Damage

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Include how damage is calculated when damage reduction and damage resistances are active. Update 27.2 (2020-03-05) changes

Preceded by
Damage 1.0 since Update 11.0 (2013-11-20)

Damage (version 2.0) is a system that determines the damage done to a certain target by a given attacker. Damage results are modified by several mechanics – type modifiers (main content of this article), armor, critical hit bonuses, stealth bonuses, Warframe ability debuffs, body part modifiers, faction modifiers – which are discussed below and on their respective pages.  

All damage dealt by any weapon or ability belongs to a certain damage type, and every target has specific resistances and vulnerabilities to different damage types. Exploiting enemy vulnerabilities and avoiding resistances by means of weapon selection and mod installation may significantly improve players' damage output.

Damage Display

Damage dealt from players to enemies is displayed on the HUD as numbers near the point of impact on an enemy. Damage dealt from enemies to players is displayed on the HUD both as a bent strip to indicate its direction of origin and as a reduction in shield or health hitpoints to indicate its quantity.

Each individual projectile or melee attack will display a single damage instance. Weapons with multiple projectiles like shotguns or rifles with Multishot will display a damage instance for each individual projectile. Weapons that fire continuously will display a damage instance at a constant rate depending on the fire rate of the weapon.

Damage indicators are color-coded using the following system:

• Damage appears by default in white.
• Critical hits and stealth attacks are in yellow.
• Orange crits, appear in orange color. These are stronger than yellow crits.
• Red crits, as their name suggests, appear in red. These are stronger than orange crits.
• Damage against shields appears in blue, regardless of other factors.
• Damage against overshields appears in purple.
• Attempts to damage an invulnerable enemy appear in grey.

Overview Table

These tables show damage type resistances and weaknesses of various Health, Shield, and Armor types of different Factions.

• Grineer
• Corpus
• Infested
• Sentient
• Corrupted
• Tenno
• Murmur
• All

Damage Type			Cloned Flesh	Ferrite Armor	Alloy Armor	Machinery	Status Effect
Physical Damage	Impact		–25%			+25%	Stagger
	Puncture			+50%	+15%		–Damage
	Slash		+25%	–15%	–50%		Bleed
Elemental Damage	Cold				+25%		Slowdown
	Electricity				–50%	+50%	Tesla Chain Stun
	Heat		+25%				Burn DoT Panic
	Toxin					–25%	Poison DoT
Combined Elements	Blast	Heat +  Cold		–25%		+75%	–Accuracy
	Corrosive	Electricity +  Toxin		+75%			–Armor
	Gas	Heat +  Toxin	–50%				Gas Cloud
	Magnetic	Cold +  Electricity			–50%		Amplified damage to shields Stops shield regen
	Radiation	Heat +  Electricity			+75%		Friendly Fire More damage to allies
	Viral	Cold +  Toxin	+75%			–25%	Amplified damage to health
Unique Types	True			N/A	N/A		-
	Void						Bullet Attract

• Cloned Flesh: Refers to all humanoid Grineer units, including bosses and Corrupted Vor. Is also possessed by all Grineer Archwing enemies and Locust Drone.
• Ferrite Armor: Possessed by Lancers, Troopers, Seekers, Heavy Gunners, Commanders, all Grineer Archwing enemies and all Grineer melee units.
• Alloy Armor: Possessed by Elite Lancers, Eviscerators, Bombards, Napalms, Nox, Grineer bosses, Corrupted Vor and the Stalker.
• Machinery: Includes Rollers, Regulators, Latchers, Turrets, Tusk Thumpers, and some Grineer Empyrean enemies.

Damage Type			Flesh	Shield	Proto Shield	Ferrite Armor	Alloy Armor	Robotic	Status Effect
Physical Damage	Impact		-25%	+50%	+15%				1)3)Stagger
	Puncture			-20%	-50%	+50%	+15%	+25%	–Damage
	Slash		+25%			–15%	–50%	-25%	3)Bleed
Elemental Damage	Cold			+50%			+25%		Slowdown
	Electricity						–50%	+50%	3)Tesla Chain 1)3)Stun
	Heat				-50%				2)3)Burn DoT 1)2)3)Panic
	Toxin		+50%	4)N/A	4)N/A			-25%	3)Poison DoT
Combined Elements	Blast	Heat +  Cold				–25%			1)3)–Accuracy
	Corrosive	Electricity +  Toxin			-50%	+75%			–Armor
	Gas	Heat +  Toxin	-25%						Gas Cloud
	Magnetic	Cold +  Electricity		+75%	+75%		–50%		Amplified damage to shields Stops shield regen
	Radiation	Heat +  Electricity		-25%			+75%	+25%	1)Friendly Fire More damage to allies
	Viral	Cold +  Toxin	+50%						Amplified damage to health
Unique Types	True					N/A	N/A		-
	Void								Bullet Attract

