Piercing and Resistance

Piercing and Resistance is a battle system in Castle Age that is used in both Player vs. Player Battles (including Guild Battles) and Monster Hunting. Piercing relates to enhanced abilities to cause damage to your opponent, while resistance relates to enhanced abilities to defend against damage from your opponent (and vice versa for them). Types are:
 * Physical Piercing / Physical Resistance
 * Fire Offense / Fire Defense
 * Water Offense / Water Defense
 * Earth Offense / Earth Defense
 * Wind Offense / Wind Defense

Note that Piercing only triggers if the player is attacking, while Resistance is only applied while defending.

Game Description
NOTE:  THE IN-GAME DESCRIPTIONS OF THE EFFECTS OF ELEMENTAL (EARTH/AIR/FIRE/WATER) PIERCING AND RESISTANCE ARE NO LONGER ACCURATE.

Physical Piercing/ Resistance
Some heroes and items will grant your character Physical Piercing and Physical Resistance.

As an attacker, if your Physical Piercing exceeds your opponent's Physical Resistance, you will have a better chance at defeating your opponent.

As a defender, if your Physical Resistance exceeds the attacker's Physical Piercing, you will have a better chance of defending against the attack.

PIERCE and RESISTANCE TYPES for battle:

Pierce and Resistance come in two flavors- Physical and Elemental. Physical Pierce and Physical Resistance are more universal in scope. The offer more universal piercing effects and protections.
 * Physical Pierce is not stopped by Elemental Resistance.


 * Physical Pierce gains no extra benefit against negative Elemental Resistance.
 * Physical Resistance will trigger against all Pierce effects.
 * Physical Resistance will always be "on" for the defender (think of it as wearing armor, useful all the time against all attacks).

Elemental Pierce works like Physical Pierce in it's base form. It confers a BSI bump if the target has no defenses up. It will pierce opponents just as well as Physical Pierce. It is also stopped by resistances in the same manner.
 * Elemental Pierce is stopped by Physical Resistance.


 * Elemental Pierce is stopped by Elemental Resistance of the same type.
 * Elemental Pierce is stopped by excess physical resistance.
 * Elemental Resistance does not trigger against Physical Pierce.
 * Elemental Resistance will trigger against Elemental Pierce of the same type.

NEGATIVE VALUES

Negative values can make you particularly vulnerable in combat. Currently there are various forms of Elemental detriment scores derived from Heroes or Items (possibly upcoming game states). Negative Values will lower your Pierce and Resistance effects. For example you can have 50 Fire Pierce and equip a Hero with -15 Fire Pierce. Your Fire Pierce score will now be 35 Fire Pierce.

Elemental Pierce gains additional BSI increase against Negative Elemental Resistance values. ''EXAMPLE: 100 Fire Pierce attacks a target with -15 Fire Resistance. The net result is effectively 115 Fire Pierce for BSI calculations. - NOTE - This is contradictory with the comment about physical pierce gains no extra benefit against negative elemental resistances. It is possible that negative resistance applies to the defenders total defense, that it nets with attackers pierce to give a net attacker benefit, or that it is ignored in the calculation.''

Attacking with Negative Elemental Pierce confers no changes to the BSI calculation. ''EXAMPLE: -25 Fire Pierce attacks a target with 50 Fire Resistance. The defender does not gain a BSI advantage (remember, no excess rule). - The "no excess rule" is in question please review further detail below.''

PIERCE & RESISTANCE and Monsters
 * Certain monsters require physical pierce, sometimes of a particular element in order to gain maximum damage.
 * Certain monsters are require an elemental resistance in a certain element and you must have that elemental pierce in order to protect against getting a minion. This protection is not guaranteed at 100% but merely reduces the chance of getting a minion.
 * More information below in the notes for "EFFECTS IN MONSTER HUNTING"

Generals
Some generals have abilities that specialize in piercing (also called offense) and resistance. All information below are based on level 4 stats.

Notes:
 * If the generals' levels are equal, Aesir and Vanir will cancel each other out. This will result in their abilities not having any impact in the final calculation when determining the winner in PvP.
 * If the generals' levels are equal, Feredir and Erynion's Wind element cancel each other out.
 * If Ender is defending, the player will be at a greater disadvantage against Fire and Water Offenses due to the general's negative resistances to the two elements.
 * Kraxus gains a small, increasing amount of Physical Resistance after level 4.

Equipment
With the introduction of the Conquest Path Shop, some equipment now provides innate piercing and resistance power without needing any additional items forged onto them.

