Phase Dagger vs *Weapon* of Penetration

[Sian]

The wiki for Phase Dagger (http://ancardia.wikia.com/wiki/Phase_dagger) suggests that there is some kind of difference between how its calculated and how an 'of penetration' is calculated, while the general Penetration (http://ancardia.wikia.com/wiki/Armor_penetration) page makes no such mention. Is the calculation presented on the Phase Dagger page valid for all 'of penetration' weapons as well?

I'm in the process of trying to figure out if my shiny new Blessed Mithril Sabre of Penetration (+0,1d6+5) or my old Uncursed Barbaric Orcish Battle Axe of Slaughtering (-6,2d9+8) would be a better general weapon.

[JellySlayer]

Mithril sabre of penetration is generally better, IMHO. Against very low PV monsters the axe is a bit stronger, but not enough to worry about.

My understanding is that weapons of penetration ignore enemy PV when you do damage, whereas phase daggers add extra damage equal to enemy PV. This works out the same most of the time, but the extra damage from your phase dagger can have multipliers effecting it, most notably, the 50% extra damage you get from it being blessed (vs. daemons and undead). If this is correct, then, say you were fighting a monster with 100 PV... with a regular blessed dagger of penetration, you'd do (1d4)*1.50 = 1d6 damage that ignores PV. With a phase dagger, you'd do (1d4 + 100)*1.5 = 1d6 +150 damage, vs 100 PV, for a net gain of 50 damage.

[Soirana]

I'm in the process of trying to figure out if my shiny new Blessed Mithril Sabre of Penetration (+0,1d6+5) or my old Uncursed Barbaric Orcish Battle Axe of Slaughtering (-6,2d9+8) would be a better general weapon.
Sabre should be better overall.

Phase daggers add damage equal to PV to attack which is multiplied (I am not sure if crits and backstabs multiply this, they should, but who knows).

Weapons of penetration... well, I have not seen any data on how they work. All these " ignore enemy PV " are not backed by evidence.

So the actual difference is that phase daggers we know how they work, penetration weapons not so much.

[blunk]

Sabre should be better overall.

Phase daggers add damage equal to PV to attack which is multiplied (I am not sure if crits and backstabs multiply this, they should, but who knows).

Weapons of penetration... well, I have not seen any data on how they work. All these " ignore enemy PV " are not backed by evidence.

So the actual difference is that phase daggers we know how they work, penetration weapons not so much.

Can phase daggers roll with affixes or do they only vary a small amount in hit/dam?
Are they smithable?
Any late game monsters in particular that have high hp and low pv which make them bad?

[zliplus]

Phase daggers can never have affixes. They are smithable. Late game most of your damage comes from stat bonuses so the low raw damage on the weapon doesn't really matter. Early game though, higher damage weapons are often better. High hp low pv is usually only stuff like eternal guardian, shopkeepers, royal guardian (though most of those have decent pv at least as well). On a lesser levels, jellies have nonexistent pv and low/medium hp - don't hit those with your smithed phase daggers heh.

[Soirana]

Can phase daggers roll with affixes or do they only vary a small amount in hit/dam?
Are they smithable?
Any late game monsters in particular that have high hp and low pv which make them bad?

Being cursed makes them very bad, lol.
Well, my graphics card finally died and if it will not be resurrected in oven (I wouldn't bet on it), I'll try to properly test the topic.


My understanding is that weapons of penetration ignore enemy PV when you do damage, whereas phase daggers add extra damage equal to enemy PV. This works out the same most of the time, but the extra damage from your phase dagger can have multipliers effecting it, most notably, the 50% extra damage you get from it being blessed (vs. daemons and undead).

I know it is popular theory (likely popularized by treehuggers), but according to it.... cursed phase dagger should add like health monster PV, while in reality I don't think you can injure greater moloch with cursed one like at all...

[Soirana]

So i poked around a bit.

Weapons of penetration (had a natural dagger, not hacked) seems to work in non buggy, non phase dagger fashion. (crits were at 250ish -- 80+damge x3)

Phase daggers vs greate rmoloch (100PV):
Uncursed were about 80 damage
Blessed ~ 170(80x1.5+50)
Cursed no scratch (80x0.5-50 --- according to that stupid theory it should be either 130*0.5 or 30*0.5 no way it produces zeroes).
Blessed crits 450+(few moloch at ~400 just died:(..) (80*1.5*2 --- 240 --- where does another 200 come from...)

Phase daggers vs balors (PV 40):
blessed at ~140(120 normal + 20 -- half PV?)
blessed crits at ~340 (lowest was 332)...(240-250 normal crit + 80... 2xPV? )
cursed phase -- ~20 (80/2-40/2)
cursed crit --100 (no clue how if\t goes 80/2-40/2+40?)


