Can anyone explain the math for armor penetration? Or perhaps even just simplify it to layman’s terms. Coz my real question is : is it worth it? If you’re crafting but don’t have the baldesmith and only have an edge smith then how do 2 of the same weapon, 1 damage v. 1 armor pen compare?
Could also help if anyone could direct to a thread about it if it’s not too much trouble. Thnx.
Think of it like damage reduction on the target. A sword with 0% ap pretty much does the damage as listed on it. It depends on your playstyle. (I like my 4-hit kill dragon moment.)
The formula for armour penetration changed not too long ago. Now I believe it works like so:
Y̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶w̶e̶a̶p̶o̶n̶ ̶h̶a̶s̶ ̶2̶0̶%̶ ̶p̶e̶n̶.̶ ̶Y̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶t̶a̶r̶g̶e̶t̶ ̶h̶a̶s̶ ̶1̶0̶0̶0̶ ̶a̶r̶m̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶r̶a̶t̶i̶n̶g̶.̶ ̶2̶0̶%̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶1̶0̶0̶0̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶2̶0̶0̶,̶̶s̶o̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶t̶a̶r̶g̶e̶t̶ ̶e̶f̶f̶e̶c̶t̶i̶v̶e̶l̶y̶ ̶h̶a̶s̶ ̶8̶0̶0̶ ̶a̶r̶m̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶v̶s̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶a̶t̶t̶a̶c̶k̶s̶.̶ ̶
See this by @forkyeah. (I had the general idea but the wrong execution).
The more armour rating your target has, the more gets bypassed by penetration, so you’ll see massive damage increases vs heavily armoured targets and basically none vs lightly armoured targets with high penetration weapons. The inverse typically happens with high damage weapons; big damage on low armour, low damage on big armour.
For the most effective crafting, typically use a damage boosting smith for higher damage weapons (swords, axes) and a penetration boosting smith for high penetration weapons (namely maces and hammers). Most Effective Tactic Available is to carry one of each in your bar and use them according to enemy armour levels.
Rarely some weapons have both high damage and high pen (mostly short swords), I’d recommend a damage boost smith for these.
As someone who mains war axes, the only option here is Yog’s Touch with a master weapon fitting. It definitely makes a difference. Too bad it can’t be repaired. Particularly annoying on Siptah where only the Priest King drops it… along with all the other drops he has. 
Generally you prefer dmg over armor pen, especially if you have agility attributes (precision strike and rolling thrust give 10% and 25% armor penetration respectively).
iirc, armor penetration is now subtracted from dmg reduction; so if an entity has 50% dmg reduction and you have a total of 50% armor penetration, they effectively have 0% dmg reduction.
DmgReduction = ArmorValue ÷ (500+ArmorValue)
Now why do we prefer damage over armor penetration in most cases?
First answer is that raw damage gets multiplied in many scenarios:
• 1 dmg on a Strength Weapon is 2 dmg if you have full Strength attribute; same with Agility.
• Then you can add armor dmg bonuses, which are a percentage of the base weapon damage.
• Similarly, you can add food and elixir dmg buffs!
→ And then, any full damage multiplier applies on top of that, like the first attack of 1H-Axe, or the heavy-blows perk, or the berserker perk etc. etc.
The second answer is that armor penetration doesn’t matter if your base damage is too low… 0 dmg with 100% armor pen will still be 0 dmg 
Let’s see with examples!
Example 1: Let’s say you have 100 total dmg, but no armor penetration
Enemy has 30% dmg reduction, meaning you would hit for 70 dmg.
Now let’s give +10 dmg, you hit for 77 dmg.
Let’s instead give +10% armor pen, you hit for 80 dmg.
Example 2: 100 dmg and 10% armor pen baseline.
Enemy has 30% dmg reduction, so you hit for 80 dmg.
Add +10 dmg, you hit for 88 dmg.
Add +10% AP instead, you hit for 90 dmg.
→ Conclusion, when your damage is high, armor penetration can be very helpful.
Now onto examples with lower damage…
Example 3: 20 dmg, 0% AP
Enemy has 30% dmg reduction, you hit for 14 dmg.
Give +5 dmg, you hit for 17.5 dmg.
Give +10% AP instead, you hit for 16 dmg.
Example 4: 20 dmg, 10% AP
Enemy has 30% dmg reduction, you hit for 16 dmg.
Give +5 dmg, you hit for 20 dmg.
Give +10% AP instead, you hit for 18 dmg.
→ Conclusion, when your damage is low, you should prioritize increasing damage!
TLDR is that you should always prioritize getting more dmg, the only exception being Master Weapon Fitting (+5 dmg, +12%) vs. Advanced Weapon Damage Kit (+6 dmg) because in that case +12% AP ≫ +1 dmg.
