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I recently picked up this grenade launcher, which features the perk Spike Grenades. It also has release the trigger to detonate the grenade.
The perk text is
Grenades fired from this weapon do increased damage on direct hits.
This means that I could bounce the grenade off a wall or the floor before it detonates by impacting an enemy.
Does the Spike Grenades perk still trigger if the grenade strikes a non-enemy before it detonates?
I gave this a test in the Tribute Hall against the Orge tribute.
A direct hit from launcher to the enemy struck for 10,969 + 3,688 = 14,657
A grenade bounced off the floor into an enemy struck for 10,969
Bouncing a grenade off a surface removes 3,688 damage.
From this I would assume that the Spike Grenades perk only triggers if the grenades leaves the launcher and impacts the enemy directly.
This is inline with Spike Grenades having increased impact damage. There is a discussion on Reddit on the topic.
While I could not find a definitive answer to this exact question, I did find information that could help bring us to a conclusion.
Spiked Grenades increase impact damage which occurs on direct hits. The impact must be direct, meaning the grenade hits the enemy on point instead of damaging them as a byproduct. Because of spiked grenades' mechanics, it's assumed that ricocheted explosions would directly contradict their damage increase.
As a final note, the damage increase is 12%. If you want to test this via a ricocheted grenade against a direct impact grenade to take notes on if the damage increase is still present, it would be beneficial to share your observations and help others who may have the same question.
