Negative Armor Penetration? Ubi pls answer | Forums

[Illyrian_King]

Hey guys I am into the new gear system but I don't understand one thing and hope anybody could explain me that ...

1) What happens if you have a negative value of defense penetration?
Does it mean, the enemy has additional armor towards me?

2) And if my defense penetration is higher then the enemy's armor?
Does it mean, that his armor goes even under standard 0%

3) Little off-topic question ... does defense penetration also effect revenge defense?

[Gray360UK]

I can answer number 2 (I think).

According to their updated description for Defense Penetration, your % of Defense Penetration is removed from the Defense they have. So if they have 10 Defense and you have 20% Defense Penetration, you remove 2 and they now have 8.

[Vingrask]

The 1) may just be a thrigger, like, "you have too much of Attack, so you cannot have Def Pen until you lower other stat". Since you have 0% penetration, any number under it is just for control.

[Illyrian_King]

I can answer number 2 (I think).

According to their updated description for Defense Penetration, your % of Defense Penetration is removed from the Defense they have. So if they have 10 Defense and you have 20% Defense Penetration, you remove 2 and they now have 8.

I think this is not all correct because they dense also goes with % ... so if they have 10% armor and I have 10% pen it goes down to 0%

But what happens if I have more pen then the enemy has armor?

The 1) may just
be a thrigger, like, "you have too much of Attack, so you cannot have Def Pen until you lower other stat". Since you have 0% penetration, any number under it is just for control.

In this case a penalty would be useless since the pen value is 0% or lower ^^

[Dizzy4213]

No idea what negative Defence Pentration does.

As for the stat itself, I'd recommend taking a look at this thread: http://forums.ubi.com/showthread.php...-is-too-strong

Defence Penetration completely negates whatever defence you have. Yes, it's that stupid. Everyone is basically running around with 0% defence or less (depending on what gear they chose) and max attack. The whole stat was a mistake from the start. I've said it time and time again, but it should not exist. The attack stat should directly counter the defence stat, and that's it.

It creates a catch-22. Do I invest in defence to avoid taking taking extra damage even though I know it's going to be completely negated by Defence Penetration? Or do I ignore defence and take extra damage regardless?

[Gray360UK]

IIRC someone mentioned that the devs said "if DEFpen is greater than DEF, you don't go to negative, it just settles at 0 DEF" -- which, if it's true what they heard from the devs, is a solid indicator that the DEFpen calculation is additive/subtractive, not multiplicative... because if the DEFpen acts as a multiplicative modifier to DEF there can never be a negative DEF.

You could have 99.99% DEFpen and that's still positive value if it's calculated multiplicatively. The only way DEFpen can ever induce a negative DEF value (unless you have negative DEF from the start) is if it's straight-up subtracted from DEF -- not multiplied as a percentage calculation.

The way I understood it (again subjective due to vague official descriptions) is that once you have reduced your opponent to 0 Defense that's it, so if it is on a point for point basis, as seems to be the most popular belief, then if you have 20% Def Pen and they have 15% Def, then the last 5% of your Def Pen is essentially wasted overkill that doesn't count for anything.

That's where Def Pen becomes a bit of a gamble / tactical decision, I guess, because if you have too much of it, a lot of it will potentially go to waste and you are gimping yourself.

[Lord_Nirgal]

Well the problem isn't penetration per se but the combination of the various stats. I don't know what is the maximum of each stat so i cannot judge the thing but the theory is that penetration is better if you are undergeared and should be worst if you have better gear (at least that's what they said). At renown 3 you can drop items with +15% penetration meaning that is the most effective stat:
for ex. if on a heavy attack dealing 30dmg you add 15% attack you are going to deal 34.5dmg, now against a 20% defense you will deal 27.6dmg; if yo u have 15% penetration instead you will be doing 28.5dmg.
The trick is that your attack bonus is going to be mitigated in % by the defense of the enemy while your penetration will be applied fully (+15% attack against 20% defense is actually +12% attack).
The question is how each stat progress, what is their cap and what is the maximum mix of each stat you can achieve. Only knowing those numbers we can have a good idea of how each stat works (ok besides block damage that is totally pointless).

If penentration can go negative adding defense things change drastically, penetration becomes the most important stat in the game. It doesn't make sense to have the penetration stat being negative if it doesn't add defense to the enemy anyway... you get penetration only from one item it doesn't make sense to use a negative number to counterbalance other items gains.
Another good question is: can defense go negative? if so by how much?

[Dizzy4213]

IIRC someone mentioned that the devs said "if DEFpen is greater than DEF, you don't go to negative, it just settles at 0 DEF" -- which, if it's true what they heard from the devs, is a solid indicator that the DEFpen calculation is additive/subtractive, not multiplicative... because if the DEFpen acts as a multiplicative modifier to DEF there can never be a negative DEF.

You could have 99.99% DEFpen and that's still positive value if it's calculated multiplicatively. The only way DEFpen can ever induce a negative DEF value (unless you have negative DEF from the start) is if it's straight-up subtracted from DEF -- not multiplied as a percentage calculation.

That's correct!

Defence Penetration can not drop your defence stat below 0. It does however, negate all defence that you have. Should you ignore defence on your gear completely and go negative, you're going to be taking extra damage regardless. So you have to at least invest some stats in defence to not drop below 0%. However, even if you have as much defence as possible, Defence Penetration will negate all of it. Which creates a catch-22. Block Damage is still a useless stat and should have been removed with the other ones. So everyone and their mother is going to max Defence Penetration. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. This stat should not exist. What's wrong with having the attack stat directly counter the defence stat Ubisoft?

[Illyrian_King]

Well to avoid quoting everyone here ^^

Thanks for every answer!

In my eyes Def pen should not be removed but drastically nerfed instead ... while Block Damage should be buffed drastically!
Block Damage is a good idea but completely underwhelming now :b

[Dizzy4213]

In my case, I actually don't think it's too bad... and as weird as it may sound, it did bring about somewhat "equality" between rep/gear levels so that gray gear players actually does have quite a fair chance of defeating purple/yellow gear opponents.

Except it's not. Max GS players still have a massive advantage but I suppose it's better than nothing at all.

With how GS is now and how Defence Penetration works, everyone is running around in 4v4 with 0% defence or less (depending if the player decided to go negative) and max attack. Now someone like Shinobi who has 90HP can more or less be one shot by a single heavy attack from a high GS player without the use of buffs, feats or revenge.