Other thing to note is that you should seriously invest some points in Agility to get Precision Strike, because the 10% Armor Penetration is basically the base amount you need to take full advantage of your dmg.
I personally recommend going full agility because Rolling Thrust adds 25%, for a total of +35% Armor Pen whenever you roll and poke… You can see that as long as you have high damage values this will be enough armor pen to take care of everything
To take into account the effect of armor penetration of weapons, you need to know the armor of enemies. This is often not possible.
I once conducted tests on skeletons. They, as I understand it, have low armor. It turned out that increasing penetration by 5 points corresponds increasing damage by 1 point in the characteristics of weapons.
And with heavily armored enemies there will be a different picture. And especially - with Arena Champion and Judge. They have such armor that reduces damage by 40 times. Therefore, the ideal weapon with them would be 100% armor penetration, even with low damage.
The Reaver’s Axe has 15% Armor Penetration, and 63 dmg.
Yog’s Touch might be better against high armor with the 28.35% AP, but it also only has 60 dmg…
Honestly I would say they’re mostly equivalent in the vast majority of cases, if you have Strength Attribute maxed out and some armor bonus of course
Checked the wiki, they apparently have about 97% dmg reduction 
Definitely among the few exceptions where you would prefer armor pen… Or go full Agility because Rolling Thrust will hard carry 
At 97.4%, that is, 40 times.
Not sure I understand what you’re trying to say here… Elaborate? 
That with these rivals, every additional percentage of armor penetration will make a huge difference.
So basically don’t craft any weapons until I find that damned Bladesmith 
….which sucks coz I’ve been running through Supermeru relentlessly killing all the blacksmith and random trades spawns over and over again for weeks now to no avail.
But thank you for all the responses. Gotta love the “players helping pkayers” threads coz you always learn something
This one has been my best bet for Bladesmith: Vulfeles the Hammer - Official Conan Exiles Wiki
But yeah, it is super low RNG… 1% for the two spots in the main camp, and under 1% for the two others…
Yeah the RNG in this game is a joke. Unnamed City for example. There’s like maybe 50 recipes there? But you can go in there with 20 power drags and get 4-5 of the same recipe. That doesn’t seem random at all, it’s more like it’s programmed specifically to piss you off.
Neither of these are correct, but they are close. Armor penetration is based off the damage reduction which is determined by armor. If your enemy has 50% DR and you have 50% armor pen, then your attack will reduce their DR by 50%, 50 (enemies damage reduction) * .5 (your armor penetration) = 25, leaving them with 25% DR.
Easiest way to test is to set your agility to 20 but dont take the 10% armor pen perk, grab an axe like glimmermoon unmodded and go hit a wolf (1-3% DR) from the front with the first light attack and write down that number. Mine was 102.
Now go to the unnamed city and smack a skeleton fighter in the face with the first light attack, you should see your attack being reduced by 45% (447 - 390 = 57 which is about a 44% reduction on my base 102)
Next redo your stats to have 20 agility with the 10% armor pen perk and rolling thrust. Add a spiked weapon fitting to your axe to give you a possible 45% armor pen with that first attack, if the armor reduction was point for point then in theory I should hit for 102 since my armor pen matches the enemies DR, but in reality I hit for 80 which is a 22% reduction from 102. Clearly there’s some secret rounding going on because 44% * .45 = 19.8, but that’s still within my margin of error from the wolf having 1-3% armor affecting my base attack number.
Hopefully this was helpful.
Yeah, I use to run max strength until AoW. Now I’m at 15, so it’s still high, but I had to sacrifice some points for more grit. I don’t like to be too low on my health, so berserker rage was kinda useless anyway.
@jmk1999 i run 20 STR,15AGI,20VIT,5 GRIT
You don’t gotta sacrifice strength or vitality, you still get the mobility improvements from the agility and then a nice little armor and stam bonus. But I also don’t use blood mad berserker, I use crushing blows.
I simply refuse to be a roll, hit, roll, hit player. I won’t be part of that circus.
I use 10 in expertise though since I farm a lot— as well as full authority—so it just depends what you’re going for. I don’t use any agility in my build since I don’t use daggers or bows regularly. Maybe it might be worth investing in, but I’m already divided in what I use at this point. Adding stats I don’t use is kinda moot at this point without a good reason.
Thanks for clearing it up… This means armor penetration is significantly worse than I thought
@SpherisCore lol, I got wiped again last night so I decided to change server. I’m at Mounds of The Dead leveling and doing the normal low level and the very first T4 thrall I come accross is Vulfeles at one of your spots. Bagged him