1 Trillion Damage - Why solving the issue isn't simple

[Prismatic (Dancing with Jak 'o' the Shadows)]

Mayhem scaling skills have had a limelight on them for awhile. This focus has been magnified by the upcoming raid boss and the existence of mods to crank up enemy health allowing characters to truly stretch their damage dealing potential.

So for those out of the loop what is the short of it?

• The highest single health enemy in the game is Spongeboss with approximately 1.3 Billion HP. The toughest 1 shot test in the game is Psychoreaver phase 2 with 1.2 billion hp and the player having no access to the 300/90 anoint.
• Moze using an Ion Cannon has been able to 1 shot a Graveward modded to have 6 Trillion health.
• Zane using the complex root has 1 shot a similarly modded Graveward with over a quadrillion health.
• So Moze through Short Fuse and Skag Den is capable of dealing over 1846 times more damage than the largest singular health bar in the game.
• Zane can do 769230 times the health of Spongeboss, this has 2 caveats though. 1 it requires an Eraser compatible hitbox. 2 this is theoretically uncapped but we’re using numbers that people have achieved instead of pure theory.

Okay so now we’re caught up on what has been done. Lets talk about the future raid boss. The reality is without either massive balance changes or immune phases we will 1 shot the boss day 1. The theory crafting community knows this and I’m sure Gearbox does too. Fixing the power creep of damage however isn’t a simple nerf and I’ll go over the short comings of suggested fixes and why they’re either meaningless or excessively harsh when trying to stop 1 shots but keep the skills balanced for general play.

Short Fuse

To avoid distracting from the conversation here, math for all numbers listed can be found in the Short Fuse Math Appendix at the end of this post.

Remove Mayhem Scaling from Short Fuse, Skag Den and Big Surplus

Many see mayhem scaling as the issue causing Moze to be able to 1 shot bosses. Min maxed gear and full overkill with no use of debuff gear on Moze currently achieves a theoretical damage multiplier of 6 861 665x the Ion Cannon’s card damage. If we remove mayhem scaling from this equation the number becomes 506 861x the Ion Cannon’s card damage. We’ve lost a factor of about 14x from our damage. Last I checked however an Ion Cannon’s base damage is 161 664.

Dial a calculator quick:
161 664 x 506 861 = 81 941 176 700 (81.9 Billion)

That is still over 42 Spongebosses combined. So removing mayhem scaling doesn’t solve the issue, our upcoming raid boss likely still gets 1 tapped. So lets now apply the second “fix” I see mentioned a lot

What if Short Fuse didn’t double dip and nothing mayhem scaled?

Bluntly put at this point Short Fuse is dealing less damage than the shot that proc’d it. So surely now we can’t 1 shot the boss right?

Our potential damage is still 29.6 billion.

So in all likelihood, we’re still 1 tapping the raid boss, or worst case we have to go and start using debuff gear. Lets not forget that is still enough damage to 1 shot 22 combined Spongebosses.

Not enough? Lets make Short Fuse deal exactly 1 damage.

Our potential damage is still 26.9 billion.

Short Fuse alone isn’t our problem. There’s a full damage formula and set of gear interactions alongside Short Fuse that makes 1 shots crazy. These examples hopefully drive home the point, that attacking Short Fuse and Mayhem scaling without touching other aspects won’t stop Moze 1 shots, it’ll merely make the skills worse. Moze will continue to 1 shot things.

In these theoretical examples I’ve been laying out our damage before Skag Den and Short Fuse apply is still 3.6 Billion. Thats still enough for any non immune phase boss in the game currently.
Short Fuse is the pinnacle of Moze’s damage and it being adjusted down in the name of balance is justified. However the balancing needs to focus on Short Fuse’s impact on sustained damage.

Short Fuse is a capstone and deserves to be both interesting and powerful. Removing double dipping or applying a damage cap to Short Fuse are the types of changes that would make the skill fundamentally less interesting while not practically changing the 1 shots that got Short Fuse its recent attention. The math above shows Moze can 1 shot regardless of what happens to Short Fuse, so changing Short Fuse to try fix the problem doomed to failure.

Can Short Fuse be nerfed without removing its complexity?

