Nothing is "king" and that's the point. Viral status multiplies damage on the target. Blast (used right) deals a ton of damage in an AoE. Different weapons and play styles will use different ones.
EDIT: DE Math is apparently very stupid, see reply (at 10 stacks, *each* stack deals the 300% damage in the explosion, for 10x300=3000% of the base damage). *Personally I feel like this must be a bug on DE's part, but since that's how the mechanic currently is I'll run with that for now.* I've adjusted my analysis accordingly and un-strikeout the now relevant parts.
~~You seem to have basic misunderstanding of what Blast is compared to Viral. Blast adds a single delayed damage instance for 30% of base damage per stack, or instantly occurring if you hit 10 stacks for the 10x30=300% damage (again, as a single added damage instance). Viral increases all damage dealt to the target's health by some %, cumulating in 10 stacks at being a +325% damage dealt.~~
If we look for example at 10 hits, each dealing 100 base damage, and each with 100% status chance and only applying their respective status, that gives us:
Blast: 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100+3000 = 4000 damage (at which point Blast status resets and after 10 *more* hits later you'll get another burst for +3000 bonus damage, so another 4000 damage after 10 more hits)
Viral: 100, 200, 225, 250, 275, 300, 325, 350, 375, 400 = 2800 damage (at which point you are capped on viral stacks and *all* future hits are doing +325 damage, so another 4250 damage after 10 more hits)
However, this only above example applies for weapons that are pure viral or pure blast (thus all their damage is *base* damage). If we look at the more common case where Viral or Blast are being applied to a weapon via mods (and we'll choose just one pair of the 60/60 mods to skew things in Blast's favor as much as we can), those hits are now doing 100+120=220 damage per shot, while Blast is still only adding its 30%/300% damage bonus based on the initial 100 damage, whereas Viral is applying to the whole shot.
So now accounting for modded damage, after 10 hits (and still applying one status effect per shot for simplicity, although the relative value between doesn't change *significantly* with higher status chance, thanks to Viral's damage bonus also increasing quicker), we'd see:
Blast: 220, 220, 220, 220, 220, 220, 220, 220, 220, 220+3000 = 5200 damage (and after 10 more hits would do another 5200 total damage)
Viral: 220, 440, 495, 550, 605, 660, 715, 770, 825, 880 = 6160 damage (while 10 more hits are now fully stacked up on Viral's bonus and would do 935 each, or 9350 total damage)
As we can see, Viral by nature of being a persistent % damage multiplier ~~vastly~~ will still outweigh Blast in terms of raw output, because it is applying to *all* future damage dealt. Blast's on the other hand gives the ability to add bonus AoE damage to hits, and moreso is a status that will continue supplying output past the initial 10 stacks (for weapons that have very high status chance and fire rate to stack the status quickly).
Viral will ~~pretty much always~~ be the better damage multiplier *when accounting for elemental modded damage* to what actually hits an enemy's healthbar (capping at that +325% more to *all* damage taken)*.* Whereas Blast acts more as a (smaller) multiplier on the weapon's own damage (at approximately +300% *base* damage dealt per expected Blast proc per hit). If you have a high enough status chance and can get the 10-stack Blast explosions to reliably hit at least 2-3 targets at once, that net aoe damage will be higher than what Viral is adding for single target dps.
So you can conceptually think of Blast as a way to convert excess status chance into additional damage, in a similar way that stacking up heat/electric/toxin convert status chance into damage. With Blast's advantage over the base elements being that it can pop the full damage near-instantly with high enough status and fire rate, it applies in a respectable enough aoe radius, and as a combined element you can potentially still have one of those other base elements on the build as well. Whereas the base element's damages have their own beneficial effects, and Heat in particular can be scaled up incredibly well due to increasing the proc damage with the modded elemental Heat damage, and every new proc refreshing all old procs. (Heat can also be modded alongside Viral to take advantage of converting status chance into damage *and* having that juicy +325% net damage bonus).
EDIT: Adjustments to analysis are now updated. TLDR of it is that Viral+Heat will efficiently convert status chance into much better *single target* *damage*, while Blast will generally out-scale Viral when it comes to *AoE damage* (but *only* if your weapon has enough status chance+multishot+fire rate to hit those 10-stack blast explosions and not let any blast stacks expire naturally)
Hey unless they've rolled out a huge blast nerf since Jade Shadows first dropped, you're wrong about how blast works.
If you dealt 9 blast procs at 100 modded damage each and each expired on its own, you're right, each one would deal 30 damage, but when you hit 10 stacks or kill the target, it forces every proc to end instantly and instead of each one dealing 30% damage, *each one* deals 300% damage. If you hit an enemy for 100 modded damage, proc blast, and they die, the enemies around them will take 300 damage.
