Radiation guide (seriously everything about it)

There is some basic knowledge about how radiation damage works against your enemies. But there are plenty advanced questions about how this element interact with many aspects of the game.

Can status effect be caused by the anointment? Can radiation aura tick from the Red Suit shield passed to the pet via FL4K skill do a critical hit? What happen when two radiation status effect are applied in the same time? Is there any difference between "area of effect" and "splash" really?

You will find all of these an much more in this guide.

Basic information

According to fandom[borderlands.fandom.com] radiation damage do 100 percent damage against flesh, 150 percent damage against shields and 50 percent damage to armored targets on TVHM mode.

A radiation status effect has two unique abilities

• If applied, it does damage over time for 8 seconds in total and all nerby targets share the same damage over time. This effect stacks with multiple enemies even though status effect itself on the original source enemy does not stack when reapplied.
  
• When enemy die with status effect on, it explode and deal damage equal to 3× damage over time (or 3/8 from the total pool of the current damage status).

When any weapon is spawned elemental, its base damage is usually lowered by this value

• Incendiary, Shock, Corrosive: -20 percent damage.
  
• Cryo: -15 percent damage.
  
• Radiation: -25 percent damage.

So although the radiation aoe potential is overwhelming, it is compensated by the lower damage.

There is also an interaciton with anointment (+100 percent radiation damage if ...). Becouse of the damage reductions mentioned above, it is much better to have cryo weapon with radiation anointment boost than radiation weapon with cryo boost. If you have an elemental anointment, you will have a chace to proc a status effect from this kind of damage also. For more details read sections below.

Advanced informations

All about status radiation effect

This means readiation status effect passed to the enemy by some specific trigger. That might be the gun with elemental damage mentioned on its Vault Card or some another source of radiation damage (see sections below about what can cause status effects)

• Is it affected by Splash Damage multipliyer? No.
  
• Is it affected by Area of effect multipliyer? No.
  
• Is it affected by Radiation bonus multipliyer? Yes.
  
• Is it affected by Atom Balm artifact prefix? No.
  
• Has always 8 second duration. Whenever new status effect is applied, the duration is refreshed and higher damage over time is applied. That means if you cause huge status effect from start you can extend it with another weapon with lower damage.
  
• Can be caused by damage over time tick such as Red Suit[www.lootlemon.com].
  
• Can be caused by radiation bonus damage from anointment. For more information about this read the anointment section below.

This statements were tested on shooting armored car.

All about status radiation effect spread

Whenever you cause radiation status effect on your enemy, close enemies suffer from the same effect.

• Is it affected by Splash Damage multipliyer? No.
  
• Is it affected by Area of effect multipliyer? No.
  
• Is it affected by Radiation bonus multipliyer? Yes.
  
• Is it affected by Atom Balm artifact prefix? Yes (+50 percent).
  
• This effect stacks with usual radiation status effect and with another spread effect. That means if you fight with 3 enemies and apply status effect on 2 of them, both of them has its own status, both of them suffer from 1 status effect spread and the third enemy will suffer from 2 status effects spread in the same time.

This statements were tested on shooting army of skags in The Droughts location.

All about status radiation effect explosion

Whenever enemy with radiation status effect die, it explode and do status effect pool * 3/8 damage to nearby enemies. That means when weapon have 3000/s radiation damage on its Vault Card, the explosion will do 9000 damage (3000/s damage over time is 24000 pool and 3/8 from that pool is 9000).

• Is it affected by Splash Damage multipliyer? No. (surprisingly)
  
• Is it affected by Area of effect multipliyer? No. (surprisingly)
  
• Is it affected by Radiation bonus multipliyer? Yes.
  
• Is it affected by Atom Balm artifact prefix? Yes (+25 percent).

This statements were tested on shooting army of skags in The Droughts location.

All about gun radiation damage

This means simple shot from your gun which has some element given from the Vault card.

• Is it affected by Splash Damage multipliyer? No.
  
• Is it affected by Area of effect multipliyer? No.
  
• Is it affected by Radiation bonus multipliyer? Yes.
  
• Is it affected by Atom Balm artifact prefix? No.

This statements were tested on Sanctuary dummy.

All about grenade radiation damage

This means grenade on hit explosion damage from your grenade mod.

• Is it affected by Splash Damage multipliyer? Yes.
  
• Is it affected by Area of effect multipliyer? Yes.
  
• Is it affected by Radiation bonus multipliyer? Yes.
  
• Is it affected by Atom Balm artifact prefix? No.
  
• If the Area of effect multipliyer is presented on any artifact on 2-3 position does it extend Area of effect radius also? Yes. And this is also true for artifact Company Man[www.lootlemon.com] even when lootlemon does not explicitely state that.

