When to go for DR Penetration vs Big Damage

[Livegood118]

Hi all,

 

I've noticed that very few of the character builds posted in this forum make use of stacked damage penetration and smaller weapons.

 

Some good sources of damage penetration in the game include:

 

– Ryona's Vambraces

– Talents (Vulnerable Attack, Penetrating Attack, Penetrating Blast)

– Weapons with the rending ability (e.g. Sword of Daenysis)

– Abilities (Sundering Blows, Expose Vulnerabilities, Hel Hyraf's fury etc ...)

– Devil of Caroc sacrifice bonus

 

What gives? Do the numbers just not add up vs. big damage weapons?

 

What interesting builds have you come up with that are optimised for using smaller weapons?

Edited November 25, 2016 by Livegood118

[Blades of Vanatar]

You're right. Though many mention it as an option when new build seekers come asking for opinions on how to build the MC they want, I don't see many builds in the featured build section utilizing the DR mechanic as the main feature.

 

Boeroer.... are you up to the task?!?!?!?!?!

[Remix]

DR penetration is good for aoe effects - especially with the barbarian's carnage.

 

DR penetration is also useful for ciphers who rely on the highest possible single target weapon damage for their abilities. Monks might get some use out of it but I haven't really used them too much.

 

Otherwise that, though, it's somewhat situational.

Edited November 25, 2016 by Remix

[Livegood118]

Just did a bit of theory crafting. What about this?

 

Build Name: Hackmaster

 

Chanter

 

MIG: 20 (24 Mod)

CON: 10 (13 Mod)

DEX: 09 (12 Mod)

PER: 14 (18 Mod)

INT: 16 (18 Mod, 21 with Forum Bonus)

RES: 09

 

Two Weapon Style

Ancient Memory

Beloved Spirits

Weapon Focus: Peasant

Vulnerable Attack

Veterans Recovery

Secrets of Rime

Spirit of Decay

 

Weapons: Hearth Harvest + Captain Vitello's Anger

Helm: Maegfolc Skull

Armour: Blaidh Golan (Mod +2 Int)

Ring 1: Ring of Thorns 

Boots: Shod in Faith

Cape: Mantle of the Excavator

Gloves: Ryona's Vambraces

Ring 2: Ring of Deflection

Belt: Girdle of Eotun Constitution

 

Deflection = 25 (Base) + 45 (Levels) + 9 (Ring) + 10 (Double Hatchets) -1 (Resolve) = 88 Deflection

 

Invocations

Lvl1: White Worms Writhed, Hel Hyraf's Fury Crashed, Reny Daret's Ghost

Lvl2: Aoe Paralyse, Aoe Charm, AoE Terrified

Lvl3: Seven Nights She Waited, 

Lvl4: Their Champion Braved the Horde

Lvl5: Boil their Flesh

 

Chants

 

Lvl1: Come soft winds ad nauseaum

Lvl9: Aeyfyllath ues Mys Fyr > Come Soft Winds *3

 

Notes

 

– Character intended to act as an off-tank with reasonable survivability

– Character can attack with 0 Recovery with Durganised Gear and the Champion Braved the Horde Alone with -11 Damage Reduction, -16 DR with hel hyraf's fury

– Character will have extremely good interrupt when CBtHA is on (+72) and should be able to lock down dudes pretty well with attacks every 19 frames.

– Pump Survival for further accuracy bonuses. When fighting Kith go for +Healing Bonus.

– Character will build up 4 phrases every 10 seconds at level 16, this is enough to cast any of the AOE Disables with a long duration thanks to reasonably high intellect. With Forum Bonus character will get +55% Duration on their paralyse disable, meaning 6.2 secs on a graze, 12.4 Secs on a Hit and 18.6 Secs on a Crit.

– Use big damage invocations during an Aeyfyllath Ues Mys Fyr linger/chant for an extra +25% Lash Damage. 

   - Use Boil Their Flesh against large groups of enemies, which will benefit from Spirit of Decay

   - Use Seven Nights She Waited vs Single Large Enemies

   - Spam White Worms Writhed when you've got loadsa corpses (Maybe some of the DR penetration makes it through to this?)

