PVP offensive penetration (pen) cap?

malistorr · June 2022

Hi all,

Xbox NA here and play only Ravenwatch (no CP/Proc) PVP in Cyrodiil. I was wondering if there is any offensive penetration cap? I've received 2 different answers from players in the game to this question and I believe they were both wrong. So I'm not sure if people were just trolling me or if they're just horribly misinformed. One said if you have over 15k pen then there is diminishing returns having more than that. Essentially that even if you put another 1k into pen, that it will be like you only had say 500 more into pen (diminishing return). But I think they're wrong. I thought that as long as the enemy player has more resistance than you have pen, that putting more into pen has no diminishing return and is therefore the best way to increase your damage vs. the other player. Please let me know if I'm right. Most good players have between 25 to 40k resistances in Ravenwatch so I figured getting my pen as high as possible is the best way to increase damage vs. this type of player. If I have too much pen vs. a few players I don't care as my spell damage is very high as well.

The reason why I'm asking this is because I'm trying to decide between having about 19k pen and 5400ish spell damage vs. having 15k pen and about 5800 spell damage. I figured as long as the enemy player has resistances over 20k (which is anyone good) that it's better to have the 19k pen and slightly lower spell damage.

Thank you in advance

Unified_Gaming · June 2022

malistorr wrote: »

Hi all,

Xbox NA here and play only Ravenwatch (no CP/Proc) PVP in Cyrodiil. I was wondering if there is any offensive penetration cap? I've received 2 different answers from players in the game to this question and I believe they were both wrong. So I'm not sure if people were just trolling me or if they're just horribly misinformed. One said if you have over 15k pen then there is diminishing returns having more than that. Essentially that even if you put another 1k into pen, that it will be like you only had say 500 more into pen (diminishing return). But I think they're wrong. I thought that as long as the enemy player has more resistance than you have pen, that putting more into pen has no diminishing return and is therefore the best way to increase your damage vs. the other player. Please let me know if I'm right. Most good players have between 25 to 40k resistances in Ravenwatch so I figured getting my pen as high as possible is the best way to increase damage vs. this type of player. If I have too much pen vs. a few players I don't care as my spell damage is very high as well.

The reason why I'm asking this is because I'm trying to decide between having about 19k pen and 5400ish spell damage vs. having 15k pen and about 5800 spell damage. I figured as long as the enemy player has resistances over 20k (which is anyone good) that it's better to have the 19k pen and slightly lower spell damage.

Thank you in advance

In short - penetration subtracts armour. Mobs in pve have 16k armour. Players in pvp have 30k+ usually.

Due to that there isn't really a cap. Armour caps at 50% or 33k armour. If your target has 40k armour and you have 5k pen then you hit them at 35k armour so they waste 2 but in reality people have 10k+ pen with debuffs so you'd still do full damage.

Hope it helps.

malistorr · June 2022

Ok so I am correct then. As long as the enemy player has resistance at say 30k then raising my pen from 15 to 19 would have no diminishing return and I would still essentially be reducing their armor by 19k and not a lesser number.

And based on my scenario I gave I believe having 4k more pen would increase my damage by more than having 400 more spell damage.

JanTanhide · June 2022

Mobs in PVE have 9.1 K resistance. Bosses in PVE are 18.2K.

divnyi · June 2022

@malistorr transform everything in percentage damage modifiers when you calculate. Want to know how much more damage is 400 SD?

First of, 400 SD unbuffed = 400 * 1.2 (major sorcery) buffed, another *1.1 if you are plar or in party with plar. Another bonuses from passives sometimes.

Then, (buffed_SD + previous_SD + Magpool/10.5) / (previous_SD + Magpool/10.5).

Now to compare armor, create a table of possible opponent armors. To calculate what your increment would do, go for

(1 - Max((enemy_armor - new_pen - old_pen)/660, 0.5)) / (1 - Max((enemy_armor - old_pen)/660, 0.5))

As you can see, lots of parameters are variable, most of them depend on your build, so you can calculate them, some will depend on enemy build, so you can only anticipate that. But I'd say prepare to see 18k up to 33k mostly, rarely something else.

Dirt_Rooster · June 2022

Yeah. Pen will pretty much always give you more damage than other stats when comparing from similar sources. Sharpened will give more damage than nirnhoned, for example. As long as you do not have more pen than your target has armor, you're good. Only question you have to ask yourself is what amount of armor you think your enemies will typically have. I prefer to stay below 20k pen personally.

jaws343 · June 2022

malistorr wrote: »

Ok so I am correct then. As long as the enemy player has resistance at say 30k then raising my pen from 15 to 19 would have no diminishing return and I would still essentially be reducing their armor by 19k and not a lesser number.

And based on my scenario I gave I believe having 4k more pen would increase my damage by more than having 400 more spell damage.

If a player in PVP has 32K resistances, and you have 32K Pen, you will reduce their armor to zero.

If a player has 40K resistances, and you have 32K pen, you will reduce their armor to 8K.

If a player has 40K resistances and you have zero Pen, that player will only have 32K resistance.

