quick question about legendary assault rifle

[Carbohydrated Caretaker]

Ive been using an explosive one but right now i just came across a legendary AR that shoots an additional bullet. with the explosive one i do 173 damage plus the explosive part and with the 2 shot i do 241. which 1 is better??????? i know with the explosive one i get the area damage advantage but i also have an explosive: shotgun, gauss rifle and pistol

[wtiger27]

If you have the demolition expert perk, then the explosive will do more damage. But explosive weapons have their disadvantages also. Which means they will also damage you if you shoot a target too close.

Best to keep more than one weapon for different situations.

[Carbohydrated Caretaker]

Originally posted by wtiger27:

If you have the demolition expert perk, then the explosive will do more damage. But explosive weapons have their disadvantages also. Which means they will also damage you if you shoot a target too close.

Best to keep more than one weapon for different situations.

wait so if the explosive damage is 15 and i have demo expert to max which says does double the damage, does that mean double the original 15 damage which equals to 30 or those % stack up?

[Iron Knights]

Two shot always does more damage, make it automatic and you multiply that shot. My Two shot shows 268 dmg. in auto mode. (maxed all relevant perks) Demolition perk only applies to the explosive damage, correct.

[Germaine's Bra]

Explosive weapons are insanely limb damaging. Explosive, or Bleeding (cause it stacks and there is no resistance to it) weapons on a fast hitting weapon is insanely good.

Two-shot only works on Base damage and increase Recoil (60% increase on average)

Explosive is one of the best, Demo Expert and Explosive Bottle head. Pretty much insane on Shotguns (each pellet gets the explosive damaged) and automatics. Do not use this up close however.

Vats Enhanced is insanely good for Vats Characters, Melee characters get a -40% cost allowing Blitz to be insane.

Staggering is similar on Automatic and fast weapons can cause them to stun-lock

Furious is also insane.

As for 2 shot, Junkies is even better than 2 shot, if you build and stack all addictions.

The Two shot modifier makes the weapon fire an additional projectile while still using only 1 ammo and at slightly reduced accuracy and can greatly increase recoil. The game adds the base (i.e. unmodded) damage of the gun to its current (modded) damage and then splits the combined damage evenly into two projectiles. For example, an unmodded Hunting rifle does 37 damage, while a .50 cal Hunting rifle does 64. So a Two-shot .50 cal Hunting rifle does 64+37 = 101 damage, resulting in two projectiles hitting for 50.5 each. The damage value displayed in the Pip-Boy is the damage of both projectiles combined.

Where as Explosive.....

The damage dealt by the Explosive prefix is increased by the Demolition Expert perk as well as the Explosives bobblehead. With 4 ranks in Demolition Expert plus the Explosives bobblehead, Explosive weapons actually deal 32.25 explosive splash damage per pellet.

The area-of-effect damage dealt by the Explosive prefix is also increased by Commando/Gunslinger/Heavy Gunner/Rifleman perks. Heavy Gunner increases damage more than its counterparts.

https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Legendary_weapon_effects

[Carbohydrated Caretaker]

Originally posted by Wawrzyniec:

The Two shot modifier makes the weapon fire an additional projectile while still using only 1 ammo and at slightly reduced accuracy and can greatly increase recoil. The game adds the base (i.e. unmodded) damage of the gun to its current (modded) damage and then splits the combined damage evenly into two projectiles. For example, an unmodded Hunting rifle does 37 damage, while a .50 cal Hunting rifle does 64. So a Two-shot .50 cal Hunting rifle does 64+37 = 101 damage, resulting in two projectiles hitting for 50.5 each. The damage value displayed in the Pip-Boy is the damage of both projectiles combined.

OOHHHHHHH. so it doesnt matter if say i find a 2 shot that already has 50 cal on it. it still counts the unmodded damage as the second projectile.

[ghpstage]

It's always the 'base' DAM, which is the DAM of the standard parts. With advanced receivers this is typically around +70% but if you use a light receiver or low end automatics it can more than double it.
It's also unusual in that the damage is added to the weapons parts DAM, and so boosts crits while multipliers such as Instigating don't.

It does suffer from a heck of a lot of recoil though.

