Damage Over Time Mechanics

What is Damage Over Time?

DOT is just a .33....... really. That's it. Trust.

Seems like such a simple question but its a bit funny how deep this goes.

In Borderlands Damage Over Time (DOT) and Status Effect are sometimes interchangeable, for most practical purposes they refer to the same thing. However given the nature of the game it's of course impossible to have even one full category be simple, there are indeed differences between the two definitions.

• A Damage Over Time, or DOT, is when something applies multiple damage ticks over a pre determined amount of time.

• A Status Effect is any temporary effect on an enemy whether its a debuff, a mechanic, or a DOT - these all fall under the Status Effect umbrella.

This Guide's Purpose

• Establish a go to resource for DOT mechanics
• Consolidate unique information and traits
• Clearly lay out the how these DOTs behave in game
• Provide terminology and definitions to allow for easy explanations in the future
• • Guide is a WIP and will be continuously updated

THANK YOU

I did not do all of this testing myself.

Thank you to all those on my Discord server who helped gather this information. I am consolidating as much here as I can.

Thankyou:

Ratore, Prismatic, BucketsofWoe, Zee, Nepta, Katchenz, CZ47, Stone Swan, Zeta, Sammantix and ANYONE else who helped that I forgot to mention. Any little bit helps.

Resources

GENERAL FORMULA BY RATORE AND PRISMATIC

AMON DAMAGE FORMULA BY GIRTHQUAKE

VEX DAMAGE FORMULA BY RATORE

DOT vs Status Effect

All Fire, Shock, Corrosive, and Radiation Weapons and Ordnance will come with a DOT value on their weapon card. Cryo Weapons and Ordnance do not directly apply a DOT but they will instead apply slow and list a Cryo Efficiency - which translates to how quickly you can freeze an enemy. Cryo Efficiency is a beast all its own and has not yet been covered.

The easiest way of identifying a DOT will be the phrasing on the card. DOT will always at least attempt to tell you the rate that it will deal Damage. Whenever you see wording similar to DMG/sec you know you're dealing with Damage Over Time

The elemental value listed under your gun or ordnance will look like this:

This item card translates to 9,865 damage being dealt in 3 separate ticks over the course of 1 second - roughly. At the moment for definition's purposes - 9,865 damage dealt in 1 second. The 14% is the chance that each hit from a bullet has to apply its DOT.

• "Girth why did you say roughly and emphasize it?"
• • Because Gearbag said 1/3 = 33%. We'll get there soon but it's not important right now.

Status Effects but not DOT:

Status Effects that do not fall under the DOT umbrella are less common but do exist. These apply to enemies but don't actually do damage themselves, instead they cause some other sort of effect.

Some examples would be:

• Weaken from Amon's skill tree - Gut Punch and Maiming Strike (doesn't stack)
• • Is affected by duration but not chance
• Entanglement from Harlowe's Skill Tree
• Both augments on a Crit Knife
• • is NOT affected by duration

DOT but not Status Effect:

DOTs that are not considered Status Effects are typically bullets hiding in plain sight, but this category plays fast and loose with what's going to fall into it.

Some examples would be:

• Tasers
• • Ticks twice per second for 10 seconds despite the card not listing that

• Oscar Mike Space Laser
• • Ticks 5 times per second for 2 seconds

Application Chance

• Chance increases are multiplicative with base chance, making it extremely difficult to reach 100% Status Chance without using Primed Potency in your Enhancement slot.
• • Primed Potency is a true 100% chance
  • Grenades with status chance parts show post calc chance
  • Each projectile on a weapon rolls a proc chance independently

DOT Stacking

• DOTs can each stack up to 20 times per element
• • Radiation Auras do not stack - only 1 can be present on an irradiated enemy
• Each individual stack is on its own timer
• Applying a new DOT will take the place of an old stack
• You can maintain 20 stacks by continuously reapplying - it will not drop
• Most DOTs ticks will combine to max at 20× base
• • Tail of the Comet and a few other sources defy this behavior and display each tick

Compounding Afflictions

• Is currently bugged and only works properly when you apply shock DOTs
• Other elements will only contribute 1 stack regardless of total number
• Maxes at 50 stacks with rapid Shock DOT applications

