Armor Ignore Vs Armorpiercing - Which Wins?

[Fl4m3Ph03n1x]

A few days ago I found a player that stated that AP is better than AI. Assuming that I can always hit the sweet spot, he claimed that AP would normal do a lot more damage.

 

With banshee, sonnar ability and Dread, he claimed to easily make 20.000 damage to a single foe.

 

Is this true? Is AP better than AI?

How can I compare the damage? Last time I player using AP I was always hitting the Infested Boots of the big guys and my maximum damage output was 300 -.-

[Dreiii]

Edit: And since I see no reduction to vulnerabilities on the calf, that means I would essentially do the same amount of dmg to an Ancient Disrupter [65] as opposed to an Ancient Disrupter [435]?

 

 

i think yes, it would but you wont kill it as fast because of how the base HP would be at those levels.

[Tyrian3k]

Assuming I read the chart correct, wouldn't AP be better if I was to shoot at ancient's critical spots. Because armor ignore doesn't add any dmg. And piercing does base + bonus AP dmg if I was to shoot it in the foot.

 

AP and AI both do the exact same damage to Ancients, as AI damage is doubled on headshots.

[oKibbles]

AP and AI both do the exact same damage to Ancients, as AI damage is doubled on headshots.

Wouldn't AP do the same thing, if not more, because the AP bonus dmg compensates for the reduction from base?

[Ashnal]

Undoubtfully, just as Kunai are better than Despair. At least in terms of effective damage.

You've got your mechanics mixed up.

 

Armor Ignore as in the Kunai is normal damage that isn't mitigated by Armor. It si only availible as a base damage type on a weapon.

Armor Piercing is an elemental type of damage handled similarly to Fire/Electric/Freeze. It can be a base damage type for a weapon (Paris/Snipetron/Despair) as well as added damage on a mod. The AP damage in mod form can be added to both AI and AP weapons. I will be mostly focusing on Kunai vs. Despair here, since one is pure AI and the other pure AP.

 

Most enemies have 100% vulnerability to Armor piercing damage, which means that in most circumstances AI and AP are equal, for example, any Ancient will take the same amount of damage from an AI or AP weapon if they have the same base damage, since Ai ignores their armor, but they are also 100% vulnerable to AP.

 

Things start to get interesting with some of the other enemy types. Medium grineer (lancers, troopers, most grineer) have 150% vulnerability to AP damage. This means that while an AI weapon will do full damage through a medium grineer's armor, an AP weapon (and the mod that adds damage) will do full damage and a bonus +50% damage. This means that when fighting medium grineer, the Paris is always superior to the Dread, and the Despair is always superior to the Kunai damage wise. Another enemy type to consider is the corpus. Corpus crewman take 400% AP damage to the head, while only taking 100% headshot damage from an AI weapon. Moas also have AP vulnerability for their heads. So AP wins hands down vs. corpus as well.

 

The only time where AI vs. AP is even a toss up is vs. infested. Infested runners take full AI damage, and lack any armor anyways. AP damage does 50% total to light infested, or half. It's a damage penalty for the Despair (and all other sources of AP damage) vs. light infested. On the other hand AP and AI do full damage to Ancients.

 

So the Despair vs. Kunai debate ends with Despair doing more damage vs. both grineer and corpus, while coming out a bit behind vs infested. I chose Despair since I fight more grineer and corpus than I do infested. That being said, the Despair also has 10 more base damage than the Kunai, making it superior even on enemies who take full damage from both sources.

Edited July 11, 2013 by Ashnal

[escape123]

You've got your mechanics mixed up.

 

Armor Ignore as in the Kunai is normal damage that isn't mitigated by Armor. It si only availible as a base damage type on a weapon.

Armor Piercing is an elemental type of damage handled similarly to Fire/Electric/Freeze. It can be a base damage type for a weapon (Paris/Snipetron/Despair) as well as added damage on a mod. The AP damage in mod form can be added to both AI and AP weapons. I will be mostly focusing on Kunai vs. Despair here, since one is pure AI and the other pure AP.

 

Most enemies have 100% vulnerability to Armor piercing damage, which means that in most circumstances AI and AP are equal, for example, any Ancient will take the same amount of damage from an AI or AP weapon if they have the same base damage, since Ai ignores their armor, but they are also 100% vulnerable to AP.

 

Things start to get interesting with some of the other enemy types. Medium grineer (lancers, troopers, most grineer) have 150% vulnerability to AP damage. This means that while an AI weapon will do full damage through a medium grineer's armor, an AP weapon (and the mod that adds damage) will do full damage and a bonus +50% damage. This means that when fighting medium grineer, the Paris is always superior to the Dread, and the Despair is always superior to the Kunai damage wise. Another enemy type to consider is the corpus. Corpus crewman take 400% AP damage to the head, while only taking 100% headshot damage from an AI weapon. Moas also have AP vulnerability for their heads. So AP wins hands down vs. corpus as well.

 

The only time where AI vs. AP is even a toss up is vs. infested. Infested runners take full AI damage, and lack any armor anyways. AP damage does 50% total to light infested, or half. It's a damage penalty for the Despair (and all other sources of AP damage) vs. light infested. On the other hand AP and AI do full damage to Ancients.

