So let's get a cat out of the bag - Dual Wield Mace/Sharpened

Rylana

Sorry to spoil your fun boys and girls, but after making a thread about balance for nirn and resistances, we gotta talk about this one.

As some of you (dubiously) know, dual wield hammers (maces) is currently bugged similarly to the old sharpened bug for spell pen, only this time it is armor pen.

To give you an idea of what I am talking about, using Harvens Extended Stats addon, I discovered something rather hilarious.

My 2 handed sharpened Mace, gives me 17000 armor penetration. Notbad.jpg, seems about right

Then I swap to my dual wield bar, with 2 sharpened hammers equipped... guess what the value jumps to? Youd figure 20 percent for the twin blade and blunt, 14 for sharpened for say up to 35 percentish more right? Maybe 22k armor pen?

nope, with dual wield it jumps to 33,303 armor penetration. Thats right, anyone without 33k in physical resistances is completely naked to my dual wield setup.

What I believe is happening is actually pretty simple - the armor pen is being counted from two weapons (one in each hand) instead of half a weapon for each hand, as does every other modifier/trait when it relates to combat modifiers. Think crit chance (ruby) on a bow vs on dual daggers here for an idea of what i mean, 14 vs 7 on each for a total of 14.

Somewhere in the code, the game is counting each hammer as a 2-handed weapon in the calculations for armor penetration.

Needs fixed, ZOS

Also, sorry to yall, but this one has been abused for some time.


Edit to add: No, it is not a visual bug, I actually tested it in game vs a friend. Had him take all his armor off. Got a baseline, he then put all his heavy armor back on for an AR of about 25k. My damage numbers stayed exactly the same. (no blocking or buffs used on either side)

Ifthir_ESO

I told you this in guild chat 6 months ago

Rylana

Ifthir_ESO wrote: »

I told you this in guild chat 6 months ago

you told me to use maces, you didnt tell me why >=/ if its the convo im thinking of (you sure it was six months ago, also? cause the last time i discussed armor pen with anyone was during discussing the sharpened staff bug)

yeah i know, i figure things out late sometimes. i chalk it up to alt itis and having so many dang tester builds =/

Trayyacakes

I may be alone here but I think even the 17k armor penetration is too high.

Soris

I had 22k armor pen with 2 maces on my MAGICKA build and 17k spell pen. I though it was some visual bug or due to the addons not being updated. But after continuously I'm being critical hit with 12k surprise attacks with 26k armor rating, I absolutely suspect this is not just a visual bug.

Kloud

So Harvens actually works? because with my 2 hander sharpend I had 18k armor pen and with my other 2 hander not sharpened I had 7k armor pen and 0 change in damage numbers so that's funny I thought harvens was broke crap after that

Rylana

Trayyacakes wrote: »

I may be alone here but I think even the 17k armor penetration is too high.

Thats not even my final form, dude. If i respec my champ points and put like 75-80 into piercing, dear god its almost 20k (cant do that though, as i need mah points in other stuff)

Rylana

Soris wrote: »

I had 22k armor pen with 2 maces on my MAGICKA build and 17k spell pen. I though it was some visual bug or due to the addons not being updated. But after continuously I'm being critical hit with 12k surprise attacks with 26k armor rating, I absolutely suspect this is not just a visual bug.

Thats another thing, that armor penetration translates to ALL skills when you have that weapon equipped. its absolutely silly. Those surprise attacks were 100 percent armor bypass as well, I am sure.

Its just like the spell pen bug with crystal frags some months back. Absolutely silly.

Attorneyatlawl

I thought this was common knowledge, to be honest... but yes, it is extremely easy to stack high armor pen and extremely difficult to stack high armor, even aside from the bugs. Just by the numbers even, you end up with 10% per mace in dual wield (or 20% in 2h), 14% (without bugs) from sharpened, and still have the same kinds of debuffs such as the 5120 spell/armor reduction ones, as well as double-enchant greatswords available from cyrodiil vendors which do a ~2500 armor debuff that stacks with everything else when upgraded to legendary (optionally you can just enchant a normal weapon for an ~1150 debuff, and get a weapondmg enchant (no magicka equivalents to either)), and champion point pen.

Now add in that there's no way to stack armor to the moon like you can with spell resist (30-50k isn't hard to get at all and doesn't restrict your gear choices... extreme setups can go to 70-100k if they're willing to restrict their options significantly)... no "reduces physical damage" champion passive like there is for elemental (fire/shock/frost) and magical (poison/disease/"magic") damage types available... no such thing as "harness stamina" (but there is a Harness Magicka with no weapon or class requirement that is a nice 26-second-long bubble with high absorption and restores much of its cost (or in magicka spec, GAINS you magicka for casting when it's hit by over 40-50% of its cost )), and that weapon damage and crit remain far easier to stack high compared to spell damage and crit (this has always been the case but softcaps helped lessen the impact of this significantly back in the day)...