Yes, the removal of mayhem scaling from the skill would do this. Short Fuse already scales off damage dealt and hence is benefitting from your guns scaling with mayhem and the presence of better anoints being more readily available to you. Short Fuse would require meaningful consideration on whether or not it was worth using if it had no mayhem scaling. There would become grey areas for really high pellet count or non splash guns on whether or not SF was a damage increase vs going deeper in other trees.

Removing Mayhem scaling would not remove the ability to use lesser weapons for bossing

Kills such as this would remain possible, but would require more investment.

The issue such a change creates is to shift the power balance towards Moze pets which encourages an AFK playstyle GBX has stated they don’t want. Player agency in gameplay is a good thing, pets being noticeably stronger removes motivation to do so. While in my ideal world mayhem scaling would be taken off Moze’s skills, Bear and Cub double dipping would be fixed and the latter halves of Moze’s non blue tree would see buffs and more damage formula variety. This meet in the middle solution for Bear and moze power is unfortunately unlikely to happen.

Eraser

Eraser’s a often forgotten aspect of how absurdly powerful Zane’s purple tree is. The potential of the skill is absurd, not only does it double dip more damage multipliers than Short Fuse or Ties that Bind, its also capable of coming in any element and has no form of cooldown. In practice this is usually balanced out by the difficulty of aligning enemies, hence it becomes a power spike occasionally and is good reward for playing well. That I think many would agree with me when I call fair. Its not an instant win button but it does allow great power when used properly.

The issues however arise when you combine such a skill with weird hitboxes such as Graveward or Psychoreaver phase 2. Then add a gun that doesn’t fire straight into the mix. Guns such as Recursion, Conference Call and Complex Root. These aspects remove the balancers that Eraser has and allows it to spawn infinitely provided your hardware can keep up.

Spawning infinitely is key here, as long as Eraser can spawn infinitely changing the numbers on it won’t functionally change the skill being able to surpass a trillion damage, what it would affect however is how the skill performs in general play.

Even in a situation where the skill is changed to give a damage penalty Zane could likely surpass it easily. Consider that if Eraser damage was cut by a factor of 10 from its current 220% of the original pellet(at 3/3) to 22% it would take just splash anoint, On Grenade Throw and Our Man Flynt being active for the new bullet to deal equal damage, if we then consider elemental bonuses then the Eraser Projectiles will still continue to gain damage that helps it exceed the original projectile.

For the purposes of boss 1 shots with Root or Recursion nothing would change. Eraser would continue to exponentially spiral out of control allowing any compatible hitbox to be 1 shot.

Nerfing Erasers damage isn’t going to stop it from doing trillions of damage, nerfing erasers % would however cut back on the reward the skill gives for lining up your shots in a skillful manner.

To stop Eraser without butchering its use in organic play you have to target the retrigger system. There’s a couple ways to do this. Making each bullet only able to trigger Eraser once is the most intuitive change however this is possibly difficult to do from an implementation stand point. Adding an internal cooldown to Eraser triggers is the simplest implementation and has precedent from previous nerfs, however such a change disproportionately disadvantages multi pellet weapons and creates ant synergy with Playing Dirty and Zane’s high pellet count synergy.

Short Fuse Math Appendix

Gear and Spec used

Fire Ion Cannon

• 300/90 anoint x1 Max Damage Roll

3 Fire Guns
0.m with Fire Resistance

• ASS Break Fill Anoint

Any fire grenade

• 25% OGT Anoint

Flare (No points in Stainless Steel Bear)

• Weapon Damage
• Splash
• Weapon Crit

Victory Rush Artifact

• Area of Effect Damage
• Double fire elemental damage rolls.