This statements were tested on Sanctuary dummy.

All about puddle radiation damage

You might cause a puddle on the ground which do radiation damage. One way to do it is by Porcelain Pipe Bomb[www.lootlemon.com].

• Is it affected by Splash Damage multipliyer? No.
  
• Is it affected by Area of effect multipliyer? No.
  
• Is it affected by Radiation bonus multipliyer? Yes.
  
• Is it affected by Atom Balm artifact prefix? No.

This statements were tested on Sanctuary dummy.

All about Nova radiation damage

All following info is derived for Red Suit[www.lootlemon.com] shield and its passive ability to spread radiation nova every second.

• Is it affected by Splash Damage multipliyer? Yes. (surprisingly)
  
• Is it affected by Area of effect multipliyer? Yes.
  
• Is it affected by Radiation bonus multipliyer? Yes.
  
• Is it affected by Atom Balm artifact prefix? No.
  
• If the Area of effect multipliyer is presented on any artifact on 2-3 position does it extend Area of effect radius also? Yes. And this is also true for artifact Company Man[www.lootlemon.com] even when lootlemon does not explicitely state that.
  
• It might cause status effect with fixed 10 percent chance. The pool of this status effect is equal to nova damage (4951 for the Red Suit shield). However, on higher mayhem the damage from the nova is increased but the status effect is not. On Mayhem 11 the pool of status effect is about 3 percent of nova damage only. It can be used for extending time of stronger radiation effects tho.
  
• Nova damage cannot crit according to FL4K Megavore[www.lootlemon.com] skill.
  
• Nova damage can crit according to FL4K Throatripper[www.lootlemon.com] skill if it is used together with Take This![www.lootlemon.com] skill for the Red Suit shield.
  
• If the Red Suit shield is passed to FL4K pet via Take This! skill, Splash Damage and Area of effect multipliers from your artifact and class mod is applied to the nova damage on your pet also. However, your Radiation bonus multipliyer is not.
  
• FL4K pet nova damage is 1.5× higher then FL4K's. Also FL4K pet can benefit from pet damage multipliers skills multiplicatively.
  
• Can be modified by some anointment. For more information about this read the anointment section below.

This statements were tested on dancing with Shiv boss with the Red Suit shield. Status effect chance of the Nova was tested by counting how many ticks is needed to apply 50 status effects in total.

About anointments

Anointments causing extra radiation damage also can do radiation status effect even if it is by shot from a weapon with no elemental base damage. Despite the anointment tooltip, it might and might not be applied to your non weapon damage also. Anointment which can do this are

• "While Gamma Burst is active, gain 115% bonus radiation damage."* (applied to your weapon damage)
  
• "On action skill end, next two magazines have 100% bonusradiation damage." (applied to your weapon damage)
  
• "While under 50% health, gain 100% bonus radiation damage." (applied to your weapon, grenade, nova, abilities = basically all damage),
  
• "On action skill end, gain 50% bonus radiation damage with weapons for 10 seconds." (applied to your weapon, grenade, nova, abilities = basically all damage),

*There is a bug about this anointment. If your Gamma Burst is gone, the effect also stays unless you swap your weapon.

All of these anointments has its own chance to apply status effect as well. If it is a damage from weapon, it is equal to chance of the status effect from the weapon. That means any of these anointments can increase the chance of status effect apply but not to increase its damage. If you have an anointment "On action skill end, gain 50% bonus radiation damage with weapons for 10 seconds." active and your weapon has 18 percent chance to apply status effect, there are two indepented chances to proc status effect on one bullet. One of them has Vault Card value damage per second and the other has 50 percent damage per second (according to anointment description). Multiple anointment applied in the same time cause another chance of status effect proc. If multiple procs happen in the same time, the highest damage per second is always applied.

It was tested that proc chance for each anointment is equal to chance value from the Vault Card description of the weapon/grenade. It seems every weapon has such chance even if it is non elemental and the value is hidden. If anointment is applied to the damage which is not a grenade or weapon, there is fixed chance 10 percent and its pool is equal to the damage (multiplied by anointment efficiency).

This statements were tested on shooting armored car. All proc chances were tested on counting number of bullets/hits needed for 50 status effect apply. It was tested by using radiation variant of Rowan's Call[www.lootlemon.com], Pestilence[www.lootlemon.com], The Lob[www.lootlemon.com], Skullmasher[www.lootlemon.com] (as a non elemental weapon), Red Suit[www.lootlemon.com] (for nova effects - this one was tested on dancing with Shiv) and Rakk Attack ability from FL4K supported by anointment.

[GamerRoman]

Very well put together, some images for us lesser folk and this can become a real quality guide.