armor piercing worth it?

[EolSunder]

just how much armor piercing do you want on a weapon/etc. I figure harder foes they have damage resistance, not high armor. Stuff like earth elementals, etc. Pretty sure armor piercing isn't going to have any effect on damage resistance.

So is armor piercing effects really worth putting on weapons or are other runes better. Is that +90 armor pierce if you stick 3 runes on a sword really doing anything against foes. My boots have +50 AP, i figure thats plenty enough since i don't have any "bypass damage resistance" runes

[dantès]

does armor piercing do anything against foes?
well, it depends on the enemy. some enemies, like the Wild Hunt's entire crew, have armor. some enemies like drowners don't.

I personally wouldn't go over-board with stacking 3 armor piercing runes, because its really not that necessary.. but have fun experimenting.

[Crumb]

Its useful until the mid game but drops off hard in the late game because the armour on enemies doesn't scale well. Many enemies don't have armour at all and the ones that do are given static armour amounts based loosely on their level range and type which becomes less noticeable as you gain more damage.

Like the guy above said don't go using AP runes, same goes for seeking out a particular sword just for AP. But if you manage to get or make a good sword/armour that has AP as a default stat then it won't hurt. In other words if you have a decent amount of base AP say 50-100 then getting more will have diminishing returns.

[tigerpoetry]

https://www.reddit.com/r/witcher/comments/4c42hu/how_does_armor_piercing_work/

there's a pretty good explanation there that basically proves just what Dantes and Crumb have said. There's a couple of formulae that show AP to be pretty worthless after a while. basically by the time you can craft the best AP runes, you'd be better off using something else anyway.

For a sign build I use Veles that boost magic, though I like to throw in the odd freeze/poison/burning rune, more to get the occasional difference in the graphics when murdering things than anything else.

I do have a mod that improves runes a bit to make the immense cost of crafting the things more worthwhile, but even then AP is probably one I'd steer clear of late game.

I'm also testing a mod that un-nerfs a sign build at higher levels. That'll be interesting.

[EolSunder]

yea since i have boots that do AP i usually adjust my runes depending on which weapon in find/craft. Like i have a steel sword that already started with critical damage boost and 35% bleeding, so i just stacked more bleeding on it. But i figured armor piercing is pretty useless because in terms of reduced damage, many things have instead damage resistance, so something with 50% slashing damage resist or similar that 100 armor piercing isn't going to do jack.

My go to on my swordsman is just attack power, unless in find a weapon with already good levels of something else (like the 35% bleed sword).

[ppakur]

TBH all numbers in combat are irrelevant, since main damage modifier is difference between your level and enemy level. If it's lower than yours, you one hit them, if it's higher, they one hit you and you can't hurt them. That's CDPR combat system in a nutshell

[Red Star, Blood Moon]

You'd think it'd be the opposite, where more heavily armoured targets appear later game and then AP actually becomes worthwhile

Originally posted by ppakur:

TBH all numbers in combat are irrelevant, since main damage modifier is difference between your level and enemy level. If it's lower than yours, you one hit them, if it's higher, they one hit you and you can't hurt them. That's CDPR combat system in a nutshell

That's ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ stupid; it's not the combat system, it's the damage and leveling system. What does the enemy leveling button do in the options? Make them match your level? Do different enemies have different levels depending on area?

[dantès]

Originally posted by Red Star, Blood Moon:

What does the enemy leveling button do in the options? Make them match your level? Do different enemies have different levels depending on area?

correct, enemy upscaling turned on(from the options) will 'upscale' & match the level of any lower level enemies with your current level. Higher level enemies will not be adjusted.

and yes, depending on the area, enemies with have different levels. some higher, and some lower.

[EolSunder]

for the most part enemy upscaling is good because it really gets boring when your level 20 and you constantly run into level 5 enemies, or level 10, they are more annoyance than worthwhile, and after your 100th batch of sirens its just sad. At least if you upscale enemies you'll run into something you can't kill in 1 hit all the time.. maybe 4 hits, but still better than it currently is.

The only downside to enemy upscaling is that certain "boss" fights or encounters the enemy will be overpowered if its upscaled to your level, such as the djinn fight or something. In the normal game it isn't tough, but that djinn leveled up to your level 25 character now suddenly can 1 shot you through your level 25 armor/defenses where as before it wasn't difficult. So far there have been 2 times I had to turn off "upscaling" in order to beat the current quest boss/monster.

But for the rest of the game? to me, a no brainer.

[Red Star, Blood Moon]

Originally posted by EolSunder:

for the most part enemy upscaling is good because it really gets boring when your level 20 and you constantly run into level 5 enemies, or level 10, they are more annoyance than worthwhile, and after your 100th batch of sirens its just sad. At least if you upscale enemies you'll run into something you can't kill in 1 hit all the time.. maybe 4 hits, but still better than it currently is.

The only downside to enemy upscaling is that certain "boss" fights or encounters the enemy will be overpowered if its upscaled to your level, such as the djinn fight or something. In the normal game it isn't tough, but that djinn leveled up to your level 25 character now suddenly can 1 shot you through your level 25 armor/defenses where as before it wasn't difficult. So far there have been 2 times I had to turn off "upscaling" in order to beat the current quest boss/monster.

But for the rest of the game? to me, a no brainer.

Depends. I always found it really annoying in poorly done MMO tiers where the enemy a few levels above one shots you, and below dies in one hit, but at the same time it gets really, really painfully stupid when that squishy enemy from before is now at the same level as some nearly boss size monster. Personally I don't like it because it saps the feeling of progression and usually just feels artificial somehow.

It only really sucks when you have a game unbalanced in the opposite direction like Fallout's GURPS was and within 20 hours you're a walking tank, a genocide machine taking down whole villages, but at least you had plasma weapons and power armor to justify it. I guess well done it can add to the realism, because you wouldn't expect a witcher to have superpowers a week later and start taking them out like nothing, but instead to remain dangerous.

Rather just avoid the grind though, and not feel like level1 enemies are now level 30 just because an artificial scaler. It's also probably because I'm so used to games scaling the enemy threat with you, like how you start with mini enemies and trash mobs, but as in XCOM2 they eventually become things you say "♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥" out loud the first time you see them. Imo, that's the way enemies usually should scale, not just making a rat or wild dog level 30 with only damage/toughness stats changed.