What is "piercing" damage?

Another question, what does piercing damage apply to? I assume it means arrow attacks, but does it also work on sword/axe damage? I am talking about Shields Up! Anyone know?

Bows, and some Axes.

Why only some axes? What about swords?

It is my understanding that, despite it being named to the contrary, the Piercing Axe does not deal piercing damage.

Basically, bows deal piercing damage.

Peace,
-CxE

that'd be a bow & arrow, sir

Hahahahahaha, I can picture this.
*Ranger runs up to warrior*
*Pulls out her bow*
*Warrior: What are you doing?*
*Ranger hits the warrior in the chest with her bow and pierces his armor*
LOL.

*Snerk*

I've never thought of a bow as a close range, hand-to-hand weapon, but on the other hand, why not? At least it wouldn't be totally useless when the arrows run out...

Anyway, "Ranger" doesn't specify how much range, right?

Dave III

You also get piercing damage from spiked traps. But yes, Bows are where you will be getting about 90% of your piercing damage.

Naw, when you're running low, you just start stabbing people with your arrows like Legolas. But of course, this really isn't an issue in Guild Wars. Only the Shining Blade archers need quivers -- Rangers just pull arrows out of thin air when they need them (Logus tendrils?) and pantomime pulling back their imaginary bowstrings to shoot. Now, anyone who's upgraded a bow knows you can equip your bow with a bowstring, but I'm guessing they just wrap it around the grip or something...

Thats something i never understood, in those movies, legolas would have like 4 arrows left, then it would show aragorn slicing, and then 5 seconds later show legolas again, and he would have like 25 arrows in his quiver...now how does he make them so fast?

I seem to recall seeing a Piercing Axe's damage listed as Piercing...

Ok, I have a variant on the question on hand... As fas as GW is concerned, what is the difference between Peircing and traditional with-a-club-or-sword type damage? Why the distinction? Surely anything that reduces HP is onna kill the enemy, whether from an arrow or an ax, or a really nasty papercut, right?

You can have armor bonuses to different types of damage.

The Nash seems to recall wrong.


Different armors have different AL against different types of damage.
And look at the skill that started this discussion, Shields Up!, it gives +AL against piercing damage.

Maybe it's not anymore, but was it before?

Ah, of course, duh. Wicker armor might deflect arrows but do squat for axes an' swords, while chain mail does the reverse. I should'a seen that. ^_^

Dave III

Hmm.....apparently you haven't seen some of these bows. If someone were to swing at ME with one of these bows....I would be ducking and dodging!

Look at the spikes around the grip on the left-sided one.....definatly "piercing" to say the least.

lol... no no no... you don't hit em with it. you strangle em with the string *hides bloody bowstring*