Hi all, basically for all weapons in general, Ill use the carnage and butcher as an example.
Is it better to use a 39% explosive relic or a 39% shotgun damage relic with the carnage?
Also for the butcher, is it better to use a 39% bone or a 39% shotgun damage relic?
I may depart from many in saying this, but Bone. Free slag, and most possible time with Battlefront up. There’s also a frequently ignored DPS factor: how much time are you able to spend dumping maximum damage? The more you have to run and jump, and the more enemies move, the harder it is to key in on landing crits or perfect shot placement. The aggro relief, the ability to ‘park’ rushers at the turret, and Battlefront… That’s a lot of DPS boost.
For the carnage, explosive relic hands down. Elemental damage will do far more for any elemental weapon than any additive damage could (which is what the shotgun damage relic is).
If your butcher is elemental, the bone will win hands down. If not, then the bone will be pointless for you.
As for which relic would be better for both those guns, I’ll go on a limb and say an ammo relic (IIRC, those are the blood of the ancients), since the heart of the ancients’ FFYL bonus isn’t really all that great and the max ammo will help with the carnage.
True, but if their weapons are non-elemental or explosive (it was never specified in the OP what element the butcher was after all) then half the bone would be useless.
They could still get cooldown from COM and skill choices, so a relic could be used to squeeze out some more damage.
Sure, they could still get some, even respectable cool down without a Bone. Again, though… That time without turret means more running, more erratic enemy movement, less Battlefront, and therefore, less time spent accurately delivering crits or perfect hits. This is one of the most frequently neglected factors in DPS conversations. People get caught up in focus on theoretical DPS, and often forget that the math goes out of the window if you can’t create time in which to deliver it.
For the carnage those crits wouldn’t matter 
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If we’re taking both of their weapons into account, the ammo relic gives more real value to both than the bone. The butcher can be an ammo hog too.
hi, sorry for not specifying, i have all element butchers and a non element and playing op8.
I was thinking a non elemental, duty calls 25%, 39% shotgun damage relic. My question is, is it better to just use an elemental with a bone, or is the other more damaging?
fyi, i play a non action skill based playstyle, exclusive ranger mod because i love onslaught and metal storm and quick charge plus it gives shield buffs on top. I don’t spec into turret skills, battlefront, cooldown, sentry. I do sometimes spec into rockets, longbow, slag turret, phalanx and maglock.
The idea is to cause max chaos, turrets pumping rockets and slag and causing max confusion among the enemies, then i just spam quasers and the carnage, its a lovely scene 
Depends on which gun you use more. If you prefer the carnage, get an explosive relic. If you prefer the elemental butcher, then the bone will be better. For the non-elemental butcher, the ammo relic, because the shotgun ammo relic isn’t that great.
Elemental damage is multiplicative, while gun damage relics and duty calls are additive. Long story short, the elemental relic and matching elements will give you far more damage than duty calls and the damage relic.
I once made a pretty thorough analysis of the merits of non-elemental weapons vs elemental + bones
Sadly, it got lost in the old forum and was never ported.
The point that I made was, If you intend to use neutral elements with a bones, you’d be just as good with a non-elemental and an aggression relic, because non-elemental guns have an inherent 20% base damage bonus when compared to their elemental counterpart…and being base damage, it’s the equivalent of a multiplicative bonus for all intents and purpose.
That is…except for shotguns, which don’t have that 20% damage bonus
Which means that if you plan to main butchers, a bones is definitely the better choice.