Remember that the following equipment must be equipped for the pierce/resistance property to be useful.

Items
Items use both Alchemy and Forge. Players can combine ingredients in alchemy to create special gems with piercing and resistance properties which in turn can be used in the forge to augment certain items with these properties. See Forge for a more in depth guide.

Remember that the following items must be forged into a weapon or armor and said weapon or armor must be equipped for the pierce/resistance property to be useful. Even if the item is the player's best item for that equipment slot, they must manually equip it on the Equipment page (or through loadouts) for the piercing or resistance properties to be used.

Physical Piercing and Resistance
Physical Piercing is a way to augment your attack in any form of player vs. player combat. When you attack an opponent, it provides a percentage multiplier to your effective attack, based on your Physical Piercing vs. your opponent's Physical Resistance.

The formula for this percentage boost to your attack is
 * (your Piercing - their Resistance)/10 = % amount.

Examples:
 * If you have 40 (piercing) and they have 0 (resistance), you would have a (40-0)/10 = 4% boost.
 * The 4% boost is calculated after you have figured out your overall effective attack. Then add 4% on to that figure and you will get the number of point increase.
 * If the values are the same or if their Resistance is higher than your Piercing, there is no boost to your attack.

Physical Resistance is a way to augment your defense in any form of player vs. player combat. When you are attacked, it provides a percentage multiplier to your effective defense, based on your Physical Resistance vs. your opponent's Physical Piercing.

The formula for this percentage boost to your defense is:
 * (your Resistance - their Piercing)/10 =  % amount.

Examples:
 * If you have 40 (resistance) and they have 0 (piercing), you would have a (40-0)/10 = 4% boost.
 * The 4% boost is calculated after you have figured out your overall effective defense. Once that is figured out, add 4% on to that figure and you will see how much your effective defense has increased.
 * If the values are the same or if their Piercing is higher than your Resistance, there is no boost to your defense.

Note:

These numbers have been tested many times over and over and the figure of 4% appears to be accurate. Depending on your build, Vanir may be better as your defense general than Halcyon. Also, Aesir may be a better attack general than Evalice or Xira. It all depends on your build.

Elemental Offense and Defense
Certain generals and forged weapons with Elemental Gems for physical piercing and physical resistance has a slightly modified formula:

Piercing Contribution (where Pierce exceeds Resistance)

(Attacker elemental piercing - defender elemental Resistance)/10 = % Attacker Contribution

Note: If the elemental piercing or resistance is negative it is not known if this formula still applies or if the negative is set to zero for calculation purposes.

Resistance Contribution (where Resistance exceeds Pierce)

(Defender Resistance - Attacker Piercing)/10 =  % Defender Contribution with a maximum of zero.

Note: If the elemental piercing or resistance is negative it is not known if this formula still applies or if the negative is set to zero for calculation purposes.

for example,  If the attacker has 80 fire pierce and the defender has 40 fire resistance, the attacker receives 40 pierce or 4% of their total attack stat. if the attacker has 40 fire pierce and the defender has 80 fire resistance, it is unclear at this time if the defender receives 40 resistance (4% of defense), or zero added resistance, as both scenarios have been referenced by CA staff as accurate.

Of special interest is an example where the attacker has 0 fire pierce and the defender has 40 fire resistance, in this scenario there is general agreement that the defender receives NO benefit from the fire resistance as it has not been triggered by fire pierce.

Battle Messages in Web3

On the messages that appear in web3 battles, it also appears that the victor on physical or elemental aspects is based on initial values of that aspect, and not on final calculations. For example, if the attacker has 50 physical pierce and 100 wind pierce and the defender has 80 physical resistance and 50 wind resistance, the messages seen are that the attackers wind pierce blows away the defender and that the attacker has pierced the defender, though in the final calculation the attacker ends up with "150" pierce to the defenders "130" resistance.

Physical vs Elemental accumulation

Pierce/Resistance and elemental pierce/resistance can be thought of mathematically as additive whether or not they are calculated as separate buckets or together. An attacker having 100 excess physical pierce and 100 excess wind pierce and 1,000 total attack will receive 100 extra attack due to physical pierce and 100 extra attack due to wind pierce. These aspects are not believed to be layered one after the other, i.e. the wind pierce is not applied to the attack du to physical pierce. While there has been discussion on whether 1 fire pierce = 1 physical pierce in effect, it is known that all pierce, elemental or otherwise, is treated as a benefit at a rate of 10 to 1%, which implies that 10 fire pierce has the same effect as 10 physical pierce.