Primed Potency

• Is a guaranteed status application
• Does not go away until you switch weapons or hit an enemy
• Can be activated mid air if your reload is fast enough
• The projectile loses this trait after its first hit (usually)
• • Jakobs ricochets do not carry the guarantee after the DOT is applied
  • Certain underbarrels can circumvent this since the actual gun never actually fires
• Applies to any bonus damage that adopts gun source such as Watts and Protean

Transfuser

• Will apply to any elemental DOT as long as you hold a matching element Maliwan weapon
• Uses the base DOT from the card of the gun
• Ignores Dragon's Breath conversion and transfers your gun's DOT
• Will double the DOT spread if you're using a single element weapon
• Will store a DOT element if you change elements and spread 2 DOTs on a dual element weapon
• Will scale a different element to the unused mode's listed DOT
• • Store a fire DOT from 1 gun then pull out another in with shock mode in secondary. Spread whatever the main mode's DOT is and it will be accompanied by a fire DOT that uses the base value of the shock on the card of the weapon in hand. Meaning you can bypass elemental DOT balancing and use giant shock numbers for other elements.
  • Here's a video because I know how cursed that sounds

Gun Splash Passive

• Gun Splash passives will apply to your DOT if you hold a weapon that is splash damage itself
• This also holds true for specific Gun Splash such as shotgun or sniper
• • The 2 will bug each other out on the same enhance and 1 will stop working - not recommended
  • This applies to a lot more than just DOT - but I am NOT getting into that curse here

Rainbow Vomit

• Rainbow Vomit seems to break quite a few rules
• • Probably due to having multiple elements on the card but this is not confirmed
• Can apply a Cryo DOT
• Does not convert the element from Dragon's Breath or Blood Shot but the Amp / Flat on Shot applies to the bullets
• The existence of these broken rules insinuates there are other weapons that can do the same
• • If you find something funny with another weapon, please contact me on Discord
  • https://discord.gg/rrvPAYYud5 - this is a permanent invite to the server, ALLLLL are welcome

Protean Cell

• Bonus Damage can apply its own DOT
• The Bonus Damage also applies to DOT
• The Bonus Damage will then apply to the DOT that it applied itself
• The above traits make it the standard pick on DOT builds that don't use Amp shields

DOT Tick:

{[(Card × .33) × (1 + On Shot) × (1 + Amp)]

×

[(1 + Status Effect Damage + Specific Status Effect Damage + Elemental Damage + All Damage + Debuff) + {1+(2 × Skill Crit)}]

• Tail of the Comet and Bloodletter DOTs will also receive Skill Damage in the Soup
• Tail of the Comet and Bloodletter will get Honed Mind in the Crit section.
• • Honed Mind: {(1 + .5 + (2 × Skill Crit)}

This is what I referenced above about the DOT tick being ROUGHLY 1/3 of the card and gearbox saying .33 is the same as 1/3. The DOT ticks you see in game will be .33 × what your expected DOT will be, most people will end up expecting 1/3 and simply divide that value on the card by 3.

• • DOT ticks cannot true crit - only through Global Crit chance such as Crit Knife or Catastrophe
  • The only instance of "Gear Crit" that can apply to DOTs is Honed Mind on Tail of the Comet or Bleed

For a real example we'll use this against flesh:

[9,865 × .33] × .5 (Corrosive vs flesh) = 1,627.55 DOT ticks

Now to fill out the formula we will account for:

25% on shot, 200% amp,

+30% status damage, +25% elemental damage,

& +30% skill crit.

[(9,865 × .33) × (1 + .25) × (1 + 2)] × [(1 + .3 + .25) + {1 + (2 × .3)}] × .5

Simplified for legibility:

[9,865 × .33 × 1.25 × 3] × [(1.55 + {1.6}] × .5

Final DOT Tick = 19,227.5

OTHER DOT SOURCES

The simplicity of Borderlands 4's formula shines through in DOT. Other sources of damage are no different in their calculations - the only difference is that you're not always told what base DOT is.

THE FORMULA DOES NOT CHANGE

Any source of damage increase that falls into the formula BEFORE your Soup and Crit sections come in will increase the DOT applied. So, if you COULD Amp your Action Skill that would increase the DOT it applies. But Amp will be a 0 in the formula - meaning it will be "Base × (1+0)" - which is just "Base".

Regardless of source when it comes to methods of increasing your DOT damage always be on the lookout for things that are considered On Shot, Pre-Add, Amp, or Flat On Shot.

DURATIONS

Not all DOTs are created equal in Borderlands 4. Gearbongle devs thought ahead on this front and once again delivered a surprisingly simple and succinct way of making DOTs feel different.

