abstract
| - Armor Piercing Damage (or AP Damage for short, and sometimes called Lightning Damage) is a type of Special Damage that can be delivered by various units as part of their attacks, as well as by various spells. An attack delivering Armor Piercing Damage halves the effectiveness of the target's armor. Thus, any attack containing AP Damage will inflict more damage to its target, on average. Armor Piercing Damage is actually a much more complex concept than it sounds, and can be difficult to understand as a separate Damage Type since it inflicts no actual File:Icon Damage.png on the target whatsoever. An attack delivering AP Damage must deliver it in tandem with other damage types, commonly just Melee Damage or Magical Damage, as these will be the components that actually hurt the target. AP Damage only makes it easier to inflict that damage, by reducing the target's File:Icon Defense.png score temporarily. Armor Piercing Damage is fairly common as a default component in the attacks of several Normal Units, Fantastic Units and even some Heroes, thanks to their innate Armor Piercing ability. Furthermore, Heroes may be equipped with "Lightning" weapons. These will add an AP Damage component to one of the Hero's attacks. Units with Lightning Breath also deliver Armor Piercing Damage as a component of this specific attack type. Finally, at least one lightning-base combat spell delivers an AP Damage component, and several others may as well (research is pending).
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