When an attacker has excess pierce in one element, and the defender has excess resistance in other element, those elements are not additive. Pierce applies to the attackers total attack value, while resistance applies to the defenders total resistance. This example would highlight the difference:

Attacker 1000 total attack 100 net fire pierce vs defender 900 total defense and 220 net physical resistance.

The pierces are treated as separate buckets, so the attacker gets 100 extra attack and the defender gets 198 extra defense, which nets out to 1100 total attack vs 1098 total defense and the attacker wins.

If all of the pierce and resistance values were treated as a single net number, in this scenario the defender would have 120 net resistance, which results in the attacker having 1000 attack and the defender 1008 defense and the defender wins.

The current belief is that the former, where each element is calculated independently and the results added, rather than the latter scenario where all elements are combined before the attack calculation is performed.

Effects in Monster Hunting
The new monsters in Castle Age all have some kinds of resistances which might decrease the player's damage output. There are two different types of resistances the player must keep in mind in those instances: piercing resistances and elemental resistances.

Note that players will need to manually equip their piercing general and/or items for them to counter the monsters' resistance. Newer resistance monsters spawn minions which can be avoided by having enough elemental resistance from a resistance general and/or according items.

Physical Piercing and Resistance
When fighting against a monster with physical resistance, the player needs to attack it with generals and/or items with physical piercing, otherwise some of their damage will be negated. In this context, physical resistance is very similar to the Divine Armor system.

Elemental Offense and Defense
When fighting against a monster with some kind of elemental resistance, the player needs to avoid attacking monsters with a general and/or items whose elemental offense is of the same kind as that of the monster, otherwise some of their damage will be negated.
 * Example: Attacking Fenix's fire shield (which has fire resistance) while having fire offense equipped will lessen the player's damage output.

However, monsters with elemental resistance also have a weakness to another specific element. The player needs to attack it with generals and/or items with the kind of elemental offense against which it is weak in order to inflict more damage. Currently, it is known that monsters with fire resistance are weak against water offense, and that monsters with earth resistance are weak against wind offense.
 * Example: Attacking Fenix's fire shield (which has fire resistance) while having water offense equipped will add to the player's damage output.

Monsters
Fenix, Risen From Ashes

Resistances: Physical, Fire

Kessaran, the Undying

Resistances: Physical


 * Kessaran has 315 divine armor on top of his physical resistances. This entry only lists his resistance effects. See Divine Items for more information about divine armor.

Urmek, Protector of Gaia

Resistances: Physical, Earth

* Wind weakness is activated and earth resistance is deactivated when stone armor is dispatched

Poseidon, Atlantean King

Resistances: Physical, Water

* Fire weakness is activated when Trident is dispatched

** Water Elementals appear randomly to attackers before the Trident is dispatched if the attacker doesn't have Water Resistance

Vorak, Devourer of Skies

Resistances: Physical, Wind

* Earth weakness is activated when Wings are dispatched
 * Vorak, Devourer of Skies also has 330 divine armor on top of his physical resistances. This entry only lists his resistance effects. See Divine Items for more information about divine armor.

** Wind Elementals appear randomly to attackers before the Wings are dispatched if the attacker doesn't have Wind Resistance

Abomination, Ancient Slime

Resistances: Physical, Water, Earth

* Fire weakness is activated when Stomach is dispatched
 * Abomination, Ancient Slime also has 340 divine armor on top of his physical resistances. This entry only lists his resistance effects. See Divine Items for more information about divine armor.

** Wind weakness is activated when Tentacle is dispatched

*** Water Slimes appear randomly to players attacking Main 1 or the Stomach without Water Resistance equipped

**** Earth Slimes appear randomly to players when attacking Main 2 or the Tentacle without Earth Resistance equipped

Baal, Stealer of Souls

Resistances: Physical, Water

* Fire weakness is activated and water resistance is deactivated when Arm is dispatched
 * Baal, Stealer of Souls has 360 divine armor on top of his physical resistances. This entry only lists his resistance effects. See Divine Items for more information about divine armor.

** Fire weakness is activated and water resistance is deactivated when Soul Shield is dispatched

***Dark Souls are randomly summoned to players that are attacking all areas targets (Head, Soulcage, Arm or Soul Shield), and do not have Water Resistance.

Lord of Darkness

Resistances: Physical, Fire, Wind, Water, Earth

* Water weakness is activated and fire resistance is deactivated when Left Arm is dispatched
 * Lord of Darkness has 550 divine armor on top of his physical resistances. This entry only lists his resistance effects. See Divine Items for more information about divine armor.