12% assumed for all Guardian rank values.
Skill Tree Spec used

The damage calculations

Ion Cannon shot

Gun Damage x v1 x v2 x element x splash x crit x GR Rank x Ion Charge x Overkill x Omnom Amp x Omnom Circle
2,57 x 2.2 x 4,25 x ( 1,9 x 1,75 ) x 2,14 x ( 2 x 1,56 ) x 1,12 x 2,25 x 5 x 2,25 x 1,5 = 22 686

Skag Den triggered by Ion Cannon shot

FitSD % x Mayhem Scaling x Gun x v1 x v2 x IB Damage x element x GR Rank x Ion Charge x Overkill x Omnom Amp x Omnom Circle x Omnom Circle
0.15 x 31 x 2,57 x 2.2 x 4,25 x 1,2 x ( 1,9 x 1.75 ) x 1,12 x 2,25 x 5 x 2,25 x 1,5 x 1,5 = 28 438

Short Fuse Proc

Ion Cannon shot x SF % x Mayhem Scaling v1 x v2 x Splash x Element
22 686 x 0,75 x 7 x 2.2 x 4,25 x 2,14 x 1 = 2 383 053

Skag Den triggered by Short Fuse Proc

Ion Cannon shot x SF % x FitSD % x Mayhem Scaling x 0.75 x v1 x v2 x IB Damage x element x Omnom Circle
22 686 x 0,75 x 0.15 x 31 x 2.2 x 4,25 x 1,2 x ( 1,9 x 1.75 ) x 1,5 = 4 427 488

Skag Den without Mayhem Scaling triggered by Ion Cannon shot

FitSD % x Gun x v1 x v2 x IB Damage x element x GR Rank x Ion Charge x Overkill x Omnom Amp x Omnom Circle x Omnom Circle
0.15 x 2,57 x 2.2 x 4,25 x 1,2 x ( 1,9 x 1.75 ) x 1,12 x 2,25 x 5 x 2,25 x 1,5 x 1,5 = 917

Short Fuse Proc without Mayhem Scaling

Ion Cannon shot x SF % v1 x v2 x Splash x Element
22 686 x 0,75 x 2.2 x 4,25 x 2,14 x 1 = 340 436

Short Fuse Proc without Mayhem Scaling or double dipping

Ion Cannon shot x SF %
22 686 x 0,75 = 17 014

Skag Den without Mayhem Scaling triggered by Short Fuse Proc

Ion Cannon shot x SF % x FitSD % x 0.75 x v1 x v2 x IB Damage x element x Omnom Circle
22 686 x 0,75 x 0.15 x 2.2 x 4,25 x 1,2 x ( 1,9 x 1.75 ) x 1,5 = 142 822

Damage totals:

1 shot damage = Ion Cannon Shot + Skag Den triggered by Ion Cannon shot + Short Fuse Proc + Skag Den triggered by Short Fuse Proc

1 shot damage at Current = 22 686 + 28 438 + 2 383 053 + 4 427 488 = 6 861 665

1 shot damage with no Mayhem Scaling Applied = 22 686 + 917 + 340 436 + 142 822 = 506 861

1 shot damage with no Mayhem Scaling Applied and Short Fuse doesn’t double dip = 22 686 + 917 + 17 014 + 142 822 = 183 440

Ion Cannon shot damage with no Mayhem Scaling Applied and Short Fuse does 1 damage = ( 22 686 + 917 + 142 822 ) x 161 664 + 1 = 26 905 092 860

[ritsucaps]

Absolutely amazing analysis as always. Thank you very much for your passion and effort.

[narfkeks (May this forum rest in peace - Davin Dittrich)]

Great summary of why there is barely any way to fix the game. Eraser could theoretically be fixed by giving it a maximum of additional pellets per second. Let’s say it could only proc 10 times per second that would make very little difference to regular play, but would prevent it from proccing millions of times against one enemy. Also, Eraser is that type of skill that gets less and less problematic the better the general modelling of enemies is. If there are no enemies to get massive chains of Eraser off due to weird hitboxes, then Eraser won’t be a problem.

Moze is basically unfixable, but game design can make her one shots unreliable by taking away the initial instances of Short Fused. Simple mobs or switches to shoot would already do that. Everything else has to be solved by the removal of double-dipping (which for sure is not intentional) and by giving bosses, especially raid bosses, short immunity phases. You could also design bosses in a way that mitigates Iron Bears power by granting that boss resistance to action skill damage, but I think that removal of double-dipping on IB’s part would already mostly solve that issue without hurting other Vault Hunters in the process.