I think the problems are easy enough to see here, no? Of course, it was also easy enough to see the issues that would come up as the meta shifted because of these factors, and this list was actually provided in a much more detailed and technical form in feedback while 1.6 was still on the PTS. Unfortunately it remains unaddressed.

Attorneyatlawl

Kloud wrote: »

So Harvens actually works? because with my 2 hander sharpend I had 18k armor pen and with my other 2 hander not sharpened I had 7k armor pen and 0 change in damage numbers so that's funny I thought harvens was broke crap after that

I've found spell pen combinations that claim a "focus" rating (aka spell pen) that is higher with nothing else changed in the build but the pen (magicka/spelldmg/etc all kept the same), yet the damage dealt to enemies goes down. I don't know what the API return is tied to underneath it all, but it is not accurate. That said, disregarding any bugs at all, the balance issues I raised in my post above this one remain the same and were written in the context of assuming there is no major bug in play just by what is intended off of items, tooltips, and available skills and passives.

Zyle

Rylana wrote: »

Sorry to spoil your fun boys and girls

-_-

Soulac

Trayyacakes wrote: »

I may be alone here but I think even the 17k armor penetration is too high.

But since they nerf nirn the following is fine?
Nirn/Sharpened on weapons
5pc light Armor
Major Spell resi debuff
Apprentice
the first pt in champion-system in th passives which is buggy and grants a huge amount of penetration

Keep in mind that the major debuff applies before the nirn calculation.

This amount of penetration is too high for both.
What is the use of heavy armor if you just ignore everything anyway.
If I fight nightblades right now I have like 5k spellresistence left and I'm using some parts of nirn to survive the undodgeable crap.

Trayyacakes

Soulac wrote: »

show previous quotes

Trayyacakes wrote: »

I may be alone here but I think even the 17k armor penetration is too high.

But since they nerf nirn the following is fine?
Nirn/Sharpened on weapons
5pc light Armor
Major Spell resi debuff
Apprentice
the first pt in champion-system in th passives which is buggy and grants a huge amount of penetration

Keep in mind that the major debuff applies before the nirn calculation.

This amount of penetration is too high for both.
What is the use of heavy armor if you just ignore everything anyway.
If I fight nightblades right now I have like 5k spellresistence left and I'm using some parts of nirn to survive the undodgeable crap.

who said that spell pen will be fine once nirn is fixed? I sure didn't. The fact that wearing 5 pieces heavy, without using nirn, gives you practically no protection is crazy. The only thing heavy is good for is the bracing passive. You are better off using medium or light with block cost reduction glyphs. A balance patch is much needed followed by balance tweaks every other week for a solid 4 months.

Attorneyatlawl

Soulac wrote: »

show previous quotes

Trayyacakes wrote: »

I may be alone here but I think even the 17k armor penetration is too high.

But since they nerf nirn the following is fine?
Nirn/Sharpened on weapons
5pc light Armor
Major Spell resi debuff
Apprentice
the first pt in champion-system in th passives which is buggy and grants a huge amount of penetration

Keep in mind that the major debuff applies before the nirn calculation.

This amount of penetration is too high for both.
What is the use of heavy armor if you just ignore everything anyway.
If I fight nightblades right now I have like 5k spellresistence left and I'm using some parts of nirn to survive the undodgeable crap.

Safe to say you tested none of this because you'd know it isn't true if you had .
Sharpened is the same for spell and phys pen.
5pc light comes nowhere near as high a pen amount as maces.

Major armor debuffs are easier to access and more common, while being attached to skills that do more than a resist/armor debuff. Many aren't even tied to weapons (elemental debuff requires a destro staff and does just a resist change, no damage or other addons except some magicka restoration).
Apprentice stone is outweighed by phys pen availability and nirn honed.
First champ PT functions as described. It doesn't add some magical outlandish amount of pen. Go test it before parroting others who did not test it either. The phys and spell pen champ passives are ignores as described in the tooltips.

Rylana wrote: »

show previous quotes

Jeckll wrote: »

WRX wrote: »

Jeckll wrote: »

Things I learned while reading this thread:
Zenimax should not allow you to enter the same AvA Server with Characters of different Fractions on the same day.

Why the hell not? These dudes should be able to win one fight, or just not talk trash.

It's not about that situation actually. What if they had not trash talked? Lets say you are grinding in said cave. I'm from your fraction and I also want to grind there. So I relog on my other fraction character, kill you, relogg to my main and start grinding. Whenever you come back, I relog and kill you again. With that, I would have an issue.