 

So the Despair vs. Kunai debate ends with Despair doing more damage vs. both grineer and corpus, while coming out a bit behind vs infested. I chose Despair since I fight more grineer and corpus than I do infested., and also because it has 10 more base damage.

Best Explanation

[Tyrian3k]

Wouldn't AP do the same thing, if not more, because the AP bonus dmg compensates for the reduction from base?

 

What reduction from base are you talking about?

[Tulzscha]

I prefer my Despair against Grineer, Kunai against Infested (the 100% stagger helps a lot especially vs. Ancients charging at you).

 

I can reliably use Despair as a main weapon vs. lvl 80-100 Grineer Lancers in Casta defense for instance.

[CitizenV]

You've got your mechanics mixed up.

 

Armor Ignore as in the Kunai is normal damage that isn't mitigated by Armor. It si only availible as a base damage type on a weapon.

Armor Piercing is an elemental type of damage handled similarly to Fire/Electric/Freeze. It can be a base damage type for a weapon (Paris/Snipetron/Despair) as well as added damage on a mod. The AP damage in mod form can be added to both AI and AP weapons. I will be mostly focusing on Kunai vs. Despair here, since one is pure AI and the other pure AP. [...]

 

Thank you for typing this up as it saves me the trouble :).

 

I would like to add to this though. We really should stop using "armor ignoring" as a damage type, as there technically is no damage type called that. Instead there are 4 damage types that typically ignore armor: Physics Impact, Poison, Serrated Blade and yes, Armor Piercing.

 

Kunai (Paris, Akbolto, Boltor, most "blunt" melee, etc.) deal Physics Impact damage. To call it armor ignoring damage is actually ironic since it is the only 1 of those 4 damage types that does not ignore the armor of Grineer Commanders and Seekers. It will deal reduced damage to them. We don't see them very often though, especially in our current end-game content, so to generalize that Physics Impact ignores the armor of all enemies is fair.

 

So that being said, it seems silly to be comparing "armor ignore" and "armor piercing" since AP is just a type of AI, that some enemies happen to have additional resistances/vulnerabilities to.

 

(of course, the source is Pwnatron's data sheets: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Au6mBXle3cFtdHBYUzVJaDJfdkIzSEN1cUh5UlRvckE#gid=5)

Edited July 11, 2013 by CitizenV

[SirNerdsAlot5]

 

Ignore vs Pierce

 

Bypass armor 100% vs What the mod allows

[Ashnal]

Thank you for typing this up as it saves me the trouble :).

 

I would like to add to this though. We really should stop using "armor ignoring" as a damage type, as there technically is no damage type called that. Instead there are 4 damage types that typically ignore armor: Physics Impact, Poison, Serrated Blade and yes, Armor Piercing.

I'm aware of those four damage types myself, and I fully agree that using the proper damage type names would benefit discussion. I had thought about referring to the Kunai as physics impact damage, but I decided not to since I would have probably confused many people who don't follow reddit and pwnatron's posts.

[Ashnal]

 

 

Ignore vs Pierce

 

Bypass armor 100% vs What the mod allows

Sorry to break it to you, but you're the stupid one here. Some weapons do full pierce damage, such as the Despair and Snipetron, so comparing the two is a perfectly valid question. For a full explanation look a few posts up to one of my previous posts which details the differences between the two types of damage.

[CitizenV]

I'm aware of those four damage types myself, and I fully agree that using the proper damage type names would benefit discussion. I had thought about referring to the Kunai as physics impact damage, but I decided not to since I would have probably confused many people who don't follow reddit and pwnatron's posts.

 

Ah, I figured you may have known already. I think it's best to start confusing people though :). IMO, it's better to start getting these terms out there and start trying to get people used to these ideas, so one day, we can switch over entirely and all follow our lord, Pwnatron.

[Dasmir]

So much wrongness in this thread.

 

Armor ignore: Will do 100% of the damage regardless the enemy armor or innate resistence to X (Examples grienners huge resistence against normal damage cuz: Armor + innate resistence to normal damage if you dont aim the head)

 

Armor pierce: Is like armor ignoring sharing the same effects but with a bonus (150% more damage againse armored units and 400% against heavy armored units like crewmans boxhead) and a con (you only 50% of you damage against light armored units like against infested chargers or melee grienners)

[Ashnal]

So much wrongness in this thread.

 

Armor ignore: Will do 100% of the damage regardless the enemy armor or innate resistence to X (Examples grienners huge resistence against normal damage cuz: Armor + innate resistence to normal damage if you dont aim the head)

 

Armor pierce: Is like armor ignoring sharing the same effects but with a bonus (150% more damage againse armored units and 400% against heavy armored units like crewmans boxhead) and a con (you only 50% of you damage against light armored units like against infested chargers or melee grienners)

Kinda. Armor pierce actually does 100% versus light grineer. The only enemy types it gets a damage malus against are infested chargers, runners, and leapers. It's treated as an elemental damage type and has nothing to do with actual armor values, only specific body parts on specific enemies. Please see my post above for a full analysis.

[MegamanLegends]

no the damage doesnt calculated but doubled (when using AP)

ex: When u attacking a griner  do damage 400 because ur base damage+AP 100%

      what u see is "2" 200 because the "200" one is the piercing bonus

 

sorry for my bad english, im indonesian