• Flesh: Consists of all Corpus humanoids including bosses like The Sergeant and Alad V. Also includes Drahks, Hyekkas, the Stalker and the Tomb Protector.
• Shield: Is possessed by all regular Corpus units, Regulators, Grineer bosses and Corrupted Vor. Is not possessed by Locust Drone.
• Proto Shield: Possessed by every Corpus boss (including Zanuka), Nullifier Crewman, Corpus Tech, Sniper Crewman and the Stalker.
• Ferrite Armor: Possessed by Corvette, Frigate, Carrier (Enemy), Gox, Locust Drone, Humanoid Corpus bosses and Oxium Ospreys.
• Alloy Armor: Possessed by Bursas, Corpus Robotic bosses.
• Robotic: Refers to all Corpus robotics including robotic bosses like Ambulas and Zanuka. Is not possessed by Locust Drone.

^{1) Does not affect Bosses. | 2) Does not affect MOAs. | 3) Does not affect Ospreys. | 4) Bypasses shields}

Damage Type			Infested	Infested Flesh	Fossilized	Infested Sinew	Ferrite Armor	Status Effect
Physical Damage	Impact							1)2)Stagger
	Puncture					+25%	+50%	–Damage
	Slash		+25%	+50%	+15%		–15%	Bleed
Elemental Damage	Cold			-50%	-25%	+25%		Slowdown
	Electricity							Tesla Chain 1)2)Stun
	Heat		+25%	+50%				Burn DoT 1)2)Panic
	Toxin				-50%			Poison DoT
Combined Elements	Blast	Heat +  Cold			+50%	-50%	–25%	1)2)–Accuracy
	Corrosive	Electricity +  Toxin			+75%		+75%	–Armor
	Gas	Heat +  Toxin	+75%	+50%				Gas Cloud
	Magnetic	Cold +  Electricity						Amplified damage to shields Stops shield regen
	Radiation	Heat +  Electricity	-50%		-75%	+50%		1)Friendly Fire More damage to allies
	Viral	Cold +  Toxin	-50%					Amplified damage to health
Unique Types	True					N/A	N/A	-
	Void							Bullet Attract

• Infested: Refers to Juggernauts, Chargers, Runners, Leaping Thrashers, Leapers, and Deimos Therids.
• Infested Flesh: Consists of Undying Flyers, Volatile Runners, Mutalist Osprey, and Crawler-type enemies.
• Fossilized: Possessed by Ancient Disruptors, Ancient Healers, Toxic Ancients, Swarm-Mutalist MOAs, Tar-Mutalist MOAs, Boilers, Brood Mothers, Phorid, Lephantis, and Jordas Golem.
• Infested Sinew: An Infested armor class possessed by the Hemocyte, most Deimos Infested enemies, and some Zealot enemies such as the Zealot Herald.
• Ferrite Armor: Possessed by Juggernauts, Juggernaut Behemoth, Deimos Tendril Drone, Jordas Golem, Mutalist Alad V and Phorid.

^{1) Does not affect Bosses. | 2) Does not affect Osprey enemies.}

Damage Type			Flesh	Robotic	Ferrite Armor	Alloy Armor	Shield	Status
Physical Damage	Impact		-25%				+50%	1)3)Stagger
	Puncture			+25%	+50%	+15%	-20%	–Damage
	Slash		+25%	-25%	-15%	-50%		1)Bleed
Elemental Damage	Cold					+25%	+50%	Slowdown
	Electricity			+50%		-50%		Tesla Chain 1)3)Stun
	Heat							Burn DoT 1)2)3)Panic
	Toxin		+50%	-25%			4)N/A	1)Poison DoT
Combined Elements	Blast	Heat+  Cold			-25%			1)3)–Accuracy
	Corrosive	Electricity+  Toxin			+75%			–Armor
	Gas	Heat+  Toxin	-25%					Gas Cloud
	Magnetic	Cold+  Electricity				-50%	+75%	Amplified damage to shields Stops shield regen
	Radiation	Heat+  Electricity		+25%		+75%	-25%	Friendly Fire More damage to allies
	Viral	Cold+  Toxin	+50%					Amplified damage to health
Unique Types	True				4)N/A	4)N/A		-
	Void							Bullet Attract

• Flesh: Includes Brachiolyst, Condrix, Orphix, and humanoid Amalgam enemies.
• Robotic: Includes most Sentient drones.
• Ferrite Armor: Includes most Sentient drones.
• Alloy Armor: Includes Sentient bosses Teralyst, Gantulyst, Hydrolyst, and Ropalolyst.
• Shield: Includes most Sentient drones.