Also, being able to simply let one person of a DC raidgroup relog and be able to read the AD zone chat, maybe joining one AD raidgroup and being able to tell the DC raids what they are planing to do...I just dont like the abusive possibilities.

Hypothetical situations do not apply to your original statement. Strawman fallacy.

to Germantrocity - LOL

to the AD that posted in this thread, silky whatever, keep talking your smack and next time German shows up hes gonna have Lyzara with him. The players named thus far in this thread are so below even my skill level that just me showing up would probably wipe your whole group, now imagine both of us.

Edit to add - I could totally get down with this idea of Cracked Wood mercenary for hire (or just for lolz). Hmm...

Gonna take a guess Rylana didn't test anything either by this thread, given that I haven't heard anyone claim sharpened was bugged still for physical only, in any special fashion, and no proof or testing is shown to back the assertion made here. Given the posts I see like the above, and in this thread, I get the feeling he or she thinks they are above needing to actually fact check their claims before making balance discussion or supposed major bug threads, regardless of if it turns out to be the case.

Soulac

Attorneyatlawl wrote: »

show previous quotes

Soulac wrote: »

Trayyacakes wrote: »

I may be alone here but I think even the 17k armor penetration is too high.

But since they nerf nirn the following is fine?
Nirn/Sharpened on weapons
5pc light Armor
Major Spell resi debuff
Apprentice
the first pt in champion-system in th passives which is buggy and grants a huge amount of penetration

Keep in mind that the major debuff applies before the nirn calculation.

This amount of penetration is too high for both.
What is the use of heavy armor if you just ignore everything anyway.
If I fight nightblades right now I have like 5k spellresistence left and I'm using some parts of nirn to survive the undodgeable crap.

Safe to say you tested none of this because you'd know it isn't true if you had .
Sharpened is the same for spell and phys pen.
5pc light comes nowhere near as high a pen amount as maces.

Major armor debuffs are easier to access and more common, while being attached to skills that do more than a resist/armor debuff. Many aren't even tied to weapons (elemental debuff requires a destro staff and does just a resist change, no damage or other addons except some magicka restoration).
Apprentice stone is outweighed by phys pen availability and nirn honed.
First champ PT functions as described. It doesn't add some magical outlandish amount of pen. Go test it before parroting others who did not test it either. The phys and spell pen champ passives are ignores as described in the tooltips.

Well maces are buggy, so I don't count them in.
You know that mark target is buggy? You'd be surprised at the amount of spellresistence you ignore.
Now tell me what isn't true? The champion passive thing? Well, my follow Magicka friends are saying it.
The point is that you get an incredible amount of spell penetration as well which makes heavy armor even more useless.

GaldorP

A few weeks ago, I tested how much Armor Penetration was needed to completely ignore armor of regular VR 10 monsters (where more armor penetration didn't increase the damage anymore) on a VR 14 DK with all Dual Wield passives.

2 Maces, 1 Sharpened, 1 any other trait is enough to ignore 100% of the armor of these monsters. No need to put Sharpened on the the 2nd Mace as well.

1 Sharpened Mace and 1 Sharpened other 1-handed weapon was not enough.
2 Maces that both weren't Sharpened was not enough either.

I haven't tested this in PvP or against bosses.

Edit: I forgot to mention, I had 1 or 0 points in the Champion ability Piercing when I tested this, certainly not more.

filmoretub17_ESO

I'm starting to think the addon isn't working. All the tooltips from ESO say you ignore someone's armor. That number is based on a % of the opponent's armor. So a DK wearing 30k armor you will ignore 3k armor if you have 10% armor pen. And a mage with 3k armor you will ignore 300 armor from the mage. Or it could be programmed to mean ignoring someone's armor resistance. So a DK who ignores 50% damage would only ignore 45% damage against someone with 10% armor pen. The way this addon is describing is contradictory to anything the tooltips are telling us. Its just ridiculous to have armor pen and armor reduction mean the same thing.

Hypocrisy

Already wrote a bug report about dw maces with sharpened which was probably ignored. Also according to the addon, got the armor penetration up to 75k if people thought 33k was bad. Btw the extra 200 focus rating that you get from sharpened is so nice for magicka users with maxed spell resistance ppl running around ..

Gizit

Thats why this steel tornado is a thing then?
well i'll be a son of a female canine

filmoretub17_ESO

Hypocrisy wrote: »

Already wrote a bug report about dw maces with sharpened which was probably ignored. Also according to the addon, got the armor penetration up to 75k if people thought 33k was bad. Btw the extra 200 focus rating that you get from sharpened is so nice for magicka users with maxed spell resistance ppl running around ..

