Analysis on the Luck cannon

Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel BL: TPS Loot and Weapons Chat
#1

I love revolvers, not only ingame, but also outside of games, they are my absolute favourite weapons next to Sniper rifles. When there is a revolver wielding gunslinger in a game, I’m eager to play him. The most recent DLC introduced my new favourite weapon - the Luck Cannon

Absurdly high damage, near perfect accuracy and a random money shot effect makes this weapon the new best revolver…at least in my eyes.
I did some testing with it to understand the “randomness” of the Money Shot effect, and came up with some surprising results.

"Better lucky than good"
Random money shot, increases damage by 1080% (roughly).

This gun truely follows Jakobs slogan. Need 1 more shot? You don’t use a Jakobs.
The Luck cannon comes with only 1 bullet in the magazine, which kind of makes it like the incarnation of Russian Roulette. 1 deadly bullet, but hell does it damage.
What I realized about this one is, that the “random” money shot can actually be predicted. But to do this, we need to know some facts first.

The Money shot effect is actually not triggered by you, but rather your enemies. The stronger the enemy, the more often your Money shot procs.
I did some tests against all kinds of enemies. I tested it by hipfire and ADS. 100 shots against these classes of enemies were done, I will list the amount of money shots. First number is the money shot count from the hip,second number ADS.

Little enemies - mobs mostly consist of these ones

Tork Swarmling: 9 - 18
KraggonPebble: 10 - 17
Rathyd: 8 - 12
Scav: 9 - 16

Badasses - the muscles of mob groups

Tork Queen: 25 - 39
Badass Kraggon: 29 - 37
Badass Rathyd: 23 - 35
Badass Scav: 37 - 51

Bosses - the biggest ones of your prey

Bosun: 31 - 57
Deadlift: 39 - 52
Zarpedon: 40 - 50
Sentinel: 33 - 56
Eclipse: 41 - 62
EOS: 42 - 71

Okay, after these tests, I’m pretty sure, that:

  1. the bigger the enemy, the more money you will shoot
  2. the more you ADS, the more money you will shoot.

I’m pretty sure, that I’m not the first one to find that out, so i continued.

After these results, I tried to manipulate the randomness, with success. I soon realized, that you actually have no power over this effect whatsoever. Why that? Simple:

If you aim at an enemy, you actually start a, what I call, "Money Shot window", short MSW. The MSW activates, when you aim at an enemy. When you have him in your crosshairs, the window calculates your money shot possibility based on what kind of enemy you are aiming for. If you aim for a normal Scav, your rate of money shots is fairly low. If you aim for a Badass, it raises up.

What does that mean? If you aim for the biggest enemy first, you gain the highest money shot possibilty. The MSW gives you the boost and so, you can “defy” the odds.

That’s not all. Problem is - your MSW is a bitch to you. If the window is opened once, you cannot close it to reactivate it on a bigger enemy. The MSW actually has a fixed duration. I tested it even further and found out:

MSW on Little enemies

Tork Swarmling: around 11 sec
Kraggon Pebble: 9 - 9,3 sec
Rathyd: 12 - 12,2 sec
Scav: 9,8 - 10,2 sec

MSW on Badasses

Tork Queen: this was completely random, but most times were at around 7 sec
Badass Kraggon: 6,8 sec
Badass Rathyd: 7,1 - 7,7 sec
Badass Scav: 6,6 - 7 sec

MSW on Bosses

Bosun: 2 - 3,4 sec
Deadlift: 1,1 - 1,3 sec
Zarpedon: 4,3 - 4,6 sec
Sentinel: 0,8 - 1,1 sec
Eclipse: 3,2 - 3,4 sec
EOS: 1 - 1,9 sec

Next fact: The bigger the enemy, the smaller your MSW is, which means - if you aim for the biggest enemy first, you get the potentially most damage, but also for the shortest amount of time. Shouldn’t be a problem, if it weren’t for the "MSW cooldown".

What is this cooldown? Well, it took me a while to find this out, but after a MSW closes, the next one cannot be activated immediately. I tried to figure out times for this, but they were absolutely random. The only consistent fact was, that the stronger the enemy was, e.g. the shorter your MSW was, the more cooldown you have. Sadly, I cannot come up with times for this, like I said, the randomness was with me in this one.

The Luck Cannon is more about than just Luck. It is about strategy, picking your targets and selecting, how long you actually need more “luck”.
I used a Jack build with 5/5 in Absolute advantage and a CEO com with +6 in AA for this one. You need either this one or Nisha to make full use of this one, but hell is it worth it. If you know, how to manipulate your luck, you can down bosses in seconds.

Please keep in mind, that these tests were done by myself and only myself. Maybe I just got “lucky” and the MSW times are different for everyone, but I think, the general direction should be pretty clear with it.

