Damage

Damage is displayed on the HUD as numbers that spawn near the point of impact on an enemy. Damage to health is shown in white, while damage to shields is shown in blue. Damage results are modified by several mechanics - damage type, critical hits, stealth - which are discussed below and on their respective pages.

Weapon damage and mod damage will each spawn their own damage indicator. Shotguns will also spawn separate indicators for each of their pellets. Damage that is reduced to zero, such as Bullet damage on a Corpus Crewman's head, will not spawn a number indicator. Damage indicators are color coded using the following system:


 * Regular attack on health - white
 * Regular attack on shields - blue
 * Critical hit and stealth attacks - yellow
 * Modified critical hit attacks - red

Physical Damage
Impact Puncture Slash

Every weapon in the game is made up of a combination of these three damage types. The overall damage of any given weapon is the sum of Impact, Puncture, and Slash damage.

Weapons will exhibit a variety of combinations on the Impact, Puncture, and Slash damage spectrum. Mods will affect damage types as decided by the player by their loadout.

In short, Weapon Damage = (Impact + Puncture + Slash) Real-life Firearm Metaphor: Impact=Slug; Puncture=Armor Piercing; Slash=Hollow-point. When assigning physical damage aspects to weapons we avoid making them 'pure' (100% in one direction). This ensures you can damage all enemies in the game.

Elemental Damage
In addition to the 3 base damage types, Elemental Damage can be applied on top of a weapon’s base damage depending on what Elemental Mods are applied. For some rare weapons, elemental damage is all they have. There are four primary Elemental Damage types:

Fire, Freeze, Electrical, and Poison. Elemental Damage can be applied alone but if you combine primary elements they create new combined elemental damage types. This opens up new possibilities, reduces 'rainbow build' problems and reduces some of the confusing effects like 'frozen guy is on fire'.

Combined Elemental Types
To create these combined elements requires mixing two primary elements together: Blast Damage (Fire + Cold) Gas Damage (Fire + Toxin) Radiation Damage (Fire + Electricity) Magnetic Damage (Cold + Electricity) Viral Damage (Cold + Toxin) Corrosive Damage (Electricity + Toxin)
 * Blast Damage inflicts a Stun effect
 * Gas damage creates an AoE Poison effect in the area
 * Radiation Damage confuses targets (difficulties targeting), effectively reducing enemy accuracy.
 * Magnetic Damage inflicts extra damage against shielding.
 * Viral Damage "sickens" the target, possibly dealing DoT poison and/or slowing effects.
 * Corrosive Damage deals extra damage to armor

Elemental Damage is applied in addition to a weapon’s physical damage types. Weapon Damage = (Impact + Puncture + Slash) + (Elemental). Elemental Damage Hierarchy & Combining Elementals Elemental damage combinations are made by following a strict order. Fire, Freeze, Electrical, Poison.

As an example: If you want Fire damage + Magnetic damage (Cold + Electricity), you will need to split it between weapons because when a Fire Mod enters the mod loadout any other elementals will combine with it as it is first in the hierarchy.

Status Effects ('Procs')
All damage types have a chance to inflict a status on the target – including you! Impact: Knockback Puncture: Weakened (reduced damage output) Slash: Bleed (health reduced over time, healing blocked)

Fire: Ignited (fire damage over time) Freeze: Slowed Electrical: Chain Electricity Damage Poison: Poison Damage over time to health