I think its being misunderstood. It says you ignore 20% of your targets armor. I think the number that everyone is looking at is SIMILAR to the crit rating number. There is a % attached to that number. So you are seeing 75k but its really just 50% Since they give diminishing returns 33k armor pen will ignore 45% armor and 70k only ignores 50%. None of the tooltips say they ignore 40k of the targets armor. Other skills ignore armor entirely. These skills everyone is quoting ignore a % of the targets armor not the armor itself.

Psilent

Rylana, this is why I always tell people to use maces over swords. One reason why I haven't switched over to the DK magicka train. Dragonleap, steel tornado, light attack, steel tornado, steel tornado. Doing this with GoS while switching to bow for bombard and switching back for steel tornado was killer. Just spec for full stam regen and major brutality pots. No need for weapon damage with how hard steel tornado hits.

c0rp

There is so much *** not working, bugged, and unbalanced...that one single eric wrobel "balance patch" is not going to fix anything. It is going to take several back to back to back to back to back to back patches to fix eso.

He is on the next ESO live, cant wait to hear what he says (or doesnt say).

Yonkit

Harven's is wrong as a stat gauge, but we can do some testing if you want to see the difference between no pen, mace pen, and sharpened mace pen if you want on a heavy armor'd (20k+) target if you want.

Always up for more testing, but I can say with certainty from previous testing that harven's is wrong as it stands.

timidobserver

Everyone is naked before the almighty stam build.

sadownik

Ahh, that would explain why i see so many double wielded maces in pvp. And why i get those rather high dmg numbers. Oh well we all know how zos rushes to hot fix every bug so its safe to say it should be done somewhere around september for the first time ("fixed") and perhpas on chirstmas we will get it fixed (for real this time).

r.jan_emailb16_ESO

Let's face it, there hasn't been a single day since release where all that penetration stuff worked as intended. First it was light armor + sharpened, now the same for medium. And both of those issues have been reported for month and nothing happened.

Majax

Without a confirmation from ZOS i can't believe ppl who are claiming that penetration bypass all armor.

Alcast

Rylana wrote: »

Sorry to spoil your fun boys and girls, but after making a thread about balance for nirn and resistances, we gotta talk about this one.

As some of you (dubiously) know, dual wield hammers (maces) is currently bugged similarly to the old sharpened bug for spell pen, only this time it is armor pen.

To give you an idea of what I am talking about, using Harvens Extended Stats addon, I discovered something rather hilarious.

My 2 handed sharpened Mace, gives me 17000 armor penetration. Notbad.jpg, seems about right

Then I swap to my dual wield bar, with 2 sharpened hammers equipped... guess what the value jumps to? Youd figure 20 percent for the twin blade and blunt, 14 for sharpened for say up to 35 percentish more right? Maybe 22k armor pen?

nope, with dual wield it jumps to 33,303 armor penetration. Thats right, anyone without 33k in physical resistances is completely naked to my dual wield setup.

What I believe is happening is actually pretty simple - the armor pen is being counted from two weapons (one in each hand) instead of half a weapon for each hand, as does every other modifier/trait when it relates to combat modifiers. Think crit chance (ruby) on a bow vs on dual daggers here for an idea of what i mean, 14 vs 7 on each for a total of 14.

Somewhere in the code, the game is counting each hammer as a 2-handed weapon in the calculations for armor penetration.

Needs fixed, ZOS

Also, sorry to yall, but this one has been abused for some time.


Edit to add: No, it is not a visual bug, I actually tested it in game vs a friend. Had him take all his armor off. Got a baseline, he then put all his heavy armor back on for an AR of about 25k. My damage numbers stayed exactly the same. (no blocking or buffs used on either side)

You mean like Mages abuse Nirnhoned staff + apprentice bug that gives them 100% spellpene?


So much stuff is actually bugged and ZOS is not capable of fixing it.


Nirnhoned+Apprentice = Mace+Sharpened

Working as inteded. At least it doenst really give players a disadvantage because both can use it LOL

Valnas

anything with major breach (-5k sp resist) effects base. THis makes nirn users drop 10-20k in spell resist when it's applied!

nirn and appr is no where in the league of maces, was fixed a long time ago.

Alcast

Valnas wrote: »

nirn and appr is no where in the league of maces, was fixed a long time ago.

I strongly disagree

filmoretub17_ESO

The only thing that hits my medium armor for over 10k is wrecking blow, snipe, frags, dragon leap, ambush, radiant. If this dual wielding maces was so broken then there would be a lot more stam abilities on that list. I never seen dual wield abilities do more then 6k damage. Nothing hits my heavy armor more then 6k. This theory needs a lot more evidence and they need to start hitting me a lot harder for this to validate.