Iron Bear's Damage Formula

For those just here for the formula:
(Base Damage * TYPE A ( + Scorching RPMs + Stainless Steel Bear + Desperate Measures + Action Skill Damage ) * TYPE B ( + Drowning in Brass + Phalanx Doctrine) * Specialist Bear * (Splash Damage Bonuses when applicable) * Critical Hit (2 * 1+( Scorching RPM’s) * Elemental Multipliers (+Stoke the Embers if fire) + (Bonus fire damage (Fire in the Skag Den, Cloud of Lead, Experimental Munitions).

TYPE B only works with the left hand.

The rest of the op is testing/proof.


Video test that I will be referencing for this section:

Testing was done on TVHM no mayhem, using the basic V-35, on a technical. So damage is being lowered by 20% based on elemental multipliers.

  • The initial damage shown @:12s is 1274 (The actual damage for V-35 is ~1592, so rounding is being done.)

  • @:23 seconds I put on a relic that boosts AOE damage by 33%. This is the same as splash damage. Shooting the car gives 1694 damage (1274 * 1.33 = 1694)

  • @:33 seconds I put on a blast master com fully charged + it has 28% more splash damage. The number now is 3324 (1274 * (1+1+.33+.28)=3325 …but the game is rounding)

TLDR; IB benefits from splash damage boosts. Obviously only if the weapon does splash damage

For the record, Iron Bear’s weapons that do splash damage are:

  • Exploding Bullets

  • Molten Roar

  • Every Grenade Launcher/ Rocket Pod

  • Corrosive Sabot Round

  • The “Random” bonus elemental damage on Wild Swing

The rest of the vid is me shooting the car at different timings. The grenade launcher normally shoots at ~1 shot a second, so it maintains a low number of combo stacks (namely 1) , but it still illustrates that that IB benefits from C-c-combo (3390 is 2% more than 3324)… which is weird but we take those.


Now onto the next video:

Specialist Bear increases IB’s damage by 25% if you use two of the same weapon; only the diamonds count so feel free to mix chevrons.

1274 * (1+.25) =1592

Putting back on the relic we get a number of 2118, which is spicy. This is 1274 * (1+.25) * (1+.33)=2118. Specialist Bear and Scorching RPMs are additive, and splash damage boosts are multiplicative.

While on the subject, the Shaped Charge Augment gives a 35% boost on an direct impact. Not only is this boost multiplicative ( Shooting a car with this and specialist bear gives 2149 ( 1274 * 1.25 * 1.35 ) ) but it applies after splash damage boosts (the same example but with the relic is 2859 (1274 * 1.25 * 1.33 * 1.35)


Finally Critical hit damage. Gearbox, add a testing dummy :rage:


This test was done with the minigun. Base Damage is shown at 414.
Base Critical Hit Damage is shown as 827, a little less than 2 * 414. Which shows IB doesn’t get boosted by GR crit damage.
Despite that, IB does gain Scorching RPM’s crit boost; As soon as I slot it in it goes to 993 damage. (414 * (2 * (1+.20)) = 993.6… again rounding.

12/13/19 - Recent patches changed some aspects of IB’s damage. Gearbox made Desperate measures, and later Drowning in Brass and Phalanx Doctrine work with IB, and they are on a separate part of the formula, but they only work for the left gun :confused: .
On top of this they also made Specialist Bear apply on a separate part of the formula as well.

The damage on flesh for the railgun is 7401
SSB is a 20% additive boost (7401 * 1.2 = 8881)
Then Desperate Measures is added multiplicitavely (7401 * 1.2 * 1.5 = 13321.8)
Then with one stack of DiB you get 15k (7401 * 1.2 * (1+.2+.5))
Finally, Phalanx Doctrine + SSB (7401 * 1.2 * 1.1 = 9769)

Now for a similar test for Specialist Bear:

First Scorching RPMs (7401 * 1.25 = 9251)

Then with specialist bear and desperate measures for the left gun:

7401 * 1.25 * 1.25 = 11564 ( * 1.5 = 17346)


12/19/2019

Desperate measures now works with both hands… but is now a TYPE A boost.

Using the same test as above:
base damage 7401
7401 * (1+.5+.25) * 1.25 = 16k, as apposed to the 17k we got before.