^{1) Does not affect Ospreys, Drones. | 2) Does not affect MOAs. 3) Does not affect Corrupted Vor. | 4) The damage associated bypasses these secondary protections.}

Damage Type			Cloned Flesh	Flesh	Ferrite Armor	Alloy Armor	Shield	Proto Shield	Robotic	Fossilized	Status
Physical Damage	Impact		-25%	-25%			+50%	+25%			1)3)Stagger
	Puncture				+50%	+15%	-20%	-50%	+25%		–Damage
	Slash		+25%	+25%	-15%	-50%			-25%	+15%	1)Bleed
Elemental Damage	Cold					+25%	+50%			-25%	Slowdown
	Electricity					-50%			+50%		Tesla Chain 1)3)Stun
	Heat		+25%					-50%			Burn DoT 1)2)3)Panic
	Toxin			+50%			4)N/A	4)N/A	-25%	-50%	1)Poison DoT
Combined Elements	Blast	Heat+  Cold			-25%					+50%	1)3)–Accuracy
	Corrosive	Electricity+  Toxin			+75%			-50%		+75%	–Armor
	Gas	Heat+  Toxin	-50%	-25%							Gas Cloud
	Magnetic	Cold+  Electricity				-50%	+75%	+75%			Amplified damage to shields Stops shield regen
	Radiation	Heat+  Electricity				+75%	-25%		+25%	-75%	Friendly Fire More damage to allies
	Viral	Cold+  Toxin	+75%	+50%							Amplified damage to health
Unique Types	True				4)N/A	4)N/A					-
	Void										Bullet Attract

• Cloned Flesh: Includes Corrupted Lancer's, Corrupted Butcher's, Corrupted Bombard's, Corrupted Heavy Gunner's and Corrupted Vor's health.
• Flesh: Includes Corrupted Crewman's and Corrupted Nullifier's health.
• Ferrite Armor: Includes Corrupted Heavy Gunner's and Corrupted Butcher's armor.
• Alloy Armor: Includes Corrupted Lancer's, Corrupted Bombard's and Corrupted Vor's armor.
• Shield: Includes Orokin Drone's, Fusion Drone's, Corrupted Crewman's and Corrupted Vor's shield.
• Proto Shield: Includes Corrupted Nullifier's shield.
• Robotic: Includes Corrupted MOA's, Fusion Drone's and Orokin Drone's health.
• Fossilized: Includes Corrupted Ancients' health.

^{1) Does not affect Ospreys, Drones. | 2) Does not affect MOAs. 3) Does not affect Corrupted Vor. | 4) The damage associated bypasses these secondary protections.}

Damage Type			Tenno Flesh	Tenno Armor	Tenno Shield	Status
Physical Damage	Impact				–50%	1)Stagger
	Puncture				–50%	–Damage
	Slash				–50%	Bleed
Elemental Damage	Cold				–50%	Slowdown
	Electricity				–50%	Tesla Chain
	Heat				–50%	Burn DoT
	Toxin				2)N/A	Poison DoT
Combined Elements	Blast	Heat +  Cold			–50%	–Accuracy
	Corrosive	Electricity +  Toxin			–50%	–Armor
	Gas	Heat +  Toxin			–50%	Gas Cloud
	Magnetic	Cold +  Electricity			–50%	Amplified damage to shields Stops shield regen Energy Drain
	Radiation	Heat +  Electricity			–50%	–Accuracy Friendly Fire More damage to allies
	Viral	Cold +  Toxin			–50%	Amplified damage to health
Unique Types	True			2)N/A		-
	Void				–50%	Bullet Attract

• Tenno Flesh: Applies to all Warframes, Operators and Railjacks (Tenno).
• Tenno Armor: Applies to all Warframes, Operators and Railjacks (Tenno).
• Tenno Shield: Applies to all Warframes, Operators and Railjacks (Tenno).

^{1) Does not affect the Tenno. | 2) The damage associated bypasses these secondary protections, but in the case of  Toxin damage, it has -50% damage modifier against  Hildryn when she has overshields.}

Damage Type			Indifferent Facade	Ferrite Armor	Infested	Machinery	Status Effect
Physical Damage	Impact					+25%	Stagger
	Puncture		+25%	+50%			–Damage
	Slash		-50%	-15%	+25%		Bleed
Elemental Damage	Cold						Slowdown
	Electricity		+25%			+50%	Tesla Chain Stun
	Heat				+25%		Burn DoT Panic
	Toxin					-25%	Poison DoT
Combined Elements	Blast	Heat +  Cold		-25%		+75%	–Accuracy
	Corrosive	Electricity +  Toxin		+75%			–Armor
	Gas	Heat +  Toxin			+75%		Gas Cloud
	Magnetic	Cold +  Electricity					Amplified damage to shields Stops shield regen
	Radiation	Heat +  Electricity	+75%		-50%		Friendly Fire More damage to allies
	Viral	Cold +  Toxin	-50%		-50%	-25%	Amplified damage to health
Unique Types	True			N/A			-
	Void		+25%				Bullet Attract

