Wounding vs. Explosive/etc

[TheOriginalEvilD]

What's your preference? I seem to get mixed opinions on which is more powerful.

 

All I know is, a laser minigun with explosive projectiles is an absolute rape machine. Hip fire, aim fire, doesn't matter. Most things just explode the instant you point at them. My only complaint is I keep killing myself from shooting people too close to me and getting exploded myself.

 

Am I right in that the explosive perks add damage to the explosive projectile weapons?

[Vagrant0]

Bleeding for high rof, Exploding for low rof. Evey hit with a bleeding weapon builds stacks the bleeding effect. So more hits per second means more stacks added before stacks tick out. Bleeding also ignores defense and works even on things like robots.

 

Meanwhile every hit with an exploding weapon does the weapon's damage within the area of effect, in addition to the explosion damage. For direct hits, the damage is done twice, once for the projectile, once for the explosion.

[vicious2444]

Bleeding for high rof, Exploding for low rof. Evey hit with a bleeding weapon builds stacks the bleeding effect. So more hits per second means more stacks added before stacks tick out. Bleeding also ignores defense and works even on things like robots.

 

Meanwhile every hit with an exploding weapon does the weapon's damage within the area of effect, in addition to the explosion damage. For direct hits, the damage is done twice, once for the projectile, once for the explosion.

What would you recommend for a minigun and shotgun?

[Vagrant0]

 

Bleeding for high rof, Exploding for low rof. Evey hit with a bleeding weapon builds stacks the bleeding effect. So more hits per second means more stacks added before stacks tick out. Bleeding also ignores defense and works even on things like robots.

 

Meanwhile every hit with an exploding weapon does the weapon's damage within the area of effect, in addition to the explosion damage. For direct hits, the damage is done twice, once for the projectile, once for the explosion.

What would you recommend for a minigun and shotgun?

 

Whichever drops.

[Warmaker01]

I have one Explosive traited weapon, Spray 'N Pray which is a Tommy Gun. Considering it's very high ROF with no "charge up" like a Minigun, it's fast and devastating. You can kill stuff hiding behind cover if you let the explosions "reflect" their damage off them. The only time I would switch away from the weapon is if the target(s) get close. The Explosions will affect the player also.

 

As for Explosive Perk working on the AOE effects of Explosive legendary trait, I'm unsure.

Edited December 5, 2015 by Warmaker01

[TheOriginalEvilD]

Bleeding for high rof, Exploding for low rof. Evey hit with a bleeding weapon builds stacks the bleeding effect. So more hits per second means more stacks added before stacks tick out. Bleeding also ignores defense and works even on things like robots.

 

Meanwhile every hit with an exploding weapon does the weapon's damage within the area of effect, in addition to the explosion damage. For direct hits, the damage is done twice, once for the projectile, once for the explosion.

 

All of that seems logical, and that's what most people are saying, but in game it seems completely opposite. I've gotten two of the same type of gun (laser minigun) and have toyed with various mods, mostly just changing the barrel around to see how rate of fire effects both, and using the console I've attached either the wounded or exploding bullets legendary, and the exploding version is hands down more devastating than the bleeding gun. Despite all the logic about stacking effects and such, the bleed gun doesn't kill nearly as fast as the exploding one. I haven't ran into any behemoths or boss type creatures yet. Maybe I'll spawn some and see what happens. Right now it seems that just the explosion area effect is so damaging at such a high rate of fire that it's enough to kill everything up to super mutant masters (I think that might be the strongest I've encountered so far). It tends to blow off limbs faster than anything including rocket launchers.

 

It also isn't just the rate of fire plus the explosion effect, because I tried this combo on the gatling gun too that has a higher rate of fire (speed barrels) and it doesn't do near as much damage. Part of it is just because the laser gatling is super OP as it is.

 

I should note that my character is almost to level 66, so I should be seeing a decently high level of enemies.

 

EDIT:

 

Yeah, so I just tried spawning various enemies, and it's a joke. I spawned 5 Legendary Mythic Deathclaws and mowed them down like weeds even without sneaking. It's just an explosion of blood and limbs.

Edited December 5, 2015 by Evil D

[Vagrant0]

 

Bleeding for high rof, Exploding for low rof. Evey hit with a bleeding weapon builds stacks the bleeding effect. So more hits per second means more stacks added before stacks tick out. Bleeding also ignores defense and works even on things like robots.

 

Meanwhile every hit with an exploding weapon does the weapon's damage within the area of effect, in addition to the explosion damage. For direct hits, the damage is done twice, once for the projectile, once for the explosion.

 

All of that seems logical, and that's what most people are saying, but in game it seems completely opposite.

 

The key point is that bleed completely ignores defenses, while explosion is still resisted by armor. The other part is that you're testing with a weapon that already does high damage. With a higher damage weapon, explosion will consistently do more, and more quickly by nature of the weapon damage hitting twice on every direct hit if it's an explosive weapon, but only does singular damage with a bleeding weapon. On something like an automatic pipe pistol, combat rifle or submachinegun bleed would likely deal more damage since the base weapon damage is lower and more likely to be affected by resistances, while bleed keeps up damage while reloading/ducking, shooting other targets.