So I recently got my hands on the YK42B Pulse Rifle, but so far I'm not having any luck with it at all. My shots with it tend to do between 6-20 damage, even though it says it does 54-78 damage. I've got enough Strength to use it effectively, this seems to be the case independent of enemy armor, and while my Energy Weapons skill is only at 86 or thereabouts, that shouldn't impact damage at all, let alone to this degree.

The only thing I can think of is that I did take the Finesse trait, but that shouldn't have this large an impact, should it?

I may not have this exactly right, so some vet may show me up and offer a correction.

But, as far as I can tell, most of the armors have pretty high electrical resistance, around 30% to 60% DR, with 2 exceptions. That is already a significant drop.

Finesse gives you -30% damage. I read on the wiki that this actually adds +30 DR to your attack, which means that suddenly an armor that was 40% DR vs electric is now 70% DR. Yeowch. If you're shooting at heavier armor, DT will drop the damage even further. Against unarmored foes, it would only be 30% DR, (or 0% without Finesse, which would do full weapon damage).

That could account for a lot right there. I kinda wish the game had a place to look at the formulas at work.

Thanks, that seems to be part of the problem. I guess I'll just have to wait until my skill is high enough to get mostly headshots.