Dice vs. Piercing

[Wildhorn]

Not playing the lottery will earn me between 0 and 0 extra dollars.
Playing the lottery will earn me between 0 and 10 million extra dollars.

Yeah i kbow it is bot that simple.

Basically, if you roll 4-7 dices and your target has exactly 3 or 4 armor you will do slightly (around 0.5) more damage than +2 dices. Else, +2 dices will yield more damage.

Conclusion, more dices > piercing

[webcatcher]

Not playing the lottery will earn me between 0 and 0 extra dollars.
Playing the lottery will earn me between 0 and 10 million extra dollars.

Statistics like this require the use of expected outcomes. If I don't play the lottery I spend zero dollars, and I have a 100% chance of gaining zero dollars, so my expected outcome is zero dollars.

If I do play the lottery, I pay 1 dollar, and my expected outcome is either zero dollars (999,999,999/1,000,000,000 chance) or $1 million (1/1,000,000,000)*. The expected outcome is (-1 + [0 x (999,999,999/1,000,000,000)] + [10 million x (1/1,000,000,000)].

So your expected outcome is -99.99 cents.

* I made up the statistics for the payoff. They're not really important, since as long as (chance of payoff) x (monetary value of payoff) is less than (price of ticket), your expected payoff will always be less than zero. In cases where this is not true, you could theoretically guarantee a positive result by buying all of the tickets. This has famously been done in the past a handful of times for exceptionally large payoffs, but the organization running the lottery typically finds out and refuses to honor the holder's tickets, saying that they've violated the spirit of the game.

[Drac]

So, as I understand it... piercing is better to make your bad rolls more useful, whereas dice helps your good rolls(or burst damage) better.

I just can't help thinking that this discussion will be forever incomplete without an analysis of how veteran's belt plays into this.

If someone is up for it, please enlighten me.

[Aylin]

So, as I understand it... piercing is better to make your bad rolls more useful, whereas dice helps your good rolls(or burst damage) better.

I just can't help thinking that this discussion will be forever incomplete without an analysis of how veteran's belt plays into this.

If someone is up for it, please enlighten me.

If you consider Veteran's Belt, you should also consider things like Corrode, Dissolve, Explode, and Steal Equipment.

[Drac]

If you consider Veteran's Belt, you should also consider things like Corrode, Dissolve, Explode, and Steal Equipment.

I am aware of said counters to it, but there are many times where the other options you mentioned are not viable.  (not enough equipment removal left, corrode either unfeasible in spell points or not working well due to condition removal, etc...)

I still think the belt should be analysed on it's own in a dice vs. piercing manner as it may be a worthwhile consideration as a counter to veteran's belt strategies, but I can understand if no one wishes to do so.

[sIKE]

So, as I understand it... piercing is better to make your bad rolls more useful, whereas dice helps your good rolls(or burst damage) better.

Maybe I just roll so crappy, that piercing makes that much of a difference for me in my game play. Statically speaking, I maybe an the extreme low half of the average dice rolls

[Aylin]

If you consider Veteran's Belt, you should also consider things like Corrode, Dissolve, Explode, and Steal Equipment.

I am aware of said counters to it, but there are many times where the other options you mentioned are not viable.  (not enough equipment removal left, corrode either unfeasible in spell points or not working well due to condition removal, etc...)

I still think the belt should be analysed on it's own in a dice vs. piercing manner as it may be a worthwhile consideration as a counter to veteran's belt strategies, but I can understand if no one wishes to do so.

I don't have the time to go through it formally, but it would certainly favour piercing.

[webcatcher]

I bet it would favor piercing on high armor targets, but extra dice on low armor targets.  I'm not sure where the break point would be, but it's probably a ratio between attack dice v armor. Since the expected damage table is up now it probably wouldn't be that hard to figure out since the math's all done already.

[jacksmack]

I bet it would favor piercing on high armor targets, but extra dice on low armor targets.

Its the other way around.
if you roll 10 dice vs a 3 armored target your better of getting pierce 3 than melee 2.

If you roll 10 dice vs an 8 armored target you are better off with 2 melee.

Its worth noting you need a decent amount of dice rolled in the first place before piercing strike is ever going to be worth it. At the same time the armor cannot be LOWER than 3, and cant go much higher also unless you really are rolling tons of dice.

[webcatcher]

I'll accept that. I didn't stop to do the math and my intuitive reasoning could have been wrong.

[sIKE]

So what you are saying is that when the amount of dice is approximate to the amount of armor is when piercing shines.

So in the 3-5 armor and 3-5 dice range layering piercing on top would work well.

[webcatcher]

In a veteran's belt situation, yes,  especially if the overall amount of armor is low (3 pierce will negate the value of vet's belt on a 3 armor mage entirely).

[Gregstrom]

So what you are saying is that when the amount of dice is approximate to the amount of armor is when piercing shines.

So in the 3-5 armor and 3-5 dice range layering piercing on top would work well.

I think he's saying you need to be rolling quite a few more dice than armour.  Probably at least 2 dice per point of armour, although I'll defer to any local mathematicians with a better idea.  The idea being that you need to be reliably rolling as much normal damage as the target's armour value for piercing to become efficient

[Drac]

I think he's saying you need to be rolling quite a few more dice than armour.  Probably at least 2 dice per point of armour, although I'll defer to any local mathematicians with a better idea.  The idea being that you need to be reliably rolling as much normal damage as the target's armour value for piercing to become efficient

My gut tells me to agree to an extent about the 2 dice per point of armor, except that it is probably slightly less than that due to the crit canceling effect of the belt.  Intuitively, I'd guess it's closer to (Armor * 2) - 2 dice.  If this is in the ballpark, then piercing would be the better option much more often against belt except in the extreme cases of very few dice or very high armor.

[Gregstrom]

Good point.  Looking at the dice versus armour table, if you're happy with the lower standard deviation figure as a reasonable expectation you probably want (armour+2) dice against a Veteran's Belt before stacking piercing.