It seems like the Curse of Malfunction penance has no rhyme or reason as to what it counts and what it doesn’t. I can have 2 or 3 charges on voltaic emitter, a massive group of enemies in front of me that includes shotgunners, gunners and standard ranged scabs/dregs… no weapon malfunctions, and even if the weapons DO malfunction, I don’t get any progression on the penance. In fact, most of the progress I have got has been from making common ranged enemies weapons malfunction sometimes.
Just played through a mission where I used my grenade against groups of elite enemies about 10 times. 0 progress still. This is probably bugged and gating 100% of players from unlocking any of the unlockable helmets
Edit: using the grenade is a terrible method because the enemies have to be shooting when it goes off and it can’t kill them. The voltaic emitter can get me about 15 points per mission (so like 30 missions/15 hours total) but it requires me to have a specific build and focus on almost nothing but recharging and looking for elite ranged enemies. I highly doubt players that aren’t looking up tips and grinding for this penance are ever going to be able to get even the first basic unlockable helmet.
Yeah - there seems to be a hidden “Needs to be shooting” for the disable to actually function - which is immensely frustrating as it completely removes it as a safety talent for charging into gunners.
This, and the “can’t die from the damage” makes the penance incredibly annoying.
I HOPE the “has to be firing” is a bug. I REALLY hope the hit detection with any obstacles (or terrain, or foliage, or height differences…) is a bug, because right now you can set it off in the middle of a large group and hit… maybe half of the enemies?
Pasting an edited post I did in another thread about this penance:
I finished the penance yesterday, and the best way to finish ‘Curse of Malfunction’ is to play Auric Expeditions and run away from your team so you are completely solo.
Wait for two charges, find groups of Gunners/Reapers and aggro them (they need to be shooting at you first or it won’t count), then use ‘Voltaic Emitter’.
The problem is not doing all of these things in itself, but that the penance is so glitchy so even if you do everything exactly right (two charges, wait for enemies to shoot, be solo), you will not always get progress for the penance for every enemy hit even though they get jammed (animation).
Also, keep in mind that if ‘Voltaic Emitter’ kills an enemy, you won’t get credit and progress.
Since it’s glitchy there is never a point where you want to hit only one-two enemies with ‘Voltaic Emitter’ - you always want to hit a big cluster of enemies preferable more than five ranged elites.