 

Edit: Just tested this and maybe the chanter's not the sort of class that should do this. Damage is way too low and given you've got reasonably high might anyway it seems like going the DR penetration root isn't worth it. Also the loss of the +5 Accuracy gauntlets where Ryona's Vambraces go really stinks.

Edited November 26, 2016 by Livegood118

[Remix]

I think the DR penetration talent only works with weapons. Haven't actually tested, though. That's just how the description reads.

Edited November 26, 2016 by Remix

[prototype00]

Storm caller (6 Shock DR bypass) + Penetrating shot (5 DR bypass) + Ryona's Vambrace's (3 DR bypass) is an easy 14 DR bypass. I have this combo running on Grieving Mother.

[Ben No.3]

All firearms also have a inherited DR bypass... There is even a Blunderbuss with extra 3 DR bypass. Add the inherent 4 DR bypass and 5 from penetrating shot and 3 from Vembraces you Havea total of 15 DR bypass on a blunderbuss.

[Boeroer]

My Engineer build made use of stacking DR bypass. As does the Sorcerer's Apprentice. So I did make at least two builds that use stacking DR bypass.

 

Penetrating Shot works with all spells that target single enemies and do direct damage and also with those who have not a cone or circle as AoE, but a straight line, like Mind Lance, Rolling Flame and even the weird shaped Twin Stones.

 

Actually, nothing works with cone- and circle-shaped AoE effects except things that are specially made for it, like Penetrating Blast for Blast, and things that lower DR directly, like Expose Vulnerabilities, Hel Hyraf and so on. Nope, also not Ryona's Vambraces nor Effigy's Resentment: Devil of Caroc.

 

Lashes are another thing: Pen. Shot and Vuln. Attack as well as Vambraces and stuf don't apply to lashes.

 

The things that profit the most from high DR bypass are multi projectile attacks like blunderbusses and missiles of all sorts, like Missile Barrage for example.

 

So, a Pallegina build that uses blunderbuss, Wrath of the Five Suns and all kinds of missiles would work best with Pen. Shot, Ryona's Vambraces and ER: Devil of Caroc. If you have a Wizard with Expose Vulnerabilities in the party: even better.

[K Galen B]

I think the DR penetration talent only works with weapons. Haven't actually tested, though. That's just how the description reads.

 

Many single-target, chaining, and line direct damage spells/scrolls/etc. seem to work with Penetrating Shot... and I'm not sure the attack speed penalty applies? Boerorer is possibly the expert on this. Missile spells (primary target or chained targets only I think), Tayn's Chaotic Orb, Crackling Bolt, Rolling Flame, probably Chain Lightning if anyone ever used it all work with Penetrating Shot.

 

Edit: I was thoroughly ninja'ed. Must've been on another tab when I was warned about missing a post, even.

Edited November 26, 2016 by K Galen B

[Livegood118]

Overall it seems to me that DR stacking is - in most cases and excluding a few very specific builds/playstyles - suboptimal taking in to account all of the circumstances. If you've got any reasonable about of might/stacked %damage boosts (as most classes do) then the benefits granted by DR stacking and using fast weapons just don't really seem to compare?

 

Edit; I'm talking about in a melee context

Edited November 26, 2016 by Livegood118

[Remix]

For barbs' carnage effects it can be useful since the aoe damage is reduced.

 

Still, though, you're probably better off using a weapon that causes afflictions and disables in conjunction with carnage's aoe effects rather than DR penetration.

[Kaylon]

While DR penetration is good too have there are simply better talents or items to increase your damage. In some cases having DR penetration doesn't help at all (enemies with no DR or very high DR) and people pick speed, damage increase or accuracy which work in all situations.

[Braven]

I think DR bypass is great, at least in the early game. Fast weapons have an average base damage of 11, and bigger one-handers are 13.5.

 

A typical "good" damage modifer is +20%. That is equalivent to just over 2 DR-Bypass for fast weapons. Vulnerable attack is over twice as good by that comparison, and still better even when considering the recovery penatly. A mace with 3 DR bypass does a bit more damage than a Saber with a 20% mod. True, a few enemies have very low DR, but they are weak fodder where the extra damage doesn't really matter anyway. Some exceptionally high DR enemies (dragons) may nullify DR-Bypass completely because you still do min-damage even with a lot of DR-bypass.