Each Element has a base duration for its associated DOT. The listed values are balanced around those durations. This is why a Shock DOT is so much higher than other elements - its DOT is the shortest.

Each DOT gets 1 extra tick at the end of its duration. We have some speculation as to why but nothing has been confirmed.

The above durations are taken into account when the DOT ratios on weapons were established. The 2 pictures below are from the same exact gun - note that shock is almost double what fire is. However, Fire lasts for 5 seconds compared to Shock's 2.

To compare the damage delivery of the 2 elements you need to break down the tick amount and quantity.

[31,103 × .33] = 10,263.99 tick

At 7 ticks per DOT, you get 71,847.93 TOTAL Shock Damage

[16,370 × .33] = 5,402.1 tick

At 16 ticks per DOT, you get 86,433.6 TOTAL Fire Damage

"Oh, so Fire is stronger than shock?"

NO! - STRONGER WILL DEPEND ENTIRELY ON THE SITUATION

Right off the bat you can see that Shock's DPS is substantially higher than Fire's - its damage is delivered in less than half the time despite being a bit over 80% of the damage.

Then Elemental Match must be accounted for - fire will exceed vs flesh and wins against armor too - whereas Shock beats out the others by a wide margin against shielded enemies.

The nuances in the behaviors of different DOTs are where your individual build and sometimes even playstyle must be taken into account. As an Amon main I will use one of his skills as an example that helps sway choices for elements:

Electrical Fire creates a DOT at 50% the strength of the one that triggered it at base regardless of duration scaling. In layman's terms that means if you make a Shock DOT that ticks for 100 - it will be accompanied by a fire DOT that ticks for 50. Since Shock DOTs start at almost twice what fire DOTs are - you've essentially turned that shock weapon into dual element as far as DOT is concerned. Without delving too far into further synergies (yet) this already makes Shock a standout choice for Amon.

Prismatic Ichor flips the script and likes corrosive base weapons because it DOES care about duration scaling. We'll get into why shortly.

Converting Weapon Elements

Since each element's DOT is balanced around duration Gearbooger went out of their way to ensure we couldn't cheese the hell out of these high DOT numbers on Shock weapons. As displayed above changing the element on a weapon will NOT allow you to simply convert the DOT number on the card into a different element.

Again, using Amon's skill tree for example - Dragon's Breath converts the next gun shot to fire. If I were to activate DB while holding the example Stellium in shock mode I WOULD GET THE FIRE MODE'S DOT VALUE AS MY BASE DOT.

CONVERTING THE ELEMENT OF A SHOCK WEAPON TO SOMETHING ELSE DOES NOT ALLOW YOU TO CHEESE THE SHORT SHOCK DURATION + HIGH LISTED NUMBER RATIO.

This holds true for any element, but Shock is the ripest for shenanigans due to its high listed damage.

Using 5/5 Dragon's Breath on the shock mode of the weapon above would give you exactly double the fire DOT listed on the card.

SHOCK MODE -> DRAGON"S BREATH CONVERSION

Dragon's Breath is Amp and 5/5 is 100%

[(16,370 × .33) × (1+1)] = 10,804.2 Fire tick from a DB shot in Shock Mode. The tick would be exactly the same if fired from Fire mode.

Frozen DOT

So outside of the fact that it's a Status Effect I'm not 100% certain how this works, this section will be updated once I have more details. However, once you do actually manage to Freeze an enemy, they will begin to take Status Effect Damage. Other than Tail of the Comet and Rainbow Vomit this seems to be the only way to apply a Cryo DOT.

DOT mechanics hold true for the most part across all Status Effects and DOTs in the game - at least to some degree. There are some rule breakers and some attention seekers however for the most part they conform. This section will go over the different rule breaking DOTs in the VH's skill trees and make note of things to keep in mind when optimizing for them.

Prismatic Ichor

We'll get the messy one out of the way first.