[jmthsauer ("Barriers are for the weak. Or the tryhards"-Zane)]

That’s quite fair. I’ve recently watched a stream where quag was talking about Eraser and he was advocating for the percentage to be nerfed, and it didn’t sit right with me for exactly the reason you pointed out: It wouldn’t de facto lower its one-shot potential, however it would make it so that it would become less useful for anything other than specific one-shot kills which isn’t the right way to go about this.

I’m pretty certain that the new raid boss is going to have immunity phases, simply because pretty much not a single boss that gbx has released recently didn’t have any (with the exception of Harker who you can’t one-shot unless you get absurdly lucky drops anyways, if it even is possible) and the raid boss being a raid boss they’ll definitely won’t want to make him easy. I mean, look at Wotan and Scourge (and Anathema… Goodness, I’m all for preventing one-shots, but 12 immunity phases in a single fight is overkill).

For Eraser I wonder if there’s something like a intervall-based re-trigger delay, like say you can trigger it up to 5 times in one go but then have half a second worth of delay.

[narfkeks (May this forum rest in peace - Davin Dittrich)]

I like the idea. If the chance to trigger Eraser would drop slightly each time it triggers, it would still be useful, but at a certain point it would stop. If for example the chance got reduced by 10% each time that wouldn’t do too much for mobbing and the skill would still feel great there, but against bosses, where it needs hundreds of triggers the chance to one shot a boss would be almost non-existent.

The problem is that the skill would need a way to track the original source of it’s triggers or else it would not be able to calculate when and where to lower the chance to retrigger and when to use the base trigger chance. And I don’t know if Gearbox is willing to implement something that complex into the skill.

[NotQuag]

Yeah, that’s a take I’ve had to reexamine. A negative percentage on Eraser wouldn’t address the target, and would hurt intended (or what we believe to be intended) usage of the skill.

A cooldown, even a short one, seems like the play. I’d hate the impact on “normal” Zane builds but it’s the only easy way to target the upper ceiling without completely gutting the skill.

[tysonyar (Like a dumpster wrapped in sadness)]

Thanks @Prismatic, great post and information as usual. Regarding the above sentence though, obviously the first part is correct, but I am unclear whether GBX really does know these things. Sometimes I feel certain that they don’t get it, sometimes I feel certain that they do understand these issues.

[sammantixbb (I guess no one goes here anymore)]

I’d venture a guess at “someone at gear box knows, but the people who could do something meaningful barely care”

[tysonyar (Like a dumpster wrapped in sadness)]

@NotQuag I don’t think it would be a huge “use” issue for Zane’s mobbing to put a cooldown timer on Eraser. The opportunities to use Eraser in normal mobbing are not that great (just like Bore), you can only line it up every once in a while anyway. The CD timer would just keep you from spamming shots into the boss when you can get it lined up. Having only one Eraser shot every so often seems reasonable.

[sammantixbb (I guess no one goes here anymore)]

Nah. That would completely ruin the ability to use the skill in any meaningful capacity with Fast Firing Weapons and MultiPellet Weapons.

Someone above mentioned a decay in proc percentage, but got way-laid by the idea that it would have to keep track of which hit was base. Technically, I don’t think it would. If this works like previous known entities in the BL series, the bullet doesn’t actually penetrate (not a good enough reason to use the word penetrate) but rather creates a new copy of the bullet behind the enemy following the same trajectory.

What they would have to do is code each CopyBullet to have a certain percentage chance to penetrate. And each copy should, theoretically, dwindle that percentage down in a Copy Of A Copy style degradation of percentage.

Wouldn’t fix the Root (ha) problem though.

That one’s Complex! (I’ll see myself out, hi @NotQuag )

[NotQuag]

Cursed as always

[vCarpeDiemv]

Oof, my poor XB1S just shuddered trying to render that in real time.

Eraser seems to be very situational in terms of abuse, or at least on the extreme end. I don’t see Eraser as being that problematic when compared to Commitment, Skag Den or Short Fuse.

[sammantixbb (I guess no one goes here anymore)]

To paraphrase Derch: Eraser isn’t broken, overlapping Hitboxes are broken.

[vCarpeDiemv]

How many games is this going to be proven true in?

