Damage Mechanics

Armor's Damage Reduction

Armor on Enemies reduce damage by a non-linear amount scaling with how much armor an enemy has, the damage reduction done is reduced by headshots, and the damage reduction can only be between 0% and 99%.

The armor value takes full damage from your damage dealt, only the damage dealt to health is mitigated, and Elemental effects ignore the damage mitigation against health.

The damage reduction is calculated by multiplying your damage dealt by the result of:

200/(200 + ArmorPoints)

If you hit a headshot, 0.2 is added to that value before being multiplied to your damage dealt.

200 Armor is a 50% damage reduction, 600 armor is a 75% damage reduction, etc. The armor value required to reach 1% damage is 19800, which is achieved in Extant Existence on wave 180 and on, and further increases in armor only increase how long it takes to reduce the armor.

For how headshots affect damage reduction, examples include an 85% damage reduction being turned into no damage mitigation, 50% damage reduction is turned into 70% damage reduction, and 5% damage reduction is turned into 25% damage reduction.

This means that at higher and higher armor values, headshots become more and more effective at increasing the relative damage dealt.

Crit Damage

Crits are not the same as Weakpoint Damage. Crits are achieved by implants (like Brisance Promoter Mod), Weakpoint Damage is achieved by hitting Weakpoints on enemies, and every enemy has at least one Weakpoint.

Both Crits and Weakpoint damage apply your Critical Damage, and the base Crit Damage is 150%, and can be seen under Shell Parameters in your Inventory.

A good comparison for better understanding is Sword Damage and Mace Damage having separate buffs, but both apply Melee Damage. In this case, Sword Damage are Crits, Mace Damage is Weakpoint Damage, and Melee Damage is Crit Damage. So they're similar, but Crits & Weakpoint Damage are not the same.

Contrary to its name, 'Headshot Damage' applies to any Weakpoint hit, even if it's not from a head. 'Weakpoint Damage' buffs only apply to the Crit Damage when you hit a weakpoint, and does not apply from Crits achieved only from implants.

2 Primary Weapons have a unique Weakpoint Damage modifier, being the Hand Cannon with an additional 50% damage to weakpoint shots, and the Gauss Rifle with the default Weakpoint Damage of 50% being reduced to 30%.

Weakpoint Hits are prioritized over Crits, which can cause reduced damage with the Gauss Rifle, or increased damage with the Hand Cannon, due to the reasons mentioned just above.

Elemental Damage

Every weapon has 3 elemental weapon mods, with the ones on the primary weapons just adding that damage type to the weapon, and the secondary weapon mods functioning often entirely different than the base weapon, but also dealing that elemental damage type.

All Bosses are not weak or resistant to any type of elemental damage, and can be thought of as a neural health-type. On the Crisis Levels of Deep Dive & Neuromancy, the bosses can have armor, in which case toxic is effective.

Fire

If damage is dealt against the Flesh health-type, then this mod adds an additional 50% bonus base damage, applying it after Crit/Weakpoint damage is applied.

This mod is no different than the base weapon against the robotic health-type, nor is it any different against armor.

Electric

If damage is dealt against the Robotic health-type, then this mod adds an additional 100% bonus base damage, applying it after Crit/Weakpoint damage is applied.

This mod is no different than the base weapon against the flesh health-type, nor is it any different against armor.

Toxic

Damage dealt against enemy's health is reduced like the base weapon, but it strips Armor faster, therefore increasing damage faster.

The base damage on this weapon is entirely the same, and is no different than the base weapon against either health-type

Elemental Effects

Elemental effects can be applied via implants, and via secondary weapon mods, and they perform an effect described below that deals their respective elemental damage type.

Ignite

Ticks twice per second for 3 seconds, dealing 20 damage each tick, and deals an additional 50% damage against the Flesh health-type.

Damage against health is not decreased from Armor's damage mitigation, and it does deal damage to the armor.

Shock

Deals 50 damage, can crit with the right implants, and deals an additional 100% damage against the Robotic health-type.

Damage against health is not decreased from Armor's damage mitigation, and it does deal damage to the armor.

Corrode

Ticks every 0.35 seconds for 3 seconds, dealing 5 damage each tick, and is effective against Armor. Stacks up to 6 times.

Damage ignores armor's damage mitigation, and deals full damage against both health types.

Damage Calculation Order

Base Damage > Base damage Additive implants, such as Retroinductor or Razorwire Transfer > Calculations for Elemental Implants & Elemental Weaknesses, and then Elemental Implant Bonuses are Added > Weakpoint/Crit > Elemental Weakness Bonus is Added > Multiplicative Implant Bonuses are Added together & applied, and is calculated ignoring weakpoint bonuses > Attack Power

Decimal Rounding

Damage is rounded only visually, and will always be rounded down. For example, 5.9 damage will display as 5 damage, but the full damage will be calculated in the background.