Prismatic Ichor works by creating a random element DOT at the same time as the one you create

• Ichor DOTs are 150% of the DOT they accompany at 5/5
• Ichor DOTs are always 5 seconds regardless of element
• Ichor has a 2 second internal cooldown
• Ichor is NOT a Double Dip
• Ichor DOTs are scaled by the duration difference between your weapon's element and Ichor itself

Ichor Element Scaling on Gun DOTs

• Shock DOTs are 2 seconds (7 ticks) --> 2/5 = .4 --> Ichor DOTs are 60% while holding a Shock weapon
• Fire DOTs are 5 seconds (16 ticks) --> 5/5 = 1 --> Ichor DOTs are 150% while holding a Fire weapon
• Corrosive DOTs are 8 seconds (25 ticks) --> 8/5 = 1.6 --> Ichor DOTs are 240% while holding a Corrosive weapon
• Radiation DOTs are 4 seconds (13 ticks) --> 4/5 = .8 --> Ichor DOTs are 120% while holding a Radiation weapon

Cryo

• Ichor cannot make Cryo DOTs
• Bonus Damage on a Cryo weapon will use that element's DOT ratio on that weapon's Base Damage
• DOTs made from Bonus Damage will use the Bonus Damage element's duration as a scalar
• While the behavior is untested a safe assumption for an Ichor DOT from a frozen enemy is 120%, the same as Radiation.

Vex's Bleed

This obscenely powerful skill Bloodletter is partially responsible for some of the silliest clips in BL4. This being the only kinetic DOT in the game it behaves almost identically to Tail of the Comet.

• DOT lasts 4 seconds
• • Vex does not have access to Status Duration
• Is a double dip
• • Yes, it Ichors
• Is affected by Skill Damage
• Can proc off of ANY Skill or Gun Damage Critical Hit
• Ichor scaling is 4/5 since it's a 4 second DOT
• Stacks up to 20 like a regular DOT
• Specters can replace Bleed procs with much smaller DOTs

Electrical Fire

Much simpler than its above cousin - but a bit weaker because of it. Electrical Fire ignores duration scaling and simply applies a DOT at 50% of the trigger. 2000 shock tick will be accompanied by a 1000 fire tick and vice versa

• This means it works best with shock since the actual DOT value is based on listed number
• • This also acts as an extension to Shock DOT - Fire DOTs are more than twice as long.
• The interaction works the same both ways but synergizes best with Shock DOT.
• • Blackout benefits massively from Electrical Fire by both providing good damage vs flesh and extending the duration of the double dipped DOT - at reduced damage of course once the shock DOT is done.
  • Elemental Match must be considered when optimizing. Given that Fire and Shock are opposites Electrical Fire will never actually be a 50% increase without the input of something like Protean.
• The downside of the skill is the 2 second Internal Cooldown (ICD) means some things can steal the proc - so be careful while debuffing with Onslaughter, Watts, Protean Cell active, or anything that can create a Shock/Fire DOT.
• The 2 second ICD does not stop multiple applications when they happen at the same exact time through either Transfuser or radius. IE all 3 ads hit by Transfuser will get 2 DOTs applied.

Tail of the Comet

Tail of the Comet gets its own section due to its difference in traits from its brothers Blackout and Raging Inferno. All 3 of them are Double Dip DOTs from Amon's skill tree but Tail marches to the beat of its own drum by simply being a Cryo DOT in the first place.

• Is Skill Damage
• DOT ticks don't seem to combine if unless they happen in the same frame
• Is affected by Status Chance

Blackout & Raging Inferno

Blackout & Raging Inferno both behave identically outside of their respective trigger conditions and elemental behaviors. The biggest thing to note here is their status as Double Dip DOTs.

• Raging Inferno can trigger off of ANY Action Skill Damage - Onslaughter and Cryonic Thrum included
• Blackout can trigger off of ANY Ordnance Damage
• They are a guaranteed trigger on a crit
• Their crit chances add together when you combine them on an Action Skill or Augment that's also Ordnance.
• • Tail of the Comet has no effect or influence on either one

Dirty Bomb

The skill tree is vague enough that it's almost a lie

Dirty Bomb is in essence Elecrit from BL3, it acts as a DOT accelerant and will deal 4 × Tick Damage at base. But in typical Gearbox fashion this skill doesn't even get Status Damage despite it being derived from DOT ticks.

• Layman's Terms: If your Rad DOT is 100 per tick your Dirty Bomb will do [100 × .4] × 4
• Gets Status Duration as a multiplier to its damage from Great Red DoT
• Is Skill damage
• Is Splash

Realistically this skill doesn't fit in neatly with the others but should be explained in this guide given its proximity to DOT.

Radsplosions are currently dealing a flat 100 damage at level 50 on UVH5. This seems to be a bug.

11/17/2025

Coming eventually