Aim and Method[]
You may (or may not) have noticed that weapons and armour have attributes such as Slash, Strike and Crush. I've been wondering about these a little and decided to see what sort of an impact they made.
I got 3 weapons and enhanced them so that they had about the same attack power, a Partisan+1 (Atk 63, 100% Pierce), a Bastard Sword+1 (Atk 63, 60% Slash, 40% Pierce) and a Long Hammer+2 (Atk 64.3, 100% Strike). Weapons were chosen to try to minimise change in damage due to attack power and max out the damage due to the damage type.
At the time of testing, I was wearing a Splint Bandana (18 Def, 30% Slash, 30% Strike, 40% Pierce), a pair of Splint Gloves (19 Def, 30% Slash, 30% Strike, 40% Pierce), a Cloak+4 (41 Def, 40% Slash, 30% Strike, 30% Pierce), a pair of Splint Boots (26 Def, 20% Slash, 40% Strike, 40% Pierce) and some Rogue Tights (27 Def, 30% Slash, 30% Strike, 40% Pierce).
This gave me an effective armour of 131 Def and 31.15% Slash, 31.98% Strike and 36.87% Pierce.
As I see it, there are basically 2 options
- The armour attributes say what they're weak against
- The armour attributes say what they're strong against
If it is case 1, then the spear should do the most damage since my armour is weak against the 100% Piercing damage it deals, followed by the Sword (with 40% pierce overpowering the 60% slash), and the club coming in last with 100% Strike
If it is case 2, the reverse is true.
Results[]
At this point, I gave my 3 weapons to a fighter and got them to whack me a few times. Excluding hard hits, these are the results obtained:
| Weapon Name | Average Damage | # of hits | Deviation in damage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bastard Sword+1 | 15.0 | 21 | ±3 |
| Long Hammer+2 | 12.6 | 33 | ±2.6 |
| Partisan+1 | 12.1 | 25 | ±0.6 |
As you can see, the Sword did most damage followed by the Hammer then the spear, and the deviation in damage followed the same order.
These results aren't what might have been expected; the sword did significantly better than either of the other two weapons. Perhaps this can be put down to the combination of the two damage types for whatever reason.
It appears that I was best protected against the spear and less well against the hammer. It is most probable that case 2 is correct and the attributes on the armour are how well it protects against certain attack types.
However, weapons that do damage of multiple types seem to bypass the resistance slightly better for whatever reason.
Ideally I would like to test this on a 100% slash weapon with a similar attack power, but there seem to be few of these around.
What it means for you:[]
PvP[]
Fighter armour tends to have good Slash Defense and poor Pierce Defense.
Thief armour has slightly better Pierce defense.
Mage armour is sometimes good against Slash and sometimes against strike but usually fairly average.
Priests can wear most armour types so judge how to attack based on what they're wearing.
PvE[]
Information forthcoming
In general[]
Use mixed damage types if possible since this seems to be the most versitile.