Armor Piercing Silver Swords

[Ganymedes]

Armor Piercing Silver Swords

Does armor piercing on silver swords serve any purpose at all? I just tested an "Azure Wrath" silver sword with 178 pts of armor piercing on an Earth Elemental, and it did no more damage than a similar blade without armor piercing. Using Melt Armor had no effect either. According to other posts on this forum only humans have a flat armor resistance that can be "pierced" - Monster all have armor resistance as a percentage. Is this correct? And if so, what's the point in giving the player silver swords with built-in armor-piercing?

 

[keyes2004]

I wonder if this has any effects on golems and other hard skinned monsters

 

[Ganymedes]

I just did a quick test on some Foglets and some Drowners. Armor Piercing didn't seem to have any effect.

 

[zeypheruk]

Monsters etc generally do not have armor but do have resistances.

 

[Ganymedes]

I'm wondering why there are silver swords with built-in Armor Piercing (not from runes)... Is this simply an oversight by the developers?

 

[zeypheruk]

well wild hunt soldiers have armor.

 

[Ganymedes]

well wild hunt soldiers have armor.

Hm... ok. I haven't gotten that far in the story yet. Armor Piercing might become more useful later then.

 

[VelcroSnake]

well wild hunt soldiers have armor.

That's why I threw a +30 AP rune on my silver sword. No idea if it makes any difference, but it makes me feel better.

 

[zeypheruk]

Well strong attacks bypass armor anyways so there is that as well.

 

[Pinball]

Even on Steel Swords I often wonder how Armor Piercing converts as far as damage is concerned. Is it better for a higher damage sword without armor piercing or a lower damage sword with armor piercing?

 

[hwfanatic]

Is this honestly still a mystery? Doesn't anybody have a clear idea of how armor piercing is implemented?

 

[sv3672]

The armor piercing stat is subtracted from the target's armor rating, and if the reduced armor rating is less than zero, then it becomes zero. Then the armor rating is subtracted from the damage, but it is again limited to zero or greater (I do not know exactly if and how a minimum damage is calculated). Finally, the damage is multiplied by the specific resistance to that type of attack. Some of the above is guessing, but this example shows how I think it works:
- a sword with 500 damage and 100 armor piercing hits a target wearing 250 armor and 30% resistance to slashing damage
- the 250 armor is reduced by 100 to 150
- the 500 damage is reduced by 150 to 350
- it is then multiplied by 0.7 (-30%), so the final amount of damage (not including other multipliers due to difficulty, level difference, etc.) is 245 points

It is hard to tell how much useful armor piercing is against monsters - it depends on whether the game considers some of them "armored". I guess it would make sense for the Wild Hunt warriors to have an armor rating.