Well the reason I suggested an atomizer versus a brandish is the atomizers are listed as "minor" afflictions while the brandishes are listed as "strong" afflictions, so the effects will be much more pronounced. But even an atomizer versus a cold snap/firecracker would clear things up I suppose.

At that depth though I'd expect their damage to be similar, the vaporizer is being nerfed by the level since it's a 2 star. You'd have to bomb things on floor 9 I think to get a more accurate test.

I have a comparison between Fiery Vaporizer Mk II (level 10) and Fireburst Brandish (level 5), observing only the fire damage to slimes (neutral to elemental) in the first level of Tier 2. The Vaporizer has a good chance of minor fire; the Fireburst Brandish has a good chance of strong fire.

Observations:

1. The initial damage done by both weapons is elemental (half elemental, half normal for the Brandish), but the fire "damage ticks" are normal damage. So i just took note of the fire ticks.

2. Minor fire caused 9 - 13 damage per tick across various lichen, slimes, and jellies.

3. Major fire caused 25 to 30 damage per tick. Small to medium targets last for one to two ticks after initial damage. I was not able to get the lichen colony on fire because I screwed up and needed to kill it with shadow before things got worse.

4. There is obvious balance between the vaporizer inflicting minor fire over an extended period of time over an area as enemies move into it, versus the Brandish targeting one to two enemies with strong fire.

I tested cold snap's (lvl 1) moderate freeze in T3 in D19. When they broke from freeze it was doing 58 damage. My shivermist (lvl10) was doing 155 dmg.

Freeze didn't seem as long with the cold snap either but I didn't time it so that is pretty subjective.

That seems rather odd, minor would seem to be the lowest value possible, but... Well testing is testing. So given the order, I guess it reads:

Moderate = Base damage
Minor = Base damage * 2
Strong = Base damage * 3

Unsurprisingly, strong is the strongest.

After reading this thread, I was wondering how the status vials compare to the weapon status ailments. I tried out Super Poison and Super Fire, seems both have a stronger effect than "Minor," at least in T2:

Depth 11 - Voltail using a Faust, values are hit 1 and 2 in the combo
Not Poisoned 98 132
Minor Poison (Venom Veiler) 114 147
Super Poison Vial 119 153

Depth 14 - Pitboss, hit with DA Lv10, values are hit 1 and 2 in the combo
Not Poisoned 106 146
Minor Poison (Venom Veiler) 125 165
Super Poison Vial 132 173

Depth 11 - Voltail
Minor Fire (Ash of Agni) 21 per tick, 4 ticks
Super Fire Vial 32 per tick, 4-5 ticks

Here's another poison data point for consideration...

Depth 16 Lichen
Hitting them with a vile striker, these are the low/high hits in the first two swings of the combo.

Not poisoned 48 28
Venom Veiler 5* Minor Poison 55 29
Vile Striker 4* Strong Poison 58 29

Here is fire tick data

Minor fire - ash of agni
Strong fire - fang of vog

D19
Quicksilver
Strong fire 48
Minor Fire 43

Jelly Cube
Strong Fire 57
Minor Fire 49

D20
Greaver
Strong fire 40
Minor Fire 34

D21
Mender
Strong fire 43
Minor Fire 37

Puppy Turret
Strong fire 57
Minor Fire 51

D22
Devilite
Strong fire 46
Minor Fire 40

D24

Devilites/Ghosts:
Fire jug (the one you can throw) 65
Strong fire 51
Minor Fire 45

Ultra Blast Cube
Strong fire 82
Minor Fire 70

D26
Devilites/Ghosts:
Strong fire 55
Minor Fire 48

D27
Devilites/Ghosts:
Strong Fire 57
Minor Fire 49

D28
Med Lichen Colony:
Strong Fire 93
Minor Fire 73

Devilites/Ghosts:
Strong Fire 58
Minor Fire 51

Yeah Gigafreak, the star rating might affect the status' effect. Will be great is someone could test two minor fires with different * ratings. Or maybe even the same star rating between bomb/gun/sword? Maybe Searing Edge 2* vs Fiery Vaporizer 2* which both cause Minor Fire.

I was collecting data on just Ash's ticks from T1-3 last night, can see the data here.

I noticed very early on that different types of monsters were affected by the same fire differently. Gremlins were the least hurt of anything. On depth 5 where ticks were doing 10-13, gremlins only received 8. On later depths where I noticed, they were the minimum affected by fire. The exception being menders which have a lower defense than normal and thus received a higher tick.