Phase dagger vs ogre emperor (PV-25)
stab at ~160-170 (80*2--?)
regular hits at ~80
crits -- ~190 (160+PV?)

Not too much fact based conclusions. Phase daggers are bugged as shit, penetration weapons are okay.
Crits get. Some stories how assassins one shotted emepror moloch with dual phase daggers, might be real...Surprisingly backstab does to seem be working (although on emperors it is tough to notice...). For crits phase dagger seems to... pile on another 2xPV?

[Jouni]

So i poked around a bit.

Weapons of penetration (had a natural dagger, not hacked) seems to work in non buggy, non phase dagger fashion. (crits were at 250ish -- 80+damge x3)

According to my testing this is true. Weapons of penetration simply ignore PV, nothing strange here.

Now let's get through all of your cases with phase daggers methodically following the damage formula in the wiki's Phase Dagger (http://ancardia.wikia.com/wiki/Phase_dagger) page, assuming 80 base damage every time. I wrote that formula to the wiki when I did some testing on this some time ago, and for me it seemed to exactly match my observations in every test case.


Phase daggers vs greate rmoloch (100PV):
Uncursed were about 80 damage
(80 + 100) - 100 = 80
Nothing strange here. Damage is exactly the same as with weapons of penetration, since there are no damage multipliers.


Blessed ~ 170(80x1.5+50)
(80 + 100) * 1.5 - 100 = 170
Multiplier for blessed weapon gets applied after adding PV to the damage.


Cursed no scratch (80x0.5-50 --- according to that stupid theory it should be either 130*0.5 or 30*0.5 no way it produces zeroes).
(80 + 100) * 0.5 - 100 = -10 => no damage, as you observed.
Multiplier for cursed weapon gets applied after adding PV to the damage as well.


Blessed crits 450+(few moloch at ~400 just died:(..) (80*1.5*2 --- 240 --- where does another 200 come from...)
(80 + 100) * 1.5 * 2 - 100 = 440
Critical hit multiplier gets applied after adding PV too.



Phase daggers vs balors (PV 40):
blessed at ~140(120 normal + 20 -- half PV?)
(80 + 40) * 1.5 - 40 = 140


blessed crits at ~340 (lowest was 332)...(240-250 normal crit + 80... 2xPV? )
(80 + 40) * 1.5 * 2 - 40 = 320
Maybe your base damage on that lowest one was 84? Seems to match then.


cursed phase -- ~20 (80/2-40/2)
(80 + 40) * 0.5 - 40 = 20


cursed crit --100 (no clue how if\t goes 80/2-40/2+40?)
(80 + 40) * 0.5 * 2 - 40 = 80
Quite a bit lower than what you got... I guess it's either a mistake when checking the damage, or I've been wrong all along, despite all the testing I did back then.



Phase dagger vs ogre emperor (PV-25)
stab at ~160-170 (80*2--?)
(80 * 2 + 25) - 25 = 160
Unlike critical hit and blessed/cursed weapon multipliers, stab multiplier gets applied before adding PV.


regular hits at ~80
(80 + 25) - 25 = 80


crits -- ~190 (160+PV?)
(80 + 25) * 2 - 25 = 185


Seems to match quite well with the damages you observed in most cases. Phase daggers can do outstandingly well against greater molochs and other high-PV monsters when combined with blessed weapon and critical hit multipliers. In most cases though there is not much difference in phase daggers and weapons of penetration, but as long as the phase dagger is not cursed, it works just as well or better than penetrating weapons.

[Soirana]

(80 + 40) * 0.5 * 2 - 40 = 80
Quite a bit lower than what you got... I guess it's either a mistake when checking the damage, or I've been wrong all along, despite all the testing I did back then.


Probably my mistake. Overall cursed crit should do base damage according to that theory (0.5*2=1 and PV is added and subtracted), this seems to match on recheck.

On other news I tried looking for kick damage with and without phase dagger and... well, phase dagger seems to be not involved, but kick criticals look to be not simple 2x and be more kind of missile crits (or really old melee crits with up to 6x... ). Apparently kicking does have it's benefits, lol.

[mjkittredge]

well that's interesting to know. I wonder how many players throw out phase daggers or never use them due to it's low stated damage. And not knowing it adds monster pv to the damage.

I always thought they were very weak and near useless. Now I know they can be very powerful. Especially if I've got daggers trained up

[anon123]

well that's interesting to know. I wonder how many players throw out phase daggers or never use them due to it's low stated damage. And not knowing it adds monster pv to the damage.

I always thought they were very weak and near useless.

By the time you reach the point when you find monsters with very high PV, most of your melee damage will come from Strength, weapon skill and other bonuses, rather than the weapon's damage dice. So bugged or not, it was always a good tradeoff.

A few scrolls of increase melee damage will already boost them to 1d4+9 :)