 

This DR-favored math would be true if base damage never changed and all modifers were additive. However, I think "lashes" might not be helped by DR-bypass. I also seem to remember hearing that weapon quality actually adjusts weapon base damage, thus buffing additive damage modifers while not helping DR-Bypass. Can anyone confirm if this is true?

 

I wonder if in the late game, the speed penalty of vulnerable attack would be too harmful compared to the benefit (with lashes, superior+ quality, etc). Assuming you can't nullify it with lots of stacking attack speed buffs.

Edited November 28, 2016 by Braven

[KDubya]

In all of my PotD playthroughs, primarily with melee heavy teams, I've always taken the DR penetration ability with the -20% recovery and never thought twice about it.

 

Whether it was a Tidefall wielding Kind Wayfarer Paladin, a Juggernaut Monk, Pellaginna with a shield or an Estoc they all took it. I'd have to look at Kana the Chanter to see if I had it on him or if I was starved for abilities. 

 

Whenever I've tested in tavern brawls DR bybass has always done damage faster. Even when the target had only 5 DR and the weapons were two handed swords the  one with the DR bypass did more damage faster even with the -20% recovery. Now this was done with exceptional level gear and a single lash, perhaps with higher levels of enchantment and more lashes the results are different.

 

Regardless the game is easy enough that taking or not taking the ability will not affect the overall outcome. I just like the fact that with it I do not have to worry as much about enemy armor and the animats are a lot easy to deal with in melee.

[Boeroer]

The higher the base damage and the more dmg mods you can add to that (or multiply with that), the less Vulnerable Attack or Penetrating Shot will do for your dps (or even lower it). And lashes don't work with DR bypass - that's a bad thing for fast weapons with low dmg but high DR bypass.

 

Of course it's best if you can have both, high DMG per hit and high DR bypass, like with an estoc.

[peddroelm]

I'm currently wondering on the benefits of vulnerable attack myself. (pure win for abilities that ignore attack speed/penalties  - HOF//VD, and pretty hard to call otherwise)

 

In my full melee party (currently level 12) I have 5-6 dualwielders with various amount of weapon damage bonuses and in many cases it is not immediately apparent when it is worth it and not ( depends on the currently attacked enemy DR and deflection // weapon pair).

 

Since a have a few free days coming up I might set up a few testing sessions for my benefit. Since testing time is limited I'm trying what setup will wield most insight .

 

 I'm thinking auto attacking at fixed FPS without interruption (passive targeting dummy) with CONSTANT WEAPON damage for fixed duration (say 5 minutes) against target with uniform DR and sum the total damage inflicted at the end with vulnerable attack on and off. There is another RNG component caused by hit quality . Perhaps test it all uber accuracy (only crit shots) ? So many variables .

 

Change practice dummy's DR and try again with a few characters/weapon pairs. Still this would take a few hours ..

 

 

EDIT

 

I can speed this up

The only unknown is attack speed /// number of attacks in the alloted time interval: no need to set mess with hit quality as long as no misses or constant damage. I can calculate damage per hit for chosen hit quality, min/avr/max weapon damage roll vs variable DR afterwards.  Could even make a spreadsheet out of it  but the attack speed bits will be at best incomplete... (MAXQuest's attack speed was abandoned before completion )

It is long overdue we had a reasonably complete attack speed/"theoretical" DPS calculating spreadsheet ..

Edited November 29, 2016 by peddroelm

[Livegood118]

I'm currently wondering on the benefits of vulnerable attack myself. (pure win for abilities that ignore attack speed/penalties  - HOF//VD, and pretty hard to call otherwise)

 

In my full melee party (currently level 12) I have 5-6 dualwielders with various amount of weapon damage bonuses and in many cases it is not immediately apparent when it is worth it and not ( depends on the currently attacked enemy DR and deflection // weapon pair).

 

Since a have a few free days coming up I might set up a few testing sessions for my benefit. Since testing time is limited I'm trying what setup will wield most insight .

