Talk:Penetrating Blow

This seems to be one of the most ignored skills in the game. If I understand the relationship between armor penetration and Strength correctly, this skill essentially overrides any passive penetration provided by Strength. If that is the case, then it seems like this skill makes most sense on the bar of a secondary War axe user (not that there are or should be many of those). That is, whereas other Axe attacks gain armor penetration from Strength, this one has a base 20% regardless of Strength since these two types of penetration do not stack. So if you ran a Ranger/Warrior axe wielder, Penetrating Blow would make up for the Ranger's lack of access to the Strength attribute. It definitely can't be classified in the 'terrifying' class of damage normally associated with Axe skills, but it might be a way to make use of Adrenaline and increase damage. --Semantic 20:39, 26 May 2006 (CDT)

That is a very good point, but the thing is that axes are bad idea for warrior secondaries. Without high chance of critical hit (level 16), the damage of the axe isn't much higher than a sword, and a sword often has better skills for non warrior primaries, espcially energy based ones which would work with the higher energy regen or expertise. Furthermore, sword doesn't require an elite to function, whereas axes and hammers do. Silk Weaker 05:14, 18 August 2006 (CDT)

Perhaps good for an A/W? Critical Strikes + Axe Mastery?