Is there an idiot's guide to how XEN works?

[Jomanda]

Where can I find information about upgrading my gun? I have been trying to upgrade it, by following things I found online instead of boosting my damage, it decimated it. I really need an idiot's guide to upgrading my weapon. Colors don't mean jack apparently because my all white gun had 10 times more damage than this purple gun I made.....

I just do not get how it works, and the fact that the descriptions have been translated by a senile baboon, only add to the confusion...

I just need something straightforward that is simple to use. Is a simple weapon that levels with the character too much to ask?

[雪枫是苟吧？]

Actually it does level with your character, or "CR".

So for a quick guide about it.

The first XEN defines what this shot does. Like if you put a Heavy XEN there, you get a high damage/low rof shot like sniper/marksman rifle.

Then there are some slots on the right, where you put xens to boost the damage. Usually some will give direct damage increase without any condition/draw back. But of course it doesn't boost the damage as high.

[Jomanda]

I am not noticing my weapong leveling as fast as my character or outpost do.

I just want a weapon that levels with my character and outpost.

Can someone please tell me what I need to do, based on the starting gun, which was fine to me, to improve my gun and keep things as simple as possible? I am at snow 3 now and I am finding my all white gun is starting to be somewhat lacking...

I have sofar just been selling all the XEN gear I find, but I don't get any money from it... So now I just stopped picking it up because I don't know what to do with it and I cannot sell it either...

Why does this have to be so complicated, without any explanation whatsoever?

[GSD Yahl]

Do not sell, you will unlock xen modification, which is lacking but is an option to randomly convert xen and rng a better, but more often same xen. I am at endgame and i have a tuff time finding what i need to have on my sniper build, a simple system of telling the projected shot dmg, without crit obv would help, but theres so many combos that that in itself doesnt tell the whole story since theres aoe and elemental buildup and stuff

[kknd]

So, to try and give you a vague idea to start with based on the breakdown of details in another thread.

The core of the gun is some flat stats (attack is damage, mag is pretty obvious and the like) and one modifier. There's basic ones like '5% more attack' and then there's ones like 'reload faster and while sprinting.' find a core effect that appeals to you, I'm a fan of the 'increased fire rate' one which is actually a buff to fire rate that stacks until you reload (and slowly falls off as you aren't firing.).

Barrels amount to a modifier on how the gun behaves that's pretty dramatic. The basic one is just a stat stick, the double tap cuts damage per round fired to 60% but your firing 2 shots, Scatter fires 3 but it's a shotgun style spray with major damage falloff over distance, Heavy cuts fire rate in half but increases damage by half. (that's net 0 change until status effects are accounted for. so what your actually doing is getting ammo efficency.) So take a solid regular barrel for minimum complications.

The underbarrel is full of things that tell you what they do, so we'll just say find one you like and move on.

The Stocks are also pretty up front, same deal here. (for what it's worth I like increased reload more than draw or ADS speed.)

Scopes mess with a number of things but break down quickly. There's a sniper scope with zoom to it, a 'smart' scope that lets you lock on center mass when Aiming up to a somewhat short range, a couple of basic sight types that do what they say on the tin.

Xens themselves get complicated, there's a solid guide digging into the numbers but based on what I understand of the topic:
Stacking Light Strike's up is multiplicative single target damage, and Entangled is the same deal but hitting targets around who you shot. There's a number of status effect options and one worth knowing is 'Piercing' like from the Torment xenmod. That DoT on weakpoint hit? It's for about 1% of targets current hp per tick, per stack. Yeah you can understand what that's good for I take it, though remember it's weakpoint hits so smart scopes aren't so brilliant for using it.

The main xens tend to do what they say, but can fail to mention things like projectile speed and damage falloff with range. Inferno is pretty much king here, being a minigun spin up style attack with no damage fall off at any range.

For my money, I'd want three shot types on a gun:
1. General 'shoot it' tool, filled with light strike mods, with high fire rate and decent range. Inferno does this job well but Light and even Spray can do it. Pierce stacks on this for mods lets it pile up % damage on targets fast by spraying in the vague direction of weak points. (The Free Fire active skill being amazing with this setup.)
2. AoE 'shotgun' tool. There's a literal spray of shot, but the elemental cone attack seems king here. The one that calls itself an artillery strike (and is actually multiple lightning strikes somehow.) isn't a bad AoE option either. Throw on Entanglement and/or Release mods for more radius.
3. Sniper round. Heavy Xen, with some bullet speed (to make long range shots easier) and some Chain mods to make it hit multiple times. Weakpoint damage mods can sub in for Chain stacks when needed.

When in doubt or if your gun is limited to 2 slots, you can drop the AoE/Shotgun and just use the mini-gun setup for trash clear. The Job of the Sniper round is to take out things at a distance like Tanks, the rest of the time the combination of high RoF, Light Strike stacking for damage and Pierce stacks via Torment mods will kill anything else in short order.

[Llama]

Chain is the most universal mod in the game. If you have chain, use it. It works on everything and it meta lategame.

If your gun is high fire rate, a shotgun, a laser, an AoE, or a multiple projectile weapon use mods with Lightning and Percing. These mods aren't really affected by your weapons stats.

There are also mods to extend the radius of your AoE, letting you apply Lightning and Peircing to more enemies at once.

Great for crowd control since the abilities damage isn't super reliant on the gun's base stats but on how many times you hit.

Higher damage weapons generally work well with the mods Strong and Multiply. If the ammo consumption per shot is over 120, Condensed can be an insane damage multiplier. There is also an Explosive Arrow mod in the early game - you might consider that.

Xen efficiency and elemental buildup are if you're using elemental bullets. I haven't touched them, so no idea if they're good.

Personal note:
There is a main xen called Chain and a xen mod called Chain -very confusing.

A guy on the reddit posted a damage table for the main xen Chain, which could do 2.7M per hit with 2 Chain and a few Condense II modifiers.

Nothing else comes close in terms of damage per shot, the main xen Chain fills the leaderboard.

[Wmd]

Originally posted by Jomanda:

I am not noticing my weapong leveling as fast as my character or outpost do.

I just want a weapon that levels with my character and outpost.

Can someone please tell me what I need to do, based on the starting gun, which was fine to me, to improve my gun and keep things as simple as possible? I am at snow 3 now and I am finding my all white gun is starting to be somewhat lacking...

I have sofar just been selling all the XEN gear I find, but I don't get any money from it... So now I just stopped picking it up because I don't know what to do with it and I cannot sell it either...

Why does this have to be so complicated, without any explanation whatsoever?

Game will give you stronger guns in later levels
Often have +1, +2, +3
And have better stats then +0

You get better XEN later on
White Xen that add damage
Later on Green, Blue, Purple, Yellow and then I assume Red versions of it

If your Gun is weak make sure to replace the Gun and Xen

[rotten chicken tenders]

add me i can drop you a few and help teach you i had to get my hard ass bud to help me and wood love some one to play with .may or may not have had a hell of a hard time geting the handle of it