• Indifferent Facade: Possessed by non-mechanical Murmur enemies.
• Ferrite Armor: Possessed by Rogue Culverins and Rogue Arcocanids.
• Infested: Possessed by Rogue Arcocanids.
• Machinery: Possessed by Rogue Culverin.

Damage Type			Flesh	Cloned Flesh	Fossilized	Infested	Infested Flesh	Infested Sinew	Machinery	Robotic	Object	Shield	Proto Shield	Ferrite Armor	Alloy Armor	Indifferent Facade	Status
Physical	Impact		-25%	-25%					+25%			+50%	+15%				Stagger1)2)
	Puncture							+25%		+25%		-20%	-50%	+50%	+15%	+25%	–Damage
	Slash		+25%	+25%	+15%	+25%	+50%			-25%				-15%	-50%	-50%	Bleed
Primary Elemental	Cold				-25%		-50%	+25%				+50%			+25%		Slowdown
	Electricity								+50%	+50%					-50%	+25%	Tesla Chain Stun1)2)
	Heat			+25%		+25%	+50%						-50%				Burn DoT Panic1)2)3)
	Toxin		+50%		-50%				-25%	-25%		4)N/A	4)N/A				Poison: Toxin DoT
Secondary Elemental	Blast	Heat+ Cold			+50%			-50%	+75%					-25%			–Accuracy1)2)
	Corrosive	Electricity+ Toxin			+75%								-50%	+75%			–Armor
	Gas	Heat+ Toxin	-25%	-50%		+75%	+50%										Gas Cloud: Gas AOE DoT
	Magnetic	Cold+ Electricity										+75%	+75%		-50%		Amplified damage to shields Stops shield regen
	Radiation	Heat+ Electricity			-75%	-50%		+50%		+25%		-25%			+75%	+75%	Friendly Fire1) More damage to allies
	Viral	Cold+ Toxin	+50%	+75%		-50%			-25%							-50%	Amplified damage to health
Unique	True													4)N/A	4)N/A		-
	Void															+25%	Bullet Attract

• Flesh: Possessed by all Corpus humanoids, including humanoid Corpus bosses, Warframes, Specter (Tenno), Specter (Enemy) and Stalker. It is most damaged by the Infested faction.
• Cloned Flesh: Possessed by all humanoid Grineer and Corrupted of Grineer origin, including Corrupted Vor, all Grineer Archwing enemies and Locust Drone.
• Infested Flesh: Possessed by Undying Flyers, Volatile Runners, Mutalist Osprey, and Crawler-type enemies.
• Infested: Possessed by Juggernauts, Chargers, Runners, Leaping Thrashers, Leapers, and Deimos Therids.
• Infested Sinew: An Infested armor class possessed by the Hemocyte, most Deimos Infested enemies, and some Zealot enemies such as the Zealot Herald.
• Fossilized: Possessed by Ancient Disruptors, Ancient Healers, Toxic Ancients, Swarm-Mutalist MOAs, Tar-Mutalist MOAs, Boilers, Brood Mothers, Phorid, Lephantis, and Jordas Golem.
• Object: Possessed by Arc Trap, Explosive Barrel, Fan, Grate, Heat Generator, Infested Tumor, Mining Machine, Sensor Bar and Storage Containers.
• Alloy Armor: Possessed by Elite Lancers, Eviscerators, Bombards, Napalms, Grineer bosses, Corrupted Vor, Corrupted Lancers, Robotic Corpus bosses, Warframes and Stalker. It is most damaged by the Corpus faction.
• Ferrite Armor: Possessed by Lancers, Troopers, Seekers, Heavy Gunners, Commanders, all Grineer Archwing enemies, Corvette, Frigate, Carrier (Enemy), Gox, Locust Drone, all Grineer melee units, Corrupted Heavy Gunners, humanoid Corpus bosses, Specter (Tenno), Specter (Enemy) and  Rhino's  Iron Skin.
• Shield: Possessed by all regular Corpus units (except Locust Drone), Regulators, Grineer bosses, Orokin Drones, Corrupted Crewman, Corrupted Vor, Warframes, Specter (Tenno), Specter (Enemy). It is most damaged by the Grineer faction.
• Proto Shield: Possessed by all Corpus bosses, including Zanuka and Zanuka Hunter, Corpus Techs ,Nullifier Crewman, Corrupted Nullifier and Stalker.
• Machinery: Possessed by Rollers, Regulators and Latchers.
• Robotic: Possessed by all Corpus proxies (except Locust Drone), including proxy bosses like Ambulas and Zanuka.
• Indifferent Facade: Possessed by all all Murmur enemies.

