Vex Damage Formulas

GUNSHOT FORMULA

Here will be an overview of our general gunshot formula, including most of Vex's skills. For the ones not included, like Blood Shot and Bonus Elements, see further below or use the Table of Contents.

This is based on the general understanding of BL4's damage formula, in the way of:

ON SHOT x ON HIT = Final Damage

• All values within { } are only applied on crit.

Condensed formula:

• Soup is our current and temporarily(?) designated name to greater pool of modifiers that add to each other.

From this point onwards, Crit will be represented as Critical Modifier in any further displayed formulas, which should be read as:

Critical Modifier

• Exceptions are made in the cases of Bonus Elements like Enchantment and Spirits, which cannot Weak Point crit by default and end up needing further explaining. Critical Modifier will be fully shown on those.

What are Bonus Elements?

Prismatic WeaponryBlood Is PowerEnchantmentInfusionGrave CurrentSpirits

Bonus Elements are like having additional instances of Card Damage. Due to a lot of the damage boosts of BL4 being in a massive pool of additives, Bonus Elements stand out as one of the few ways to effectively multiply our damage.

This section of the guide will cover how each of the above listed sources of skill tree bonus elements interacts with Vex's formula.

• Bonus Elements may also positively impact the trigger chance of certain effects like Blood Shot when using Undead Eye, as well as other chance-based weapon effects and skills.
• Consistency is a problem about Bonus Elements. They may behave differently from each other with no apparent reasoning from just reading out the skill card.

PRISMATIC WEAPONRY Bonus Element

Adds a random bonus element to Vex's and her minion's gunshots only during critical hits. Element shuffles with reloads.

• Prismatic Weaponry is the base Bonus Element percentage you get from investing points in the skill.
• Active Attunements refers to the number of attunements you currently have active, not just spec'd.
• Skill Damage applies.
• Splash does not apply.

For Prismatic Weaponry, Critical Modifier includes A Honed Mind:

BLOOD IS POWER Bonus Element

Adds a Kinetic Bonus Element based on a percentage of your lifesteal.

• Lifesteal% is the amount of lifesteal you have. 10% would be 0.10; 50% would be 0.50, and so on.
• Blood is Power goes from 1 to 3, depending on skill point allocation.
• Skill Damage does not apply.
• Splash does not apply.

ENCHANTMENT Bonus Element

Adds a Bonus Kinetic Element to Vex's gunshots while an Action Skill is active.

• Enchantment is 0.075 per point, up to 0.75 at 10/5. Adjust accordingly.
• Skill Damage applies.
• Soup Gun Damage does not apply.
• Splash does not apply.
• Does not work with Dead Ringer. Well, it does, but only during the crossed-arms animation where there's a skill duration bar on-screen.

CANNOT Weak Point Crit and therefore receives no Gear Crit Bonuses on Non-Weak Point (Chance) Crits.

• Keen Mind, Coven and A Honed Mind can grant it access to Critical Modifier through Crit Chance.
• If the Chance Crit from any of the above occurs on a Weak Point, the damage will include Gear Crit.
• Jakobs Grenade grants it access to Gear Crit on its Chance Crits.

Critical Modifier when hitting a Head Shot/Weak Point crit through Crit Chance, or any spot through Jakobs Grenade Crit Chance:

INFUSION Bonus Element

Adds a Bonus Element that matches held weapon element upon using a Repkit, for 15s. Applies to melee and minions.

• Infusion is 0.08 per point, up to 0.80 at 10/5. Adjust accordingly.
• Skill Damage does not apply.
• Splash does not apply.

KINDREAD SPIRITS Bonus ElementSpirits

Grants a Kinetic Bonus Element that is boosted by Minion Damage. Lasts around 12 Seconds.

• Kindread Spirits Kinetic is 0.3.

CANNOT Weak Point Crit and therefore receives no Gear Crit Bonuses on Non-Weak Point (Chance) Crits.

• Keen Fiends and Coven can grant it access to Critical Modifier through Crit Chance.
• If the Chance Crit from Keen Fiends and Coven occurs on a Weak Point, the damage will include Gear Crit.
• Jakobs Grenade grants it access to Gear Crit on its Chance Crits.

Critical Modifier when hitting a Head Shot/Weak Point crit through Crit Chance, or any spot through Jakobs Grenade Crit Chance:

BLOOD SHOT

Blood Shot a powerful skill. It has some special interactions and enables interesting things. It can be defined as a post-add damage boost to Card x On Shot based on Vex's current health.

• It transforms your base shot into Kinetic Damage, therefore the Elemental Match of the base shot becomes x1.
• Gives you access to Skill Damage on any shot fired with Bloodshot active.
• Has high synergy with snapshotting mechanics, by virtue of being an ON SHOT boost.

What does this "post-add" mean? Well, let's exemplify.

Let's say we have:

• 1000 Card Damage
• 200% Amp from a Repkit (an On Shot boost)
• 5000 Current Health
• Blood Shot at 5/5 (50%)

The simple formula we'll use here is:

[ [Card Damage x (1 + Amp) ] + (Current HP x Blood Shot) ]

• Inserting the respective values, we'll have:

[ [1000 x (1 + 2) ] + (5000 x 0.5)]

• And then...

