495	1731	1731	1998	2102	2102	2369
Unforgiven	165	330	1485	1485	1842	1733	1733	2089
Solid	274	548	2353	3190	2885	2763	3601	3295
Thunder	386	772	3473	4745	4307	4052	5364	4886
Gamble	221	441	2205	3142	2800	2536	3473	3131
Bessie	543	1085	8131	9974	9302	8945	10768	10115

I'm not quite sure how to explain this, but basically, the formula I posted on critical hit works with a nearly null deviation. I tried it out on Skags are Larva Crab Worms to cross confirm, and it holds too.

The results are basically: Sniper and Ranger give a percentage based bonus to a weapon's critical bonus.

The Bessie works a *little* differently regarding these two weapons:

Bessie Edit

The Bessie is a Sniper Rifle that "looks" like +500% Bonus Damage. In real life however it is actually a 200% damage sniper that gets +150% bonus from the scope: EG:

• 200% × (1 + 1.5) = 500%

When coupled with a Ranger or a Sniper Com, the impact is that the bonus only applies to the base +200%

• 200% × (1 + 1.5 + 0.85) = 670% Total Bonus
• 200% × (1 + 1.5 + 0.54) = 608% Total Bonus

You can try it out, the formula correlates to less that 0.5% error. It took me a while to figure this one out, as well as the formulas of Ranger/Sniper, because Ol' Bessie was part of my test lineup.

This is why:

1. The base Bessie is incredible, but Sniper Com Bessie isn't crazy incredible
2. The mechanics page of the Bessie says that the scope gives +150% Critical damage bonus. While one might think it is should be a +300% Bonus, it is actually a multiplicative +150%.

Final Formula Edit

For completeness's sake, the FULL COMPLETE formula is:

CriticalDamage = 
  BaseDamage × DamageModifier ×
    (1 + EnemyZoneBonus + DeadlyBonus +
      WeaponCriticalBonus × (1 + SniperBonus + RangerBonus + BessieBonus)
    )

Where "DamageModifier" is proficiency and stuff, but one could consider it is a part of "BaseDamage", depending on how you look at it.

Talk Edit

Thanks for reading! happypal (talk • contribs) 15:04, July 19, 2012 (UTC)