^{1) Does not affect Bosses. | 2) Does not affect Rollers, Regulators, Latchers or Osprey. | 3) Does not affect MOAs. | 4) The damage associated bypasses these secondary protections.}

Damage Types

Every weapon, ability or method of dealing damage is classified as one or more types of damage. Through mods or abilities, further types of damage can be added to attacks.

When multiple damage types are present on an attack, all of them will deal their respective amounts independent of each other, but only one damage number calculated from the combined value of the damage types will show.

With each shown damage value, there is also a chance of a Status Effect occurring; The likelihood of which type of damage this Status Effect is based on depends on the ratio balance of the damage types on the weapon.

Physical Damage

Most weapons' base damage is made up of a combination of three physical damage types: , , and . The overall physical damage of any given weapon is the sum of Impact, Puncture, and Slash damage. This is sometimes referred to as IPS.

Damage Type	Status Effects
	Stagger Universal: Causes target to flinch and staggers movement for 1 second.
	Weakened Universal: Reduces any damage dealt to 70% for 6 seconds.
	Bleed Universal: Deals 245% base damage over 6 seconds.

Although most weapons have varying proportions of , , and , some weapons (such as the  Glaxion or  Phage) can have no physical damage at all. Other weapons (like the  Plinx or  Tysis) can deal a combination of physical and elemental, or combo elemental damage. 

Unlike elemental, or combo elemental damage types which can be added via mods, physical damage cannot be added to weapons already lacking them. Weapons that do not have one or more components of physical damage are not affected by the respective , , or mods.

General damage increasing mods such as  Serration affect all the base damage types of a weapon. Additionally, Faction Damage Mods such as  Expel Grineer also affect damage as a total damage multiplier against the faction in question.

Primary Elemental Damage

Elemental Damage can be applied on top of a weapon’s base damage depending on what Elemental Mods are applied. There are four primary Elemental Damage types:, , , and .

Damage Type	Status Effects
	Freeze Universal: Reduces Movement Speed, Fire Rate, and Attack Speed to 50% for 6 seconds.
	Chain Lightning Enemy: Deals 50% base damage to enemies within 3 meters of the target and stuns them for 3 seconds. Player: Deals 50% base damage to allies within 3 meters of the target.
	Ignite Enemy: Deals 350% base damage over 6 seconds while causing the target to panic for 4 seconds and stripping up to 50% Armor. Player: Deals 350% base damage over 6 seconds and strips up to 50% armor.
	Poison Universal: Deals 450% base damage over 8 seconds.

A single primary Elemental Damage type can be applied alone, but if a second primary Elemental Damage type is introduced they will combine into a secondary Elemental Damage type.

Secondary Elemental Damage

Creating these secondary elements requires mixing two primary elements together.

Combined Damage Type	Elemental Damage Types	Status Effects
	+	Knockdown Universal: Creates a 5 meter radius Knockdown.
	+	Corrosion Enemy: Reduces current Armor by 25% permanently. Player: Reduces current Armor by 25% for 8 seconds.
	+	Toxin Cloud Universal: Creates a 3 meter radius effect which deals 450% base damage over 8 seconds to targets.
	+	Disrupt Enemy: Reduces maximum and current Shields by 75% for 4 seconds. Player: Reduces maximum and current Shields by 75%, and drains 50 Energy per second and scrambles the interface for 4 seconds.
	+	Confusion Enemy: Attacks any closest enemy and will be attacked in return for 12 seconds. Player: Reduces firing Accuracy, able to damage and be damaged by allies for 4 seconds.
	+	Virus Universal: Reduces maximum and current Health to 50% for 6 seconds.

Elemental Damage is applied in addition to a weapon’s physical damage types. Weapon Damage = ( + + ) + (Elemental).

Note that a primary elemental damage type that has been combined into a secondary type will no longer be dealt to the weapon's targets, nor its status effect will be applied to the targets either. For example, a weapon dealing damage that is created by combining + will no longer deal damage or cause its Freeze effect, nor damage or its Ignite effect to this weapon's targets.

Elemental Damage Combinations are made by following a mod placement hierarchy. This hierarchy is from closest to top left (first to be considered) to the bottom right (last to be considered) on the mod layout. Innate weapon elemental damages are considered the very last in any hierarchy.

