What's the best ammo mod for raw damage output?

Just slap Drill ammo and mow them down trough walls. Remove the piercing mod though if you use AP or Drill as it reduces damage when banging cover.

As for raw damage - AP IV is the best. Double and triple hits for everybody. 

No damage loss at all or no damage loss for the amount of built-in piecing? I don't remember 

On the Destroyer I like the Typhoon and the Scorpion/Venom and I'd run it with the damage barrel with APIV or Drill if the Typhoon is your main (that'll give you the most damage per shot), otherwise I'd use Incendiary if the Venom is the main.

Yes you still need to account for the 50 point damage penalty to armor, not such a huge deal with Crusader or any Sniper Rifle/Executioner Pistol since they already do a ton of damage, APIV reduces the penalty by 90% so you're penalty is 5 damage to armor. Drill III reduce the affect by 40% so your penalty is more (30 damage), but you trade that for 2.5m of piercing, plus whatever innate penetration the gun has, plust mods. I think it's possible, with Javelin both AP mods and Drill III, to shoot through entire maps like Rio with enough penetration. 



You shouldn't be able to exceed 100% (afaik) and to my knowledge it works like this (it's how it should work too): Take the ARs for example, HVB ignores 90% armor so your penalty is now 5. If you add the piercing mod, which ignores 65% your damage penaly is now 3. Add in AP/Drill rounds and you get 0 penalty, diminishing returns. Now it's possible BioWare was like "We're just gonna add this shit up and if it goes over 100% there's just no penalty."



With normal, non-innate penetrating, weapons if you shoot through an object (cover and maybe even enemies) you lose X% of your total damage, this isn't the case with AP and Drill rounds. With those rounds you can shoot through an object with no damage loss as long as you don't have a HVB or Piercing mod equipped. If you equip those with AP/Drill you lose the damage %, but gain more penetration so what's more important to you? However, there's those awesome weapons with innate piercing (Crusader, Typhoon, Widow, Black Widow, Jav, Executioner) and for whatever reason (I didn't play at launch I started 2 maybe 3 years ago so I don't know all the details) when you equip piercing mods there's no damage loss when shooting through cover. There must be some interaction with the innate penetration that overrides the damage penalties.

AP IV rounds with damage barrel is the answer. You give up so much to armor mitigation unless you're using an extremely high damage per shot weapon. Not to mention the double and triple hits you can get versus phantoms, ravagers, banshees, praetorians, atlases, scions. And double hits versus basic troopers and enemies.

No, that's projectile weapons (except Krysae).

Armor damage migitation applies to all hitscan weapons. Some of them have bonus against armor and some other have high damage-per-shot so they don't give a fxxk, of course.

This and this. Magazine upgrade + extended barrel on the Typhoon, spare thermal clip + high caliber barrel on the Crusader, AP 4 rounds.

Here's some quick info on piercing/penetration: Cyonan Test

On paper - YES. In practice - AP IV with its multi-hits will outdo Warp IV. 

But of course, if we are talking about priming, then Incendiary IV with certain primers will blow away the competition 

Seriously? How has nobody told OP it's Explosive Ammo yet?
@op, by the way it's Explosive Ammo. Really tears 'em up.

Interesting bit about the AP Mods...I avoided them on my Destroyer/Typhoon setup, especially when I saw the reduced damage percentage. I usually just throw AP ammo with the 25% damage barrel and let her rip. My sidearm is a scorpion to mainly deal with Phantoms and Dragoons.

I'm just looking at this rifle mod and thinking:



It already has 90% penetration. Do I really want even more damage against armor? Hm, yeah, most toughest enemies are one big armor bulk, so maybe I do. But the question was what's the best mod for raw, average damage against everything.

So with this mod, wouldn't applying incindiary do similiar damage to armor + you do more damage to other stuff, and you also tech prime them?

Or is maybe 25% damage barrel + AP ammo better? What I'm technically asking here is, is 25% base damage barrel + AP ammo stronger buff against shields, barriers and bare hp than incindiary ammo + AP barrel?

It's kind of amusing that after so many years this is still being discussed

But I'm asking this also for modding reasons, as some mods can swap enemy stats around for more shields and barriers than armor, with faster recharging shields, so pure armor damage isn't always the best answer. I am not too worried if I'll be doing slightly less damage against armor (but I don't think it should be a big difference) since almost everybody is using AP rounds anyway, I want to fire support in other means as well. Unless not taking AP barrel+AP ammo would really diminish your armor damage to nothing, but I don't think it should. I'm thinking maybe damage barrel + AP ammo might just be a best choice overall.