Anthem: Want To Do Way More Damage? Unequip Your Support Items

Anthem is kind of a mess right now. Last week, fans discovered that the Level 1 Defender rifle became the most powerful gun when equipped in the endgame — now there’s a new bug that’s even more ridiculous. If you’re looking to do way, way more damage at Level 30, all you have to do is unequip your support items. Yes, really.

This weird trick was discovered by u/Gaidax on Reddit, Removing your support items will give a huge boost to Melee / Ultimate / Combos and more. Right now, most players are reporting an instant +20%-25% increase in damage. Why is this happening? It has something to do with how the game’s scaling system is designed. It appears to average the total numbers for your gear, and apparently that average doesn’t go up just because you’ve got items equipped.

NOTE: To unequip support items / guns, you’ll need to create a Custom Loadout with nothing in those slots. Normally, you can’t simply unequip items.

And there’s more to this story. The more weapons you have equipped, the less damage you’ll do in the game’s current state. Equipping Masterworks will also lower your total — so if you only equip Legendary gear, and only bring one Legendary weapon with you out on missions, you’ll increase your damage output by even more.

How To Get The Biggest Damage Bonus:
- Unequip all Support Items.
  - Don’t forget, you can only unequip items by creating a new custom loadout.
- Only equip Legendary gear.
- Only equip ONE Legendary gun.

You don’t have to do all three — the first trick will increase Ultimate / Melee / Combo / Special Ability damage by itself.

It’s a weird issue, and I’m not even sure if this is a bug. Maybe this is the true cost of transparency?

More Anthem guides on Gameranx: