Enemy Vulnerabilities

There are three game mechanics that determine enemy vulnerabilities. They are armor, body part multipliers, and damage type multipliers. The combined effect of these three game mechanics will determine the vulnerabilities of each faction and specific enemies within a faction. These different game mechanics will interact with each weapon differently based on their base damage type and the various elemental damage mods that have been applied. More information can be found on individual weapon pages (most accurate) or by referring to the weapon types page.

Shields
Shields do not apply any of these armor caclulations or regular damage type multipliers. Shields take full damage from all damage types; with the exception of frost damage, which does 200% damage to shields.

Ignored Damage Types
Commonly incorrectly referred to as "Armor Ignore", these are the damage types that are ignored when armor is applied to incoming damage. There are currently only four types of damage that make an appearance in this list: These four damage types show up on the Ignored Damage Types list for all enemies that have Protected Body Parts, the only exceptions being the absense of Physics Impact on the Grineer Commander, Seeker, and Roller.
 * Armor Piercing (i.e.: Snipetron, Despair, Piercing Hit)
 * Physics Impact (i.e.: Boltor, Kunai, Paris)
 * Poison (i.e.: Torid, Acrid, Mire)
 * Serrated Blade (i.e.: Most (but not all) melee charge attacks, and the Lanka...).

All other damage types, including fire, frost and electrical elemental damage mods are subject to armor calculations, which is why they will scale to the level of the enemy. Please see the game mechanic pages linked above for information on how these calculations work.

How to Use
Previously this page had charts that listed a number of percentages for a small number of damage types found in the game. These percentages were incorrect and a misrepresentation of how damage actually works in the game. There is no such thing as "resistances" in this game.  Any damage an enemy incurs is put through its Armor calculation with two exceptions - 1) if it is an ignored damage types (see above), or 2) if you are firing at an unprotected body part. Damage put through the armor calculation is affected by the current and base level of the enemy being attacked - this is why certain types of damage have an output curve while ignored damage types are linear. The armor calculation is as follows:

Armor Mitigation = 100 / ((base armor + base armor * .01 * (current level - base level) ^ 1.40) + 100)

Once the armor mitigation is applied to damage, the damage type and hit location multipliers are applied. These multipliers stack. The multipliers affect the slope (and rate of change of the slope) of the output graphs - so this will change depending on the damage type and where you hit an enemy. These multipliers in combination with the armor calculation are what people misinterpreted as "resistances" in the game.

Examples:


 * 1) if you shoot a Medium Grineer in the head with bullet damage, the armor mitigation will be applied, then the x2 head MP and the x1.5 bullet to the head MP will be applied.


 * 1) If you shoot a Medium Grineer in the head with armor piercing damage, armor will not be applied (because it is an ignored damage type), and then the head and armor piercing damage MP will be applied.
 * 2) If you used these same damage types on a Medium Grineer for a body shot, the armor mitigation portion of the calculation would not change but you would lose the head MP and only the armor piercing MP would be applied because the bullet MP is only for head shots.
 * 3) If you shoot a Ancient in the lower leg with fire damage, armor will not be applied because it is an unprotected body part, then the x2 fire MP will be applied.

Vulnerabilties At-A-Glance
The following tables show brief information regarding body part MPs, damage type MPs, unprotected body parts and armor values. While generalizations can be made about MPs for faction subgroups, armor is highly specific to each enemy due ot widely varying base levels. For the most accurate information, please visit the game mechanic pages linked above or visit the main page for each enemy.

It should also be noted that vulnerabilites are different than how difficult an enemy feels in the game. For example, Elite Grineer Lancers feel much more difficult than Grineer Lancers because they have higher base HP and Shields. However, both of these enemies share identical vulnerabilities to damage. This logic also applies to Corpus Techs and their Crew counterparts.

Application
While it is best to go to each of these mechanic pages for the most accurate information, here are a few examples of how enemy vulnerabilities will interact in the game.

Corpus Crew
These enemies have low armor values with a x2 electricity multiplier (MP), a x0 MP for unmodded bullet damage to their head (resulting in 0 damage being dealt) as well as a x2 MP for Armor Piercing damage to the head. New players will often make the mistake of assuming that corpus crew heads have very high armor or are invincible because they typically have weapons with bullet damage. In reality, if you are wielding a weapon with a different damage type or even a bullet damage weapon with electricity and armor piercing mods, the head is the best place to shoot them for x2 head MP and x2 damage MP for armor piercing and electrical damage for devastating effects. Freeze damage also deal x2 MP to shields.

Lesson: When armor values are low, damage type and body part MPs are most important.

Medium Grineer
Medium Grineer have the highest armor values in the game other than Infested Ancients. In addition to this, every body part on their body is protected. This makes using a weapon with an ignored damage type extremely helpful. In particular, armor piercing has a x1.5 MP for Medium Grineer (not the case for Light and Heavy as some might think) making it the best damage type for this particular subgroup. Fire and Electricity also have a 1.25 damage type MP making these the best mod choices after armor pierce. As always, Medium Grineer also have a x2 head MP making this the best place to shoot them.

Lesson: When armor values are high and no unprotected parts are available, armor ignoring damage is most important.

Infested Ancients
Infested Ancients have the highest armor values in the game. As with all enemies, they have a x2 head MP. Finally, they have a x2 MP for fire damage and a 1.5 MP for bullet damage to the head. Their lower legs and lower arms are unprotected body parts, typically making this the best place to shoot them. If you are using a bullet weapon, for example, you will gain more benefit from shooting their unprotected body part rather than using the head multipliers. However, if you are using a weapon that has armor-ignore damage type limited elemental mods, you gain no benefit from shooting an unprotected body part but could benefit from the x2 head MP, making the head the ideal target. As you load this weapon up with elemental mods that are not ignored damage types, the vulnerability will shift back to the lower leg or arm. The breaking point on this will largely be based on the base damage of the weapon in question.

Lesson: When armor values are high and unprotected parts available, shooting unprotected parts will most often yield higher damage than using damage type or body part MPs.