Armor Piercing and The Eye

[Lord-Knight Fandragon]

Sooo, being pretty new to this game, despite having it for awhile, I have been mostly lost by the huge number of different modifiers. I am a Commando, and built "The Eye" rifle, it says it has 100% Armor Piercing and ive not been able to find any good google answers as to what Armor Piercing does, or if The Eye is actually better than the 236 dmg Breachloaders ive got, which give me like +230DPS over The Eye(which I know DPS isnt the whole story for a weapon).

I thought I had someone tell me awhile ago that Armor Piercing meant that % of the damage will ignore armor. So if I hit someone with 1000, 180 is going through, regardless of armor? Meaning with The Eye, 100% of my damage should be dealt?

Then whats the difference between Piercing and Armor Piercing? I dont even see Armor Piercing on any of the stat tabs.

[KG]

Armor Piercing is the last step of all damage conversion. It converts damage dealt by attacks with a % of weapon damage from physical (affected by armor and the low/uncommon physical resistance) to piercing damage (not affected by armor, but piercing resist is more common/higher than physical resistance). If your build has significantly higher physical damage bonus than piercing damage bonus you want to avoid weapons with high Armor Piercing.

[Lord-Knight Fandragon]

Originally posted by wespe___o=/:*:

Don´t get too focused on Piercing.. In GrimDawn it´s not much better than any other dmg-type ;)
Better get high ResistanceReduction and you have a CookieCutter..

For what you try to do with Physical dmg ignoring a lot of Resistances, look at Physical + Trauma ;D

Only thing im trying to focus on at all is Fire/Lightning damage since im using Fireshot. I was just kinda experimenting with Eye, since I think it looks kinda cool.

Also, on Elemental Damage, it splits 33/33/33 between fire, cold and lightning? Sooo, that means if I see 10% Elemental Damage, then that is 3% to each? Elemental Damage kinda sux, and its better to focus on one?

[kekkuli]

No actually elemental damage gives you the full amount to all 3 damage types. And yeah on commando it's good idea to focus on either fire or physical damage.

[Halcyon]

If you see "9 elemental damage" that's three of each. "+9% elemental damage" is +9% to each

[Quiximo]

If you deal 100 fire damage:
10% increased all damage = 110 fire
10% elemental damage = 110 fire
10% fire damage = 110 fire

If you deal 100 elemental damage: (33 fire / 33 ice / 33 lightning)
10% increased all damage = 110 elemental (36.6 fire / 36.6 ice / 36.6 lightning)
10% elemental damage = 110 elemental (36.6 fire / 36.6 ice / 36.6 lightning)
10% increased fire = 103.3 (36.6 fire / 33 ice / 33 lightning)

Element damage can be harder to scale since it doesn't benefit much from individual element increases, but it can utilize more flat elemental damage sources because it scales all of it the same.

[RodHull]

Originally posted by KnightCole:

Elemental Damage kinda sux, and its better to focus on one?

No it doesn't but one of GDs (well most arpgs) core concepts is that super focusing a build to be good at one thing is nearly always better than spreading a build to thin. This also counts for what damage you decide to focus on. If you for example super focus on fire its far easier to support that through gear and devotion choices than trying to equally accommodate cold and lightning as well.

There are a few niche class combos that work around elemental (usually arcanists) but generally as a commando your focus should be physical and fire with a touch of lightning (basically ignore the lightning it will get incidental boosts from your other gear most likely)

[Lord-Knight Fandragon]

So how does Internal Trauma work? I just got done unlocking the bull devotion, it gives me like 435 Internal trauma over 5s. I also got the skill that I attached to my Fire Strike, which is like 705 IT over 2s, yet I look in my character sheet and it says 80 IT dmg, with 405% IT dmg. Then hovering over Fire Strike, it says 135 IT damage. Ummm, I am apparently missing something with how this game displays or calculates damage.

Im also in the process of unlocking Olerons skill at the end of the Soldier tree, under the assumption that all that IT damage will actually be worth a hoot once I get there. Otherwise, I just wasted like 6 levels worth of skill points for something that wont be that useful.

[kekkuli]

I wouldn't focus on it, it's not nearly as well supported damage type than elemental Dot's for example. And yeah dot is not properly calculated to damage because you can stack dot's from multiple sources., and different dot's have different durations. But i'd say you best ignore internal trauma for now and just focus on physical or fire/burn which works great.

[Lord-Knight Fandragon]

Originally posted by kekkuli:

I wouldn't focus on it, it's not nearly as well supported damage type than elemental Dot's for example. And yeah dot is not properly calculated to damage because you can stack dot's from multiple sources., and different dot's have different durations. But i'd say you best ignore internal trauma for now and just focus on physical or fire/burn which works great.

My Burn says 0, or its a very low number, but ive got a % to it. How does Burn/Electrocute and that work? It goes off even if I dont really have any? What does and doesnt get displayed in that damage stat card?

And where does Brimstone drop? And is that any good as far as Rifles go? I have legit got like every other set in the game, or pieces of them, but no brimstone pieces. I guess thats about right, considering im a Commando. Prolly gotta go start an Assassian character or something, then it will drop first thing.

