Piercing in PVE

prettyflacko1 · November 2016

So when running combat in PVE, is there a need for armor pen? I've read that piercing makes armor pen useless in PVP, was wondering if it worked the same in PVE.

ajlir · November 2016

That's a....pretty interesting point.

How does a combat HR deals damage without armpen if all they do is stack crits in PvP like what @icyphish said? More specifically, how does piercing blade work? He mentioned it's pre-mitigated. But from what? Post-mitigated damage from encounters/at-wills or just outright 50% outright total pre-mitigated encounter/at-wills damage?

@clonkyo1 said that Piercing Blade does 70k damage against him. Pretty sick if I can do it in PvE but I don't see those numbers. What kind of build with an offhand weapon damage less than 1k could do to deal that kind of damage? I'm not sure if it's 1v1 either in his situation. Totally unlikely since he said "within 2 seconds". I assume that he got dunked by a TR + HR combo with Gushing Wound + Duelist Flurry + whatever HR's at-wills, at which, I also can assume that he's standing still (roots, ice, stun) or couldn't retreat successfully (slows) from CC.

Lots of them complain on the combo PG + Piercing.

So, for you, @prettyflacko1, it's better to stack armpen and save you a headache later. Just in case the devs decide to act from all that PvP wailing.

Edit: I'll test with logs when I get home. Starting with PG + Piercing + armpen vs PG + Piercing (without armpen).

Edit 2: *sigh* what did I got myself into. There's no gold dummies. And have to test it with the same group of gold mobs (which means, without killing them) in big HEs in stronghold.

ajlir · November 2016

clonkyo1 said:

ajlir#7970 said:
1 - clonkyo1 said that Piercing Blade does 70k damage against him.
2 - Pretty sick if I can do it in PvE but I don't see those numbers.
3 - What kind of build with an offhand weapon damage less than 1k could do to deal that kind of damage?
4 - I'm not sure if it's 1v1 either in his situation. Totally unlikely since he said "within 2 seconds".
5 - I assume that he got dunked by a TR + HR combo with Gushing Wound + Duelist Flurry + whatever HR's at-wills, at which,
6 - I also can assume that he's standing still (roots, ice, stun) or couldn't retreat successfully (slows) from CC.
1 and 3 - Against everyone, not just vs me. My low geared and non SH boons HR can deal around 5k damage per tick time to time. The problem is that "Piercing Blades" are empowered as "Shadowy Opportunity" were back in the days (and this is the main point ignored by a lot of HR players, BTW) allowing it to deal numbers around 12k damage per tick on BiS Ranks (On BiS level, i saw 18k procs but that was under exceptional situations [i think]) . Most players are not against "piercing damage" itself, but against the amount of damage it can deal. That's why most PvP players had been stating that "PB + PG + BH" etc should have a "Damage cap" and a iCD for "Piercing Blades procs among other solutions [tenacity diminishing Piercing damage, in example]. Also, remember that this "piercing blades" thing is not only due "piercing blades" itself, but due other game's mechanichs too (mainly, power creep). The sad side of this thing is that only a bunch ofgood players like myself are "fighting for balance in PvP" (we also can talk about PvE, but, on that field, i know far better PvE players than myself) while a lot of bad players are just defending this kind of nonsense because, mainly, they don't know how to build "correctly" their char at all.

2 - On PvE, those numbers are just for laughs. But on PvP, those numbers mean that a averange player will lose from 40 to 90% of his/her HP pool... Pretty "sick" , IMO. I could understand those numbers even one shots coming from a TR (i do agree that, under certain situations, a TR should be able to one shot other chars) but each 20 secs while allowing the HR keep "attacking"? O.o . There is not risk involved at all as happends with TRs (whom can one shot players and stay on battle...)

4, 5 and 6 - Was 1v1 scenario while i were capping a node. The HR came out from stealth (ghost daily) knocked me down with his pretty shinny and lagging lion, casted the whole rotation on me and my HP pool just blew up

Oh wow. 12k per tick? I can see the reason for calling Piercing nerfs in PvP players now. Highly doubt any 6-figure HP toons can survive. It also means that a HR has to deal 24k per tick to produce that kind of Piercing Damage tick and only 2 encounters that I can think of will produce that kind of number.

But still, Blade Hurricane sounds off. It only enhances melee at-wills (yup only melee at-wills) after using a melee encounter for 2 seconds. I don't think a PvP combat Ranger would want to stay in one spot to land some small hits. Actually, one did misunderstood how Flurry works. It won't buff encounters.

