I tested bullet multiplication so you don't have to!

Borderlands 3 Moze the Gunner
#1

What I Tested:

For Moze, it appears that bullet multiplication mechanic only applies to the four Call guns (Rowan’s, Lucian’s, King’s and Queen’s), the Recursion, and the Carrier. It does not apply to any other Jakob’s gun (legendary or non-legendary) or gun that shoots bullets that pass through a target and/or reflect of walls (the Ghaash, Juliet’s Dazzle, etc). I have not tested the Redistributor or Brainstormer yet, though I suspect their mechanics work differently as well.

What is Bullet Multiplication and why do it?

Simply put, using elemental damage bonuses to cause extra bullets to spawn whenever you hit an enemy. These extra bullets will reflect around the environment and do bonus damage to your target (in the case of the King’s and Queen’s Call), other enemies (Rowan’s and Lucian’s Call), or both (Recursion and Carrier). This is essentially free DPS and who doesn’t like free stuff, right?

Well, how you do you it?

By adding bonus elemental damage to your bullets. For Moze, elemental damage can come from Moze’s skills (Experimental Munitions and Cloud of Lead), the Green Monster class mod, and weapon, grenade and shield anointments. The incendiary damage from Stoke the Embers and elemental damage rolls that you can get on artifacts are only additive to the element damage you are already doing, so they do not spawn extra bullets.

This comes with the caveat that some elemental damage bonuses can stack on top of each other if they are of the same type and each time they do, it will spawn one fewer bullet.

So what stacks?

  1. The Green Monster stacks with nothing.

  2. Moze’s incendiary damage skills stack with incendiary damage anoints on weapons.

  3. Elemental damage anoints on shields and grenades stack.

So the theoretical max number of extra spawns you can have going on your character at one time is five – one from the Green Monster, one from your skills, one from your weapon anoint, one from your shield, and one from your grenade. The gun’s actual elemental damage type does not effect stacking.

One final note:

We’re not done yet! The last factor in all of this is your weapon. The Carrier will only spawn one extra bullet per instance of bonus elemental damage, but as it says on their item cards, the Rowan’s and Lucian’s Call will spawn 2 extra bullets per instance and the King’s and Queen’s Call will spawn three.

As for the Recursion, I’m still trying figure that out. Suffice to say, it causes the projectiles to go crazy and do a lot of damage

Here is an example of a Rowan’s Call with all 5 spawning opportunities, creating 10 ricochets in total.

Imgur

12 Likes
Moze and the Carrier. What’s best practice?
#2

Though it may not be as useful, the wagon wheel spawns 8 ricochet projectiles on crit

#3

Correct, though it is not effected by elemental damage stacking :frowning:

#4

I’m working on leveling a Moze now, so this will be very useful, thank you.

I just want to make sure I understand the stacking correctly. I’ll label my points, so you can correct or clarify, if so inclined.

  1. Artifact bonuses don’t do anything for extra bullets, and ONLY increase existing (if any) elemental damage of the same type. (no free lunch)
  2. Moze’s incendiary skills, while not creating more bullets, is added to the existing damage, even if you’re not using incendiary. It stacks the damage to weapons, if incendiary. Does this mean you’ll lose a bullet if you use incendiary weapon?
  3. Weapons don’t stack, so they create additional bullets, even if they match an elemental bonus from a shield or grenade.
  4. Shields and Grenades can each create bullets, but they can’t have the same elemental bonus.
  5. Green Monster COM adds its own unique bonus, so it’s not affecting or affected by anything else.
  6. Skills that add elemental damage also create bullets, but stack if they each trigger, so you only get one, regardless?

So I could use the following to get 5 extra bullets?

  • Grenade +50% Incendiary
  • Shield +50% Corrosive
  • Gun +50% Corrosive
  • Green Monster COM (Corrosive)
  • Moze Skills Exp. Munitions/Cloud of Lead (Incendiary)

Or is it best to have as many different elements as possible?

#5

Correct.

With that setup, every time you trigger Experimental Munitions or Cloud of Lead, you will spawn 5 bullets. It will only be four otherwise (gun, shield, and grenade anoints and the Green Monster).

#6

I want to point out that with the Recursion in particular (I haven’t tested any of the other weapons mentioned) it’s very hard to get anything out of Green Monster in my experience. The charge time doesn’t count for it (unlike ION Cannon) and it has a low mag so even with a fully invested build it’s hard to fire it constantly to get any significant bonus from Green Monster on it.

#7

Oh, weird fact about GreenM is this:

You press the trigger and it starts counting (or in Recursion case is starts counting when projectile happens.) and then continues until a “first trigger pull” happens.

Contextual example: if you fire a single shot while wearing Ember’s Blaze shield. The shield will build up Corrosive damage until the next time you fire a shot.

So. If you’re trying to just do a Moxxi’s Pair with Corrosive Damage, firing a single shot then just doing grenades and Bear rides will keep it at 100 forever.

Not that this is a good idea. Just that it works that way.

1 Like
#8

True. The GM doesn’t contribute much to the damage, but the damage from the extra ricochets is pretty substantial.

#9

But does it outdo a full Blast Master bonus?

#10

Wb the headsplosion?

#11

If Moze starts soloing Wotan with the recursion they’ll nerf it real quick.

I brainstormerer too much and see testing it equal to chewing bricks, good luck. It seems like the tesla chains also create an extra projectile, when I have cryo on ase it will freeze the enemies around me as if I had 200+ efficiency sometimes, though that is as Fl4k and I’m starting to wonder about two fang and that extra cryo projectile when I use shotguns… stranger things in this game for me to worry about.

#12

I tested that one specifically to see if FITSD causes bonus ricochets, but the bullet multiplication mechanic does not apply to it.

#13

There is definitely some interaction with the Brainstormer as well, but I’m not sure if it involves creating extra chains rather than just spreading the bonus elemental damage across the chains.

1 Like
#14

Gotcha, thanks for all the testing

#15

Already did it theres a video in my recursion moze topic. The problem right now is with solo scaling there isn’t really enough adds for real impressive things to happen. Once that goes away it’s going to be ezpz.

1 Like
#16

Yeah less adds kinda sucks for everyone except Zane I guess.

#17

I’m a bit confused, say I have a radiation Recursion with the Gamma Burst Anointment will that create more projectiles or just stack the radiation damage.

#18

Probably not, but that being said, i think for recursion cheesing it’s enough regardless. blast master isn’t needed while it would obviously provide more damage.

here’s my latest recrusion run using green monster. as i already told you a couple of days ago before, even with just 7 skill points the mobbing sections is essentially the same.

oh, and if you wonder why my blue tree looks weird, it’s because this is my all-in-one build i use. it’s so i can switch between mind sweeper, blast master, raging bear, green monster(probably rockeeter and bear trooper too) and still feel like i have a proper build for each of them. i prefer versatility over raw damage :slight_smile:

if i had 1 point in selfless vengeance in this run, it would be even better. i believe both SF and FitsD spawns extra projectiles even when they’re active at the same time even though they’re both adding fire damage.

2 Likes
#19

So has anyone found out how many extra pucks actually spawn from the recursion while dealing all 5 elements? Most ive counted is 15 i think.

#20

It is somewhat dependent on enemy proximity. If you hit a single enemy that is outside the weapon’s area of effect, the normal bullet multiplication rules apply (max of six using a x2 variant).