Talk:Acrid/@comment-11753608-20130727132623/@comment-11753608-20130728140805

Ticks only stack 4 times. If you have full barrel diffusion, then you have loaded the target with ticks after 2 shots and every shot you do for the next 3 seconds will only do the base damage until the ticks from the first shot wear off.

By comparison, Despair would be doing full damage that entire time and with a much faster fire rate.

This is something the damage calculator can't capture (at least not yet). It shows you what one isolated shot will do but this is not always applicable to in-game/real usage.