I did some testing with Melt Armor (first Igni skill)

[Noob]

EDIT: please see my other post below for my follow up on this test and my conclusion. I'm leaving this post unchanged for documenting reasons

(screenshots below)

first some notes about how I conducted the tests:

• Fast attacks only because strong attacks completely bypass armor. So this skill is 100% useless if you're doing a strong attack build.
  
  
• The Melt Armor skill is upgraded to the max level (lv 5), meaning it has up to 75% armor reduction.
  
  
• I read somewhere that each shot of igni would reduce the armor by 15%. So for the tests I did 6 shots of Igni (not just 5, to be sure) to get it to max armor reduction.
  
  
• I made sure that there were no damage increasing effect on the different tests other than the Melt Armor itself (you will notice Adrenaline is maxed out throughout all the tests. Quen was active during the first part of the test but that has no effect on the damage output at all)
  
  
• I made comparisons of 3 diffrent damage types: Low, Normal and High. The reason for that is because beyond the normal damage fluctuation there are also specific scenarios where the damage is modified, which are out of my control. For example if you hit the front of the enemy while he is blocking you do reduced damage, and if you hit him on the back or while he's attaking/dodging (counter attack) you do bonus damage.

no igni low
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=810992826
6x igni low
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=810992997


no igni normal
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=810992959
6x igni normal
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=810993034


no igni high
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=810992923
6x igni high
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=810993124


no igni critical
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=810992870
6x igni critical
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=810993073


Here's the sword I used:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=811206851
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=811206797


That's about 160-170% of the normal damage (60%-70% of damage increase)
I know the crit is way off on that math but I'm pretty sure that's because the one without Melt Armor was a counter attack (high damage) while the one with Melt Armor wasn't.

I think it goes without saying but please remember enemies have different armors and resistances from one another. I did this test on a Earth Elemental so it probably only holds true for that specific enemy. As an example I did the exact same test on Drowners and I had a 0% increase in the damage, so it's completely and utterly useles against that type of foe.


Anyway, call me out if you think something is wrong with the test. Of course it's not perfectly scientific but that 60%-70% result seems pretty solid to me. I'd encourage you to test it out yourself and share the results with us.


Edit 1: added pics of the sword stats

[v0]

Isn't armor just fixed dmg reduction ie (actual dmg) = (dmg with no armor) - (armor value)? If so percentage dmg reduction highly depends on your weapon dmg as well as enemy armor. For example if armor super high compared to weapon you might do zero dmg but then with igni armor may get low enough to actually do some dmg... giving you infinite increase using above math. Perhaps it's better to try to take weapon dmg listed in character sheet and use combat damage numbers displayed to measure armor value of elemental and see how much igni affects it?

[Noob]

Originally posted by v0:

Isn't armor just fixed dmg reduction ie (actual dmg) = (dmg with no armor) - (armor value)? If so percentage dmg reduction highly depends on your weapon dmg as well as enemy armor. For example if armor super high compared to weapon you might do zero dmg but then with igni armor may get low enough to actually do some dmg... giving you infinite increase using above math. Perhaps it's better to try to take weapon dmg listed in character sheet and use combat damage numbers displayed to measure armor value of elemental and see how much igni affects it?

While I do believe the end result would be the same (I could be wrong), I'll do those tests the way you're proposing tomorrow, as I'm off to sleep today.
Thanks for the sugestion.

[Noob]

So I did another test. This time on a bear.
The bear couldn't quite take 5 igni shots so I just did two full alt Igni charges on it for the Melt Armor test.

I used the same silver sword (the lower damage allowed me get more hits on it, as opposed to a steel weapon)

This time I was using axii to try to get consistent positioning and conditions to maintain the damage fluctuation to a minimum. This was quite useless on this test since I never got a fluctuation of more than 0.30 points of damage even without it.


no Igni (normal damage)
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=811227143
full alt Igni (normal damage)
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=811227211

no Igni (critical)
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=811227175
full alt Igni (critical)
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=811227259

So yeah, I don't believe the 60-70% increase applies much here lol

Originally posted by v0:

Isn't armor just fixed dmg reduction ie (actual dmg) = (dmg with no armor) - (armor value)? If so percentage dmg reduction highly depends on your weapon dmg as well as enemy armor. For example if armor super high compared to weapon you might do zero dmg but then with igni armor may get low enough to actually do some dmg... giving you infinite increase using above math. Perhaps it's better to try to take weapon dmg listed in character sheet and use combat damage numbers displayed to measure armor value of elemental and see how much igni affects it?

You appear to be correct, the armor is a fixed dmg reduction.

My conclusion from these tests:

Applying any kind of % based results to damage tests is pointless and misleading. (as you can also notice even the critical damage doesn't appear to follow a % based rule.)

But my original intention with these tests, which was to determine the effectiveness of the Melt Armor skill, appears to indicate that there is a clear benefit to using it against certain enemies. It's certainly a skill best used against bosses, since getting so many Igni shots against normal enemies would get them on low enough health anyway that it wouldn't matter.

Now, is it worth the 5 skill points? That's another discussion and wholly depends on your skill build.
It's a passive, significant, permanent damage boost against certain bosses if you're doing a Fast Attack based build.

IMO it COULD be a valid alternative if just want the second skill of Quen (alternate sign) and don't want to spend 5 points on two other skills that you'll never use, just to unlock it.
(need 8 points to get the alt Quen. 3 from first Quen skill, and 5 from Melt Armor. As opposed to 3 from first Quen skill and the rest split between the other signs)



Again, I welcome people to share their test results or more info they might have on the subject.

Edit: deleted the double post. Sorry for that

[MYCARRYISG@Y]

That's a lot of work there.

[v0]

Originally posted by Jeronimous:

You appear to be correct, the armor is a fixed dmg reduction.
Either that or the fact that the Earh Elemental in the previous test being so higher level than me added some weird extra reduction from the damage (I don't believe so).

If your enemy's name in red (+5 or more lvl or is that +10) game artificially nerfs your dmg BIG TIME. Ridiculous mechanism but that's what TW3 devs coded...