Weakening work on Frost Giants?

[moorewr]

I found I did not have a wounder on my fighter, so I went with a puncturer (a keen adamantine pick of puncturing, my F2S coup de grace weapon). I know it did stat damage, although I certainly didn't rule the kill count...

Anyway.. there's a lot of attention on wounding and not puncturing.. and I wondered if there was a reason for that I was missing.

[Talcyndl]

I found I did not have a wounder on my fighter, so I went with a puncturer (a keen adamantine pick of puncturing, my F2S coup de grace weapon). I know it did stat damage, although I certainly didn't rule the kill count...

Anyway.. there's a lot of attention on wounding and not puncturing.. and I wondered if there was a reason for that I was missing.

Because, unless you're a barbarian using a rapier, a wounder will, on average, do more con damage.*



*I await the corrections, nitpicks and clarifications.

[moorewr]

Because, unless you're a barbarian using a rapier, a wounder will, on average, do more con damage.*



*I await the corrections, nitpicks and clarifications.

Thanks.. no nitpicking from me.

[tihocan]

Because, unless you're a barbarian using a rapier, a wounder will, on average, do more con damage.*



*I await the corrections, nitpicks and clarifications.

Well, since you're awaiting, the rapier actually does slightly more con dmg even on a non barbarian (assuming it's keen or you got improved crit).
However, except on high AC opponents where seeker makes the difference even higher, it is likely to be balanced out by the "over-dmg" (-4 Con is the same as 0).

[oogly54]

I have seen a few times the statistics around wounding versus punturing. On a 15-20 crit range the punturing and wounding are almost identical IF the wounder is able to hit on a 2 or better. If the mobs AC increases to the point where you are only hitting on say a 4-5 then the punturer will win out. Now if you have a pick and only crit on a 19-20, the wounder will beat that every time.

But since I have 5 WOP rapiers, what do I know?

[Talcyndl]

Well, since you're awaiting, the rapier actually does slightly more con dmg even on a non barbarian (assuming it's keen or you got improved crit).
However, except on high AC opponents where seeker makes the difference even higher, it is likely to be balanced out by the "over-dmg" (-4 Con is the same as 0).

Thanks.

[Dirac]

Assuming:

0. using rapiers
1. that you hit on a 15 or less (so that every critical is at least a hit)
2. keen or IC: pierce
3. no other crit range enhancement (non-barbarians)

I calculate that straight puncturing does more damage than straight wounding by a ratio of 21/20. Thus, if you have exactly the same weapon (or hitting on a 2 regardless of weapon), puncturing will do better by about 5%. Otherwise, the weapon with the higher bonus is best.

[Emili]

Assuming:

0. using rapiers
1. that you hit on a 15 or less (so that every critical is at least a hit)
2. keen or IC: pierce
3. no other crit range enhancement (non-barbarians)

I calculate that straight puncturing does more damage than straight wounding by a ratio of 21/20. Thus, if you have exactly the same weapon (or hitting on a 2 regardless of weapon), puncturing will do better by about 5%. Otherwise, the weapon with the higher bonus is best.

That's given the weapon is a rapier and you have IC pierce or keen in your build... Truth though is in practice 20 swings and 95% hits woundin is 19 con damage, puncturing is 21 in 28% chance of each roll... you have no guarentee that out of 95% chance of hitting that 28% of them will be crit - you have a 28% chance of crit in 20 rolls thus optimum is 21 con damage - practical sense it is less.

[Thrudh]

That's given the weapon is a rapier and you have IC pierce or keen in your build... Truth though is in practice 20 swings and 95% hits woundin is 19 con damage, puncturing is 21 in 28% chance of each roll... you have no guarentee that out of 95% chance of hitting that 28% of them will be crit - you have a 28% chance of crit in 20 rolls thus optimum is 21 con damage - practical sense it is less.

With a wounder you get consistency... 19 out of 20 hits, you do 19 CON damage everytime...

Puncturing rapier (keen or with Improved crit: pierce) you do random amounts of CON damage (1-6) on hits 6 hits out of 20 (15-20). Average CON damage on a 1-6 roll is 3.5... so six hits should AVERAGE 21 CON damage...

Sometimes you'll do less, sometimes you'll do more... Personally I like the consistent 19 CON damage every 20 swings over sometimes doing 12 CON damage and sometimes doing 30 CON damage.

If you don't have keen or improved crit: pierce, use wounding weapons. If you do have keen or imrpoved crit: pierce... go with whatever secondary effects are better...

Body-Feeder of Puncturing... Wounder of Pure good, etc.

[Dirac]

That's given the weapon is a rapier and you have IC pierce or keen in your build... Truth though is in practice 20 swings and 95% hits woundin is 19 con damage, puncturing is 21 in 28% chance of each roll... you have no guarentee that out of 95% chance of hitting that 28% of them will be crit - you have a 28% chance of crit in 20 rolls thus optimum is 21 con damage - practical sense it is less.

Even in practice, the average con damage should be as I stated given the assumptions I made. (And assuming I calculated correctly.) Averaging does mean you average over many swings.

Thurdh makes a very good point about variance in con damage, which may be important to people. But it does not have to do with the average.