Talk:Magnum Force/@comment-72.18.249.98-20150118130854/@comment-72.18.249.98-20150119031915

After more thought, I realized a mistake of mine in overlooking a certain issue. My statement above about how Hornet Strike does not affect Magnum Force is true but Hornet Strike does affect the elemental mod that Magnum Force could potentially replace and my calculations do not reflect this. So, let's re-do the math and see what the results come out to be (skip to end for results).

Base physical damage of 1 with maxed Hornet Strike gains a 220% bonus means the modded physical damage is 1+(1x220%) = 3.2. With a maxed Hornet Strike and maxed Magnum Force, the modded physical damage is 1+(1x220%)+(1x66%) = 3.86.

If 3 mod slots are available, then w/o Magnum Force you can get 240% elemental combo damage. 3.2x240% = 7.68 elemental damage with 3.2 physical damage (sum of 10.88).

180% elemental combo damage with Magnum Force results in 3.86x180% = 6.95 elemental damage with 3.86 physical damage (sum of 10.81).

This suggests that the three elemental mods are marginally better. However, considering the fact that elemental combos generally provide a larger damage bonus over physical damage, I conclude that using an event mod is better than Magnum Force when three mod slots are available. If cold damage is included in the elemental combo, then the elemental damage is 210% and 150% respectively resulting in 6.72 elemental damage and 3.2 physical damage w/o Magnum Force (sum of 9.92) and 5.79 elemental damage and 3.86 physical damage with Magnum Force (sum of 9.65). This suggests that Magnum Force does even worse compared to a 60% elemental mod at lower elemental damage total. Perhaps at higher elemental damage, it will do better.

So now suppose that four mod slots are available. Four elemental mods (two at 90% and two at 60%) w/o Magnum Force total 300% result in 3.2x300% = 9.6 elemental damage with 3.2 physical damage (sum of 12.8).

Three elemental mods (two at 90% and one at 60%) with Magnum Force total 240% result in 3.86x240% = 9.26 elemental damage with 3.86 physical damage (sum of 13.12).

This shows that with more elemental damage, Magnum Force becomes more useful. Even accounting for the 75% bonus that many elemental combos benefit from and accounting for it in this calculation, Magnum Force still proves better. Re-calculating with cold damage included in the elemental combo yields much more complicated results. A quick approximation indicates that using four elemental mods (one 90% and three 60%) is (marginally) better than three plus Magnum Force (one 90% and two 60%).

In conclusion, the more elemental damage, the more likely that Magnum Force is better to use than a 60% elemental damage mod. However, the only time it becomes better is when you must choose bentween 300% elemental damage or 240% + Magnum Force. In all other situations, Magnum Force is not a wise option. However, if the physical damage suffers a damage penalty due to the health type of the enemy, even this one instance may prove untrue depending on the enemy type and the proportional distribution of damage among the three physical damage types. Therefore, I conclude that for the vast majority of circumstances, Magnum Force is not a mod worth using. My apologies for my mistake in my previous post.