Elemental effect stacking

Borderlands 2 Gaige the Mechromancer
#1

Just to be sure if my theory is right.

I have a gun that does 1000 shock damage on a DoT tick.
I am wearing a Legendary Catalyst and have points in Evil Enchantress, which combined give me +100% elemental effect damage (round numbers for the sake of the example, it could be more)

I shoot some flesh dude that I have slagged beforehand.

My ticks should now be 6000, right ?
Electrical burn procs
It produces a 6000 damage per tick DoT
Which also benefit from my skills and COM (so 12000)
…and slag (36000)
…and matching fire on flesh (63000)

From 1000 to 63K… With just a COM, 2 skills and a bit of good timing.
And that’s not even considering if the original DoT sparked on a shielded target ( so 2.75 times that)

…is this right ?
If so, Why isn’t EB Gaige more popular ?

#2

Don’t know. Poka mentions:

Electrical Burn (EB):

When your Electrocute Status Effects deal damage to enemies, there is
a __% chance per level they will burst into flames and take Burn
Damage. The amount of Burn Damage is based on the Electrocute damage
dealt.

Only good when using a DoT-focused build. However, with Moxxi weapons
equipped, the ensuing DoTs can heal you for significant amounts. 1/4.0%,
5/20%

All playstyles: Sub-par

but there isn’t any real explanation there as to why. I remember discussion that EB was a better use of points than Shock Storm, because of the way the latter scales (or fails to anyway) in higher modes.

#3

This is based on a quick check but (no COM, no BAR, no DOT increasing skills, OP0):
The Fire DOT doesn’t do as much damage as the Shock DOT.
72 Lady Fist, 53056.4 Shock per sec:
Against a fleshy target the Shock DOTs did around 25k damage and the burn around 15k per tick (so only 60% of the original shock).
Adding Slag after the burn increases that to 45k per tick of course.
Adding Slag from the beginning increases shock to 75k of course and burn to 140k (it varies quite a bit).

Adding the Catalyst (53%) to the mix:
Initial Shock: 37k, Initial Burn 33k
With Slag: 111k, Burn 310k Not as much as expected but a neat increase still. I may have made a mistake here.

No test with the Evil Enchantress right now but I assume the initial Shock is increased by up to 60% which is inherited by the Burn and increased by another 60% (additive of course. With the Catalyst boost I mean. Whoops.)?
This would increase initial Shock to 53k and Burn to 68k and with Slag to 159k and 610k which is about 24 times as much damage per tick as the original shock tick.

Edit:
Tested against a “willing” Spiderant and Evil Enchantress did indeed increase the Burn DOT to around 610k

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#4

Great! So at this point, all I can think of is that if you’re going for Wires Don’t Talk (WDT in Poka’s original DDD guide), you can get there without EB; the question then is, are the five points you can spend in EB better spent in the BFF or OC trees?

#5

My point was actually to use EB as a main source of damage, so I see no reason to skip it and put the points elsewhere.

#6

Since it’s not part of the shock DoT equation, it would be a multiplicative bonus.

The only thing that puzzles me here is: why is the initial burn damage lower than the shock one, and by how much. (Initially it looks like its not even half, since fire on flesh does more damage, but after all the boosts it’s much closer)

#7

Understood. I’m just trying to figure out why Poka considered EB to be “sub-par”, and they’re not currently around to ask. The only thing I could think of was “sub-par relative to…”. That said, the Shocking Anarchist build uses EB, and it seems pretty good!

#8

To be fair to Poka, pretty much everyone considers EB to be sub-par, and it is in most cases… Unless maybe if you build around it, which is what I’m trying to find out. :smile:

#9

Is that because the damage doesn’t scale into the higher modes (particularly UVHM) very well? There’s obviously nice synergy with Evil Enchantress, anyway!

#10

Bad use on brackets on my part, I meant additive to the Catalyst bonus. The Burn Enchantress is a multiplicative result of the Shock one as the final tests have shown, yes.

Maybe it’s meant to be 33%. That times the Fire on Flash bonus comes to 57.75% which is close to my number (but a bit too low). I should check with Normal to see how it changes.
Normal Fire on Flesh multiplier changed the initial Burn damage to 12.5k so about half of the original damage and indeed 1.5x higher than it would be without that multiplier.

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#11

Ah! Yes then, I’m almost certain that EE and the COM bonus are additive.

#12

In my build it is rather a compliment than the main damage dealer.
There are worse skills out there for sure cough Buck Up cough

#13

I dont remember ever geting a proc from EB that was weaket than the Shock DoT.
I dont know exactly the number but when EB kicks in I just leave the Bandit behind and keep on.

I think that the Catalyst gameplay is one of the best when mobing. You only need a Tesla and a Slag tool to make through camps. Things get a little worse against bosses and armored things thou.

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