[sammantixbb (I guess no one goes here anymore)]

Every game with penetration.

Does this count GTA Hot Coffee?

[CharmlessBee (...I'm not a real doctor)]

So, how many players this ‘issue’ is going to affect?

I keep reading that Moze/Zane are super powerful and can one shot for billions of damage, but… I’ve yet to experience THAT.

So, in theory it is possible and there are documented proofs to back it up. But, besides 0.01% of player base who can pull it off - who cares?

[vCarpeDiemv]

This is also an argument with a lot of merit.

How big is the playerbase that are truly abusing these interactions?

How does GBX lower the highest damage ceilings without gutting the other 99% of non min-maxing players?

[sephelutis]

Kind of wasted on this dev tbh.

[Prismatic (Dancing with Jak 'o' the Shadows)]

This just makes execution of the techniques frustrating to do, it doesn’t solve the issues. Just means I play the lottery when I go to 1 tap a boss, doesn’t stop it being doable or requiring consideration from the balance team.

Double dipping not intended? I find this hard to believe on Short Fuse. Its balancing at game release required the player to use the double dipping for it to be worth investing in. If you removed double dipping the skill would become like skag den. Negligible damage until you mayhem scale it at which point its a must take. Thats horrible skill design.

And then Amara suffers for it? Rakks suffer for it. Anyone trying to make SNTNL or MNTIS do damage suffers for it? Iron Bear unlike Moze can be nerfed without going to extremes. The double dipping on IB being removed is step 1 but the multiplier is negligible when talking about IB’s power. The fact IB damage scales faster than enemies do per level could be addressed. The base damage of Railguns could be tuned. IB can be addressed without harming other characters.

Name the last “important” boss they introduced without an immune phase? They’re well aware the vault hunters have insane burst potential. Graeme Timmins also watches streams and has been active on twitter threads where this damage is spotlighted. They know, whether they are able or willing to do anything about it is to me the bigger question.

So you’ve yet to go research how to do it. You not trying something doesn’t mean it can be ignored. No one on console can even execute such a shot, any target would die before any of these effects could trigger. Its straight impossible to hit trillions currently because enemies don’t have the health for it.

Everyone should care. Anyone who plays endgame content is affected.

Immune phases are gearboxes answer to these problems. Who wants Anathema and Scourge levels of immune phases? Big HP like in BL2 doesn’t work here, we have too much damage. So Gearbox counters us by segmenting boss health in immune phases.

Guardian Takedown was Gearboxes answer to the Theory crafters having significantly more damage than base game requires.

Allowing these damage peaks means no boss can be made difficult by just giving them hp, you need immune phases. The damage potential of Moze and Zane limits Gearbox’s boss design. It forces mechanics the players hate.

You say ignore because only some can do it? Yet it affects everyone. I say nerf it because only some can do it. Only some will notice but the entire player base gets the benefit of GBX having better options when designing a boss.

Zane’s fix as is being discussed above is just about bug fixing Erasers ability to retrigger infinitely. Zane has other issues, but this peak damage can be addressed without harming the bottom line.

Moze is more difficult. A skill that double dips should never be in a game that has so many on hit multipliers that the player can stuff big numbers into. Moze gets a near x16 multiplier by just having 300/90, Flare is a further x4 damage multiplier, splash damage is also over x4 to your total SF damage on 1 shots. This many massive mults makes fixing Moze near impossible. They gave Moze damage formula access that if now removed would be the biggest targeted character nerf this series has ever seen.

300/90 is a problem, it makes these examples extreme, however Moze could 1 tap anything in the game with no anoint on her ion cannon. So you can’t blame 1 aspect and unfortunately I don’t think GBX would ever commit to the full overhaul it would take to fix this. Removal of mayhem scaling while just accepting Moze can 1 tap things is as far as I dare even dream GBX would be willing to go.

[EzioILMentore]

The Borderlands 3 iceberg. Sometimes I’m proud of what I know about this game, then posts like this and all those damage formulas make me realize I’m clueless.

But then, I realize devs are clueless too, and I feel better.

Sarcasm aside, thanks for this post Prismatic, very helpful, awesome theorycraft, and I can only hope devs will read it.