Piercing is only bad before you're essence 4ish... Then you can do enough damage to ignore anything but crazy armor. Even then, at lower levels, Onslaught is whats really dangerous. Doesn't matter how much soak you have if someones always guaranteed at least 4 dots of damage a hit. Though if it was an exalted game, i'd prefer solar/celestial levels. I don't like Dragonblooded.