Talk:Damage 2.0/@comment-84.149.95.124-20160313075651/@comment-25938077-20160313191538

The math is in this article. Put simply, attacking health/shields with a bonus is simply the percent bonus. Attacking an armored enemy's health with a weapon with bonus vs. that armor type, however, you get both, percent bonus to damage and ignore percent of target's armor. That means Corrosive vs ferrite-armored cloned flesh target has both, +75% damage and deals damage as if target had -75% armor. Viral would only have +75% damage.

Thus, the higher level enemy the higher the difference but even against level 1 Heavy Gunner, Viral would face 500 armor, while Corrosive would only face 125. This means that said Heavy Gunner's effective HP vs. Viral is 800, while vs. Corrosive it's 425. To deal that amount of damage accounting for the bonuses of each type, you'd need 457 Viral damage or 243 Corrosive damage. The difference grows significantly as enemies gain level (and thus more armor).