Nah. Combat HRs in PvE are there for the fun of it, just like Whisperknife Scoundrel TRs with Wicked Reminder and Bait and Switch slotted.

Ah. So you got CC'd. Yeah. You're pretty much done. By any chance did you see what encounter he used? PG is obviously one. Boar Charge for knockdown or was it a mount power/arti? Aimed Strike is probably used to get some BH damage out. Gushing Wound is a possibility but he finished you quickly so it's out of the picture.

Edit: I think the damage from Piercing should stay but either with piercing tenacity or remove piercing (remains only damage). Because like you said, in PvE, it's not really a good damage source but it perks out with high deflect, self-heal feat and continuous rotation between melee and range.

ajlir · November 2016

Basically,
PG will grant Flurry. Piercing Blades will proc for each tick of PG for 50% of that damage tick. Also, where Piercing Blades shine.

One swing of Clear the Ground puts out 2 additional strikes with Flurry. So, Piercing Blades will proc 3 times at 50% at-will damage, 50% damage from Flurry.

Example, 1k damage of Clear the Ground will give out 500 Piercing damage. Blade Hurricane strikes for 1650, which procs Piercing Blades for 825 damage.

Flurry lasts about 5 swings of Clear the Ground, so total Piercing Blades damage dealt will be around 6.6k.

3 encounters will amount to about 20k.

Blade Storm: When dealing melee damage, you have 25% chance to deal an additional 5% damage in an area around you (20% at rank 4).

Example, PG with 10k damage per tick procs Piercing Blades (5k per tick) and Blade Storm (assume it procs - 2.5k damage per tick)

Blade Storm also procs Piercing Blades (1k per tick).

You have 25% chance to deal 7.5k piercing damage and another separate 25% chance to deal 1k piercing damage.

I only speak for Stormwarden, will respec to Pathfinder if ZAX restores itself again.

Note: This post will be edited once I'm done testing the unknown.

Solved

Piercing Blades calculates from no-mitigated damage dealt to your opponent.
Blade Storm deals damage to anything around you, including main target for 25% of the damage dealt, including Piercing Blades and Blade Hurricane.
Blade Hurricane deals 1 strike at 165% damage from at-wills.
Piercing Blades does not get any increase from post-mitigated buff/debuff (most buffs/debuffs)

ajlir · November 2016

clonkyo1 said:

The rotation was Forest Ghost (i though it was "ambush" at first, but i inspected him and he weren't wearing one) -> Lion active power (legend mount) -> plant grown -> Careful Attack/gushing wound (don't remember, sorry) and rapid strikes. A player needs to know how to do this rotation, of course, but it's almost "free" after a prone. I'm sure i'm missing something here but this is mainly the rotation i suffered and almost melted me.

You mentioned that you inspected him. What paragon he is using?

ajlir · November 2016

clonkyo1 said:

ajlir#7970 said:
Confirm whether armpen plays a role in increasing Piercing Blades. If it does, it means that Piercing Blades damage comes from post-mitigated encounters/at-wills. At which, I have no idea how to test this. Anyone, please give some tips on testing it.
This is confirmed already: it takes the damage result from PRE mitigation damage, not post mitigation damage. In fact, This was the change to buff it to the sky back from the nerf suffered on mod6, rendering the path almost useless. the problem, on this sense, is that it can multi proc

to your next answer, he is Parthfinder... I wanted to test Combat Stormwarden too, but to start with, how do you feel about it?

EDIT: BTW, i think he also used "aimed strike" on me after the prone. ^^U

Still can't believe that HR can DoT someone to death. He needs to deal around 140k damage before mitigation for 70k piercing. Unless that HR only stack power, crit and nothing else. It's a risky build.

Not sure if I want to elaborate Combat Stormwarden in PvP, but PvE.....spin-to-win. Yup. That pretty much sums up my feels and I'm liking it.

Edit: Just give it a whirl by solo-ing Subterranean Surge in Drowned Shore and pull every mob with your arrow at-will. Switch to melee stance and spin your way to the light.

jhpnw · November 2016

We still go back to its buffs the average player don't have like lion mount that are issue buffing to PB . And to answer the original post in PVE you still need to get to 60% armor pen or you do very little damage to any thing. Popping 24 k at wills over and over @ 2 second burst after use of melee encounter is still a very low total damage out and with out 60% AP non of your other encounters or daily's give out much DPS so we still need AP also. In PVP palyers have 200k hit points in PVE monsters have 20 MIllion plus

jonkoca · November 2016

Sooo.... you got proned, and ate an entire rotation. From a high level HR with a legendary lion mount. Pity you didn't screenshot your combat log. Sounds like you got ambushed and possibly longstridered as well.