[ [1000 x 3 ] + 2500]

• Here we can already see Blood Shot will add 2500 damage to our base. Meanwhile, Amp is about to multiply our base by 3.

[3000 + 2500]

5500

• The 2500 from Blood Shot is then added to the amp-multiplied base damage, resulting in the so-called "post-add" interaction.

With this, we can see Blood Shot is adding a flat amount of base damage to our shot based on our maximum health. It never multiplies or interacts with Amp in ways that would scale itself or the Amp.

• An overload of Amp on an already high base damage will make Blood Shot's impact less noticeable, as will an overload of Blood Shot cause the same to Amp on a lower base damage.

This is, of course, purely in terms of considering the final damage of one shot. Blood Shot's other interactions and trigger conditions give it unique uses, even if already using Amp boosts. The same goes for Amp itself.

The full Blood Shot formula will look like:

Critical Modifier will include A Honed Mind on a Blood Shot gunshot:

BLOOD SHOT + Bonus Elements

This section analyzes how each Bonus Element interacts with Blood Shot. For the inner workings of the Bonus Elements themselves and their input values, please check the previous section.

The most notable interaction here is with Prismatic Weaponry, but we checked the others just in case.

In cases where the base shot is being tagged by Skill Damage (in this case by Blood Shot), specific bonus elements that were already boosted by Skill Damage like Prismatic Weaponry may further inherit this Blood Shot tag and result in further application of the same boosts.

• Other Bonus Elements which didn't already have a Skill Damage tag, like Blood Is Power, will get it on a Blood Shot gunshot.
• Enchantment is already boosted by Skill Damage. It did not, however, inherit further Skill Damage tags from Blood Shot.

BLOOD SHOT + Prismatic Weaponry

This formula shows a Blood Shot gunshot applied to Prismatic Weaponry.

• This formula for calculating only the Prismatic Weaponry part of a full Blood Shot hit.

• The bonus element from Prismatic Weaponry will 'inherit' an additional skill tag from Blood Shot, resulting in double applications of Skill Damage.

To exemplify in another way, think of the damage types of our damage instances:

BLOOD SHOT + Blood Is Power

This formula shows a Blood Shot gunshot applied to Blood Is Power.

• This formula for calculating only the Blood Is Power part of a full Blood Shot hit.

• The bonus element from Blood Is Power will 'inherit' the skill tag from Blood Shot, resulting in a singular application of the Skill Damage modifier.

BLOOD SHOT + Enchantment

This formula shows a Blood Shot applied to an Enchantment gunshot.

• This formula for calculating only the Enchantment part of a full Blood Shot hit.

• We expected the bonus element from Enchantment to further inherit the Skill tag from Blood Shot, resulting in double applications like on Prismatic Weaponry. However, we could only observe the singular application of the modifier happening.

CANNOT Weak Point Crit and therefore receives no Gear Crit Bonuses on Non-Weak Point (Chance) Crits.

• Keen Mind, Coven and A Honed Mind can grant it access to Critical Modifier through Crit Chance.
• If the Chance Crit from any of the above occurs on a Weak Point, the damage will include Gear Crit.
• Jakobs Grenade grants it access to Gear Crit on its Chance Crits.

Critical Modifier when hitting a Head Shot/Weak Point crit through Crit Chance, or any spot through Jakobs Grenade Crit Chance:

BLOOD SHOT + Infusion

This formula shows a Blood Shot applied to an Infusion gunshot.

• This formula for calculating only the Infusion part of a full Blood Shot hit.

• The bonus element from Infusion will 'inherit' the skill tag from Blood Shot, resulting in a singular application of the Skill Damage modifier.

BLOOD SHOT + Kindread Spirits

This formula shows a Blood Shot gunshot applied to Kindread Spirits.

• This formula for calculating only the Kindread Spirits part of a full Blood Shot hit.

• Does NOT receive Skill Damage, even when used on Blood Shot.

CANNOT Weak Point Crit and therefore receives no Gear Crit Bonuses on Non-Weak Point (Chance) Crits.

• Keen Fiends and Coven can grant it access to Critical Modifier through Crit Chance.
• If the Chance Crit from Keen Fiends and Coven occurs on a Weak Point, the damage will include Gear Crit.
• Jakobs Grenade grants it access to Gear Crit on its Chance Crits.

Critical Modifier when hitting a Head Shot/Weak Point crit through Crit Chance, or any spot through Jakobs Grenade Crit Chance:

BLOOD SHOT + Multiple Pellets

This formula shows a Blood Shot applied to a multiple (displayed) pellet-count weapon gunshot.

• Applies based on the full Card x Pellet Count damage of the weapon. This means its boost is effectively divided among the individual pellets.
• Yet untested with effects like the Vladof Enhancement for a chance at an extra projectile or unlisted projectile weapons.

