basically what the title says, i’m curious
for the sake of the thought experiment, they are using max power (i think this is the max power available currently)
*to clarify, i mean damage theoretically possible in one hit
Metal Ultimate art 20 count drill shaped blast with power aura, AND t5 melting gel and gilded power potion
that should be enough to one shot calvus 
i think something like crystal would deal more damage considering its synergy with light, and i think he’s talking about damage in a single hit or something
Crystal Tempered Rifle Conj + Power pot + Lightning Gel.
Target must have sandy and 2x Crystalized stacks. Crystal + sand; crystal + crystal; inflicts bleed → bleed + lightning.
for npcs, armour piercing is actually decent, because it gives half the %effective bonus as bonus damage percentage
but the real answer is probably with crystal imbued tempered axe throw, 3rd stack, sand gel and power potion
if you don’t want to have to build up the stacks, earth is probably a good choice (high impact damage, synergises with bleed and sandy as well)
well I still think it goes to metal because of its insane synergy with frozen. Here’s how it would go
Get a normal weak NPC, put on power potion, get a friend with ice magic, charge the Ultimate art 20% size great sword shaped self pillar explosion, and then your friend in a split second uses and attack that does 33% of the NPCs health before your charge is over then WHAM.
shout-out to aphrodi for the video
if i’m doing my calculations correct, earth imbued axe throw has a 1.28x damage multi. fully charged unenchanted axe throw on a file with a 1.1x damage multiplier and no power did roughly 500 damage (will verify later)
Max armor piercing vs max defense? Maybe? Never actually tested it
you want to basically do the max power without insanity setup, then use perfect fire opals as all the gems
then crystal imbued (3 stacks) tempered axe throw with sand gel and power potion should give the highest damage possible if used against an npc
Why is everybody going to sand gel? Crystal gets a bonus from hitting a sandy target, just splash a target with a sandy potion when they’re at 3 crystal stacks, then use a lighting gel for more bonuses. We’re trying to get the most damage, we should use every tool, which can include burst potions.
Cystal conj → tempered weapons (i’ve heard axe throw does more dmg than pierce) → 3x crystal stacks and some sandy from burst potion → lighting gel + power potion → max attack charge.
+5% crystal->bleed (from axe - i think this hits before crystal is removed);
+30% crystal stack synergy (removes crystal effect);
+12.5% crystal → sandy (no imbue/gel reduction no clear);
+10% lightning gel → bleeding (imbue/gel reduction - bleed from - axe clear bleed);
+7.5% lightning gel → sandy (imbue/gel reduction - clear sandy)
significantly more damage than people using a sandy gel.
the way people were mentioning using a sandy gel makes it where you get no bonus from sand (sand hits crystal for less/no-bonus), so its a waste to use it as the gel.
I don’t think lightning gel works like that
lightning gel inflicts paralysed not lightning synergies so allat wouldn’t work