Credit: Prismatic
We have all seen those fancy Moze clips. Player drops into boss arena and 1 shot nukes the boss.
It’s impressive, right? There’s an air of mystery about how one gets such a kill. Today we’re going to be picking apart how such kills can be done consistently and how this can be used for farming.
Before I get started it should be noted that all kills shown are done with either no points in Fire in the Skag Den or one. They are all possible with 0 Fire in the Skag Den, these clips just happen to come from my regular play time where I tend to have 1 point spec’d. I do this due to my own personal preference, you are welcome to spec 5 Skag Den or use a com to boost it to 9 or 10. This will only make the kills easier to achieve.
Understanding Short Fuse
The lynch pin to a Moze 1 shot is Short Fuse, so if we want to 1 shot things we need to understand Short Fuse better.
Short Fuse is predetermined
Or in other words, there are no chance-based procs of Short Fuse. If you know what you’re doing you can reliably manipulate Short Fuse to always proc on the desired shot of your boss kill. Every time you load the game.
The set pattern it follows is dictated below (1 is a Short Fuse Proc, 0 is no Short Fuse proc)
1100.0000.1000.0010.1110 …
This pattern is checked whenever you deal damage, and if the source of the damage is a gun then the game will proc Short Fuse on the instances you see a 1.
What this means in practical terms is we want our first instance of damage to be the shot we attempt to kill the boss with. This is extremely important if you have a habit of throwing a grenade as you enter, if the grenade hits the boss first it will mess up your Short Fuse chain and you will not get the kill.
The above shows an example of loading into the game and the first instance of damage is my shot at Traunt. I get a Short Fuse proc as expected and Traunt Explodes. Then I reload the game and this time I throw my grenade at the troopers before hopping down. This time my shot at Traunt doesn’t proc Short Fuse and we barely scratch Traunt. I’ve used grenades as a demonstrator here, however, be aware any damage you deal can iterate the proc pool and deny you a Short Fuse proc.
What gear is important
Up to this point, all game play has been demonstrated with an Ion Cannon. This, however, is far from your only option, Ion cannon however has the most breathing room on kills and allows for the least amount of gear dependence.
If the gun isn’t the key aspect then what of the gear is key you may ask.
What the gun needs
- High Single Pellet Damage: The higher this is the better, Ion Cannon has the highest single pellet damage in the game and hence is a natural pick for 1 shot. A gun like the Beacon can also surpass 20k for card damage at level 60 mh10. Short Fuse can’t proc twice off a single shot from a multi-pellet weapon so having 2 or more pellets doesn’t subsidize having lower single pellet damage.
- 300% Damage to enemies above 90% Health: This anoint is key, due to the nature of Short Fuses damage calculation this anoint offers significantly better performance for 1 shot. Ion Cannon can get by without it, however other guns with less damage are unlikely to be 1 shot capable without it.
- Splash Damage: Splash damage is an easy route to dealing increased damage here, it lowers the required base damage for a gun to be able to 1 shot significantly.
- Elemental: Matching elements provides a significant advantage and furthermore opens up the use of elemental damage multipliers such as Stoke the Embers. It’s important to note, when picking an element for a boss you only need to match elements to the top health bar. Anything after the first health bar will be dealt with by Short Fuse and not your gun.
It should be noted that an Ion Cannon can meet all 4 of these points, combined with being the highest single pellet damage gun in the game this puts it head and shoulders above the rest for 1 shot that use Short Fuse. Beacon is another noticeable weapon that checks all boxes.
Support Gear
We’ve now discussed the gun and what’s optimal there, it’s time to talk about the supporting cast.
Class Mod
There are a couple options here, for a bosses like Killavolt and Traunt this slot is entirely unnecessary if everything else goes to plan.
- Blast Master
This is the top damage option, and if you want to guarantee a 1 shot but aren’t concerned about waiting a bit to start the fight this is your best bet. 50 seconds from load in to taking your shot is enough for Blast master to reach max potential. - Rocketeer/Mind Sweeper
Both these coms can roll Fire in the Skag Den, and while Skag Den receives mayhem scaling these coms will even out damage Blast Master. They’re entirely interchangeable for the purposes of 1 shots here as our aim is to have the boss dead before a Mind Sweeper nade could spawn. Even if Skag Den has its mayhem scaling removed these coms remain strong options as they can spawn with points in Torgue Cross Promotion. - Any Class Mod that boosts gun damage passively
Boss 1 shots don’t give Moze a chance to stack Drowning in Brass, Consecutive hits or Pearl and as such coms which provide passive gun damage such as Bloodletter and are normally poor for damage actually do well here. Points in Click Click or Desperate Measures are easy to utilize to for a bit of extra damage.
The stat rolls
The ideal rolls you want here are Weapon Damage, Splash Damage, and Weapon Crit. These are the best spread of damage for a 1 shot attempt. Typically you’d want Weapon Type however due to our use of 300/90 we actually have a v2 overload and Weapon Type would offer nearly nothing here. Finding all 3 roles is extremely difficult, but trying for as many as possible should be the aim.
Artifact
Artifacts are easier than coms to roll well for this, no prefix or suffix matters here. So you’re free to find any artifact that offers area damage and hopefully an elemental boost for the element you’re using for the current boss. However as was the case with coms, this slot is often overkill, finding any artifact with Area of Effect damage can be considered a good enough option.
Shield
The best in slot here is will be a 0.m, your gun of choice likely being a single shot minimizes the multi-pellet issues. 1 Shotter and Re-Router are also great options. The anoint isn’t crucial as there is currently not a kill in the game that requires it, however, to be optimal you could use an Action Skill Start trigger shield break effects in conjunction with the 0.m to get the best results possible. Bonus elements can be used, but not scaling with Short Fuse’s Mayhem Scaling or getting splash means they actually add minimal damage to a 1 shot attempt.
