I think at this point we’re far enough into gameplay and understanding builds that topics like this are becoming more relevant. i’d like to hear other peoples opinions on which elements they think work best for which builds. i haven’t seen any discussion about what elements to use over others, so i figured it would be helpful, especially for players just coming to moze that are unsure about what damamge types to look for.
my main experience with Moze has been with splash and so i’m thinking about this from a specifically splash perspective. I’d like to hear if people think this changes based on the type of setup (i think it does, kind of).
from top to bottom;
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Radiation;
I was turned on to Rad recently because of the lack of types that resist against Rad damage. while it’s only type effective against shields, it’s similar to cryo in that it only has one real weakness, and even then it slogs through armor just fine most of the time, so long as the target isn’t a boss. being neutral against flesh and 150% against shields allows it to just rip through mobs. incendiary has become increasingly unreliable against flesh based enemies, especially with the badass pyro heavy’s being immune, and the firebrand psychos resisting incendiary, switching off of incen when it’s a flesh based enemy has become common, and other than cryo, rad is the only other type that feels useful. additionally, the aura and explosion damage are not to be ignored. you get a lower base damage from rad weapons (Maliwan dual-type weapons get around this BTW), but the mobbing AoE more than makes up for it. Radiation takes my top spot purely because i find it’s utility out-performs Incendiary on average for mobbing. -
Incendiary
I just gave Incen a bunch of flak, but at the end of the day, Incen still feels amazing on Moze. the boosts to overall incendiary damage can make it feel like incen isn’t suffering a damage penalty at all depending on the targets shield or armour values, and a lot of the time it’s not worth the time to switch weapons or modes to rip through a target’s small shield/armour pool. Moze feels at home with a fire weapon. up until you run into a badass pyro heavy. -
Cryo
Cryo is #3 for the same reason that Rad is #1. however, the damage penalty for rad against armour always feels less than the penalty for cryo against shields. my assumption there is that shields have higher number pools than armour. and while the freeze chance is nice for crowd control, most things are dying fast enough for it to not matter, and the things that don’t die that fast can’t be frozen, so radiation’s utility eeks out over cryo and i find i use it far more. -
Corrosive
I like Corrosive, and i wish it didn’t feel so bad against non armour based enemies. the 175% damage against armor in TVHM just shreds through yellow bars. the problem i, i get almost the same thing from cryo, without the 40% damage penalty against flesh. because moze doesn’t have boosts to corrosive, unlike incendiary where i can opt not to switch elements most of the time, corrosive is a strictly armor only damage type. felsh melters were fine in m3 when health pools were small enough, but the 40% against shields and 60% against flesh just because too much of a loss in M4 to maintain flesh melter stacks. corrosive heavy weapons and cutsmans are great for killing Wotan, Valks and jackpot, and thats about it. -
Shock
Yes it gets 250% against shields. yes it only gets a 35% penalty against the other types. but those two other types seem to be much harder to get through than shields. Rad rips through shields anyway, and the aura+explosions tend to take down enemy shields anyway.
so with that comes an important secondary topic in the splash camp: Maliwan pairings.
while we can’t guarantee our maliwan pairings, the guns we’re looking for don’t have a ton of variation on them where it matters. the x3 kyb’s worths are such a pitiful damage increase (you’re taking at least a 34% card damage hit and are forced into a grip that is less than ideal), that they’re not even worth using outside of a bloodletter splash build predicated on reloading much more often. i tried to make a 44 mag x3 kyb’s work with blast master, but it forces you to forgo damage skill points in favor of mag size, so i ended up going back to a 34 mag x2 kybs. the westergun and binary nebulae aren’t any different, as they’re just stepdowns of the same thing. Kyb’s/wester pairings are all about utility. which pairings are going to have you switching weapons the least.
Kyb’s:
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Rad+cryo
This pairing is awesome on these SMGs. i had fire/corr before, and the rad/cryo is so much better. i almost never switch weapons while mobbing. with both of these on a single gun, you never run into type resistance. -
Fire+Corr
this is the power combo. while the other combo is more consistent, this is for putting out damage where necessary.
Honourable Mention. Shock+fire/corr/cryo
shock just get’s supplanted so heavily in utility by radiation, but we can’t always choose what we get, so these pairings can work until we find something new.
Keep farming. shock + Rad, cryo+corr
These pairings are redundant. Radiation is strong enough on it’s own that the shock+rad pairing is passable, but the biggest benefit of this subset of weapons is that you get 2 damage types in a single slot. otherwise you can probably do better.
Projectile Recursion:
This weapon’s a little different. we want power out of our pairings. the ideal pairing is shock + the strongest element against the health type you’re using it against. the idea is strip shields in one shot, and then use the other element against the proper health pool. this weapon isn’t as strong on Moze as it is on Amara, but Prismatic Me turned me onto this thing as a get out of bad ■■■■ fast weapon, and i haven’t been let down.
that’s all i can think of for now. thoughts?