This is how I guess it went. Longstrider for the damage buff, ambush for stealth and damage buff, lion mount attack to prone, drop plantgrowth, and perhaps gushing wound, plus whatever at-wills he had loaded. Though that's hell to land on someone experienced. That would produce a huge mushroom cloud of nasty red numbers.

That's the rotation I use on DCs, OPs and GFs. Though I used to have to use either the rod of restraint or boarcharge to disable them. It's a very specific load out, and near useless in general combat. It's a "hey, just for fun, let's try and kill that damn immortal toon squatting on mid." rotation. Or a troll rotation, which you use in 1 on 1 when everything you have is off cooldown and ready to go, trying for that one-rotation kill that GFs pull off so effortlessly.

How's about you just, I dunno, get over it..?

divectore · November 2016

Im a experienced HR Combat player, 70k piercing damage is realitvely easy, but we are not speaking of a single hit, we are talking about total piercing damage.
The only way to achieve that, is using longstriders buff, then Plant Growth, then split strike, he says 2 seconds, that means= 2 ticks of plant growth + 2 split strikes
2 tick from PB hitting for 25k total (12,5k + 12,5k) + 2hits from split for 10k total (5k + 5k) + 2 hits from blade hurricane for 32k total (8+8+8+8). All this is percing damage = 67k
For this damage, he need to land all this critical and be empowered with longstrider's shot buff while enemy is standing still and not disableing/stunning or attacking back the HR otherwise, rotation and buff will be lost (blade hurricane is a 2 seconds buff and longstriders shot is a 3 seconds buff).

For PVE you need armor penetration, otherwise you will be dealing like 20% of your initial damage, piercing blades is an additional damage based on the damage that you deal, it's not like Shocking Execution.

@Clonkyo1 before you comment about something, you should informate first, piercing blade CAN NOT multi proc from a single attack, if you get a 25k hit, piercing blades can not multi proc 5 times from that same damage dealing 140k, what can happen is that piercing blade proc several times a second from different attacks, but since piercing blades is NOT a FLAT damage like shadow opportunity, it's pointless,why? because piercing blades can proc 100 times in a second, but dealing 1 damage, so 100 piercing damage total or can proc a single time dealing 20k damage

clonkyo1 said: This is confirmed already: it takes the damage result from PRE mitigation damage, not post mitigation damage:

Of curse it need the be pre mitigated, other wise it won't be piercing damage don't you think?

ajlir#7970 said:
That's a....pretty interesting point.

How does a combat HR deals damage without armpen if all they do is stack crits in PvP like what @icyphish said? More specifically, how does piercing blade work? He mentioned it's pre-mitigated. But from what? Post-mitigated damage from encounters/at-wills or just outright 50% outright total pre-mitigated encounter/at-wills damage?

Piercing Blades is an ADDITIONAL 50% of your melee damage as piercing, for example, a 5k damage from a encounter deals 5k normal damage + 2,5k piercing, obviously being pre-mitigated, otherwise it won't be piercing if its being reduced from defenses, like for example: 5k damage from encounter being reduced to 1k normal damage, so 500 damage being piercing = 1,5k damage
no difference from a 50% non piercing damage increase: 1k + 50% = 1,5k

clonkyo1 said:
@ajlir#7970
The rotation was Forest Ghost (i though it was "ambush" at first, but i inspected him and he weren't wearing one) -> Lion active power (legend mount) -> plant grown -> Careful Attack/gushing wound (don't remember, sorry) and rapid strikes. A player needs to know how to do this rotation, of course, but it's almost "free" after a prone. I'm sure i'm missing something here but this is mainly the rotation i suffered and almost melted me.