So, resistances have a cap, but if a player has more than the cap, it provides more resistances that an opponent has to have penetration for. But, penetration does not have a cap.

malistorr · June 2022

The 400 extra spell damage is what I see on my character sheet after making the change of my gear. I have major sorcery already so it's the final tally including my magplar buffs and passive dual wield buff etc. So I'm literally deciding between 19k pen and 5400 spell damage vs 15k pen and 5800 spell damage. Assuming an enemy with 30kish resistances the 19k pen should give me more damage I believe.

malistorr · June 2022

Thanks for all the answers. I will go with 2 sharpened maces instead of 1 sharpened mace and 1 nirnhoned sword. I don't use the weapons anyway so having extra damage on a weapon is not relevant to my play style and the spell damage increase won't give me as much damage as the extra pen will. Because like I said just about any decent Ravenwatch player has in the high 20's for resistances or more. I have very high 20's resistances fully buffed with just 3 heavy reinforced and 1 buff skill and the rest light.

MEBengalsFan2001 · June 2022

malistorr wrote: »

Ok so I am correct then. As long as the enemy player has resistance at say 30k then raising my pen from 15 to 19 would have no diminishing return and I would still essentially be reducing their armor by 19k and not a lesser number.

And based on my scenario I gave I believe having 4k more pen would increase my damage by more than having 400 more spell damage.

Don't forget that in Cyrodiil that all players get a 50% damage mitigation. Than they get additional amount from armor, skills, gear sets, etc... Going pen over damage reduces your overall damage output which may impact your damage output against player that are vampire that wear swift and have flare on their bar or if a player blocks. You do need pen and IMO with debuffs you want around 10-15K pen.

I was fully buffed had 20K pen with 5k spell damage and tested that out vs. 5k pen plus had minor and major breach and 7k spell damage. Based on my experience going damage did better than higher pen, because higher damage against players who have high damage mitigation just works better.

malistorr · June 2022

I guess I'll throw it in the build editor tonight and find out. I don't know if it's 100% accurate but it will probably tell me more than if I tried to do the math. I was pretty convinced that essentially removing 4000 armor from players and having 400 less spell damage would allow me to do more damage to them than them having that 4000 armor and me having 400 higher spell damage. But since you're saying otherwise hopefully the build editor will be useful in pointing me in the right direction. Maybe I'll find out that it really doesn't matter much either way. The posters above seem to disagree with you.

MEBengalsFan2001 · June 2022

malistorr wrote: »

I guess I'll throw it in the build editor tonight and find out. I don't know if it's 100% accurate but it will probably tell me more than if I tried to do the math. I was pretty convinced that essentially removing 4000 armor from players and having 400 less spell damage would allow me to do more damage to them than them having that 4000 armor and me having 400 higher spell damage. But since you're saying otherwise hopefully the build editor will be useful in pointing me in the right direction. Maybe I'll find out that it really doesn't matter much either way. The posters above seem to disagree with you.

That's what I did initially and than after a while tried out a damage build that had some pen but not 20K like you listed. I found less pen and more damage to be more effective against a wider range of player where as more pen with less damage was only effective against a small set of players.

malistorr · June 2022

I am not "tanky" by any means and my resistances are close to 30k. I know players that have over 40k.

Dirt_Rooster · June 2022

50% reduction from battlespirit is irrelevant. It all comes down to a simple calculation, converting stats to % damage increase. Both spell/weapon damage and pen directly correlate to a % damage increase. It is incorrect to argue that you need to have a certain amount of damage stat before pen starts becoming better. Plug it into the builder and see for yourself. 660 pen is equal to 1% damage, and 1% damage from spell/weapon damage is going to depend on the specific skill's coefficient. 4k pen is going to be a large increase in damage compared to 400 spell damage.

malistorr · June 2022

I plugged my build into the build editor at UESP and the numbers seem far off from what I see in game. So I assume their calculators are busted. Spell damage is showing about 4400 instead of closer to 5400 and spell pen is just over 9k instead of closer to 19k. Things are way off. At the very least it's not factoring in pen for both maces and also not for the bonuses of the heartland conqueror set (sharpened trait values doubled for each weapon). I think there are other mistakes as well. For example I don't even see nirnhoned as an option on weapons. Guess this tool is pretty useless now. Oh well... Guess I'll try the Alcast editor.

Dirt_Rooster · June 2022

The UESP build editor is the most up to date. If a weapon doesn't drop with nirn, you have to go back and set it to nirn after you've selected it with another trait. You also have to make sure your buffs are accurate, and any applicable proc sets are enabled. Penetration is not going to automatically factor into a tooltip on there either. There is a tab where you can look at damage vs. opponents with a custom amount of armor. You also have to make sure all the passives are trained, which is simple if you just click the button which unlocks the whole tree. UESP if used correctly is always extremely close to the in game stat sheet.

malistorr · June 2022

I enabled all the skills I have (chose whole skills lines to make sure I have all passives), selected them, and entered in the 2 legendary sharpened maces (Rattlecage). I also have 5 Heartland Conqueror pieces. It is not showing any of the 6,552 pen that it should be. Are you saying that it's not setup to take this into account? If so, what is the point of this build editor? It should be taking EVERYTHING into account. Do I have to go somewhere on the page and enter in all the pen figures manually? In game my build gives me about 19k pen and in the editor I'm showing about 9k pen with all skills unlocked and selected. It says my Major Brutality is automatically being taken into account since I'm using 5 Rattlecage. It seems it's not working with the Heartland Conqueror set at the very least. I'll have to compare what I see in game with what I've entered in the build editor to make sure it's all exact (buffs etc. that the PVP game gives me) but there are definitely some broken/not working things in the build editor. The Heartland Conqueror bonus also doesn't calculate correctly on the back-bar resto staff either. Healing done should be 18% with powered and it's showing 10%.

