I have an SMG that does shock damage (131/sec, 14% chance), and another SMG that does less shock damage (61/sec, 10% chance) but has the modifier “highly effective vs shields”.
Has anyone measured how much extra damage to shield you do when you have that “highly effect vs shield” modifier? Is it enough to offset the fact that shock damage is otherwise listed as half, and with lower % chance to trigger?
As far as I’m aware, “highly effective vs. shields” is just a general description for everything that does shock damage, not an actual bonus, so there shouldn’t be a difference.
I have a lot of shock weapons that do not list the “highly effective vs shields” modifier. So I was making an assumption that the lack of that text perhaps means it does less shield dmg than guns that have the modifier, but I have no easy way to quantify it.
I thought it might have to do with many Vladof pistols that have a shock taser as second firing mode but have no shock in normal mode. But since they don’t make SMG’s, that doesn’t apply here.
I’ve never noticed it, I’ll keep an eye out for that. All I can say is that BL2 generally said that about shock weapons too just because that’s the main characteristic of shock. The shock bonus against shields is pretty strong, so I don’t believe there’s some modifier that makes it even stronger.