 

 I'm thinking auto attacking at fixed FPS without interruption (passive targeting dummy) with CONSTANT WEAPON damage for fixed duration (say 5 minutes) against target with uniform DR and sum the total damage inflicted at the end with vulnerable attack on and off. There is another RNG component caused by hit quality . Perhaps test it all uber accuracy (only crit shots) ? So many variables .

 

Change practice dummy's DR and try again with a few characters/weapon pairs. Still this would take a few hours ..

 

 

EDIT

 

I can speed this up

The only unknown is attack speed /// number of attacks in the alloted time interval: no need to set mess with hit quality as long as no misses or constant damage. I can calculate damage per hit for chosen hit quality, min/avr/max weapon damage roll vs variable DR afterwards.  Could even make a spreadsheet out of it  but the attack speed bits will be at best incomplete... (MAXQuest's attack speed was abandoned before completion )

It is long overdue we had a reasonably complete attack speed/"theoretical" DPS calculating spreadsheet ..

 

You're doing the lord's work son.

 

As regards Attack speed, it's fairly well documented these days thanks to the work of people in the community. The post I used when I need a refresher is Loren Tyr's: 

 

Just to expand on Boeroer's list a bit more: "attack speed bonus/penalty" effects that affect your recovery actually consists of six different kinds of effects, plus reload speed; and of course Dexterity which affects recovery, reload and the duration of actions/animations themselves. The categories are:

- DualWieldAttackSpeedMult (Two Weapon Style)

- MeleeAttackSpeedMult (Vulnerable Attack)

- RangedAttackSpeedMult (Penetrating Shot)

- ArmorSpeedFactorAdj (base armour penalty, Durgan enchantment, Armored Grace, Pilferer's Grip)

- RateOfFireMult (Sure-handed Ila, Vicious Aim)

- AttackSpeedMult (everything else, see below)

 

- Reload Speed (Swift Aim, Sure-handed Ila, Gunner, Vicious Aim) [sure-Handed Ila suppresses Swift Aim]

 

The total bonus/penalty is first computed per category into a combined percentage, these are then added together for the total attack speed bonus/penalty. This is combined bonus is subtracted from the base percentage, which is 50%. Weapon attacks get an additional penalty of 50% unless you're dual wielding (shield Bash doesn't count). In other words, dual-wielders don't get a bonus, non-dual-wielders get a penalty. As that only applies to weapon attacks, a Deleterious Alacrity of Motion spell/potion is therefore already enough to get zero recovery on spell-casting (provided you have no armour penalty, etc.). All this gets you a final percentage of the base recovery duration.

 

The top three categories and Reload Speed all of course only apply when attacking with weapons (of the appropriate kind/style). RateOfFireMult applies to some spells as well, in particular those that use AttackRanged or AttackAOE as a basis (eg. Missiles, Rolling Flame, Fireball, Fan of Flames, but not Ray of Fire (AttackBeam) or Shocking Grasp (AttackMelee)). The other two apply generally to recovery duration (but not to reload duration).

 

ArmourSpeedFactorAdj is combined additively, the rest is combined multiplicatively; eg. for RateOfFireMult, if you have Sure-handed Ila and Vicious aim the combination is 1.2 * 0.8 = 0.96, so in total you get a 4% speed penalty. Similarly, Deleterious Alacrity + Cautious Attack will net you 0.8 * 1.5 = 1.2, so +20% bonus. 

 

The AttackSpeedMult is the biggest category by far, and contains the following:

- Swift Aim, Frenzy, Outlander’s Frenzy, Deleterious Alacrity of Motion, Svef, Potion of Power, Their Champion Braved The Horde Alone, Swift Strikes, Time Parasite

- Spell Tongue

- Cautious Attack

- Gauntlets of Swift Action

- Bloodlust

- Anitlei

- Speed enchantment

- Durgan enchantment

 

As noted, insofar as these stack they do so multiplicatively. The effects in the first bullet point don't stack with each other, only the best of those is applied. For the rest everything stack, including the Spell Tongue effect (it shouldn't, but it does). 

 

Anyway, I think that covers pretty much everything. Seemed like a good idea to put it all into a single post. Let me know if I missed any effects by the way, so I can edit them in.

