Piercing Damage, and the One-Shot Kill

[Robin of Spiritwood]

OK, So I killed Ryker with a couple Rogues, leaving his Physical/Magic Armours intact, with 2 Sawtooth Blade hits. The first hit was almost enough to one shot him on Classic.

Reset the fight and tried out Bull Horns/Rush on the Fighter, which was less than impressive, and Fang on the Huntsman which was good. Theoretically with the enemies lined up, these could be pretty good.

None of the melee attacks seemed to Backstab/Crit in my attempts.

Other than Marksman's Fang( Ranger) and Sawtooth Blade( Scoundrel) and Bull Rush/Horns ( Polymorph), are there any other useful sources of Pierce?

The problem with it is that we can't CC the enemy with the armour intact. So it's useful if we can get outright kills- otherwise it's of little value. Is there a viable build that can use Pierce? Or a Unique that has it that we could use?

I do know that Rupture Tendons( Scoundrel) does Pierce when they run. But they don't always run. And Heals do Pierce if the target is Decayed, but to get Decay to stick we need to knock down the Physical Armour. So - Nope.

Guerilla boost might be enough to get Sawtooth Blade to work - but they don't seem to work together. Guerilla only worked with auto-hits from basic attacks when I tried.

Any Ideas about getting the Pierce better, or other ways to try for a One-Shot?
I'm lev 15.

[Zunnoab #931]

The point of piercing is not to totally skip the armor it is to do some damage before the armor is gone or for example finish off a low hp foe that has physical armor but is almost dead from magic attacks.

[corisai]

Originally posted by Robin of Spiritwood:

Any Ideas about getting the Pierce better, or other ways to try for a One-Shot?
I'm lev 15.

For melees? Simply no (if two crits don't kill your target). Melees are meh.

Rangers and mages can one-shot easily with their source abilities for 3 sp.

That fun starting from lvl 16 (well, actually mages and rangers should start to kill target per turn since ~13-14 lvl if you build and gear them right).

[Rak]

Originally posted by Zunnoab #931:

The point of piercing is not to totally skip the armor it is to do some damage before the armor is gone or for example finish off a low hp foe that has physical armor but is almost dead from magic attacks.

This

[corisai]

Originally posted by Rak:

Originally posted by Zunnoab #931:

The point of piercing is not to totally skip the armor it is to do some damage before the armor is gone or for example finish off a low hp foe that has physical armor but is almost dead from magic attacks.

This

Also to kill mirrors in one specific fight for magic party :)

[Robin of Spiritwood]

Well, just in case anybody's interested, it's actually EASY to bump up the Pierce to kill with one shot.

I got my hit to 744 and overkilled Ryker. The point of Pierce is to put it into the brain, AFAIK.

The things to do are just optimize for max damage.

Weed out all the unused stuff memorized, and move points from Memory to Finesse. Max Warfare. Get 2 levelled daggers with slots, poison them and stick in runes( doesn't matter what type) . Adjust your other gear to favor Warfare and Finesse points.

The Sawblade skill adds up all the different types of damage- and makes it all Pierce!

I kept 2 points in Huntsman, bought a Crossbow with a slot, and bought Fang for the Rogue.

To buff- 1 point in Pyro and take Peace of Mind.

2 in Scoundrel for Sawtooth and Adrenaline, and CloaknDagger.

Now on ONE turn, my Rogue can shank and one shot a Boss face to face, then switch weapons, and do it AGAIN on a minion, stealth for 2 turns & repeat.

Most efficient build ever. No CC needed.

[Gamebot]

If you combine these skills properly, then yes, you can easily kill enemies without breaking thick physical armor.

1. Clear Mind - Venom Coating - Marksman's Fang - Skin Graft - Marksman's Fang

Venom Coating normally adds 30~40% poison damage, but it turns into Raw Damage when you use it with Marksman's Fang / Sawtooth / Bull Horns.

2. Death Wish + low Health

3. Equalise : Vitality and Armour percentages of characters in target area are summed up and redistributed equally.

4. Summon Condor

5. I think Forced Exchange would work too, but I haven't actually tried it yet.

[Ashera]

Piercing damage skills, are a "oh you just fortified your low hp teammate? lol okay." kind of skill.