Test thread from the old forums. Just some neat info that’s all. This thread is not mine, all credit goes to the all knowing @Scottes
Gun Jack requested that I put a couple of his Explosive Saviors through some testing. He gave me these two:
I gave them to my Roland, who has no skill points assigned, and an SMG Proficiency of 50. It might have made more sense to test with Lilith and her skills around SMGs and elemental weapons. And it could have made sense to test with Brick and his enhancements to Explosive weapons. Really, it doesn’t matter since both weapons would be tested by the same character. I chose my Roland due to his lack of enhancements to these weapons.
RoF and Reload Speed
The Erupting’s reload speed is 0.47 seconds, compared to the Detonating’s reload speed of 0.73 seconds.
Both guns have identical RoF stats, but the Detonating’s larger clip is somewhat offset by its slower reload time. Does this make a difference? When testing procs (below), I fired 3 clips from each. The Erupting got off 108 rounds in 11.86 seconds, giving it an effective RoF of 9.11. The Detonating got off 138 rounds over 15.37 seconds, giving it an effective RoF of 8.98. That’s a difference of 1.4%, so chances are that the reload speed won’t make a difference in sustained combat.
Procs
The Erupting Savior has a Tech Pool of 68, whereas the Detonating Savior has a lower pool of 60.
Checking procs, the erupting got off 8 procs over 3 clips, and so did the Detonating. However, the Erupting’s first proc cost 24, and another cost 14. All other procs from both SMGs cost 12. Although I can’t tell for certain, I have to assume that the higher-cost procs from the Erupting did more damage, so the Erupting wins this by a bit.
The last proc from the Erupting came on round 108. The last proc from the Detonating came on round 112, so a very slight edge to the Erupting.
The weapons proc’d on the following rounds:
Erupting: 3 7 9 11 16 43 85 108
Detonating: 2 3 5 8 38 61 93 112
Note the first large gap between rounds 16 and 43 on the Erupting, and the first large gap between rounds 8 and 38 for the Detonating.
Diving into this, we can see that the Erupting had 5 procs before its tech pool was too low to proc again. The tech pool was at 1.33 after firing the 16th round. The Detonating got off only 4 procs before the tech pool was too depleted. Its tech pool was at 0.54 after the 8th round.
Remember that the Erupting’s first proc cost 24, so there’s a chance that proc was double the strength.
In the end, it really seems like the Erupting’s 8 extra points of Tech Pool has a distinct advantage for proc’ing.
Accuracy
The gun cards are easy to read in this regard. They both have an accuracy of 87.2. So they should be just as accurate, right? Well, there’s a hidden stat called AccuracyPool that affects this. Adjusted by Roland’s 50 Proficiency, the Erupting has an AccuracyPool of 0.62, with a max of 5.88. The Detonating’s AccuracyPool is 0.71 with a max of 7.69.
How much of a difference does this make? I fired a clip from each, from the hip. It was at quite a distance to clearly show the spread. There’s quite a difference between these two weapons:
The Erupting wins easily.
And let this be a lesson to us all. To get another idea of a weapon’s true value, unload a clip at a blank wall. The gun card doesn’t tell the whole story.
Time to Kill Explained
The statistics and pretty pictures are nice and all, but they don’t tell the real story. So I tested how long it took to kill some enemies.
I added a couple new spawn cages to my test map. The first one spawns a mix of Level 60 Zombies, which includes Defilers and Beer-Hat Dudes and other such undead. I set this to spawn 5 enemies, one at a time. The other cage spawns a single Level 61 Bandit Desperado. I also tested the weapons against a Level 61 Devastator, and 5 Pyro Lance spawned one at a time like the Zombies.
If you’ve never read some of my tests like this, these cages include a switch and a timer. I hit the switch, and after a 3-second pause the enemy spawns and the timer starts. When the enemy dies - or last enemy for a 5-spawn - a pop-up appears telling me how long it took to kill that enemy type.
As usual, I test at least 3 times for each weapon for each enemy type, going for the fastest kill times. If I got a time that was wildly high or low, I attributed it to a mistake I made or some unrealistic good luck. Those wild results get thrown out. However, if the weapon produces two similar high or low times then I attribute it to the nature of the weapon, and I keep them. It’s a little sloppy, but I eventually get to a consistent fast time. And the fastest time for each round is below.
Given that these were explosive weapons I generally went for as many criticals as possible. However, since the Erupting has a superior accuracy this gave it a distinct advantage. So I did a few tests of each weapon going for bodyshots. It didn’t really matter.
Time to Kill Results
Level 61 Devastator
Erupting: 22.57 seconds
Detonating: 25.78 seconds
Level 61 BadAss Desperado
Erupting: 7.09 seconds
Detonating: 8.16 seconds
Five Level 60 Pyro Lance
Erupting: 22.44 seconds
Detonating: 28.69 seconds
Five Level 60 Zombies
Erupting: 7.28 seconds
Detonating: 7.89 seconds
All fairly similar times, and all show the Erupting Savior beats the Detonating Savior by a bit.
Summary
All of the results were fairly similar, with the Erupting Savior beating out the Detonating Savior by a small amount, or even a tiny amount. But the Erupting won every test.
The biggest difference, and the only one that isn’t slight, is the Accuracy. IMHO the Erupting Savior simply crushed the Detonating Savior in this test. And, in the end, it’s my opinion that the hidden AccuracyPool is the statistic that made the real difference between these two weapons.
Again, let that be a lesson to those of us who didn’t know about it. And remember that even though it’s a hidden stat, its effects can easily be seen by emptying a clip at a wall.