Bugged Shadow Pierce Damage

[Omisace]

So this bug has been around for ages and is already known by many but i feel like making this post will show just how unnecessarily op the skill is.

For this testing my toon used Expedition of Brutality, Icescale of Potency set, Mythic ring and Eerie Amulet of Potency.

http://i994.photobucket.com/albums/af64/Emersonjp1996/Mobile%20Uploads/Screenshot_2015-03-26-14-15-23_zps1wj1lzt6.png

I respeced so the two skills Aimed Shot and Shadow Pierce are both at 1/5 spec.

http://i994.photobucket.com/albums/af64/Emersonjp1996/Mobile%20Uploads/Screenshot_2015-03-26-14-41-35_zpsxrdgdpup.png
http://i994.photobucket.com/albums/af64/Emersonjp1996/Mobile%20Uploads/Screenshot_2015-03-26-14-41-43_zpsaxigzglh.png
*note the skill damage in the description

I tested the two skills uncharged and charged aimed shot on the first shieldless skeleton at Elite Undim Fields with 100 and 50 samples respectively and the charged shadow pierce for 25 times on the first two shieldless skeletons at Elite Ashral Tower. Here are the results:Spreadsheet (https://db.tt/aNkuHFnk)

The difference is tremendous. On the skills description Aimed shot is supposed to inflict higher damage than Shadow pierce yet the opposite is true. In fact uncharged shadow pierce deals 86% more damage than an uncharged aimed shot. The diference tones down a bit when comparing the charged versions of the skills but charged pierce is still far damaging than a charged aimed shot.

Thoughts?

[Jazzi]

So this bug has been around for ages and is already known by many but i feel like making this post will show just how unnecessarily op the skill is.

For this testing my toon used Expedition of Brutality, Icescale of Potency set, Mythic ring and Eerie Amulet of Potency.

http://i994.photobucket.com/albums/af64/Emersonjp1996/Mobile%20Uploads/Screenshot_2015-03-26-14-15-23_zps1wj1lzt6.png

I respeced so the two skills Aimed Shot and Shadow Pierce are both at 1/5 spec.

http://i994.photobucket.com/albums/af64/Emersonjp1996/Mobile%20Uploads/Screenshot_2015-03-26-14-41-35_zpsxrdgdpup.png
http://i994.photobucket.com/albums/af64/Emersonjp1996/Mobile%20Uploads/Screenshot_2015-03-26-14-41-43_zpsaxigzglh.png
*note the skill damage in the description

I tested the two skills uncharged and charged aimed shot on the first shieldless skeleton at Elite Undim Fields with 100 and 50 samples respectively and the charged shadow pierce for 25 times on the first two shieldless skeletons at Elite Ashral Tower. Here are the results:Spreadsheet (https://db.tt/aNkuHFnk)

The difference is tremendous. On the skills description Aimed shot is supposed to inflict higher damage than Shadow pierce yet the opposite is true. In fact uncharged shadow pierce deals 86% more damage than an uncharged aimed shot. The diference tones down a bit when comparing the charged versions of the skills but charged pierce is still far damaging than a charged aimed shot.

Thoughts?

I think I have seen you post about this before. Feel free to correct be if I am wrong :-) please tell me how exactly do you trigger this bug? I play quite a lot and I have never seen my piercer to more damage than aimed. This is in regards to critical hits only. Haven't been paying that much attention to the regular hits.

P.S. I do not charge the skills generally, unless I do solo in planar tomb 2 or elite tin the wilds. And even then I generally only charge NOX

[Omisace]

I think I have seen you post about this before. Feel free to correct be if I am wrong :-) please tell me how exactly do you trigger this bug? I play quite a lot and I have never seen my piercer to more damage than aimed. This is in regards to critical hits only. Haven't been paying that much attention to the regular hits.

P.S. I do not charge the skills generally, unless I do solo in planar tomb 2 or elite tin the wilds. And even then I generally only charge NOX
I have not posted this before. If you read my post you will see I only unlocked the skills without any upgrades, of course results will be different if you have all the upgrades on pierce and aimed. If you upgraded aimed to do 250% damage on crit it will do more damage than a crit pierce most of the time.

[Ravager]

I cant access the spreadsheet. I think this issue has been denied before unfortunately. It doesnt follow standard damage rules for sure.

[Serancha]

I believe it's because it's a combination single / aoe skill. The numbers are likely referring to be charged version, in which case the damage is spread between 2 mobs (if you don't have any upgrades on). If you do that you will see it does the damage it states on each mob.

The huge benefit to Shadow Piercer is that you can use it uncharged and put the damage intended for 2 mobs into a single hit. I can't be 100% certain on this, but from everything in 2 years of testing, that is what has always been determined as the reason for it, and your spreadsheet shows that exactly.

If you put on the extra hit upgrade and charge the skill, you will see that the damage per mob is actually lower than the stated numbers because the damage is spread out rather than condensed.

[Omisace]

I believe it's because it's a combination single / aoe skill. The numbers are likely referring to be charged version, in which case the damage is spread between 2 mobs (if you don't have any upgrades on). If you do that you will see it does the damage it states on each mob.

The huge benefit to Shadow Piercer is that you can use it uncharged and put the damage intended for 2 mobs into a single hit. I can't be 100% certain on this, but from everything in 2 years of testing, that is what has always been determined as the reason for it, and your spreadsheet shows that exactly.

If you put on the extra hit upgrade and charge the skill, you will see that the damage per mob is actually lower than the stated numbers because the damage is spread out rather than condensed.
The damage per hit on charged pierce is lower yes, but the sum is around 20% more than uncharged. If this logic applies that the uncharged version gets the damage of the charged one shouldn't it be the same? Also it's "magical" that pierce's charged damage is condensed into a single hit, I would love to see that applied on all class' arsenal of skills :P

[Serancha]

The damage per hit on charged pierce is lower yes, but the sum is around 20% more than uncharged. If this logic applies that the uncharged version gets the damage of the charged one shouldn't it be the same? Also it's "magical" that pierce's charged damage is condensed into a single hit, I would love to see that applied on all class' arsenal of skills :P

Who knows. STS is infamous for their "creative" mathematics.

Shadow piercer has always behaved the same way - the more mobs you hit with it, the more the damage spreads out, giving less damage per mob. So uncharged hits one mob, making it the most damaging. Charged spreads that damage over 2 mobs, and then spreads it further to 3 mobs when you add the extra hit upgrade.

It's a unique skill because it can be either single or multi-target, and it does make sense to me that it acts this way. Charged does not mean more damage on this skill, like with others. Charging it means the damage gets spread to 2 mobs. Since you can hit between 1 and 3, my guess is that the description damage is the average, which would be how much damage a mob takes when hitting 2 (the middle ground of the skill)

If it did awesome damage on multiple targets, it would be too op. As it stands, it is a risk/reward issue. Using it uncharged takes you face to face with the boss where you could easily die. Reward is that you do better damage than you would by charging and scooting past him to safety.