Originally posted by Wawrzyniec:

Where as Explosive.....

The area-of-effect damage dealt by the Explosive prefix is also increased by Commando/Gunslinger/Heavy Gunner/Rifleman perks. Heavy Gunner increases damage more than its counterparts.

Someone finally added that on the wiki I see

but more generally the pipboy is horribly inaccurate when scoring explosive damage, failing to recognise that almost all damage multipliers will act on them.... it counts only Demo Expert, Lone wanderer and Heavy Gunner can, and it gets the scale of two of those wrong.

[Alucard †]

Explosive AR is way better DPS and crowd control wise but requires some perk investment to truly shine. Very dangerous to use in CQC tho.

Two shot requires no investment aside from the default gun damage perks and while not as powerful as explosive it's still a good all rounder and much safer to use in CQC.

So pick your poison.

[Iron Knights]

You keep your explosive however you want, two-shot is better damage. Explosive is uncontrollable and self damaging in close quarters.
Constant higher damage is what I want, for the bullet sponges. Tearing a mid raider into tiny pieces, any gun can do that at this point in my levels.

[Iron Knights]

Here's another oddity. The assault rifle two-shot Auto dmg. shows 268. The assault rifle max. mod Sniper dmg. shows 215. I use the same long recon scope for both. Which would you use ? I got the Auto to land 3 hits sniping with a short burst, No Vats.

[Carbohydrated Caretaker]

Originally posted by Iron Knights:

Here's another oddity. The assault rifle two-shot Auto dmg. shows 268. The assault rifle max. mod Sniper dmg. shows 215. I use the same long recon scope for both. Which would you use ? I got the Auto to land 3 hits sniping with a short burst, No Vats.

i also got an instigating assault rifle. and the best legendary gastling laser, the INSTIGATING GASTLING LASER

[Carbohydrated Caretaker]

Originally posted by ⎛ Alucard ⎞ ✟:

Explosive AR is way better DPS and crowd control wise but requires some perk investment to truly shine. Very dangerous to use in CQC tho.

Two shot requires no investment aside from the default gun damage perks and while not as powerful as explosive it's still a good all rounder and much safer to use in CQC.

So pick your poison.

majority of the stuff im carrying atm is explosive so ill go with the 2 shot AR for variety lol

[Carbohydrated Caretaker]

Originally posted by ghpstage:

but more generally the pipboy is horribly inaccurate when scoring explosive damage, failing to recognise that almost all damage multipliers will act on them.... it counts only Demo Expert, Lone wanderer and Heavy Gunner can, and it gets the scale of two of those wrong.

is there any mods for this?

[Iron Knights]

I don't know, Instigator is kinda useless to me, I don't melee just because I shot them.
Rather kill them before they get to me. Poisoner works better on melee weapons with stun, doesn't seem to do much to Potato Mutants. On very hard, the warlords take about 3-4 drums of ammo ea..

[red255]

Instigator is for sneak attacks. you go and launch a critical sneak attack and do double damage, lucky is of course better but it works fine and is plenty common.

[Befuddled Honey Badger]

Originally posted by Iron Knights:

You keep your explosive however you want, two-shot is better damage. Explosive is uncontrollable and self damaging in close quarters.
Constant higher damage is what I want, for the bullet sponges. Tearing a mid raider into tiny pieces, any gun can do that at this point in my levels.

Originally posted by Iron Knights:

I don't know, Instigator is kinda useless to me, I don't melee just because I shot them.

You again. Talking utter botty water about things you clearly have no idea about.

Instigator is used for [long range] sneak attacks. Stick Instigator on a Gauss Rifle and not much survives a sneak attack from it.

You say you want more consistent damage? Explosive is more consistent damage. Not to mention better at not just crippling enemies but groups of enemies. Go back up and read Wawrzyniec's post. Two-shot spreads the damage over two projectiles, the second one is way less accurate than the first projectile (at least from my personal experience). So in close range it works fine but mid-long range you probably lose dps with Two-shot because of the increased recoil/accuracy of the second projectile. Powerful is a better, more consistent affix for guns than Two-shot is because it's a 25% damage boost without the increased recoil or accuracy loss at longer ranges.