I’ve noticed, i have 2 similar trauma staffs with 2 similar stats, one with +6 rending on a full charge, the other one without the blessing, i tested it against a scab mauler with equal charging time, and the staff with the blessing only did 11 more dmg? im not sure if the blessing is just super weak or bugged, but it seems beyond under-whelming for an armor penetration blessing at a tier 3. Like i said i don’t know if its bugged or not, but i would like to know, thank you for reading!
Thank you for your report! So, if I remember correctly, what rending does is degrade the target’s armour to a worse tier. However, if your weapon does similar damage to all armour tiers then the damage would be similar. I also can’t remember if the attack that causes the rending benefits from the effect, or if it’ll kick in for the next hit instead. Full charge with a trauma staff also takes ages iirc, so make absolutely sure that you’re charging it all the way.
Would any of that explain the behaviour? Can you show me a picture of your staves and their detailed inspect view?
Thanks for your response! I believe, i could be wrong, brittleness is what reduces armor, rending should ignore armor? that’s at least from what i am aware of from my testing on other weapons, rapier has a rending blessing that ignores armor too, that doesn’t reduce it for others i believe. I have attatched both of my staves to this post for comparison. I appreciate the fast response! (Btw for testing i tested it on the same scab mauler in damnation difficulty in psychnasium)
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I believe Rending and Brittleness are the same effect, actually, but only you can benefit from Rending while the entire team benefits from Brittleness (I think!)
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you are probably right on that, lol
as for the images and the results of the stats, i believe it does seem odd that the damage between the 2 seem so similar?
'Ello! Sorry for getting back to you so late, but this all seems to be correct, actually. As I mentioned, what Rending does is degrade the armor type of an enemy to a weaker one, which is usually really good. However, as you might see from this picture, the Trauma staff’s alt fire deals the exact same damage to almost all armour types:
Therefore the rending will not cause any change in damage except against Infested enemies such as the Poxwalker. The minor damage difference you’re noticing is probably because of the minor difference in the damage stat between the two staves.
Interesting, thank you for letting me know!
So now I’m curious what armor types are considered which tier that rending degrades the armor to. Is the list shown there showing highest to lowest going from bottom to top respectively?
Howdy! sorry for being a bit over responsive, but i decided to test the #'s on the whole rending thing on infested enemies as well, on both of those staves posted previously, there was only a 6 damage difference, which is the damage between the staves. if against infested this did matter, it doesn’t seem to work that way? Please help me figure out why this might be happening!!! (Tested against the pox hound)
Which attack on the staff were you testing?
Rending is based on the armor_damage_modifier of a hit from an attack.
Here’s a list of armor_damage_modifiers for each attack and armor type with the trauma staff. A more detailed explanation of rending is at the top of that page.
Against Infested the primary attack (Shoot) has an armor_damage_modifier of 1.0 with non-critical hits which means rending has no effect, while the secondary attack (Shoot Alt) has an armor_damage_modifier of 0.75 which means rending is 33% effective (i.e. 100% rending is a 33% damage increase against Infested).
From a game design perspective then, why would +Rending even be available as a blessing for the Trauma staff?
What is the point of dealing damage as if the target was less armored if the weapon does the same damage to (almost) all armor types to begin with?
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Ah, heck, thank you @ManShanko, seems I had misunderstood how Rending worked, that’s way better.
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So, I asked around this time and it turns out there IS a bug here, actually.
Rending Shockwave is supposed to apply Brittleness, not Rending, which means it’s mostly there to help your allies deal damage to the target, not yourself (although, indeed, it still helps you against Infested)
For clarity, Brittleness is essentially Rending, but the entire team benefits from it against the debuffed target for 5 seconds.
And for extra clarity, the bug here is in the description, the blessing should correctly apply brittleness to the target. If everything is working correctly, you should be able to test this by switching to your melee weapon and hitting the bugger to notice the damage difference.
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