Piercing, Slashing, Blunt Damage Outputs

I did a search and came up with uh... toooo maannnyy resulltts...

So I'll just ask specifically here.

How does armor resist each damage type? Why have different damage types to begin with?

From what I understand. Piercing, Slashing, Blunt damage are affected by some skills but only Piercing...

"Shields Up" reduces piercing dmg. I'm just curious cause I can't seem to find the information anywhere.

What is the reason besides skill-based ones, that different damage types exist?

Ok then. I'll safely assume they're just there cause they are...

Though I was hoping that something like...

piercing weapons [axe] do more dmg vs. heavy armor types
while slashing weapons [sword] does more damage vs. cloth armor types
Blunt weapons [hammer] do more dmg vs. shield armor types...

But hey, just wishful thinking I guess...

For the record, axes aren't piercing, they are cleaving, which is more like slash. Bows are piercing.

all armor apply them the same... however, there are some wand, focus, shield etc that have special attribute like +15 vs blunt damage and the sort.

There are piercing axes (pick axe) and slashing/cleave (normal axe) - my current axe is piercing:

I haven't gotten the character far enough to test it yet, but it seems that undead are extremely resistant to piercing, but things with wings, like imps and gryphons are rather vulnerable to them. Like I say, I don't have a warrior far enough to test this yet, but I have noticed my Ranger (piercing dmg bow) doing much less damage in South Shiverpeaks to the undead (like usually 8 damage/hit) compared to the Gryphons (around 20-25/hit). Could just be different AL in general, but it seems like a big difference for genreal AL in an area.

that's info I"m interested in, thanks!

My bad

The guys in the southern shiverpeaks aren't undead, they're armored dwarves, much like the guys in the northern shiverpeaks, only higher level. Gryphons probably don't have much armor, just loads of HP.