INCARNATE Action Skill

This base formula for Incarnate serves for:

• Incarnate Phase Explosion
• Incarnate Eldritch Blast
• Geistwave Projectile
• Energy Vampire Damage Over Time
• Desecration Eldritch Blast and Air Burst
• Grave Harvest Soul Orb detonations

Using the respective Card Damages of each.

• Ordnance Damage applies to the Geistwave Projectile and Grave Harvest Soul Orbs by default. It can apply to the rest only by using Technomancer.
• Geistwave Debuff only applies, of course, after the target is debuffed. Which means you can't be using that alongside Grave Harvest Souls Orbs, for example, since they're both augments. I'm noting this here just to avoid confusion.
• Energy Vampire DOT does not include Splash.

INCARNATE Iron Maiden Augment

Adds a flat amount of damage to Phase Explosion and Eldtrich Blast based on Current Shield value.

• Ordnance Damage will only apply if using Technomancer.
• Splash, Action Skill Damage and Skill Damage do not apply* (Under testing)
• Acts much like a Bonus Element but applied to Incarnate.

INCARNATE Desecration Capstone

The formula for both the Desecration Eldtrich Blast and Airborne Burst are the same as the base formula, just using the Card Damage of Desecration when calculating the Airborne Burst.

• Ordnance Damage will only apply if using Technomancer.

DESECRATION Hazard Formula

For one second of the Desecration Hazard:

For one tick of the Desecration Hazard:

Desecration Hazard can benefit from Iron Maiden. Example for one tick:

• 'x 0.2255' is a Damage to DOT conversion rate applied by the game to Iron Maiden.
• Desecration Hazard's Soup does not include Action Skill, Skill, Splash or Status Damage.

INCARNATE Heartpiercer Capstone

Changes the base damage of Eldritch Blast to 'Heartpiercer Card + 30% Current Health'.

• Ordnance Damage will only apply if using Technomancer.
• Splash is removed from Soup when using Heartpiercer.

INCARNATE Ordnance Damage + Fragmentation Payload

Because it can't ever be simple.

I refuse to attempt to explain any logic behind this. As in, I can't.

This example will show how Fragmentation Payload, when added to any Ordnance Source, in this case Technomancer Base Eldtrich Blast, results in a terrible (yet positive) curse to our Critical Modifier.

• Not only is Fragmentation Payload applying itself effectively twice, it's also multiplying A Honed Mind and the Crit Skills section of the formula by x1.5.

PHASE PHAMILIAR Action Skill

WIP

GENERAL Melee Minion Formula

The current full and UVH Melee damage formula for melee minion attacks, without accounting for Bonus Elements, is as follows:

Simplified...

And finally condensed into...

• Minions are currently afflicted by a base damage bug on UVH levels, that's what the 'x (1-0.0822)' portion of the formula is accounting for.
• Phase Phamiliar Badass Boost and Unsealed only apply to Trouble.
• Melee boosts from Fell Inscriptions and Claw and Bang apply twice to Trouble and Reapers.
• Splash from Class Mod and Skill Tree applies to melee attacks. Gun Splash from enhancement does not.

TROUBLE Minion

The formula for a default Trouble melee attack:

REAPER Minions

The formula for a default Reaper melee attack:

SPECTER Minions

WIP

DEADWIRE Minion

WIP

BLIGHT ATTUNEMENT Minion

WIP

GRAVE CURRENT Bonus Element

Currently applies to all minions except Specters.

BLOODLETTER - Bleed Status Effect Bloodletter

This is the formula for a singular Bleed stack.

The formula shows the total tick damage of Bleed during a second. For the damage of a singular tick, divide the final result by 3.

Final Damage is the singular instance of damage that triggers Bleed, based off of the other formulas above. Increasing your Final Damage means Bleed damage will also be increased.

• Bonus Elements will trigger their own stacks of Bleed, allowing you to apply multiple stacks at once based on each instance of Final Damage.

BleedGunPerSecond is the % of Final Damage per second Bleed will base itself off of, in accordance to the point investment in Bloodletter.

• 5/5 Would be 0.3; 10/5 would be 0.6.

Bleed double dips Kinetic Damage, All Damage, Debuffs, A Honed Mind and Crit Skills modifiers.

• If you have a Skill Damage source like Ars Arcana or Blood Is Magic boosting either your Gunshot Impact or Action Skill Damage Impact (i.e. on Blood Shot and Incarnate, respectively), Bleed will scale from the increased Final Damage and then double dip the Skill Damage modifiers.

BLEED CRITICAL HITS

As one can see on the formula, Bleed can Critically Hit. That occurs through:

• Skill Critical Hit Chance (Class Mod, Keen Mind, A Honed Mind).
• Status Effect Critical Hit Chance (Keen Suffering);
• General Crit Chance (Coven, Crit Knife)

PRISMATIC ICHOR Status Effect Prismatic Ichor

WIP

VEX'S DOUBLE DIPS

List of skills on Vex's trees that have some manner of double dipping (and potentially more dips) available, be it normally and through gear or action skill/minion usage.

BloodletterReverburnationsDeadwire