Armour break is bugged it doesn't add shred, it replaces shred. Also, fractional damage and unblockable research bonus.

[M(i)ech]

I just branched off my current save to test armour break. Principally I wanted to check how it works with burst weapons, but I found other interesting things too.

TL;DR: despite wording it doesn't add (30) shred to next attack, it REPLACES shred of next attack. On the flip side, every burst in Rage Burst seems to get same shred from Armor Break as first one.

Bit longer TL;DR at the end.

I used heavy/berserk with trooper and finished Chiron research.

Armour break is supposed to add 30 shred to next attack.

Bulldog burst gets extra 8x4 shred, and when atacking Chiron, armour indeed was decreased in multiples of 8. Abdomen for example dropped from 40 to 16, suggesting 3 hits. However, Bulldog has innate 2x4 shred, which apparently didn't get applied at all, because including innate shred, each shot should apply 10 shred instead of 8. HP peculiarily dropped from 500 to 451 (on another hit it dropped to 419) which suggests something funky happening: damage being stored as floating point during burst, more on that later.

All in all, Bulldog got 32 shred from armour break, but that was instead of innate 8 shred.

Meanwhile, Deceptor MG gets 3x12 on stats panel, which with innate 2x12 shred should apply 5 shred per hit. However, just like in case of Bulldog, innate shred is ignored. Another thing I noticed, is that apparently armour couldn't completely nullify damage. Chiron abdomen has 40 armour, which means that on one 38.5 dmg hit (35+10%), it should recieve 0 damage and 3 shred (with armour break), instead, I saw abdomen take damage as follows:

HP/armour
500/40
497/37 (-3/-3)
493/34 (-4/-3)
489/31 (-4/-3)
481/28 (-8/-3)
???/??
457/22 (-24/-6 for both hits together)

this would suggest that either armour can't block damage below 10% threshold OR 10% extra damage from research can not be blocked by armour. I'm leaning towards the latter, as I swear I remember in early stage havily armoured humans taking no damage (Bandit King mission, I swear some of those heavies wearing NJ armour took no damage from Phoenix AR until it got substantially shredded).

All in all Deceptor got 36 shred from armour break, but it was instead of innate 24 shred.

You should notice that something peculiar is happening with rounding. My current hypothesis is that as long as burst is ongoing, game keeps track of fractional damage, only rounding it after burst is over. If true, damage should look like this (assuming rounding down down):

hits damage cumulative HP/armour
0 hit(s): -0.0/-0 -> -0.0/-0 -> 500/40
1 hit(s): -3.5/-3 -> -3.5/-3 -> 497/37
2 hit(s): -3.5/-3 -> -7.0/-6 -> 493/34
3 hit(s): -4.5/-3 -> -11.5/-9 -> 489/31
4 hit(s): -7.5/-3 -> -19.0/-12 -> 481/28
5 hit(s): -10.5/-3 -> -29.5/-15 -> 471/25 (missing from my experimental data)
6 hit(s): -13.5/-3 -> -43.0/-18 -> 457/22

For bulldog it would look like this:
daamge of 44 damage (trooper) * 10% (research) -> 48.4 damage.

0 hit(s): -0.0/-0 -> -0.0/-0 -> 500/40
1 hit(s): -8.4/-8 -> -8.4/-8 -> 492/32
2 hit(s): -16.4/-8 -> -24.8/-16 -> 476/24
3 hit(s): -24.4/-8 -> -49.2/-24 -> 451/16

And final values are exactly what I observed on 1, 2 and 3 hits.

if fractional damage wasn't rounded down, last hit (cumulative 48 damage instead of cumulative 49.2 damage) should have left abdomen with 452 HP instead of 451.

Goliath granade launcher, innate 10 shred, also had it's innate shred replaced: on hit it removed 30 armour from Chiron abdomen (40), instead of removing it entirely (30+10).

While I didn't have any single shot direct fire weapons with innate shred equipped, treatment of Goliath suggest those would have shred replaced too.

I don't have melee weapon with innate shred (Scyther) so I wasn't able to test if those are affected too.

TL;DR (Longer version)

Berserk's Armor Break doesn't add 30 shred to next attack, it replaces innate shred of next attack with roughly 30 shred. On burst weapons, it seems to grant to each shot smallest integer shred such that entire burst has over 30 shred. Bulldog (4 shots) gets 8 shred per shot, for 32 total, Deceptor gets 3 for 36 total. I expect that for example Iconoclast would get 3 shred and Mercy would have 4. On the flip side, it seems each burst of Rage Burst seems to get same treatment from Armour Break: each of 20 bulldog shots has 8 shred.

This replacement does affect granade launchers too, so it's reasonable to assume it affects all weapons, though grenades, mounted and melee weapons were not tested.

Aside, I found out that game keeps track of fractional damage during burst, rounding down only after burst, instead of rounding each shot separately.

Furthermore I found out that either damage from research bonus can't be blocked, or damage can not be mitigated below 10%. Most likely the former.