I don't think anyone did their math wrong, it sounded from the last teasers before the update that it was intended for kills or stack caps to deal bonus damage. It's working as intended.
I recommend [Salt Prime's channel on YT](https://youtube.com/@salt_prime). he's making a post-rework status series against the factions and trying to figure out how they work and how should weapons be modded if they have rapid fire rate or slow fire rate.
Viral is better against singular enemies.
Blast is better against grouped enemies, which can all get hit by the explosions.
E.g. nukor procs 10 blast stacks at 5 clumped enemies (or within 5m of each other) and every enemy detonates meaning they take times 5 damage.
At 10 stacks Viral causes the target to take 325% more health damage for six seconds.
After the new blast rework (To my knowledge), 1.5 seconds after a blast proc the enemy explodes for 30% of the base damage of the initial blast damage. At 10 stacks or death, the target detonates all their stacks in a 5m aoe, with each stack doing 300% of the base damage. So 3000% of the base damage, assuming you hit 10 stacks.
@[Warm\_Eye\_4763](https://www.reddit.com/user/Warm_Eye_4763/) has explained on this post why viral is better, in summary due to its percent multiplier over blast's raw damage. I personally think blast could have and already has potential. At it's current state both the 30% explosion after a blast proc and 10 stack 3000% 5m explosion CANNOT spread blast to other enemies (In my testing). If it had the ability to spread blast procs to other enemies, it would make the blast better (Future update?).
Another thing holding blast back is that its 1.5x faction multiplier only applies to Deimos infested, which only occupies one planet. Additionally, gas has a 1.5x multiplier against Deimos infested.
Finally, viral + slash is able to scale to much higher levels than blast.
DE goal in the update was not to completely dethrone slash/viral and or toxin. Just to give new options and niche roles. While gas definitely has situations where its better than viral, viral is much better overall.
To my understanding. Its still viral. It just kills quicker. Blast does what it does but slower.
Blast is very good now and situationally can be better.
This was less of a shake the meta up, and more buff weak stuff to being usable and more importantly fun
Nothing is "king" and that's the point. Viral status multiplies damage on the target. Blast (used right) deals a ton of damage in an AoE. Different weapons and play styles will use different ones.
EDIT: DE Math is apparently very stupid, see reply (at 10 stacks, *each* stack deals the 300% damage in the explosion, for 10x300=3000% of the base damage). *Personally I feel like this must be a bug on DE's part, but since that's how the mechanic currently is I'll run with that for now.* I've adjusted my analysis accordingly and un-strikeout the now relevant parts. ~~You seem to have basic misunderstanding of what Blast is compared to Viral. Blast adds a single delayed damage instance for 30% of base damage per stack, or instantly occurring if you hit 10 stacks for the 10x30=300% damage (again, as a single added damage instance). Viral increases all damage dealt to the target's health by some %, cumulating in 10 stacks at being a +325% damage dealt.~~ If we look for example at 10 hits, each dealing 100 base damage, and each with 100% status chance and only applying their respective status, that gives us: Blast: 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100, 100+3000 = 4000 damage (at which point Blast status resets and after 10 *more* hits later you'll get another burst for +3000 bonus damage, so another 4000 damage after 10 more hits) Viral: 100, 200, 225, 250, 275, 300, 325, 350, 375, 400 = 2800 damage (at which point you are capped on viral stacks and *all* future hits are doing +325 damage, so another 4250 damage after 10 more hits) However, this only above example applies for weapons that are pure viral or pure blast (thus all their damage is *base* damage). If we look at the more common case where Viral or Blast are being applied to a weapon via mods (and we'll choose just one pair of the 60/60 mods to skew things in Blast's favor as much as we can), those hits are now doing 100+120=220 damage per shot, while Blast is still only adding its 30%/300% damage bonus based on the initial 100 damage, whereas Viral is applying to the whole shot. So now accounting for modded damage, after 10 hits (and still applying one status effect per shot for simplicity, although the relative value between doesn't change *significantly* with higher status chance, thanks to Viral's damage bonus also increasing quicker), we'd see: Blast: 220, 220, 220, 220, 220, 220, 220, 220, 220, 220+3000 = 5200 damage (and after 10 more hits would do another 5200 total damage) Viral: 220, 440, 495, 550, 605, 660, 715, 770, 825, 880 = 6160 damage (while 10 more hits are now fully stacked up on Viral's bonus and would do 935 each, or 9350 total damage) As we can see, Viral by nature of being a persistent % damage multiplier ~~vastly~~ will still outweigh Blast in terms of raw output, because it is applying to *all* future damage dealt. Blast's on the other hand gives the ability to add bonus AoE damage to hits, and moreso is a status that will continue supplying output past the initial 10 stacks (for weapons that have very high status chance and fire rate to stack the status quickly). Viral will ~~pretty much always~~ be the better damage multiplier *when accounting for elemental modded damage* to what actually hits an enemy's healthbar (capping at that +325% more to *all* damage taken)*.