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Damage vs. Synthetics in ME2[]
Does anyone know what effect Disruptor ammo has against armored synthetics? More specifically, if I'm combating armored mechs am I better off using disruptor or incindiary ammo? Does the disruptor ammo's bonus against synthetics extend to a synthetic's armor or not? Do Synthetic's resistance to fire damage counteract the bonus that incindiery ammo gives against armor?
- Disruptor Ammo's bonus effects (stun and overheat) don't come into effect on armored synthetics till they've been stripped down to health. Also, its damage bonus against synthetics only applies to their health, not their armor. On the other hand, Incendiary Ammo's damage bonus is full value against their armor. Synthetics must go down to bare health before their fire resistance comes into play.
- So if you're facing insanity LOKIs, for example, both ammo types should be viable. Use Incendiary if you plan to shoot away their armor ASAP so that they can be finished off with Overload, Cryo, Hacking, or biotics. Use Disruptor if you want to Warp, Incinerate, or Reave their armor before taking them down with stunning gunfire. 172.129.244.101 16:43, March 8, 2010 (UTC)
I must object. Disruptor Ammo does seem far more damaging against synthetic armor, whilst Incendiary Ammo seems to do far less. My advise is to always use Disruptor Ammo against synthetics, regardless of defence. Tali's no.1 fan 17:25, February 8, 2011 (UTC)
So it's 2020 and it's about time someone did concrete data mining on this and I have. On Insanity vs. a YMIR mech I used PC console commands to do some in-depth testing. I tested the Mattock against YMIR armor and health, using Heavy Disruptor and Inferno ammo (both 60% bonus damage) and also Cryo Ammo (no bonus damage) as a control group and here are the damage numbers per shot (all from same distance):
vs. Synthetic Armor
- Heavy Disruptor: ~60 damage; Headshot: ~83 damage
- Inferno Ammo: ~76 damage; Headshot: ~100 damage
- Cryo Ammo: ~60 damage; Headshot: ~83 damage
vs. Synthetic Health
- Heavy Disruptor: ~54 damage; Headshot: ~68 damage
- Inferno Ammo: ~40 damage; Headshot: ~56 damage
- Cryo Ammo: ~36 damage; Headshot: ~51 damage
NOTE: as the Mattock was buffed against armor due to the Penetration upgrade and also the Mattock has a slightly higher damage vs armor, this is why the vs. Armor damage numbers are higher across the board
So this proves what user 172.129.244.101 was claiming; Disruptor Ammo only does bonus damage against synthetic health (and shields of all targets) NOT synthetic armor; this makes sense from a realism perspective because well, armor is armor, it's just a thick damage resistant substance for ablation, regardless of whether it's protecting organic or synthetic components underneath. Incendiary Ammo is better than nothing vs. synthetic health but not by much.
Also worth noting is that the extra damage from headshots vs. mechs appears less than vs. organic foes, about 30-40% more total damage for both ammo types whereas against organic foes, my data collection/testing shows HS bonuses closer to 50-60% extra net damage. This makes sense from a realism perspective as well; mech "heads" might contain critical components/processors but likely not quite as critical as organic brains. Ale89515 (talk) 16:45, June 7, 2020 (UTC)
Critical Overload in ME2[]
Can anyone post some specifics in regards to the "critical overload" aspect of Heavy Disruptor Ammo? Does it happen with every mech killed by it or is there a random chance?
- In my experience, it happens a LOT. If it's not 100% of the time, it's pretty close. The critical overloads come in handy against tightly packed clumps of mechs or geth. Keep in mind, however, that the explosions will backfire if you like hanging around at point-blank range. On a recent playthrough, it cramped my style enough that I had to retrain out of Heavy Disruptor Ammo. YMMV. Shenshema 15:45, April 17, 2010 (UTC)
In Mass Effect 3[]
Does anyone have more information on damage multipliers for Disruptor Ammo against synthetics? It'd be relevant to add to the article if comparing ammo types advantages eg. Warp Ammo does up to 60% extra health damage at rank 6 versus the 15% and 60% (health and shields respectively) done by Disruptor disregarding enemy type multipliers. What sort of ammo works best against unarmored/shielded Geth, for instance? The overall dps is the clincher here, after all. HN s4mur41 (talk) 01:58, July 28, 2015 (UTC)
Weapon overloads in ME2[]
From testing Heavy Disruptor ammo against a krogan battlemaster and some of his vorcha in ME2 (Insanity, god mode on) I noticed something interesting: the vorcha seemed to suffer weapon overheats for the full duration of 6 seconds, but the krogan appeared totally unaffected by the overheat; he was using a Claymore, and while it was still smoking as if it was overheated, he just kept plugging away at me without a break. Enemies seem to try to "clear" overheats by reloading their weapons and since the Claymore's a single-shot weapon that gets reloaded after every shot maybe that has something to do with it but just reporting that either some enemy types or some weapon types enemies carry don't seem to suffer full overheat duration. Ale89515 (talk) 13:41, June 7, 2020 (UTC)
Bypasses Shield Gates in ME3[]
Moving this discussion here from the Combat (Mass Effect 3) Talk page, but I have observed that Disruptor Ammo (in single player) appears to be able to bypass enemy shield gates once enemy shields have been reduced below a certain threshold. From observation, I believe this threshold is somewhere around 20-25% of maximum, so once an enemy's shields have been reduced below that, a single shot from a weapon enhanced with Disruptor Ammo can do damage that bleeds through to their health (including killing them outright), effectively bypassing the usual gate. I've only observed this happening with Disruptor Ammo, not other ammo types, and I've successfully tested this with a variety of weapon types (Falcon, Black Widow, Suppressor) on Insanity (PC).
I tend towards thinking this is an undocumented "hidden" feature, and NOT a bug, as it feels in character for Disruptor Ammo being effective against shields and barriers, but I'd like someone to corroborate if possible. If someone could test whether this property exists for Disruptor Rounds in Multiplayer that would be even better, as that would be strong evidence that this isn't a bug but a feature. Ale89515 (talk) 13:32, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
- Sorry -- replied on Talk:Combat_(Mass_Effect_3) before checking Recent Changes more carefully. This is what I get for trying to multi-task...
- As stated there, it's a property of the way bullet damage is split in two when a damage-based ammo effect is applied. It's slowly coming back to me... This is why we used Phasic Rounds in ME3MP when sniping, to one-shot shielded enemies on higher difficulties. Hopefully some more solid evidence on this than my flaky memory can be found. —Elseweyr talk • stalk May 20, 2021, 17:32:35 (UTC)
- No problem, I replied on the combat page. This is interesting, and explains why Cryo Ammo doesn't have this effect as it does no damage. I have not seen this specific interaction mentioned on any Talk Page, however I do know that the Player Notes for Ammo Powers do mention that ammo powers with a damage component are buffed by power damage modifiers so I was aware that shots do both a power damage and a weapon damage component (though it didn't occur to me that was what was causing the shield gate "bypassing" effect). Ale89515 (talk) 17:59, 20 May 2021 (UTC)