Wounding OR Puncturing?

[Fenrisulven6]

TWF Rogue, wpn finesse, no bloodstone, don't expect to ever find a WOP wpn. But I've got a few stat damagers now and am trying to pair up the most effective [to support tanks who use puncturing]. A few questions:

1) With no bloodstone and no imp crit, it seems better to go with Wounding. I'll be taking off 1 stat point per hit, as opposed to a 5% chance of 1d6 with Puncturing? Others have said no, go with Puncturing anyway, but I don't get the logic.

2) Without a bloodstone, should I go with a Keen or Seeker of Puncturing?

3) I can put together a decent pair of Maladroit or Weakening. Which is more useful for a Rogue supporting tanks? anti-strength or anti-dex?

[Aspenor]

1) With no bloodstone and no imp crit, it seems better to go with Wounding. I'll be taking off 1 stat point per hit, as opposed to a 5% chance of 1d6 with Puncturing? Others have said no, go with Puncturing anyway, but I don't get the logic.

2) Without a bloodstone, should I go with a Keen or Seeker of Puncturing?

3) I can put together a decent pair of Maladroit or Weakening. Which is more useful for a Rogue supporting tanks? anti-strength or anti-dex?

1. Wounding is superior if you don't have improved crit. Puncturing is superior by 10% per swing if you do have improved crit.

2. Keen, unless you have improved crit, in that case take seeker.

3. Strength, especially when you get crippling strike at level 12 (-2 str per sneak attack, stacking).

[Fenrisulven6]

Thanks Aspen!

[Aspenor]

and important point of note is that unless you can penetrate DR, wounding/weakening/maladroit will not take affect. You must score at least 1 point of damage from your combined base damage + sneak attack damage (if any) for them to work.

[Junts]

wounding does more con damage per swing unless you are puncturing with a 30% threat range, in whichcase puncturing is marginally better

however, wounding will not do con damage if your attack deals 0 damage due to dr, so if you are a pretty low-str character you will still need to puncture on things with dr, like elementals and most devils, because you are not that likely to break their dr unless your str is good and your wounder is highplus (eg, if they have dr 10, you need to be doing 12-14 base a swing to reliably break it)

i think sneak attack may help you break dr, not sure how that works exactly when mixed with wounding.

puncturing is also king when you are grouped with anyone causing autocritness, like stunning blow, hold person or flesh to stone, so i would definitely get a puncturing pair, and if you can get some higher plus wounders, have them too.

[Noctus]

Puncturing only does more CON damage if you are using weapons with 18-20 crit range and have Improved Critical.

Without IC, or on a lower crit-range weapon Wounding does more CON damage.



The numbers for 20 swings, hitting on 2+:

- Wounding = 19 CON damage

- Puncturing on high crit range = 10.5
- Puncturing on medium crit range = 7
- Puncturing on low crit range = 3.5

- Puncturing on high crit range + IC= 21
- Puncturing on medium crit range + IC= 14
- Puncturing on low crit range + IC= 7


---> Even a Puncturing Dagger wielded by a user with IC is a worse stat-damager than a Wounding Battleaxe from the House D Vendor.
Only if you are in auto-crit situations are puncturers better, but there are not many of them and hard to cause.