** Earth weakness is activated and wind resistance is deactivated when Right Arm is dispatched

*** Nether Shades are randomly summoned to players that are attacking Lord of Darkness' Head and do not have Fire Resistance, or his Left Arm and do not have Water Resistance.

**** Nether Shades are randomly summoned to players that are attacking Lord of Darkness' Nether Void and do not have Wind Resistance, or his Right Arm and do not have Earth Resistance.

Svarog, the Magmapede

Resistances: Physical, Fire, Earth

* Water weakness is activated and fire resistance is deactivated when Carapace 1 is dispatched
 * Svarog, the Magmapede has 600 divine armor on top of his physical resistances. This entry only lists his resistance effects. See Divine Items for more information about divine armor.

** Wind weakness is activated and earth resistance is deactivated when Carapace 2 is dispatched

***Fire Centipedes are randomly summoned to players that are attacking Svarog's Head or Carapace 1 and do not have Fire Resistance.

****Earth Centipedes are randomly summoned to players that are attacking Svarog's Underbelly or Carapace 2 and do not have Earth Resistance.

Lothorewyn, the Corrupted

Resistances: Physical, Water, Earth

* Fire weakness is activated and water resistance is deactivated when Thorny Bark is dispatched
 * Lothorewyn, the Corrupted has 630 divine armor on top of his physical resistances. This entry only lists his resistance effects. See Divine Items for more information about divine armor.

** Wind weakness is activated and earth resistance is deactivated when Branch is dispatched

*** Zealous Treant are randomly summoned to players that are attacking Lothorewyn's Trunk or Thorny Bark and do not have Water Resistance.

**** Demonic Treants are randomly summoned to players that are attacking Lothorewyn's Roots or Branch and do not have Earth Resistance.

Alperon, the Corrupted

Resistances: Physical, Water

* Fire weakness is activated and water resistance is deactivated when Arm is dispatched
 * Alperon, the Corrupted has 670 divine armor on top of his physical resistances. This entry only lists his resistance effects. See Divine Items for more information about divine armor.

** Fire weakness is activated and water resistance is deactivated when Soulshield is dispatched

*** Demonic Cultists are randomly summoned to players that are attacking Alperon and do not have Water Resistance.

Aspect of Death

Resistances: Physical, Fire, Water, Earth, Wind

* Water weakness is activated and fire resistance is deactivated when Scythe is dispatched
 * Aspect of Death has 700 divine armor on top of his physical resistances. This entry only lists his resistance effects. See Divine Items for more information about divine power.

** Fire weakness is activated and water resistance is deactivated when Wings are dispatched

Bonegnasher, Death Rat Horde

Resistances: Physical, Fire

* Fire weakness is activated when Rat Horde is dispatched
 * Bonegnasher, Death Rat Horde has 720 divine armor on top of his physical resistances. This entry only lists his resistance effects. See Divine Items for more information about divine power.

Verminarch, Death Rat Horde

Resistances: Physical, Fire

* Fire weakness is activated when Rat Horde is dispatched
 * Verminarch, Death Rat Horde has 740 divine armor on top of his physical resistances. This entry only lists his resistance effects. See Divine Items for more information about divine power.

Ogrimus, Death Rat Horde

Resistances: Physical, Fire

* Fire weakness is activated when Rat Horde is dispatched
 * Ogrimus, Death Rat Horde has 760 divine armor on top of his physical resistances. This entry only lists his resistance effects. See Divine Items for more information about divine power.

Rodenom, Death Rat Horde

Resistances: Physical, Fire

* Fire weakness is activated when Rat Horde is dispatched
 * Rodenom, Death Rat Horde has 780 divine armor on top of his physical resistances. This entry only lists his resistance effects. See Divine Items for more information about divine power.

Cassandra

Resistances: Physical, Earth


 * Cassandra has 810 divine armor on top of her physical resistances. This entry only lists her resistance effects. See Divine Items for more information about divine power.
 * Cassandra has also some Item Requirements that you must have in your inventory to get full damage on her.

* Wind weakness is activated and earth resistance is deactivated when Snakes are dispatched

Thanatos, the Reborn

Resistances: Physical, Water, Fire, Wind, Earth

* Fire weakness is activated when Arms are dispatched
 * Thanatos, the Reborn has 700 divine armor on top of his physical resistances. This entry only lists his resistance effects. See Divine Items for more information about divine power.

** Water weakness is activated when Legs are dispatched

 Land of Mist Legendary Mine: Ouroboros 

Resistances: Physical