Grenade
The grenade is truly unimportant as we wouldn’t want it to make contact for fear of messing up the Short Fuse proc. The ideal anoint here is 25% on grenade throw, however, this is also of minimal impact and can be skipped entirely.
The Skill Tree
We’ve gotten this far and we’re yet to discuss skill trees, why you may ask. Primarily because there isn’t a lot of complexity to the skill trees. A build that has Short Fuse has the key component to make these shots work.
Skills such as Torgue Cross Promotion, Scrappy, and Stoke the Embers are all great additions due to having easy activation conditions that can be reliably activated for a shot.
Any clip shown in this post was likely executed with this spec. I show this spec as a demonstration of a spec capable of using these mechanics, it is by no means the max damage that can be achieved for 1 shotting bosses.
Second Times the Charm?
I bring this up at the end as an alternative to be aware of. Some guns just don’t have the power for a 1 shot on their own, however, you still want to kill the boss quickly. This is a case where we can take advantage of Short Fuse starting with 2 consecutive procs. We can use our first shot to 1 shot a trash mob, and that builds overkill which we can then use for killing the boss.
This can also be applied to more than just overkill stacking. Tom and Xam in DLC 2 are an example of 2 targets in 1 fight that we can also use the dual procs against.
The Math Making it Possible
We’ve covered how to execute the strategy and I’ve highlighted the key components, for those just wanting to 1 hit bosses with it you’re covered, however, some might be interested in how the numbers play out for these shots. So let’s walk through the numbers on a min-maxed gear setup, and we’ll use this spec for demonstration. I’m going to ignore the bonus fire damage math.
We’ll be using Ruiner as our hypothetical target, and as such, I am going to show math with a fire Ion Cannon. I’ll also be assuming guardian rank gives 10% gun damage, elemental damage, and crit damage, as well as having C-C-Combo unlocked. The full gear set will be:
- Ion Cannon
- Fire x1 Projectile with a max damage roll ( ~105 000 Card Damage )
- 300/90 Anoint
- Note: that when fully charged the Ion Cannon has a 125% damage bonus, this will appear in the calculations.
- Blast Master
- Skill rolls do not affect damage
- Stat rolls: 29% Weapon Damage, 33% Splash Damage and 21% Crit Damage
- 0.m
- I won’t assume an anoint is active, the shield will however be assumed full for its 125% Amp Bonus.
- Any Standard Artifact
- Stat rolls: 43% Area of Effect Damage and 21% Incendiary Damage.
- Any Grenade
- Anointed with 25% On Grenade Throw.
Before we can tackle Short Fuse we need to cover the damage that the Ion Cannon’s Bullet did. Thats calculated with the following formula:
Bullet Damage = Card Damage * Charge Bonus * Amp * Gun Damage * v1 * v2 * Critical Damage * Guardian Rank * Splash * Elemental Multiplier
If we break down the calculation now and insert bonuses:
- Card Damage: 10500
- Charge Bonus: 1 + Ion Charge Bonus (125%) = 2.25
- Amp: 1 + O.m Amp(25%) = 2.25
- Gun Damage: 1 + Scrappy(24%) + Armoured Infantry(12%) + Com Weapon Damage(29%) = 1.65
- v1: 1 + C-C-Combo (1 stack or 2%) = 1.02
- v2: 1 + 300/90 Anoint + 25% OGT = 4.25
- Critical Damage: 2 x ( 1 + Scorching RPM's(20%) + Com Crit Damage(21%) + Guardian Rank Crit (10%) ) = 3.02
- Guardian Rank: 1 + Guardian Rank Gun Damage (10%) = 1.1
- Splash: 1 + Blast Master Bonus (100%) + Com Splash Roll (33%) + Artifact Splash Roll (43%) + Torgue Cross Promotion (30%) = 3.06
- Elemental Multiplier = Fire Vs Flesh Multiplier (1.75) x ( 1 + Stoke the Embers (30%) + Artifact Incendiary Damage (21%) + Guardian Rank Elemental Damage (10%) ) = 2.82
Putting this together:
Bullet Damage = 105 000 x 2.25 x 2.25 * 1.65 x 1.02 * 4.25 * 3.02 x 1.1 * 3.06 x 2.82 = 10 899 273 = 10.9 million
In isolation that’s impressive, but Ruiner currently has 342 million health, so there’s a lot of work for Short Fuse still to do. Note, 10.9 mil isn’t even 10% of Ruiner’s HP so we get the 300/90 bonus still for Short Fuse.
Short Fuse Damage = 0.75 x Mayhem Scaling * Trigger Damage * Splash * v1 * v2
Inserting the bonuses
- Mayhem Scaling: At Mayhem 10 = 7
- Trigger Damage: This is our bullet's damage: 10.9 million
- v1: 1 + C-C-Combo (1 stack or 2%) = 1.02
- v2: 1 + 300/90 Anoint + 25% OGT = 4.25
- Splash: 1 + Blast Master Bonus (100%) + Com Splash Roll (33%) + Artifact Splash Roll (43%) + Torgue Cross Promotion (30%) = 3.06
And now doing the calculation:
Short Fuse Damage = 0.75 * 7 * 10.9M * 3.06 * 1.02 * 4.25 = 759,044,742 = 759 Million
As minor context for this number, the boss with the largest HP pool and no immune phases is currently Graveward with 642 hit points. Our shot when combining the bullet damage and Short Fuse did 770M.