However, a weapon's innate elemental damage can be forced into a different position in the hierarchy (and thus be combined into a combo element earlier) if the player has equipped a mod of the same element as the innate element. As well, when using multiple mods with the same element, the first position that element is placed in establishes it's hierarchy and where it's combined.

For example, putting  Stormbringer on the top left slot of  Amprex will change the position of its innate damage from last in hierarchy to first in hierarchy. Similarly, placing  Thermite Rounds earlier in the hierarchy before placing  Hellfire will still count the damage where it was first placed.

A weapon's innate elemental damage will contribute to elemental combinations, as long as the combination has been established earlier in the hierarchy. It can also combine with the last uncombined elemental mod in the hierarchy to form a combo element.

Load Order

For example: when modding a weapon with standalone such as  Prova or  Lecta, then adding , , and in 1, 2 and 3 respectively get: ( + ) and ( + ).

In the case of Riven Mods where there is more than one elemental stat present, the hierarchy priority will be given to the last elemental stat listed on the Riven mod. For example, a Riven mod with a bonus of +100% damage first and +90% damage last, will enable the damage to combine with an elemental mod higher up in the hierarchy, and the damage will combine with an elemental damage type lower in the hierarchy. If no other elemental damage mods are present, the elements on the Riven mod will combine with itself.

Weapons with innate Combination Elements such as  Ogris (),  Penta (),  Stug (),  Nukor () and  Detron () will always have that damage type, regardless of mods used. On weapons like these, basic elemental damage mods will combine and function independently of the innate combination elements, as basic elements cannot combine with a weapon's already combined innate damage type.

This is an example of a secondary elemental with the combination elemental.

Combinations of Elemental Damage

Except for weapons with innate secondary elemental damage, it is impossible to have more than 2 elemental damage types on a single weapon, because there are only 4 types of primary elemental damage and every 2 types of primary damage will be automatically combined into a secondary type. Because of this mechanic, the following combinations of elemental damage are possible on a single weapon:

Type 1 \ Type 2
						✓	✓		✓
					✓		✓			✓
						✓		✓		✓
					✓			✓	✓
		✓		✓		✓
	✓		✓		✓
	✓	✓						✓
			✓	✓			✓
	✓			✓						✓
		✓	✓						✓

Unique Damage

These damage types are unique as they are not available as base damage types for any typical weapons nor can they be added through mods.

• damage is a damage type that can be applied through procs, finishers as well as a few Warframe abilities and is distinct in ignoring enemy armor and bonus or malus damage modifiers, directly dealing its "raw" damage value to their health.
• damage is a damage type that can only be used by the Operator after completing The War Within. It possesses special properties and effects against Sentient enemies.
• damage is the damage type unique to the energy attacks of Sentients.

Empyrean Damage System

Empyrean uses an altered system of the currently existing damage system. These damage types are exclusive to Railjack armaments. Arch-weapons will have their damage converted to the corresponding Railjack damage analogue during Empyrean missions.

The below list shows the list of Empyrean specific damage types, along with their corresponding status effect. Secondary elemental damage types (, , , , , and ) are not converted and can not proc a status effect on enemies in Empyrean Archwing mode. Secondary elemental types do increase total damage, they are not however, included in the calculation for status proc weightings.

Original Damage Type	Damage Type	Status Effects	Notes
		Concuss Crew within a gunship have reduced aim and damage for 6 seconds.
		Decompress Ship has reduced shields and armor for 20 seconds.	Stacks similarly to procs.
		Tear Ship receives 7.5% increased damage for 20 seconds.	Increased damage effect stacks multiplicatively with itself.
		Immobilize Ship weapons are disabled and it slows down to a complete stop.	Lasts for ??? seconds.
		Scramble Ship spirals erratically for 6 seconds.
		Sear Ship receives damage over time for 6 seconds.
		Intoxicate Attacks any closest enemy and will be attacked in return for 12 seconds.

• Arch-guns receive a 95% damage reduction when dealing damage in Railjack. Source

Status Effect

Main article: Status Effect

A Status Effect, also known as proc, is an additional effect that may be triggered at random by a hit from a weapon, while Status Chance is the probability that a hit will inflict a Status Effect. Each damage type has a unique Status Effect associated with it.

A weapon will always (with every shot) deal any elemental and physical damage installed, regardless of the corresponding status triggering or not.

Damage Over Time

Damage over Time (DoT) is a type of damage dealt to targets over a duration. Throughout the duration, a target will take "ticks" of damage periodically. These ticks of damage will sum to be the total damage dealt over the duration, which is the value described when referring to DoT.

For example, when an ability is described to deal 600 damage per tick, and it ticks twice per second, it means the ability will deal 1,200 damage per second. Or more concisely, the ability has a DoT of 1,200.

