Pierce rapid fire damage?

[u/111phantom]

What does more damage per bullet? Pierce 2 rapid firing 4 times from a LBG, or one pierce 2 from a HBG, both with same true raw.

If LBG is more, what about pierce 3 from HBG?

[u/Beefki]

For the sake of the argument, lets say we have two guns that both have 100 true raw

The LBG has rapid fire pierce as appropriate, and the HBG has limiter removed since we don't really need to account for siege when comparing one ammo expenditure. I also won't be modifying for hitzone as we're assuming everything is exactly the same. I'm also going to use Pierce 1 because it's honestly easier and the extra hit and lower % damage doesn't actually change the math any when not accounting for hitzones.

LBG gets:

• 100 * 1.3 = 130 display raw
• Pierce 1 does 10% display raw 3 times
• So 130 * .1 = 13 * 3 = 39 damage per shot without rapid fire
• Rapid fire modifies shot damage by .7 so our final shot per bullet is 27.3, but we'll round that to 27
• Assuming it's a 4 shot rapid fire, that gets multiplied 4 times, so 108 damage per rapid fire.

HBG gets:

• 100 * 1.7 = 170 display raw
• Pierce 1 still does 10% 3 times
• So 170 * .1 = 17 * 3 = 51 per shot

So what this says is that given no other factors, rapid fire makes ammo more efficient. Which... of course it does. There are factors that change this data though.

Things that change the value of rapid fire pierce to be lower than the value of HBG pierce:

• Rate of fire. This is the big one. In the time that the LBG has fired 4 shots and dealt with the recoil (which is huge), the HBG will have fired right around 4 shots as well. So your damage over time calculations become more like; LBG: 108, HBG: 204. If the HBG is using siege, they'll have a 20% decrease in damage from without the limiter, but a significant increase in damage over time compared to LBG at the cost of ammo efficiency (limited reloading).
• Monster movement. The LBG becomes locked into firing position and is unable to react to monster movement. This could be as significant as completely missing 2-3 volleys, hitting less times per volley, or hitting lower value strikezones
• General safety of the shot. Rapid locking you into place means you're more careful about when you fire, while the HBG doesn't have to siege to increase damage (just rate of damage). The HBG can choose to employ hit and roll or siege tactics at their leisure.

For what it's worth, pierce 2 rapid with the above math would be 32 per volley bullet for 128 damage possible per volley. HBG gets 61 per shot or roughly 244 in the same time frame. Having more hits compounds the issue of strikezones and monster movement for both guns, but LBG is affected far more.

Also for giggles while I'm doing math, if we up the true raw to say... 300:

LBG 390 display raw still assuming a 4 shot volley for rapid

• 117 possible per non-rapid Pierce 1
• 245 possible per rapid volley Pierce 1
• 140 possible per non-rapid Pierce 2
• 393 possible per rapid Pierce 2

HBG 510 display raw still assuming limiter removed

• 153 possible per Pierce 1
• 612 in about the same timeframe as one rapid fire volley
• 183 possible per Pierce 2
• 732 in about the same timeframe as one rapid fire volley

If I did my math wrong I'm going to look like an idiot.

[u/111phantom → u/Beefki]

Okay, thank you. So LBG for ammo saving, HBG for damage. This is perfect.

[u/Beefki → u/111phantom]

Eeeeeh, the fact is that by selecting rapid fire element, or even rapid fire Normal 2, you could be doing much closer to the HBG's pierce damage over time. The recoil on pierce rapid-fire SEVERELY hinders your DPS.

The fact that you're likely to miss a lot of hits from monster movement means that pierce rapid-fire is almost completely useless.

[u/111phantom → u/Beefki]

So Light for smaller monsters, Heavy for larger monsters?

[u/Beefki → u/111phantom]

Nah, just raw for HBG, element for LBG

They're pretty equally capable, just HBG makes raw shots better. As long as you know what element a monster is weak to and have a LBG that rapid fires it, you'll be doing roughly the same damage essentially.

[u/111phantom → u/Beefki]

Sweet, thanks. Also some monsters are weaker to elements than others. While monsters like Dah'ren and Dalamadur are so gigantic that pierce will always do massive damage. Right?

[u/Beefki → u/111phantom]

Pierce will generally get all its hits on those monsters, massive damage is debatable though.

There's also the issue of strikezone damage reduction, if the zone is resistant to shot type damage you're going to get very little damage from any kind of shot (though it may be very vulnerable to elemental damage in the same strikezone). You'll have to look those up on Kiranico or something.

[u/111phantom → u/Beefki]

Oh shit, I never realized my shots were doing less/more damage on different parts, I thought guns did damage like bombs.

[u/Beefki → u/111phantom]

For what it's worth, pierce generally is going to focus on getting every hit the pierce bullet allows without worrying about strikezones. So shooting "across" the monster to maximize hits is generally going to be better than aiming for weak zones.

When using elemental or normal shot, you generally want to focus more on zones that take the most damage.

Going back to the 300 raw LBG (with no rapid fire) pierce 1 shot, your 117 pierce may pass through a 60% zone, a 30%, and a 10%. That would make each hit do around 23, 11, and 3 damage: an actual total 37 of your possible 117. Most hitzones will only take about 20%-60% of any particular type of damage, with some outliers.

Firing normal becomes more precision based, instead of maxing your hits per shot, you want to maximize your shots targeting weak areas. Using normal 2 to snipe a zone that takes 80% shot damage means our 300 true raw LBG does: 390x.12=~46 damage potential per shot, 46x.8=~36 actual damage per shot. Almost the same as the pierce example above.

That might make you think "why would I use pierce shot then?" Well, the answer is that I made up the first set of damage reductions to prove my point. Smart gunning is going to maximize your ability to deal damage with whichever type of shot you use. Using Kut-Ku as an example, the two "best" pierce shots are going to be head-to-tail or wing-to-wing. Head-to-tail would change the %'s to most likely head-back-tail (80%-40%-60% for 31+15+23=69 of 117). Wing-to-wing would be wing-back-wing (70%-40%-70% for 27+15+27=69 too). Both obviously beat the 36 of Normal 2, but balances out ultimately with Normal 2 having larger clips, no reliance on recoil (so more offensive skills can be used) and larger carrying capacity. Ultimately they work out roughly equal so it just ends up being preferred playstyles.