Depends on where the shot lands, really. Again, it's made to pierce defenses but it doesn't deal wide, explosive melty damage like regular beam shots. A piercing VSBR shot will not cause the catastrophic booming reaction of regular beam shots unless it hits something vital nor will it melt down shit on proximity. But it will punch through armor even better than regular beams, it goes right through beam shields and most i-fields and it easily evaporates anti-beam coating. An anti-beam cloak which regularly takes 5 or 6 beam shots got shredded in just one, a VSBR shot is shown going through the Crossbone X1's two beam shields, one after the other. And it didn't hit the vulnerable emitter, it went right through two energy fields.

Hence, if I shoot at anyone trying to block the VSBR beam with those defenses, well, the shot should go through (sans exceptions or heavily stacked defenses), because it's what it's built to do and what it actually does. Their MS have less chances of exploding, however, unless the beam goes through something explody like the reactor. Hit an arm or a leg, even if close to the joint? You'll be fine, sorta, because area damage is minimal. Better than getting hit with a regular beam. But if it's a nice shot right on the chest, chances are it's gonna hit something important and still cause a big boom or go right through the cockpit. It's a sharpshooter weapon, you don't get the regular "battleship's firepower" thing with it, it goes through defenses but each shot needs to land right.

Really, I can turn up, let loose at Angelo, he survives by the skin of his teeth because lelnewtype but the shot still punches through the i-field shield and the arm underneath, because he wouldn't expect a beam weapon to go right through it but his newtype shenanigans can still let him react fast enough that only his arm gets pierced.