Understand Piercing Hit
Useful when…
- Add the listed Puncture bonus to a Rifle.
- Compare its rank and base drain with the Flawed variant, keeping in mind the two are explicitly incompatible.
Effect and compatibility
Piercing Hit is a standard Common Rifle mod with Naramon polarity, base drain 4, and maximum rank 5. It adds +15% Puncture at rank 0, +60% at rank 3, and +90% at rank 5. The listed bonus is to Puncture damage, not a stated bonus to all Rifle damage.
Rank investment
The effect rises with rank. Listed fusion steps include 10 Endo and 483 Credits for rank 0 to 1, 40 Endo and 1,932 Credits for rank 2 to 3, and 160 Endo and 7,728 Credits for rank 4 to 5. The final step costs more than the earlier listed steps, so weigh the extra Puncture bonus against that investment and available mod capacity.
Flawed variant and other Rifle mods
Flawed Piercing Hit is listed at +12% Puncture, base drain 2, and maximum rank 3. Piercing Hit explicitly lists that Flawed mod as incompatible, so they cannot be equipped together. Aerial Ace is an Exilus mod that refreshes double jump on kill while airborne, up to six times; Agile Aim is a Conclave Exilus mod that increases movement speed while aiming. Their stated effects differ from Piercing Hit’s Puncture bonus.
Listed sources
Listed sources include multiple Shockwave Moa variants, Spy mission rewards, and Rotation B Defense rewards. The entries show different chances and rarities by source, so no single chance applies to all of them.
Limitations and tradeoffs
- The Puncture bonus is specific to Puncture damage.
- Base drain is 4, and the mod occupies a standard Rifle slot.
- The max-rank fusion step has a higher listed cost than earlier example steps.
- Cannot be equipped with Flawed Piercing Hit.
Common mistakes to avoid
- Reading +90% Puncture as a bonus to all Rifle damage.
- Planning to equip Piercing Hit with the explicitly incompatible Flawed Piercing Hit.
- Ignoring the higher listed Endo and Credit cost of the rank 4 to 5 step.