Explosive higher damage than Anti-Armor?

[Paulo2400]

I have a Railway Rifle with Troubleshooter-Explosive. And I have a Railway Rifle Anti-Armor. The base damage for the Explosive is higher (171) than the AA (143). But with the AA Railway Rifle I kill Super Mutants faster than with the Explosive gun.

How is this possible? And which gun should I keep?

[Razer]

Anti armor is very valuable in Fallout 76 because lots of enemies have high armor values and they increase the higher level they are.

Troubleshooter gun should do well vs robots though. But the anti armor is more all round.

Explosive damage is based of the base damage of the gun. It is added as a seperate hit. If you turn on damage numbers then you'll notice how this works and you can see the difference. In Fallout 4 explosive damage ignored all armor. Not sure how it works in Fallout 76. But even if it did I think the damage is quite low from explosive unless you max the perk that goes with it. but that's a hefty investment. Explosive also gives self damage, so be careful.

The reason you're doing more with the anti armor version is because the anti armor is applied to the full 143 damage. The troubleshoot explosive weapon gains no benefit vs super mutants and only has the 10% extra explosive damage that possibly ignores armor.

[Paulo2400]

Escrito originalmente por Razer:

The reason you're doing more with the anti armor version is because the anti armor is applied to the full 143 damage. The troubleshoot explosive weapon gains no benefit vs super mutants and only has the 10% extra explosive damage that possibly ignores armor.

Thank you Razer. But if the Troubleshoot-Explosive only has 10% extra explosive damage, why is the damage higher (171) than the AA gun (143)?

[Mooman]

It's to do with the damage resistance formula:
DamageCoeff = Min (0.99, [Damage x 0.15/DamageResist]^0.365)

The AA effect reduces target resistances by 50% so even though it has less paper damage (pip boy) it does more HP damage as the DamageResist value is halved.

Super Mutants have ~300 DR. With some rough maths you can probably see the difference (I won't attempt it as I don't know the ballistic vs explosive damage split).

[Phantom]

AA = vs bosses
Bloodied = vs trash mobs
all other prefix = vs lower trash

faster fire rate / 50 critical = vs everything
all other prefix = vs lower trash

15% reload / 25% vats (for specific weapons) = vs everything
all other prefix = vs lower trash

this includes explosive, unless its legacy its vs low trash tier mobs, if its legacy its ok vs trash tier mobs

its never good vs bosses or strongest enemies

[Dirk Mcstride]

Anti armor is good as long you don't have a perk that add anti armor. So if you have 50% anti armor from perks, the weapons anti armor will only give 25% anti armor. Bloodied build is still the best. Seen some anti armor weapons deal little more damage than bloodied on bosses.

[Penguin]

Explosive has been nerfed, pretty lame tbh, so yeah just use anti-armor.

[Razer]

Escrito originalmente por Paulo2400:

Escrito originalmente por Razer:

The reason you're doing more with the anti armor version is because the anti armor is applied to the full 143 damage. The troubleshoot explosive weapon gains no benefit vs super mutants and only has the 10% extra explosive damage that possibly ignores armor.

Thank you Razer. But if the Troubleshoot-Explosive only has 10% extra explosive damage, why is the damage higher (171) than the AA gun (143)?

Maybe it's 20%? Hah. I've not looked at the numbers. Just checked here: https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Fallout_76_legendary_effects/Weapons and it is indeed 20%, which would make sense since 143 * 1.2 = 171.

[Razer]

Escrito originalmente por Penguin:

Explosive has been nerfed, pretty lame tbh, so yeah just use anti-armor.

In Fallout 4 it used to be a flat 15 damage per shot. In 76 it's a percentage. How has this been nerfed since the implementation in 76? Seems non ballistic weapons are bugged in 76 and have 100% damage bonus instead of 20%. In fallout 4 these weapons could not get this bonus. guess this is why the explosive enclave plasma rifle is one of the strongest weapons in the game still?

[Katzh]

what about getting a gun with both affix?
AA is 1st star
explo is 2nd star

[GeneralGamePlaying]

Escrito originalmente por Katzh:

what about getting a gun with both affix?
AA is 1st star
explo is 2nd star

I'm still carrying a prime anti armor explosive pipe bolt action pistol with me. Just recently i was "low" on ultracite plasma cartridges (4000+ is "low"), so i used the good old simple gun. Works for 2-shotting super mutants most of the time and does scorchbeasts too (sneak +- mostly, ordinary build without damage buffs like nerd rage). Usually i avoid explosive, because it also hits friendlies, it appears to be worse on stealth/alerting and is less elegant. Since the non-explosive one felt a bit nerfed, i am carrying the explosive one for a backup.

[insert food here]

Escrito originalmente por Katzh:

what about getting a gun with both affix?
AA is 1st star
explo is 2nd star

I have an AA, Explosive Handmade that I use with my bloodied commando build and it is very good. I do have ultracite ammo in it as I accumulated something like 23k ultracite 5.56 from the last 2 treasure hunter events.

Does very well against most enemies even decent against the SBQ. Close to being on par with my Bloodied FFR Fixer with ultracite ammo. Honestly would be better if it was AA, FFR or AA, CRIT damage and not explosive as the SBQ is very resistant against explosive damage, but i'm fighting other enemies way more than I am fighting the SBQ.

[Paulo2400]

Thanks for all your replies. It makes sense to me now. I was totally fixed on the explosive effect because of the pipboy numbers, but I see that it works differently. Good eye opener.