I don't know if this is the right place to talk about this or not so sorry if it is.
Does armor piercing pierce through auras? I don't have a high enough level wizard to have any armor piercing yet, but this question is really bothering me so someone please answer this. This knowledge can help me and probably other wizards as well because if we know the answer to this, we can get enough armor piercing to pierce through braces.
Yes it will. Pierce will hit the aura first. After that, it will eat away at any shields there are. And finally, if there's any pierce left, it will reduce your gear resistances. The only thing pierce will not do is affect damage reduction from gems.
The way the mechanic of the game works is like this.
Say you have fortify currently up, then a tower shield, and you resist at the same time while about to be attacked by an ice spell.
The first thing that will be pierced is your fortify. If the enemey's pierce is high enough (due to an aura of it's own, stats etc.), then the second aspect to be pierced will be your shield, if you've more shield (say you've a snow shield as well), then that will be pierced next.
If for some reason, that fails to ward off the entirety of the enemy's pierced, then your resistance will be the final aspect that will be pierced before damage is done.
Please also note that just because you have all of these defenses you will be taking zero damage, probably not, but it will of course be greatly reduced.
You will face foes with high pierce stats, so being knowledgeable about it from now is good.