Depending on internal game logic, this might mean that virus, paralysis and other effects applied only when damage is dealt to HP can be applied even if damage rating is insufficient to penetrate armour. This requires further testing.

Any thoughts on this? I surmise I should post a bug report, but any thoughts besides that?

[hilfazer]

I've reported Armour Break replacing shred throught PP's built-it report tool some time ago so you don't have to.

[wei270]

really sounds like Armour break just doesn't work well with burst weapons, when i use single shot weapons such as melee weapons or the ahu hand gun it just add the 30 shred on top existing shred and shred should work with rageburst because rageburst is just 5 separated attacks.

are you sure it just divides the 30 shred amount the burst and round it off cause that seem to be a really stupid way of doing it, what it should do is just add 30 shred to the first projectile that hits, and yes in the coding there is a first hit even for shotgun as well.

[hilfazer]

It also replaces shred of single hit weapons like Anu's hand cannon or a grenade launcher...

or the ahu hand gun it just add the 30 shred on top existing shred

or at least it did before 1.10. Looks like they've read my bug report and fixed some weapons but not others.

[Tasi]

Very good analysis. Thanks for sharing!

I found the most interesting the extra 10% damage from research which can't be mitigated by armour. While the replace vs add can be fixed by correcting the description text, the extra damage should be fixed.

[M(i)ech]

I haven't tested Anu handgun (only single shot direct fire weapon with shred that I can see) and Scyther (only melee weapon with shred) but considering that Goliath (single shot grenade launcher) has shred replaced, I strongly suspect those have shred replaced too. For most melee weapons or handguns it simply makes no difference as they have no shred. I'll test handgun later.

Originally posted by Tasi:

Very good analysis. Thanks for sharing!

I found the most interesting the extra 10% damage from research which can't be mitigated by armour. While the replace vs add can be fixed by correcting the description text, the extra damage should be fixed.

I'd have to verify this by shooting something I haven't researched so I'm not completely certain it's from research, I merely strongly suspect that's the case. It certainly doesn't depend on soldier class or perks as Synedrion neural pistol (10 damage, 20 pierce) fired by sniper did exactly 1 damage when shooting Chiron's abdomen (40 armour). And now I just realised that I already verified that this allows us to inflict status effects in situation when we aren't supposed to, because that 1-damage hit DID inflict paralysis.

If it is how I think it is, then yeah, this does sound like a bug. For all we know this might be deliberate, specifically to let us inflict statuses as "reward" for capturing live one, but I rather doubt that.

[M(i)ech]

And now I realise that I haven't actually tested if fractional damage is kept between bursts or not. It might actually be stored and it's the display that is rounded. I'll have to test it later.

[M(i)ech]

I have just verified that wei270 is in fact entirely wrong. Nergals Wrath has it's shred replaced too.

Furthermore Odin grenade also has it's shred replaced.

At this point I'm quite sure there are no exceptions, everthing has it's shred replaced.

[Tasi]

Originally posted by wei270:

what it should do is just add 30 shred to the first projectile that hits

This is how it worked before. It has been changed to decrease effectiveness of shotguns vs armored enemies.

[Dorok]

So it's working only with a few weapons? Pistol, SR, the new special shotgun with one bullet, nothing else?

[wei270]

man so they changed some thing from working to not working great.......................

btw armor break traditionally did not work with launcher weapons but now it seems to replace their shred too, that makes it a little op, because your tier 1 grandes can shred 30 :O

[Tasi]

Originally posted by wei270:

man so they changed some thing from working to not working great.......................

While I don't hesitate to criticise the game I don't think it is deserving here. The first pellet strip the target from armour made shotgun incredibly powerful - the weapon which is supposed to deal with unarmoured enemies with ease but which should struggle against armour was universally deadly to any enemy. Stripping a little bit of armour with each pellet creates stronger weapon diversification.

[wei270]

it was not OP powerful, it is actually the same effect for assault rife and machine gun or PDW where the first hit would take out 30+ armor on one body part. it is good on shotgun because shotgun IS the better weapon. that is why the default play style still is jump heavy with nades to strip armor then shotgun them with assaults. everyone else is essentially supports

[M(i)ech]

I don't see how that makes Odin grenade OP. Ability still costs will, supply you can carry is limited, grenades need to be manufactured individually (instead of instant manufacture like in case of ammo) and of course requires use of particular class. Not to mention that with how armoured some enemies are, we DO need effective ways of dealing with armour.

[wei270]

basicly for 4 will you can transform your Odin in to Mjolnir that is REALLY good, but we do need to change the Armor break tool tip in to "the next attack does 30 shred" not "the next attack does ADDITIONAL 30 shred". that is just confusing at this point.

[hilfazer]

It's not the tooltip that is wrong. It doesn't make sense to give the zerker a pistol with 10 shred and an ability that ignores that shred.

Does quick aim replace AP cost with 2AP? No, it reduces it. It cares about the weapon it's used with, so should Armour Break.

But it's Snapshot so it could go either way.