damage vs potency

[avg_gamer1980]

new to the game and was wondering what the difference was between damage vs potency and is on better then the other ?

[gruetoo]

Damage increases how much the weapon reduces enemy health on impact, potency increases the magnitude of elemental effects the weapon applies. potency is not offered on weapons with no elemental component to their attacks. if your weapon is there to kill bugs (most of them), get damage (and potency if it is elemental), just get potency if you want the weapon to apply statuses in a support capacity.

[Femboy Thighs]

In general, you'll want damage on non-elemental or mixed builds, and potency for fully elemental builds. if most of your guns are dealing Kinetic or Plasma damage, you don't want potency. If most of your weapons are applying burn, acid, or cryo, then you want potency.

If you're doing a build with all elemental damage, potency is usually better than damage upgrades. A full potency build is very strong on many Driller builds.

[seq]

That kind of begs the question what the specific difference is between status effect and potency though. In my mind this is the same kind of mistake that they made with the "Force" stat in Halls of Torment. What does it mean, what does it do and for what? Specifically.

[Yasahi]

Originally posted by seq:

That kind of begs the question what the specific difference is between elemental effect and potency though. In my mind this is the same kind of mistake that they made with the "Force" stat in Halls of Torment. What does it mean, what does it do and for what? Specifically.

Potency = more stacks of said element is applied per hit.
Status Effect Damage = stacks deal more damage. Fire does 3, Acid and Electric 2 by default.
Weapon damage = how much the weapon does per hit. Has no effect on the damage the applied stacks deal.
General damage upgrades, artifacts etc. = affect the damage dealt by stacks in addition to many other things.

Fire does only damage. Acid also corrodes, making the enemies take up to 100% more damage while Electric makes subsequent hits against the enemy have a higher crit chance, max 100% again, which is added to your character crit chance.

Cold doesn't deal status effect damage through the stacks. It slows the enemies and has a chance to freeze them. Frozen enemies can be walked through.

[KoshLovesYou]

Originally posted by Yasahi:

Potency = more stacks of said element is applied per hit.

DOES it just add more stacks, or does it increase the time stacks last? Or is that the separate 'lifetime' buff for lasting effect weapons? Legitimately curious. Surprised there wasn't a guide that focused on elemental and status/potency, had me searching in here when I got curious.

[photobot]

Originally posted by Femboy Thighs:

In general, you'll want damage on non-elemental or mixed builds, and potency for fully elemental builds. if most of your guns are dealing Kinetic or Plasma damage, you don't want potency. . . .

But for example if you have 3 kinetic weapons and 1 electric or 1 fire, the "Increase potenency 15%" upgrade for that one non-kinetic weapon still has value? I think you're saying if the large majority of your damage is coming from Kinetic damage, you'll get less advantage increasing potency for all weapons?

[Deputy Boa]

Originally posted by KoshLovesYou:

Originally posted by Yasahi:

Potency = more stacks of said element is applied per hit.

DOES it just add more stacks, or does it increase the time stacks last? Or is that the separate 'lifetime' buff for lasting effect weapons? Legitimately curious. Surprised there wasn't a guide that focused on elemental and status/potency, had me searching in here when I got curious.

iirc its just more stacks
lifetime affects weapons with the [lasting] tag, so it affects the weapon's duration (time until a turret/drone/puddle vanishes, or when a beam ends)
if you want to keep stacks active you'll need to focus on building the weapon so it can keep landing hits as often as possible (range/beam count/reload/fire rate/etc.)

Originally posted by photobot:

Originally posted by Femboy Thighs:

In general, you'll want damage on non-elemental or mixed builds, and potency for fully elemental builds. if most of your guns are dealing Kinetic or Plasma damage, you don't want potency. . . .

But for example if you have 3 kinetic weapons and 1 electric or 1 fire, the "Increase potenency 15%" upgrade for that one non-kinetic weapon still has value? I think you're saying if the large majority of your damage is coming from Kinetic damage, you'll get less advantage increasing potency for all weapons?

you got it. if you took a potency buff on all weapons it would whiff on 3/4 of your build, basically.
also the less specific the upgrade is, the lower the value it offers, so you'd be better of focusing on weapon upgrades if you wanted to shore up that side of your build. would also let you get more overclocks and open up very strong potential utility/synergies.

[Prodykcja]

Effect Status = chance of applying an effect, Potency = how strong or how long it lasts.

E.g. If you build a cold char and invest alot of Effect Status perks but few Potency, your char will constantly freeze mobs but they will be frozen just for a split second.