This rotation cannot benefit from blade hurricane and so it's impossible to hit for 70k,
Using 2 melee encounter powers nullifies your last feat (blade hurricane), so rapid strikes will be hitting for 2k + 1,5k piercing at most

I have played against top hr in neverwinter, they nearly 1 hit me, dealing 80k damage in 2 seconds, thats the damage you deal when you have 130% resistence ignored and piercing damage on top.
My conclusion is that the problem is not piercing damage, it's the damage itself, because the same HR's takes about 4 seconds to kill me with trapper build using plant growth.

divectore · November 2016

clonkyo1 said:

divectore said:
@Clonkyo1 before you comment about something, you should informate first, piercing blade CAN NOT multi proc from a single attack, if you get a 25k hit, piercing blades can not multi proc 5 times from that same damage dealing 140k, what can happen is that piercing blade proc several times a second from different attacks,
What i read on combat log when i suffer that kind of damage is (EXAMPLE):

XXXXX deals 3000 (30000) damage to you with encounter
XXXXX deals 15000 damage to you with Piercing blades
XXXXX deals 15000 damage to you with Piercing blades
XXXXX deals 15000 damage to you with Piercing blades

Nothing else before and after that.You can be right, but this is what combat log shows... If you can explain it better, would be nice, because i don't see "other hits" from XXXXX (but i can had missed them, ofc.)

As i said in other threat, piercing blades have a cap on how many hits can be done per second to a single target, this is a bad thing for pve because for rapid succesive hits, it's a loss in damage, i would prefer a buff-kind 50% non piercing increase in damage.
Thanks to this cap, Piercing blades does not appear after evey hit, example

you deal 300 damage
piercing blades deal 150 damage.

Instead it shows like this:
You deal 300 damage
you deal 500 damage
you deal 300 damage
your piercing blades deals 150 damage
your piercing blades deal 150 damage

There we lose our damage from the 500 one, but my point is that you are only seeing the part that shows 300, 150 150.
Here is an act screen shot to explain a real world case:

Gushing wound deal 16 hits in about one second, because the cap on piercing blades, only 5 of them proc piercing blades, in your log it would appear like this:
Gushing Wound deals 9000 damage
Gushing Wound deals 9000 damage
Gushing Wound deals 9000 damage
Gushing Wound deals 9000 damage
Gushing Wound deals 9000 damage
Gushing Wound deals 9000 damage
Gushing Wound deals 9000 damage
Aura of courage deals 1500 damage
Gushing Wound deals 9000 damage
Piercing Blade deals 4500 damage
Piercing Blade deals 4500 damage
Piercing Blade deals 4500 damage
Piercing Blade deals 4500 damage

divectore · November 2016

clonkyo1 said:

divectore said:
. . .
has this example been done vs Dummy or vs Player? because i find odd that your GW deals more damage than Piercing blades when, in fact on PvP, a combat HR's main source of damage is piercing blades.

You were asking about your log, of why piercing blades seems to multi proc.
Thats another question, as i mention before, for rapid succesive hits, piercing blades deals less damage, piercing damage is the main source of damage because it combines the damage of all powers (since it's and additional damage, it's apart in another damage floater) with 100% effectivness, while normal powers get reduced by defenses, either way, my gushing wound was tested against a mob with a lot of players attacking it, so all the 15 ticks of gushing wound are done in a second, this was for testing the cap. If my gushing wound were in a dummy with no allies attacking it, my piercing blade would deal at least 40k damage, because it's not hitting any "hit/s" cap.

bittynation · November 2016

clonkyo1 said:

divectore said:
@Clonkyo1 before you comment about something, you should informate first, piercing blade CAN NOT multi proc from a single attack, if you get a 25k hit, piercing blades can not multi proc 5 times from that same damage dealing 140k, what can happen is that piercing blade proc several times a second from different attacks,
What i read on combat log when i suffer that kind of damage is (EXAMPLE):

XXXXX deals 3000 (30000) damage to you with encounter
XXXXX deals 15000 damage to you with Piercing blades
XXXXX deals 15000 damage to you with Piercing blades
XXXXX deals 15000 damage to you with Piercing blades

Nothing else before and after that.You can be right, but this is what combat log shows... If you can explain it better, would be nice, because i don't see "other hits" from XXXXX (but i can had missed them, ofc.)

Post the log or it didn't happen! PB doesn't work that way. I've have seen PB proc before the encounter in the log, but there is always an encounter to go with it.

jonkoca · November 2016

Gg clonk, thnx for getting us nerfed.QQ ftw.

gabrieldourden · November 2016

To the op: you'd still better stack some armpen in PVE. Let me explain a bit what happens and why PVP and PVE are different:

Piercing Blades deals 50% of the unmitigated damage of your melee attacks as piercing damage.