Hope this guide brought some light into the darkness that is the “Luck” Cannon. Feedback is appreciated :smile:

-Glacier

8 Likes
OG Eclipse and EOS speed kill with history of improvements!
Luck Cannon Mechanics?
#2

WONDERFUL research and clearly written…Thank You!!

THIS is what I have been missing lately on the forums!!

Wonderful knowledge based guides…

Thanks again!!

3 Likes
#3

And here I am, thinking it was based on distance. Interesting read!
Now, one thing that leaves me to wonder, the money shot, is it added splash damage or just pure extra bullet damage getting applied by your “luck” so to speak?

#4

@johnrr6 thanks for your kind words :blush:
@0takuMetalhead thats a pretty good question, but I think it’s added bullest damage, because sometimes I do way more damage without an explosive effect. But I need some more tests to truely confirm that. Same with the distance - I was pretty convinced in the beginning, that it was based on distance. I need some time for this one too, to confirm that, all tests were done from mostly the same range^^

#5

Thank you for the quick answer. Looking forward to the rest of your tests.
The Luck Cannon is one of the reasons why I’m planning to go back to gunslinger Nisha, instead of a pure shotgun build.

#6

My experience has been consistent with the other thread in which it was stated that the further away you were from the enemy, the more chance to proc. This means you could coincidentally be ADS/greater distance (these two go hand in hand) because you need to keep distance from tougher enemies. I have it proc just as often at great distance (nearly every shot) against small enemies (test it out yourself on stationary turrets) as against things like eos or second form sentinel. My results may be skewed due to playing as nisha however, if showdown effects things. It would be interesting to test out your enemy rank and MSW theories with her versus a vanilla character. (no modifying stats or abilities)

#7

The “money shot” only does abot 430% damage, as explosive. i’m pretty sure it has splash.

The rest of the stuff you have about shot windows and stuff, is completely wrong. its all based on the distance. from close up (next to the wall between the training dummies and you) i got 11/100 money shots. from the back of that room i got 48/100 money shots. i then tried it on aurelia and got roughly the same results, so its not time based.

#8

Nice one. So that’s why Nisha can tear through EOS with the luck cannon for around 2 secs after triggering her Tombstone, but then there’s a damage fall off!

Hey, so what if I trigger the MSW, and switch to another gun after the cooldown kicks in? Would that maybe reset the cooldown?

#9

people are way to hyped over this gun

#10

Thats because of the lag that shooting him in showdown with tombstone causing your rapid spam-clicking to not fire all the bullets. you can rip through EOS with most (decent) guns like that.

#11

Really? Gonna retry with maggies then.

Basically, for Nisha with luck cannons it’s smartest to grab tombstone with another gun from some small fry, then switch to the Luck Cannon to the big(ger) main targets to get the most out of it!
Play those weapon switches smart.

#12

Nope. Use luck cannon for everything between Pup Skag and Voracidous.

#13

I am pretty sure, that the distance to the target is affecting the money shot proc frequency.

How did you calculate those MSW durations ? it is also very confusing that you could manage to get these durations on many enemies but not the cooldown.

#14

I’ve tested Luck Cannon without BAR,gear and skills and yellow number was exactly 4 times higher than white one.How are you getting 1080%?

#15

could be on cryo, where explosive damage is tripled.

#16

Youve put a lot of work in this one, dont get me wrong but if you look at this thread

you will see that proc chance is based on distance rather than enemy type.

1 Like
#17

Damn, this post is hella confusing. I really doubt it that the Money Shot chance is based on the enemy type, that sounds so odd but it might as well be true, since in my post I just relied on only 1 enemy. The only thing that did peak my interest, is aiming down the sight, I’ll try that in a bit, see if it actually affects it or not.

#18

Right, so I tested this again. I confirmed that the numbers we can see on the console are correct, I shot the target dummy 384 times, 52 shots were Money Shots, that’s 0.1354 while the console stated number around 0.1340. Also, I compared different distances to their chances and it turns out it’s linear, it’s literally the further you are, the more chance at a Money Shot you get (distance value x 1.429 / 10000 = Money Shot chance).

Also, I tested the damage and it’s a consistent 400% explosive bonus. The Money Shot is calculated on a body shot, excluding enemy resistance. The body shot can be including any skills you have active. If you hit a crit and you proc the Money Shot, you will still only get a 400% bonus calculated on the body shot.

ALSO! I tested it against badasses and normal enemies, there is no difference. I went to Triton Flats, where the Darksiders are, the three named enemies are classified as badasses. When looking at the numbers in the console, I can definitely confirm the distance is the only factor relating to the Money Shot chance.

ALSO! I haven’t tested ADS yet. I dunno.

3 Likes
#19

Would an increase to explosive elemental damage add to the already ridiculous amount of 400%?

Say I equip Wilhelm with a howitzer mod that gives a 54% increase in explosive elemental damage.

#20

As far as I know,yes.