Damage Types

UAD uses a predictable counter system, unlike most - if not all - other UA# games. All you need to know is the damage type of a damage effect and you should be able to calculate the damage you can deal with that effect against varying targets. Abilities will tell you what type of damage they deal at the bottom of their description in yellow text, and weapons will tell you in the weapon description (hover over the weapon icon below your experience bar). Weapons, however, are almost always the “ranged” type, with flamethrowers and plasma rifles being pretty much the only exceptions with “fire” and “plasma” respectively. Confusing already? Lets just get to the nice list then shall we.

Irreducible:
This one’s pretty cut and dry, damage of this type will not be modified by anything. This is confined almost entirely to ailments, which nobody should be able to resist. This damage type oftentimes ignores armor and attacks your health directly. 100% always.

Ranged:
This type of damage is used in most types of ranged attacks. It is split into a few different categories.(edited)

Bullet:
Used by most infantry types, bullet is the type of damage you’ll be working with most of the time. 100% vs light & heavy, 25% vs armor.

Plasma:
Plasma rifles will occasionally make their way into things, and while they’ll hit a bit softer than bullets, they’ll certainly have a leg up on them against armored targets. 100% vs light, heavy, & armor.

Acid:
No, you’re not gonna get to use an acid weapon, but zombies do! Acid is the zombie version of plasma, however it often comes with a nasty debuff, so be extra careful around acid-based attackers. 100% vs light, heavy, & armor.

Piercing:
Also a zombie-only type attack, piercing is quite able to shred your armor. This type of attack is notably used by swarmers. 100% vs light & heavy, 80% vs armor.

Melee:
Used by most zombie types, melee comes in a few different flavors depending on what zombie is hitting ya.

Slashing:
Generally used by zombies with a “claws” type attack. 100% vs light & heavy, 25% vs armor.

Blunt:
Generally used by zombies with a “sledge” type attack, or it just looks like they pulverize the shit out of you. 100% vs light & heavy, 35% vs armor.

Piercing:
Generally used by zombies with a “bite” type attack. This is the same as Ranged-Piercing, however, the difference does matter for some types of damage resisting behaviors as mentioned above. Melee-Piercing would get reduced by flamer’s fire shield, whereas Ranged-Piercing would not. 100% vs light & heavy, 80% vs armor.

Explosive:
Used by many different abilities and some weapons. Explosive is where we start caring whether the target is light or heavy, as we’ve now wandered out of the territory of standard attacks and into abilities.

Fragmentation:
Used mostly by frag grenades, the fragmentation damage type is a bit less common in terms of diversity, but maybe more common in terms of availability. 150% vs light, 100% vs heavy, 50% vs armor.

Anti-Tank:
Used by rockets, missiles, launched grenades, and many other types of explosives. Anti-Tank is the opposite of fragmentation. 100% vs light, 150% vs heavy, 50% vs armor.

Plasma:
Just like piercing, this is plasma utilized under a different damage category (ranged vs spell). The counters remain the same, but the effect of damage reducing behaviors will be different. 100% vs light, heavy, & armor.

Acid:
See above. 100% vs light, heavy, & armor.

Fire:
A very dangerous damage type, fire hard counters light but gets hard countered by armor. 200% vs light, 100% vs heavy, 10% vs armor. Now there are a few instances out there where the rules are changed a little bit. For example, Javelin Missile is an Explosive-Anti-Tank ability, but it only suffers a 30% damage reduction against armor. And if you upgrade it to level 3, the damage reduction is removed completely, making it the perfect spell to use against heavy armored units.

Conclusion
Exceptions are in the vast minority however, so it shouldn’t be too hard to memorize them if you put your mind to it. Lastly, when calculating damage, all types use the “combine” flag, meaning that you apply every relevant damage modifier on an attack. For example, fire damage against a light armored unit deals 2x * 0.1x = 0.2x damage.

~DOOM  2/20/2019