Why pierce damage is useless?

[✪Goose✪]

My friends and I noticed that the pierce damage is pretty useless compared to the others.

After the forest location this type of damage becomes useless as many enemies have resistance to it, and in the swamp almost all of them have 50% resistance to it and 4 BOSSES who have resistance to it.

At the same time we have blunt damage to which have resistance to much less enemies and they are not so significant.

Why don't the same wolves have vulnerability to pierce damage? Why is a strong halberd strike considered stabbing damage, even though it does a roundhouse kick and it should be slash damage?

Need to change the balance of weapons I think. Maybe I don't understand something and this type of damage is useful.

[Suzaku]

Pierce works just fine unless you're using it to kill enemies made of bones or slime. Otherwise everything is either weak or neutral to it. Which I think is fine because you can already easy-mode the majority of the game with the king of pierce: a bow.

[Humpenstilzchen]

It´s the devs way to discourage people from using bows on certain enemies/bosses because they would otherwise trivialize them.

[Lorska]

As Humpen said, it's just to balance ranged weapons.
So yes any other weapon type that deals pierce damage is getting shafted because bows exist.

And then they introduced magic weapons and any kind of balance discouraging ranged was thrown out the window.

So at this point there is no rhyme or reason for it anymore but just accept it anyway. It's not gonna change...

[pipo.p]

I don't know much about end-game enemies, but not having piercing resistance against potential spike/critical attacks seems nonetheless beneficial to me.

[jonnin]

I think this is way, way overstated.
if you refer to the web eg https://valheim.fandom.com/wiki/Damage you can see that almost all enemy resist all three physical damage types pretty well. With the shining example of blunt being strong in the swamp, everything else is pretty much resisted by pretty much everything. I am not sure if the page is 100% accurate, but it seems close to what I see in game.

pierce is notably strong vs trolls, which is how most are killed in the early game.

[Gal Kraft]

Pierce is the best for hunting. Tamables, wolves, and the like. Particularly because of range.

[Shaken_Widow]

gjalls require being shot in the belly with arrows for the most damage.

that's not exactly resistant to piercing is it?

[pipo.p]

And range does mean surprise attacks. Even with pierce resistance, it's good.

[knighttemplar1960]

Many enemies have resistance to pierce to balance out the usefulness of bows especially late game when your bow skill is high.

Some things are weak to pierce, especially in their weak spots, notably trolls and Gjalls and they are the tougher enemies for those biomes.

Actual halberds did piercing damage. They had a spear point on the end, a spike on the side, and a blade on the other side. They weren't used in a martial arts spinning move the way they are in game. The point was to stop a horse charge, the spike was used to pull an armored foe off his horse, and the blade was used to chop the dismounted and vulnerable rider.

The IRL aetgir wasn't a weapon except in time of need. It was primarily used as a farming implement.

As far as the rest goes mostly the weapon resists and weaknesses make sense for the target. Arrows and blades will bounce off a golem while a pick or a mace might make dents. Squishy stuff and brittle bones take more damage from blunt objects than blades or arrows.

Graydwarves are tree spirits so they take extra damage from fire. Wet stuff like blobs and oozers extinguish fire so they take less damage from it.

For wolves a poison arrow fired from a Huntsman bow should kill the wolf in a single shot. You get the extra piercing damage from the surprise shot and the poison ticks will finish it off before it can reach you.

[Suzaku]

I think it's also worth noting that most enemies have little health. A target that is resistant to a damage type hardly matters. Blob takes half damage from pierce? Still dies in 2 shots. Seeker resistant to blunt? Still dies in like 3 hits. And most of these enemies you can parry/stagger so they take double damage while recovering.

Only time you're realistically going to care about resistances is when fighting bosses, because you don't want to be doing half damage to something with 10000 health, but basic mobs with 50-150hp are hardly a concern.

[knighttemplar1960]

Originally posted by Suzaku:

I think it's also worth noting that most enemies have little health. A target that is resistant to a damage type hardly matters. Blob takes half damage from pierce? Still dies in 2 shots. Seeker resistant to blunt? Still dies in like 3 hits. And most of these enemies you can parry/stagger so they take double damage while recovering.

Only time you're realistically going to care about resistances is when fighting bosses, because you don't want to be doing half damage to something with 10000 health, but basic mobs with 50-150hp are hardly a concern.

Indeed. You can kill deathsquitoes with a crude bow and wooden arrows in one shot. Windmill blades striking deathsquitoes will kill them.

[L♥DK]

Originally posted by Suzaku:

Only time you're realistically going to care about resistances is when fighting bosses, because you don't want to be doing half damage to something with 10000 health, but basic mobs with 50-150hp are hardly a concern.

Which makes bonemass a nice bow trainer. Ashlands skellies with pierce resist still become paper with high level bow skill with huntsman, except for 2*.

[BIT Bear]

I've only reached Iron age in my 2nd play through now and i'm still using an upgraded Flint spear and i'm doing just fine killing enemies in the Swamp. Will probably switch to another weapon later on (like I did the first time) I think you are over exaggerating.

Edit: Note my Spear skill is around 50 right now. Maybe that has smth to do with it?

Personally I find it really easy not to die often.. In fact I think I only died once or twice this playthrough and that was pre-bronze stages by being overzealous. But my friend i'm playing with died much more than that so maybe it also has to do with play style?

[Lorska]

Originally posted by BIT Bear:

I've only reached Iron age in my 2nd play through now and i'm still using an upgraded Flint spear and i'm doing just fine killing enemies in the Swamp. Will probably switch to another weapon later on (like I did the first time) I think you are over exaggerating.

Edit: Note my Spear skill is around 50 right now. Maybe that has smth to do with it?

Personally I find it really easy not to die often.. In fact I think I only died once or twice this playthrough and that was pre-bronze stages by being overzealous. But my friend i'm playing with died much more than that so maybe it also has to do with play style?

A weapon skill of 50 is expected around plains. So yeah I don't know what you've been slaughtering but your're doing about 30% more damage than you're expected to.
Though to be fair, leveling fast is the biggest upside for spears and the reason the flint spear in particular is good is because it probably has the biggest power discrepancy within the same tier of any weapon in the game. It also helps that it kills the one dangerous thing in the black forest and is also extremely cheap to upgrade. Any other spear is balanced normally though.

Not sure why you're not using a bronze spear instead if you love it so much though...

Spears just get outclassed super hard by bows once you have some skill, and it also struggles hard with hit boxes compared to other weapons. It's kinda in the same camp as knives where there's just a lack of good applications once you have more options and once getting into smelling distance on the enemy butt becomes a little less desirable. Atgeirs get at least some interesting gimmick by stagger locking and being able to forego a shield. But generally all these pierce weapons need some actual reason to use them over a bow (considering the damage is nerfed around that weapon), and the clear outliers are the flint spear (which is clearly over statted) and the abyssal razor (which is an iron tier weapon that doesn't even require a forge or even setting foot in a black forest).

[SyxtySyx]

I easily get way into the mistlands using only a knife and a bow and no shield. Pierce/slash from knives seems balanced to me. If i'm not playing solo, I'm playing with my family, and they all Club/Mace and shield. They tend to parry, while I don't even bother.