Because of this I’m separating the base damage boosts into two categories: TYPE A (Desperate Measures, Stainless Steel Bear and Scorching RPM) sand TYPE B (Phalanx Doctrine and Drowning in Brass), since they all work the same and are additive within a group (at least until gearbox gets fucky again :man_shrugging: )

With that in mind, IB damage looks like (Base Damage * TYPE A ( + Scorching RPMs + Stainless Steel Bear + Desperate Measures ) * TYPE B ( + Drowning in Brass + Phalanx Doctrine) * Specialist Bear * (Splash Damage Bonuses when applicable) * Critical Hit (2 * 1+( Scorching RPM’s) * Elemental Multipliers (+Stoke the Embers if fire) + (Bonus fire damage (Fire in the Skag Den, Cloud of Lead, Experimental Munitions).

12 Likes

This is ****ing amazing…wow !!!

I KNEW skills like fire in the skag den affect IB even though the skill only says Moze!!!

THAT Is why my IB rocket pods seem to do way more damage than other weapons despite seeing people on here saying otherwise, its because I’m specced heavily into demo woman tree with splash skills.

What other moze skills apply to IB despite saying only Moze in the description??

I wish the 25% damage skill wasn’t so damn far down the BM tree…

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Redistribution does (even though experimental munitions doesnt when it has the same trigger :roll_eyes:)
Means of destruction and Explosive Punctuation works also.

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Did you test whether gun crit boosts carry over?

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Critical Hit boosts do not carry over from guns or class mods. :slightly_frowning_face:

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I’m not surprised guns don’t carry over as that would have some broken combo’s. Class mods however are really disappointing.

At least the marksman com boosts Scorching RPM’s.

So… weapon damage boosts don’t affect damage at all? Or am I misunderstanding?

I know it’s an action skill so it’s technically not a gun, but allowing Moze’s weapon damage to buff IB while piloting would probably fix most of the big issues right there…

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Yep.
In fact, if you used the blaster com with the vanquisher pods, IB actually does really good damage :hushed:.

Also, that doesn’t really excuse elemental damage buffs outside of Stoke not working with IB; using winter’s stone and boosting cryo damage/ status affect damage works for Zane’s drone.

The red suit helps a lot as well, gives you that radiation aura everyone is always pining for in rework threads, even while in IB. I keep hoping for a red suit with max health and the 75% health/shield anoint, but thus far I’ve had no luck.

That and a multivitamin with an anointment… I hear they’re out there, I just haven’t had any luck yet…

:rofl: Don’t be too desperate now…


Desperate Measures only works on the left hand gun (PS4 btw).

Formula is updated with the new patch changes.

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Eish you’re quick!

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I should mention that Stainless Steel Bear says it increases damage, but it doesn’t, at least on PS4. Keep in mind that the notes didn’t mention SSB at all, so it’s probably just a typo.

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can you do crit damage to the dummy?

Yarp

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wish they allowed you to give a copy of your shield to IB in some fashion

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I’m not sure where to put it, so I’ll just include the info here:

Specialist bear only looks at the main action skill not the anointment. Meaning I can use the Active tracking and target softening or Hammerdown Protocal and gain the increase in damage from Specialist bear.

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Hey man , just one question I think you might be able to clear up:

When I go to target dummy, and select for example two Cryo miniguns on IB, the left arm does 2151 damage per bullet.

The right arm does 1613.

This is exactly 25% less.

I have two points in Desperate Measures , which is 33% more damage ( I have 1 hp)

So to me, this seems to imply that its NOT desperate Measures that is not being added to right arm, it either has to be scorching rpms or specialist bear , both which add that same exact 25% I’m missing

So what am I doing wrong ? If you equip the same two weapons on Ib and hit target dummy, do you also get exactly 25% more on left arm than right?

I’m on M3 TVHM if that helps

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It’s desperate measures. I’ve messed around with the target dummy and I mainly only use Bottomless Mag & Demolition woman. I’ve never had an issue with damage between the arms unless using desperate measures.

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It took me well over 500 runs of turning that quest in and save scumming to get that specific anointment. Not only does it seem like one of the rarest anoinments in the game. Quest rewards have an extremely low chance of being anointed.

With the cooldowns currently being broken it’s impossible to even trigger the anointment and get back in Iron Bear which sucks.