Tick rates vary across DoT sources. In the example above the tick rate was 2s^-1, which is a common rate for DoT from abilities. But in the case of a Bleed DoT, damage ticks 7 times over a 6 second duration. This results in a tick rate of 1s^-1 (notably not 1.167s^-1 because counting starts at 0 seconds), and the same applies to all DoT from Status Effect. If the tick rate does not divide into the total duration evenly, the total number of ticks dealt is rounded down. For example, with a tick rate of 2s^-1 and a total duration of 3.4s, the first tick will occur at 0 seconds, with each subsequent tick occurring every 0.5 seconds until 3 seconds have passed. The last tick occurs here because the 3.4 second duration ends before the next tick can occur at the 3.5 second mark. As such, the total number of ticks that occurred is 7. More generally, this can be expressed as:

${ \text{Total Ticks} = \lfloor \text{Tick Rate} \times \text{Duration} \rfloor + 1 }$

Altering the total duration does not affect the tick rate of the DoT, it will only affect the total number of ticks dealt, and in turn, the total damage dealt. For example, at base procs have a tick rate of 1s^-1 and a duration of 6 seconds. If the duration is increased to 7.8s, the total number of ticks then becomes floor(1 × 7.8) + 1 = 8.

Damage Calculation

The following explains how a certain amount of damage of one type turns into actual inflicted damage to a target, considering type modifiers and armor. Faction modifiers, body part modifiers, critical hit and stealth modifiers, as well as Warframe debuffs, are disregarded for now, since all of these are independent of damage types.

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Dealing damage is quantized. Meaning, rather than the damage being applied smoothly it is dealt in discrete "chunks", or quanta. These quanta are determined by the total listed damage of the source divided by 16.

For example, if you have a weapon with a listed damage distribution of 30 , 30 , and 40 , the Total Damage is 100. The value of a quantum will then be 100 / 16 = 6.25. When damaging a Charger, which has a +25% bonus to damage, the amount of damage dealt will then be 30 / 6.25 = 4.8 rounded to the nearest whole number, multiplied by the quantum: 5 * 6.25 = 31.25. This process is applied to and as well, yielding 31.25 and 37.5 respectively. As such, the total damage dealt to the Charger will then be 31.25 + 31.25 + 37.5 * (1 + 25%) = 109.375 (the game will display the rounded value of 109).

Note that while in this case the amount of damage after the conversion remained the same, sometimes damage may either be gained or lost after the conversion.

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Against unarmored enemies or when applying True damage, the formula is simply:

Inflicted Damage = Base Damage × (1 + Health-type Modifier)

• Inflicted Damage (ID) is the final damage result.
• Base Damage (BD) is the initial damage value.
• Health-type Modifier (HM) is the damage modifier against that health type (may be shield or health).

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To make it independent from the amount of base damage:

Damage Modifier = 1 + Health-type Modifier

Inflicted Damage = Base Damage × Damage Modifier

• Damage Modifier (DM) is the total damage modifier. An amount of damage of that type (BD) against that enemy will then always be multiplied with this factor (DM).

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Against armored enemies, the formula is:

${ DM = \frac{300}{300 + AR(1 - AM)}(1 + AM)(1 + HM) }$

Where additionally to the previous definitions, AM is the damage modifier against the armor type and AR is the target's armor after all reductions from debuffs (including  Corrosive Projection, Corrosive procs, and  Terrify).

Note that from the formula above damage type modifiers directly affect the value of the armor as well as damage. Positive armor modifiers will reduce the effective armor by the percentage value, which is commonly thought of as that damage type essentially ignoring some of the armor. Conversely, negative armor modifiers will increase the effective armor by the magnitude of the percent value. Because of this, damage values see larger changes from armor than intuition may lead one to think since both the damage itself is affected, as well as the damage mitigation caused by armor. So in many cases, it is more important to consider armor modifiers before health modifiers.

It's important to note that type modifiers against armor work in two ways here: they mitigate a percentage of the target's armor and increase the damage dealt in the same way as a type modifier against the hit points would do. Practically speaking, this means that damage is only reduced by 25% of a target's whole Ferrite Armor and the base damage is increased by +75%. Thus having the damage type with the highest appropriate bonus is far more important against armored than unarmored targets. The formula causes a massive difference between a medium and a large reduction: 75% reduction (¼ original armor) is essentially twice more than 50% reduction (½ original armor).

Because of the twofold reduction, a simple (1 + HM) × (1 + AM) calculation yields incorrect results. The following damage type pairings deviate from that simplified calculation:

• Against ferrite-armored cloned flesh,
  • always surpasses .
  • surpasses above 120 armor.
  • always surpasses ; but never surpasses .
• Against alloy-armored cloned flesh,
  • always surpasses .
  • surpasses above 342 armor.
  • always surpasses .
  • However, neither nor ever surpass .

