Strategy:Piercing blade

Prior versions

0.9.9.6 and previous

A curious bug was found and commonly exploited that involved the order of the mods placed for this assembly.

If one added the power mod BEFORE the agility mod, one would come up with a piercing weapon with the original damage + 2 sides instead of the usual +1.

0.9.9.7

This bug was noted and fixed. The piercing blade has +1 side of damage no matter what order of mods placed.

Main guide

For general purposes, this assembly is of questionable usefulness. First, it increases the sides by only 1, when the compatible weapons, the Combat knife, and the Chainsaw, are already higher in sides and would see a lower damage output than if you were to just add a Bulk mod to increase their die by 1. Second, a piercing effect isn't very valuable to melee, and it would take an enemy having an armor value over 3 to see real improvement to damage output over just adding a bulk mod, which such armor values are possessed by only a few bosses. Three, among other assemblies, a Chainsword is gonna be more consistently damaging than a Piercing Combat knife outside of some fringe scenarios, and if you're investing in Whizkid, a Double chainsaw and a Ripper are going to blow a Piercing Chainsaw out of the water. Four, this assembly requires an Agility mod, when using them on boots and armor is a lot more prioritized, while if you apply the Agility mod first in search of a Power mod, the Agility mod itself provides little-to-no benefit to a melee weapon.

Pretty much the only reason to make this assembly is for killing the Angel of Death; with his 10 armor rating, it will actually make a tremendous difference attacking him with a piercing Combat Knife and Chainsaw compared to the alternatives. Normal melee builds should be able to stomp the Angel of Death regardless of if they're using a piercing weapon or not, so this assembly won't be of much interest to them unless they're a Malicious Blades user trying to stick to only knives. For non-melee builds looking to take on the Unholy Cathedral, having a Piercing Chainsaw is pretty much mandatory, especially if they didn't get any Hatred skulls from the Agony elemental or skipped fighting it. Otherwise non-melee builds are going to struggle doing any damage to him, and are gonna have to rely on running away and throwing knives at him forever, or outspeeding him and having an acute enough sense of timing to be able to hit him without retaliation.

So in conclusion, only make a Piercing Chainsaw over your other options if you're planning to take on the Unholy Cathedral with a non-melee build. And don't bother with a piercing Combat knife unless you're a Malicious Blades user looking for an easier Angel of Death fight. Omega Tyrant (talk) 12:04, 9 April 2017 (UTC)