Rifleman Archive
Thread: Question about armor piercing...
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Bezil
Mon Jul 05, 2004 8:06 pm
#1
Was wondering about how much a rifle'sarmor piercing affects damage. This question comes up because 99% of riflemen use a t-21 whereas the damage stats on a laser rifle are very comparable, and many times even better. The perceived downside to a laser rifle is that it has medium AP, whereas the t-21 has heavy. How much does this matter? Is medium AP on a laser really a downside? Any info about this would really be appreciated.
Bezil
Tue Jul 06, 2004 6:45 am
#2
Thanks for the info, that helps some, but still unsure about some stuff. I have fought NPCs before that have 100% energy resists. I have used my t-21 thinking that it would still do some damage because of the AP, despite their armor. the result, wasnt able to budge the ham bar one bit. In other words, it did no damage. Is the AP completely nulified by 100% enrgy resists? Thanks again.
BlasterForHire
Tue Jul 06, 2004 7:22 am
#3
Some correction/additions
1. 100% resists nullify all damage of that type, regardless of AP. 100% energy resist = no damage from a T21.
2. AP provides a 25% damage boost over nominal for each step over the AR of the target. in other words, against a lightly armored target (i.e. player in armor), a T21 (heavy ap) would do 1.25 (1 step of ap over ar) x 1.25 (2nd step over) = 1.56x damage = 56% more damage than base. A laser in the same instance has 1 step over, and does 25% more damage than base.
3. AP is disregarded if the target is VULNERABLE to a given damage type. therefore, you will do more damage to a target with 10% energy resist with a T21 than to a different target that was vulnerable to energy. As stupid as that sounds, this is a longstanding bug that's been brought up dozens (if not hundreds) of times to devs. It affects every armor piercing weapon, including lightsabers, and the Dev's don't care to change it.
4. A seperate consideration in PvP is damage mitigation-- it far overwhelms AP bonuses if your target has Ranged Damage Mit 3. This reduces the damage RANGE on the weapon by 60% (for mit 3), which is an enormous hit to a laser. On kauri, lasers are typically 40-400 (preslice). a 60% reduction of the 360 pt damage range is 216 pts. Subtract that 216 from the max damage to get the new max, and the laser becomes 40-184 against another master rifleman, for example.
hope this helps. if you have any more questions, feel free to ask. AP is widely misunderstood.
1. 100% resists nullify all damage of that type, regardless of AP. 100% energy resist = no damage from a T21.
2. AP provides a 25% damage boost over nominal for each step over the AR of the target. in other words, against a lightly armored target (i.e. player in armor), a T21 (heavy ap) would do 1.25 (1 step of ap over ar) x 1.25 (2nd step over) = 1.56x damage = 56% more damage than base. A laser in the same instance has 1 step over, and does 25% more damage than base.
3. AP is disregarded if the target is VULNERABLE to a given damage type. therefore, you will do more damage to a target with 10% energy resist with a T21 than to a different target that was vulnerable to energy. As stupid as that sounds, this is a longstanding bug that's been brought up dozens (if not hundreds) of times to devs. It affects every armor piercing weapon, including lightsabers, and the Dev's don't care to change it.
4. A seperate consideration in PvP is damage mitigation-- it far overwhelms AP bonuses if your target has Ranged Damage Mit 3. This reduces the damage RANGE on the weapon by 60% (for mit 3), which is an enormous hit to a laser. On kauri, lasers are typically 40-400 (preslice). a 60% reduction of the 360 pt damage range is 216 pts. Subtract that 216 from the max damage to get the new max, and the laser becomes 40-184 against another master rifleman, for example.
hope this helps. if you have any more questions, feel free to ask. AP is widely misunderstood.
Message Edited by BlasterForHire on 07-06-2004 09:23 AM
Bezil
Tue Jul 06, 2004 8:39 am
#4
Thanks for the info, this has helped me out immensley. One last question...How much of this will all change during the combat re-balance? Or is that all still up in the air? Thanks.
BlasterForHire
Tue Jul 06, 2004 9:59 am
#5
no one knows anything about the CB.
we assume it will "nerf"/adjust weapon damage, speed, armor, and buffs, and directed pool damage somewhat. but, we really don't know. I don't think the devs do either, at least not in its entirety, since they put max effort into the Jedi publish just completed.
we assume it will "nerf"/adjust weapon damage, speed, armor, and buffs, and directed pool damage somewhat. but, we really don't know. I don't think the devs do either, at least not in its entirety, since they put max effort into the Jedi publish just completed.