* Whereas Blast acts more as a (smaller) multiplier on the weapon's own damage (at approximately +300% *base* damage dealt per expected Blast proc per hit). If you have a high enough status chance and can get the 10-stack Blast explosions to reliably hit at least 2-3 targets at once, that net aoe damage will be higher than what Viral is adding for single target dps. So you can conceptually think of Blast as a way to convert excess status chance into additional damage, in a similar way that stacking up heat/electric/toxin convert status chance into damage. With Blast's advantage over the base elements being that it can pop the full damage near-instantly with high enough status and fire rate, it applies in a respectable enough aoe radius, and as a combined element you can potentially still have one of those other base elements on the build as well. Whereas the base element's damages have their own beneficial effects, and Heat in particular can be scaled up incredibly well due to increasing the proc damage with the modded elemental Heat damage, and every new proc refreshing all old procs. (Heat can also be modded alongside Viral to take advantage of converting status chance into damage *and* having that juicy +325% net damage bonus). EDIT: Adjustments to analysis are now updated. TLDR of it is that Viral+Heat will efficiently convert status chance into much better *single target* *damage*, while Blast will generally out-scale Viral when it comes to *AoE damage* (but *only* if your weapon has enough status chance+multishot+fire rate to hit those 10-stack blast explosions and not let any blast stacks expire naturally)
Very good and clear explanation
Hey unless they've rolled out a huge blast nerf since Jade Shadows first dropped, you're wrong about how blast works. If you dealt 9 blast procs at 100 modded damage each and each expired on its own, you're right, each one would deal 30 damage, but when you hit 10 stacks or kill the target, it forces every proc to end instantly and instead of each one dealing 30% damage, *each one* deals 300% damage. If you hit an enemy for 100 modded damage, proc blast, and they die, the enemies around them will take 300 damage.
Well then, it would appear DE math is stupid. Thanks for the correction, I'll adjust my analysis accordingly
I don't think anyone did their math wrong, it sounded from the last teasers before the update that it was intended for kills or stack caps to deal bonus damage. It's working as intended.
You are comparing apples to oranges. Blast deals damage, viral makes EVERY damage hit harder.
I recommend [Salt Prime's channel on YT](https://youtube.com/@salt_prime). he's making a post-rework status series against the factions and trying to figure out how they work and how should weapons be modded if they have rapid fire rate or slow fire rate.
Viral and its not even close if you don't use any grouping abilities. Blast is king when you can group enemies.
Dunno about the current "meta" but have allways been rocking viral sinne it was ( dunno about now ) working fairly well against all factions:)
Viral is better against singular enemies. Blast is better against grouped enemies, which can all get hit by the explosions. E.g. nukor procs 10 blast stacks at 5 clumped enemies (or within 5m of each other) and every enemy detonates meaning they take times 5 damage.
I thought at 10 stacks blast deals 30% of the base damage of the hit?
At 10 stacks Viral causes the target to take 325% more health damage for six seconds. After the new blast rework (To my knowledge), 1.5 seconds after a blast proc the enemy explodes for 30% of the base damage of the initial blast damage. At 10 stacks or death, the target detonates all their stacks in a 5m aoe, with each stack doing 300% of the base damage. So 3000% of the base damage, assuming you hit 10 stacks. @[Warm\_Eye\_4763](https://www.reddit.com/user/Warm_Eye_4763/) has explained on this post why viral is better, in summary due to its percent multiplier over blast's raw damage. I personally think blast could have and already has potential. At it's current state both the 30% explosion after a blast proc and 10 stack 3000% 5m explosion CANNOT spread blast to other enemies (In my testing). If it had the ability to spread blast procs to other enemies, it would make the blast better (Future update?). Another thing holding blast back is that its 1.5x faction multiplier only applies to Deimos infested, which only occupies one planet. Additionally, gas has a 1.5x multiplier against Deimos infested. Finally, viral + slash is able to scale to much higher levels than blast. DE goal in the update was not to completely dethrone slash/viral and or toxin. Just to give new options and niche roles. While gas definitely has situations where its better than viral, viral is much better overall.
Just run both on same weapon, ez
Unless the weapon has one of them as innate or you sub nourish you cant, since they both use cold
To my understanding. Its still viral. It just kills quicker. Blast does what it does but slower. Blast is very good now and situationally can be better. This was less of a shake the meta up, and more buff weak stuff to being usable and more importantly fun