In PVP unmitigated damage is usually higher than mitigated damage especially against tanky classes that can basically mitigate your damage to very low levels. Piercing blades becomes the main source of your damage then, so it makes sense to boost unmitigated damage only and forget about arpen.

In PVE the situation is exactly the opposite. Mitigated damage (if you have a decent level of arpen) is always higher than umitigated as basically mosters don't mitigate anything anymore due to the arpen you have and you also get the effect of buff/debuffs that increase your actual damage. Piercing blades becomes far less important and moreso the more buffs to your mitigated damage you get, so I'll recommend getting your 60% resistance ignored. Maybe, and I am saying maybe, the optimum is slightly below 60% stacking a bit more power and crit but given the fact that the treshold will vary depending on the amount of buffs/debuffs you get ,the calculation is difficult and probably not worth the effort in reality.

During the HR balance pass somebody suggested the option to make Piercing Blades damage based on mitigated damage instead of unmitigated. In that case the Combat HR would be seriously gimped in PVP but an absolute meatgrinder in PVE.

jonkoca · November 2016

on the plus front looks like the PG nerf is actually a bug. It's on the list to be looked into. Hopefully a storm(king) in a teacup.

lirithiel · November 2016

Well that's a relief. I'm not liking RoS in my rotation. Things went a lot smoother with TS, GW and PG.

gabrieldourden · November 2016

Is it better than TS, GW, TCTTW?

ajlir · November 2016

gabrieldourden said:
Is it better than TS, GW, TCTTW?

Uh...Thorn Strike, Gushing Wound and.....I don't know. What is TCTTW?

gabrieldourden · November 2016

ajlir#7970 said:

gabrieldourden said:
Is it better than TS, GW, TCTTW?
Uh...Thorn Strike, Gushing Wound and.....I don't know. What is TCTTW?

It's Throw Caution, sorry. I always think about it as Throw Caution to the Wind.

ajlir · November 2016

gabrieldourden said:

ajlir#7970 said:

gabrieldourden said:
Is it better than TS, GW, TCTTW?
Uh...Thorn Strike, Gushing Wound and.....I don't know. What is TCTTW?
It's Throw Caution, sorry. I always think about it as Throw Caution to the Wind.

Oh. Alright. That setup is good on bosses. Mobs, not so much except high HP ones.

I rather use Commanding Shot than Longstrider/Gushing Wound for debuff on boss.

For mobs, Oak Skin to soften Throw Caution's damage resistance penalty.

lirithiel · November 2016

I prefer PG over TC as I use Wild Hunt Rider which seems to proc off PG every so often (better on DoTs). I'll really only use TC/StS on Tia and maybe dragons but I just find my whole rotation goes smoother with PG even though it has a rather long CD. It also means I can get in more TS which is a load of damage in itself.

divectore · November 2016

lirithiel said:
I prefer PG over TC as I use Wild Hunt Rider which seems to proc off PG every so often (better on DoTs). I'll really only use TC/StS on Tia and maybe dragons but I just find my whole rotation goes smoother with PG even though it has a rather long CD. It also means I can get in more TS which is a load of damage in itself.

For melee HR, throw caution is a 25% more damage for 8 seconds, it's like hidden daggers.

lirithiel · November 2016

divectore said:

lirithiel said:
I prefer PG over TC as I use Wild Hunt Rider which seems to proc off PG every so often (better on DoTs). I'll really only use TC/StS on Tia and maybe dragons but I just find my whole rotation goes smoother with PG even though it has a rather long CD. It also means I can get in more TS which is a load of damage in itself.
For melee HR, throw caution is a 25% more damage for 8 seconds, it's like hidden daggers.

You say 25%? I thought it was only 10%.

ajlir · November 2016

lirithiel said:

divectore said:

lirithiel said:
I prefer PG over TC as I use Wild Hunt Rider which seems to proc off PG every so often (better on DoTs). I'll really only use TC/StS on Tia and maybe dragons but I just find my whole rotation goes smoother with PG even though it has a rather long CD. It also means I can get in more TS which is a load of damage in itself.
For melee HR, throw caution is a 25% more damage for 8 seconds, it's like hidden daggers.
You say 25%? I thought it was only 10%.

45% damage bonus with feat but leaves you with 15% damage resistance debuff while it's active.

No feats will be 40% damage bonus, 20% damage resistance debuff.

Piercing in PVE

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