Waste93
Tue Jul 06, 2004 10:06 am
#6
Bezil wrote:
Thanks for the info, this has helped me out immensley. One last question...How much of this will all change during the combat re-balance? Or is that all still up in the air? Thanks.
The combat revamp is the great unknown. Currently we have no idea how it is going to effect things since no real information has been released yet. It's just rumors so far.
As was stated previously, you get 25% more damage per step the AP is over the AR. This is cumulative (like compound interest). So it goes 100%, 125%, 156%, and 195%.
For each step the AP is below the AR you loose 50% damage. So it goes 100%, 50%, 25%, 12.5% .
One other reason you see so many Riflemen with the T21 is the min/max. The Laser Rifle has a large variance between the min damage and the max damage. This can lead to some great shots and some bad damage shots.
The T21 has a much tighter min/max leading to more consistancy in damage which makes it easier to predict how many shots and what shots you will need to drop a target.
BlasterForHire
Tue Jul 06, 2004 10:25 am
#7
Waste93 wrote:
The T21 has a much tighter min/max leading to more consistancy in damage which makes it easier to predict how many shots and what shots you will need to drop a target.
I disagree with that statement for this reason:
1.) average damage on a good damage sliced laser vs damage sliced T21 are reasonably similar.
2.) anything worth worrying about takes more than 5-6 shots to kill. If it goes down faster than that, you don't really care. If it takes more than that, the average damage becomes more and more centered, lessening the difference between the two guns. It all comes down to AP at that point, which is what makes the T21 superior, given firing at the cap.
the caveat to that: recently, Kauri 12 pt Master Weaponsmiths have been making some very nice runs of T21's, where the max damage is equal to a lasers, and the min damage is 150pts better. that skews the average damage argument, and invalidates my points above. Not sure how it is on other servers though.
Waste93
Tue Jul 06, 2004 10:49 am
#8
BlasterForHire wrote:
I disagree with that statement for this reason:
1.) average damage on a good damage sliced laser vs damage sliced T21 are reasonably similar.
2.) anything worth worrying about takes more than 5-6 shots to kill. If it goes down faster than that, you don't really care. If it takes more than that, the average damage becomes more and more centered, lessening the difference between the two guns. It all comes down to AP at that point, which is what makes the T21 superior, given firing at the cap.
the caveat to that: recently, Kauri 12 pt Master Weaponsmiths have been making some very nice runs of T21's, where the max damage is equal to a lasers, and the min damage is 150pts better. that skews the average damage argument, and invalidates my points above. Not sure how it is on other servers though.
At Master levels it doesn't matter much because of the rate of fire. However at lower levels it's nice to have a good idea of how much damage each shot will do so you can pick targets a bit easier. A tighter variance helps that.
Also the tighter variance is of some importance in PvP because of how mitigation work. Ranged Mitigation is a reduction not in damage, but the differenc between min and max damage.
For example, my Laser is 76/440. My T21 is 186/470. The variance on the Laser Rifle is therefore 364 points. If Mitigation III reduces damage by 60% ( I think that is the amount), that means that Laser Rifle is now 76/222. The T21 has a variance of 284. With Mitigation that makes it 186/300.
BlasterForHire
Tue Jul 06, 2004 11:20 am
#9
absolutely, and i pointed out the effects of mitigation in my first post. 
Bezil
Tue Jul 06, 2004 11:48 am
#10
Wow, great posts guyz. Thanks for all the info, this really helps. 
Steinerguy
Tue Jul 06, 2004 12:57 pm
#12
depends on what you are fighting but the t21 is a much better gun than the laser rifle in most ever way. the heavy ap adds 75% (i think its 75% i could be wrong) more damage to your attack only if you target has resist to energy damage and also depending on your targets armor rating. if the target is vulnerable to energy damage then the AP is not included in the damage roll. max damage is not the only thing to look at on the rifles either, the laser riflehas huge margin for min and max damage. the t21's margin is smaller allowing it to cause more consistent higher damage.
steiner
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