This just shows that one can't easily compare damage type modifiers against an armor class to those against health classes, and those against armor are, at similar values, considerably more effective especially when fighting high-level enemies (since armor scales with level).

${ ben_{AM} = AM + \frac{AR(1 + AM)}{300 + AR(1 - AM)}AM }$
Exact relative damage bonus (i.e. benefit) of a non-zero armor modifier at a given target net armor value.

The relative damage bonus due to a damage type's armor modifier against armored health compared to no modifier can be quantified using the upper expression on the right. This is only defined for armor values greater than 0, because at 0, the armor type of the target is lost, such that the effect of the damage type's armor modifier is lost as well. Hence, the benefit (relative damage bonus) of the armor modifier at 0 armor is always 0.

${ \lim_{AR\to \infty} (ben_{AM}) = \frac{2AM}{1 - AM} }$
Limit for the benefit as armor approaches infinity.

An interesting property of this benefit function is that, while one would intuitively assume the benefit of the armor modifier gets always greater the greater the target's armor, this benefit actually converges against a limit as armor approaches infinity if the armor modifier is smaller than one (which is true for all damage types against all armor types with the sole exception of damage). Since this limit is only determined by the armor modifier of the damage type itself, it is a practical metric to gauge the relative effectiveness of damage types for long endless missions. The formula for the limit is the lower one given on the right. Below is a table of the actual values for all currently implemented armor modifiers.

AM	+0.75	+0.5	+0.25	+0.15	-0.15	-0.25	-0.5
lim as fraction	+6	+2	+2/3	+6/17	-6/23	-2/5	-2/3
lim in %	+600	+200	+66.67	+35.29	-26.09	-40	-66.67

This illustrates the growing returns of greater armor modifiers, which may be compared to the behavior of  Corrosive Projection aura stacking.

General

A generalized version of the aforementioned formula is:

${ DM = \frac{300}{300 + AR(1 - AM)}\prod_i^k(1 + M_i) }$
Generalized damage modifier formula.

AR is still the target's armor after all debuffs ( Corrosive Projection, procs and  Terrify) have been applied, how these debuffs work is subject of the armor article. AM is the damage type modifier against the armor class. M_i for all indices i are all modifiers that take effect, these can be damage type modifiers against armor and health type, the crit modifier (on average: chance × damage multiplier), stealth bonus (only normal auto attacks, the special stealth attacks are classified as True damage type and disregard armor), enemy body part/hit zone modifiers and damage multipliers from Warframe abilities like  Molecular Prime,  Roar,  Sonar or  Eclipse. The term following the large pi operator (Π) simply means that this is a product, so all these bonuses stack multiplicatively. The notation replaces (1 + M₁) × (1 + M₂) × ... .

In case of enemies who have both shields and armor, damage to shield is not mitigated by armor. Lastly, when damage is applied to a shielded target, the damage is applied directly to its health, not shield – it bypasses shields.

Eximus

Main article: Eximus

Eximus enemies have increased damage resistance to all damage types by 50% and/or boosted stats. Some different Eximus units gain different types of resistance.

For example, while a Blitz Eximus gains no boosted stats, they gain resistance to all damage by 50%. Similarly, while a Leech Eximus gains no additional damage resistance, they gain a significant increase to their base Health and Shield at +200%. Some Eximus units have both defensive scaling and damage resistance such as Parasitic Eximus and even further resistance to primary elemental types such as Arctic Eximus.

See Also

• Category:User_Research_(Damage)

Media

Overview Tutorials

Overall damage guide-Damage types, Crits, and Status

The Three Way Damage 2.0 vs. The Grineer (Update 11.5.3)

The Three Way Damage 2.0 vs. The Corpus (Update 11.5.3)

The Three Way Damage 2.0 Vs. The Infested (11.5.3)

Warframe - Damage 2.0 Fast and Easy

Individual Damage Tutorials

WDR Impact Damage (Warframe)

WDR 2 Puncture Damage (Warframe)

WDR 3 Slash Damage (Warframe)

WDR 4 Heat Damage (Warframe)

WDR 5 Electricity Damage (Warframe)

WDR 6 Cold Damage (Warframe)

WDR 7 Toxin Damage (Warframe)

WDR 8 Blast Damage (Warframe)

WDR 9 Corrosive Damage (Warframe)

WDR 10 Gas Damage (Warframe)

WDR 11 Magnetic Damage (Warframe)

WDR 12 Radiation Damage (Warframe)

WDR 13 Viral Damage (Warframe)

Visual Effects

Warframe New Status Effect Visuals-0

Patch History

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