Also, constructs/undead take the most damage from ticks. The exception being skellys which take extra fire damage per tick. Approximately 20% more than other undead at the same depth.

I, stupidly, forgot I was wearing my Mad Bomber Suit when gathering these numbers that has a Medium Bomb Damage bonus >_< So I'm going to need to go back and run it again without the suit to see if anything changes. Don't know if it affects just the blast or the ticks too. Also different monsters tick different amounts at the same depth, I'll need to separate the data by monster at least for the initial analysis.

My current theory is that minor/moderate/major are just words that OOO pasted onto the weapons, much like the bars that are supposed to represent a weapon's strength and speed. They do not really relate to the actual strength and speed of the weapon, and the minor/moderate/major labels do not relate to the actual strength of the status.

Minor/moderate/major might even refer to the duration rather than the damage/strength of the status effect.

@SlyJohnny it has been reported that the UV Damage on haze bombs will increase the initial elemental blast. Just from my data over the past two days:

Without UV at Depth 9, initial elemental blast from Ash of Agni 5*
Construct 88
Fiend 68

With a Medium Damage bomb bonus (from Mad Bomber Suit)
Construct 97 (Weak to elemental, 10% increase)
Fiend 77 (Neutral to elemental, 13% increase... why?)

Now for some maths... stay with me here :) d is damage, x is the increase % in damage due to weakness and i is the increase due to the medium damage bonus. Given that:

xd = 88
xd + i = 97
d = 68
d + i = 77

Then:
x = 88 / d = 88 / 68 ~= 1.294 (thus approx 30% increase in damage due to the construct's weakness to elemental)

i = 97 - xd = 97 - 88 = 9
i = 77 - d = 77 - 68 = 9

So the increase due to the Medium Bonus is 9 hit points in both cases. Why 9? I have no idea. Need more data. The damage bonus is more pronounced in fiends since it is added after the weakness is calculated. Originally I thought the formulas would be something more like:
ixd = 97
id = 77
but that just results in i = 10% increase and i = 13% increase.

It would be really awesome if someone could corroborate with some more data points, or show that this formula doesn't hold.

If a Damage Bonus changes the fire's tick, it is so low that it is removed when rounding to a whole number. Or maybe the difference isn't large enough to be noticed in Tier 2. With a Medium Damage Bonus the ticks ranged from 12-19 at depth 9, depending on the monster type. Without the bonus they remained at just 12-19. Also note this is for Medium Damage Bonus, not a specific UV vs Type which might follow a different pattern. *** EDIT: Keep reading this thread, it is confirmed later that a UV vs Type affects ticks but it seems that for haze bombs that the damage bonus from Mad Bomber does not affect the ticks only the initial blast. (sad panda)

Yeah, eek5 is very likely correct. If the UV affected ticks, it should be noticeable somewhere. Then again, it might be particular to a weapon-type or status aliment since we don't know the formulas being used or if formulas are consistent (though I would really hope they are).

Based on Ash damage ticks I've been collecting in Tier 2, here's the list of monsters from Low Fire Resist to High Fire Resist. Monsters on the same line seem to have the same amount of resistance.
Ice Cube
Lichen
Zombies
Lumber, Jelly/Lichen
Gun Puppy, Retrode, Scuttlebot, Wolver
Mecaknight, Chromalisk
Kat, Devilite, Wing, Greaver, Gremlin, Mender

I would have thought that monsters like Silvermist (ice lumber) would be different from other lumbers, but it is not. Only the Ice Cube seems to stand out from other jellies, I guess since it is "meltable."

Lichen is on there twice. When they start combining, sometimes their resistance switches to match the jelly numbers. In one garden, 1, 4, 5, and 6 lichens acted normal whereas 2, 3, 4 lichens combined acted like jelly. Definitely need to test that more and try larger colonies. Might be a bug.

It looks like the difference between the most and least damage a tick can do on a depth is slightly more than two-fold. So if Ice Cubes get 50 a tick, Gremlins would only receive 23 per tick at the same depth.

This pattern doesn't follow the monster's elemental damage resistance at all. Here's what I see based on monster type:
Slimes have low resistance
Undead is low or high resistance, nothing in the middle
Constructs have medium to low resistance
Beasts have medium resistance. The elemental blast actually does less damage than a tick.
Fiends and Gremlins all have high fire resistance