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=454253

Dirt_Rooster · June 2022

Yeah, you just copy the address. It's the best builder by far and once you learn how to use it it's pretty easy.

Dirt_Rooster · June 2022

Also, what I mean by pen not being factored in, is specifically with the tooltip. Penetration increases aren't going to increase the skill tooltip in the editor, and it won't in-game either. However, the editor has a custom stat called "effective wep/spell damage" which does include your penetration, as long as the target penetration on the general tab is set to be above your current pen. Effective spell/wep damage is a decent way to look quickly at the builder after some changes to compare the general amount of damage you are going to do. Some things aren't factored into that effective stat such as the deadly set.

malistorr · June 2022

I'm not talking about skill tooltips and never even mentioned that. I'm talking about the calculated value for spell penetration in the build editor. It's not calculating spell penetration correctly based on the inputs given. If I have sharpened weapons and add 5-pieces of the Heartland Conqueror set the spell penetration value should go up by 6,552 and it's not. Also a powered resto staff on the back bar is not calculating the correct amount of additional healing done with 5-pieces of the Heartland Conqueror set It's showing me 10% instead of 18%. This build editor is broken/not working with this set at the very least. I think it's not giving me all the buffs from light armor for pen and possibly other values as well. I don't have hours to check every little detail but at least I know now not to use this unless it's 100% working right, which it's not.

Dirt_Rooster · June 2022

Read my above post. Penetration will not increase the tooltip of any skill. It will not in the editor, and it will not in-game. The penetration stat will increase in value if you equip sharpened or equip the heartland conqueror 5 set. It does this automatically. If you equip more penetration, your penetration stat goes up. The editor is extremely simple and easy to use. Simply make sure your build is accurate and you have all applicable buffs, sets, mundus, everything enabled.

malistorr · June 2022

I have everything configured correctly and it's not calculating spell penetration correctly. It says it is 8985. This is with 4 light armor and that whole skill tree selected to get the passives. I have all the skills purchased except Emperor and Volendrung. I have the lover mundus with 4 divine armor. I have 2 sharpened maces with 5 Heartland Conqueror set pieces. My spell pen on the in-game character sheet is about 19k which is correct. In the build editor on the edit page under "Computed Character Statistics" on the far-right side spell penetration says 8985. Something is wrong with the editor.

Dirt_Rooster · June 2022

Then you are missing something in the editor. Click the little dots next to penetration, and it will show you the exact calculation it used. See what isn't being included in that calculation. You can also go to the raw data tab and scroll down to spell penetration for a more in depth look.

malistorr · June 2022

Yeah I gave up. I have all the right inputs in the editor and it's not taking them into account in the calculations. When I go to the edit page and highlight either Sharpened Rattlecage Mace it shows the pen as 3,276 which is correct. It's doubled because of the Heartland Conqueror bonus. However all 6,552 spell damage is NOT added to the spell damage value on the right side of the page. It's calculating pen from my lover mundus, the 4 divine armor, my 1-piece Kra'gh shoulders and the light armor passives/bonuses. It's not giving me anything for my weapons or the Heartland bonus.

malistorr · June 2022

The build is corrupt. That's the only explanation I can come up with. If I create a new build and select a sharpened mace before doing anything else on the right side it does increase the spell pen.

Vaoh · June 2022

It’s terrible reading through threads like this to find full-on mathematical breakdowns of what should be basic stats. Character stat system in this game has greatly depreciated over time.

Imo, the Spell Damage will benefit you more since it increases your heals too.

malistorr · June 2022

TY. However I'm just looking for what will give me more damage vs. an enemy that has probably 28-43k resistances. (Which is any competent player in Ravenwatch campaign.) I have a powered back-bar resto staff with the Heartland Conqueror set that doubles the buff to 18%. So I'm more than good on healing. I'm already at just about 5.5K spell damage also even if I go dual sharpened maces instead of offhand nirn sword.

Vaoh · June 2022

malistorr wrote: »

TY. However I'm just looking for what will give me more damage vs. an enemy that has probably 28-43k resistances. (Which is any competent player in Ravenwatch campaign.) I have a powered back-bar resto staff with the Heartland Conqueror set that doubles the buff to 18%. So I'm more than good on healing. I'm already at just about 5.5K spell damage also even if I go dual sharpened maces instead of offhand nirn sword.

Penetration will benefit you more if not full penetrating the enemy’s armor. So if you’re only concerned about damage then take Penetration