 

 

You then have to factor Dex in, which I think is Totalattackframes * (1/-+dex percent modifier) = x

[peddroelm]

yup stumbled on THAT Loren Tyr's post burred in an otherwise insignificant thread ..   ..  I'm starting to see a picture forming ..

[Raven Darkholme]

For me personally having 0 recovery on a dps char is much more significant than having pen.

Ofc if you go for a ranged build it could be different.

But then again even on a bow best DR bypass in my opinion is wounding and if you solo high dr targets like dragons on melee Drawn in Spring is the best weapon as well.

It's just that in a weapon you often look for something different for utility and the same should go for the selection of talents, if you can spare a talent point and don't need it elsewhere AND you don't eff up your attack speed the dr talent is great.

Me I'm always too low on talents lol.

[Livegood118]

If attack/recovery on a large 1 handed weapon is 30/30 frames respectively, then vulnerable attack takes up what like 6 frames or so? 

 

Seems like a decent trade in most instances. Lowest common denominator of 60 and 66 is 3960. 60 in to 3960 = 66, 66 in to 3960 = 60.

 

In other words, for every 10 attacks with vulnerable attack on you would have gotten 11 attacks without. Assuming your punching for more than minimum each time, it seems like vulnerable attack is probably worth it given it'll give you an extra 100 or so damage - which is probably more damage than what that extra hit would've gotten you. The penalty's even smaller on small one handed weapons.

 

edit, though, I suppose, the question is: is it worth the talent points on a class that's already hungry for a lot of talents?

Edited November 29, 2016 by Livegood118

[JerekKruger]

Note that the more recovery reduction you stack, the bigger the difference the attack speed between a Vulnerable Attack and a non-vulnerable attack becomes (unless of course you've got 120% reduction of course). For example, if you have zero recovery without Vulnerable Attack, and 20% recovery with it, then in your situation you're looking at 30 and 36 frames respectively which becomes 12 normal attacks for every 10 Vulnerable Attacks. At that point the 50 points of DR bypass might no longer be better than the 2 extra attacks, especially with high end weapons.

 

Also if you have on hit effects on your weapons then you want to be hitting as often as possible to maximise their uptime (even if they always fire, there's a save against them before they go).

 

edit, though, I suppose, the question is: is it worth the talent points on a class that's already hungry for a lot of talents?

 

I think this is probably the main factor. If I've got a talent point going spare then it's certainly a talent I'll consider.

[Raven Darkholme]

If you dual wield you can still easily get 0 recovery with alacrity or similar, but yeah if you don't have a spare talent you just don't have it, which is most often the case for me.

[JerekKruger]

If you dual wield you can still easily get 0 recovery with alacrity or similar, but yeah if you don't have a spare talent you just don't have it, which is most often the case for me.

 

I am strangely allergic to potions. It's something I really ought to get treated.

[K Galen B]

 

If you dual wield you can still easily get 0 recovery with alacrity or similar, but yeah if you don't have a spare talent you just don't have it, which is most often the case for me.

 

I am strangely allergic to potions. It's something I really ought to get treated.

 

 

PoE potions are kinda yucky anyway. Party members will take any distraction as an opportunity to stop drinking them. Sometimes the buggers will pour it out under a bush while you're not looking, too.

[Boeroer]

Easy enough without potions. Dual wielding, any ability that speeds you up (Frenzy, Swift Aim, Swift Strikes, Alacrity, Time Siphon) and speed enchantment or durgan steel plus Gauntlets of Swift Action and you're already under 0 recovery.

 

Although with potions it's a lot easier of course. And you don't necessarily have to consume potions of Alacrity. THere's also the potion of power which is much much cheaper and also speeds you up. Or even Svef.

 

From all this talking about DR reduction and attack speed I now am inspired to try a melee mage with dual Bleak Fang and max DR bypass plus Expose Vulnerabilities and Alacrity. 0 Recovery with 3+3+3+1+5+5 = 20 DR bypass sounds quite nice and fancy. It's good that you can pick multiple Spell Masteries from one spell level...

Edited November 29, 2016 by Boeroer