[kekkuli]

Brimstone is random drop. And like i said dot's stack from multiple sources, so say you have 2 devotions procs, weapon attack, and 2 item procs which all have burning damage, they all stack together once you proc them. You have to build your whole character around the fire&burn if you want it to be useful though, and you need high physical to fire conversion, optimally 100%. Some components like enchanted flint can be of great help here.

Note that some weapons do have fire as base damage. Like ulzuin's set weapon, or the MI rifle called ugdenbog flamethrower that drops from the big treeman enemies from AOM area. Some fleshwarped enemies also drop a MI rifle that's full fire damage. Aslo devils crossing faction vendor sells devil's musket which is good for this purpose. There are plenty of options if you keep your eyes open or know where to look from.

[Lord-Knight Fandragon]

Originally posted by kekkuli:

Brimstone is random drop. And like i said dot's stack from multiple sources, so say you have 2 devotions procs, weapon attack, and 2 item procs which all have burning damage, they all stack together once you proc them. You have to build your whole character around the fire&burn if you want it to be useful though, and you need high physical to fire conversion, optimally 100%. Some components like enchanted flint can be of great help here.

Note that some weapons do have fire as base damage. Like ulzuin's set weapon, or the MI rifle called ugdenbog flamethrower that drops from the big treeman enemies from AOM area. Some fleshwarped enemies also drop a MI rifle that's full fire damage. Aslo devils crossing faction vendor sells devil's musket which is good for this purpose. There are plenty of options if you keep your eyes open or know where to look from.

I had a Devil Musket, it felt weak though. Also, what procs dots? They just proc on thier own when firing with 100%? Or is there some status proc chance? Though I should be using that Devil Musket? I rerolled my character, but I had one before, and it felt like it was doing ok.

My current burn mod is 340%, im lvl 43 atm. Burn damage only says 81 though. I am using Ulzuins buff from the Demo tree.

[kekkuli]

Well if you look at the devotions for example you can see the chance to proc it in the description. You must of course bind them to some skill to be able to use them. Then some items might have a skill proc that says "20% chance on attack" for example. That procs from any skill with any % weapon damage. And then all flat burning damage, e.g what you get from your gear, is proc'd by any attack that deals % weapon damage, but it must do 100% or more to proc the dot at full efficiency. Something like fire strike for example will always proc your flat burning damage.

The reason devil's musket might have felt weak is probably because the rest of your gear/skills/devotions don't support fire damage enough. You mean ulzuin's chosen? It works only with certain skills from demo tree, it doesn't affect anything else. Flame touched on the other hand works with everything. I suggest reading all the skill descriptions etc very carefully.

[Lord-Knight Fandragon]

Originally posted by kekkuli:

Well if you look at the devotions for example you can see the chance to proc it in the description. You must of course bind them to some skill to be able to use them. Then some items might have a skill proc that says "20% chance on attack" for example. That procs from any skill with any % weapon damage. And then all flat burning damage, e.g what you get from your gear, is proc'd by any attack that deals % weapon damage, but it must do 100% or more to proc the dot at full efficiency. Something like fire strike for example will always proc your flat burning damage.

The reason devil's musket might have felt weak is probably because the rest of your gear/skills/devotions don't support fire damage enough. You mean ulzuin's chosen? It works only with certain skills from demo tree, it doesn't affect anything else. Flame touched on the other hand works with everything. I suggest reading all the skill descriptions etc very carefully.

Honestly, I do, those descriptions are really quite vague and leave me with more questions than answers.

[kekkuli]

Hmmh i guess it takes some time to get familiar with these things. But the basics are not that hard. You'll figure it out. But in short; if the attack/spell or whatever has some form of dot damage, it will always proc when it hits, unless it says otherwise. Sometimes attacks/spells might have a chance to proc a dot damage for example but this is not all that common.
It's very different mechanic from any other arpg i've played so maybe that's what confusing you?

[Lord-Knight Fandragon]

Originally posted by kekkuli:

Hmmh i guess it takes some time to get familiar with these things. But the basics are not that hard. You'll figure it out. But in short; if the attack/spell or whatever has some form of dot damage, it will always proc when it hits, unless it says otherwise. Sometimes attacks/spells might have a chance to proc a dot damage for example but this is not all that common.
It's very different mechanic from any other arpg i've played so maybe that's what confusing you?

Whats confusing me is I have 900 Trauma Damage. However, I look in my character sheet and down in the damage types it says 132-162, and hover over Fire Strike it says like 231-282 Trauma damage. However, add up the damage I got from Devotion I have 490+410 Trauma from Devotion and buffs. Never mind when my Bull Charge skill procs it says 1307 more. Then ive got +464% Trauma Damage, and well, 900+464% is not 132-162, nor is it 231-282. Its more like, oh.....3600 something?

And my Physical is the same thing. I just equipped the Devil Musket, and my Physical reads 0 with +377%, but hover over Fire Strike I have 314.

Sooo, like which is it? And how is this game calculating my damage? Do I have as much damage as I have when I add up all my sources of damage or do I not? How can I be sure how mcuh damage I even have when its different in different parts of the UI?

Then if my Physical number in the damage types list reads 0, then the 10% Physical to Fire Conversion from Devil bullets is useless?