Greatsword vs Maul - something is wrong here

teladoy

Hi everyone I just wanted to ask which one for you is the best.

I know theoretically Maul should be more effective vs high armor enemies and greatswords should do more damage vs not too high armor enemies, but then I found that is not like that.

I craft 2 weapons:

Calcinium VR1 Greatsword with sharpered trait (Increases Armor and Spell Penetration by 6%), white, no enchant.

and

Calcinium VR1 Maul with Defending trait (Increases Physical and Spell resistance by 4%), white, no enchants.

and then I went to test it, with always vs the same monster.

the sword did 1083 constantly single attack damage.
the maul did 1079 constantly single ttack damage.

and the I thoutgh WTF????

I have defending trait in the Maul and im doing only 4 damage less than the sword????

What about the 5% extra damage? I have 3% armor penetration... Maul I have 20% armor pentration and that's it, no extra damage, and not just that, I boost my resistance significally.

So the difference is: 14% armor penetration for the Maul and 5% extra damage to the sword.

Test where done vs not heigh armor enemies, it was done vs normal enemies, even low lvl enemies.

So pls, someone explain me whats going on.

Teiji

Use Sharpened Maul, please.

+4% of 20,000 armor = +800

So instead of 20,000 armor you get 20,800.

That's light a Reinforced light armor belt.

Johngo0036

Compare same to same mate,

Cannot compare a defending vs a sharpened trait for damage,

This makes no sense,

Make the maul also precise..

or make the weapon defending and then test again,

You are testing apples to pears..

teladoy

Thats the thing, the maul dont have sharpered trait!

Im comparing a full greatsword with sharpered trait vs a maul without and the difference are are 4 of dmg, and this vs mobs without high armor.

Is that hard to understand?

Asmael

Point of the OP:

"Maul deals way too much damage thanks to the passive compared to swords, even when it (the maul) is faced with a situation where it's supposed to be much less effective (E.G. hitting someone with low armor)".

Which is why a maul is a no-brainer currently.

teladoy

Asmael wrote: »

Point of the OP:

"Maul deals way too much damage thanks to the passive compared to swords, even when it (the maul) is faced with a situation where it's supposed to be much less effective (E.G. hitting someone with low armor)".

Which is why a maul is a no-brainer currently.

OK so Maul better than other weapons for the only reason that it is and that's it.

Good to know that the devs don't balance or fix it, because I would really like to use an greatsword if I know I'm sacrifying A x B and not if meanwhile I'm doing it, I'm thinking all the time, that really I'm an idiot because Maul is better.

Thanks for the clarify.

Jeckll

Sword doesnt do 5% (or 2.5% for a 1h) since Update 7. It increases the Weapon Damage you get from the said Weapon by the said percentage instead.

You can easily check if by looking at your character screen when equiping a maul and a sword with the same damage.
Known since Update 7 PTS - never got fixed yet.

Only viable 2h is a Maul.

firstdecan

teladoy wrote: »

Asmael wrote: »

Point of the OP:

"Maul deals way too much damage thanks to the passive compared to swords, even when it (the maul) is faced with a situation where it's supposed to be much less effective (E.G. hitting someone with low armor)".

Which is why a maul is a no-brainer currently.

OK so Maul better than other weapons for the only reason that it is and that's it.

Good to know that the devs don't balance or fix it, because I would really like to use an greatsword if I know I'm sacrifying A x B and not if meanwhile I'm doing it, I'm thinking all the time, that really I'm an idiot because Maul is better.

Thanks for the clarify.

The Devs have pretty much taken the opinion that they can keep shoveling out whatever they want until they eventually stumble upon success. The game will be fine in the meantime and when it's finally good everyone will flock back. TBH - they're probably right.

I don't think ZoS has ever really put much foresight into the skills and balancing them out. They've probably just created a bunch of stuff they thought was cool, and then ran it through their game engine to see if it seemed balanced in mob v mob simulations.

Ultimately this is a minor issue, it's not like it gives someone that great of an advantage over others. The balance issues were much worse at PC release, and have been slowly improving over time. I don't think it's anywhere near *there* yet, but balance issues are improved over where they were a year and a half ago. It still does suck that the game mechanics are not intuitive or even explained with any kind of transparency, and that you can only find these optimization tactics through meticulous experimentation.

Teiji

It's sad but wont ever change. Just like Heavy armor doesn't reduce melee damage by X and damage from ranged attacks by X.

The most mitigation you can get against players is around 30% due to how penetration works too, which is wonderful. This was true last time I checked but depending on what may or may not be bugged with every patch, champ passives specifically it's difficult to keep track off without a community audit on essential passives and so on.

willymchilybily

interesting as it is I would expect this outcome
explained:

your weapons tool tip damage is the same. lets call it 1000 for ease

Sword: 1000+5% =1050
Maul: 1000+0% = 1000

against a V16 low armored enemy: 10k resist (15.2% mitigation)
sword = 10k mitigation * 0.96 = 14.6% mitigation = 1050*(1-0.146) =896.7
mace = 10k mitigation * 0.80 = 12.2% mitigation = 1000*(1-0.122) = 878

against a V16 average armored enemy: 20k resist (30.6% mitigation)
sword = 741.5
mace = 755.4

at max mitigation 50% - you get around 11% more damage from mace than sword
sword = 539.9
mace = 595.4

so this puts your mobs likely on 22.5% resistance.

teladoy

Good matematics, that means greatswords are more efficient on enemies with light armor, from medium armor on maces rocks.

So greatswords are the assassin weapon of two hands build. Maces are more properly to combat enemies with more armor than light.

UrQuan

I think perhaps you accidentally crafted a prettygoodsword instead of a greatsword...

AhPook_Is_Here

UrQuan wrote: »

I think perhaps you accidentally crafted a prettygoodsword instead of a greatsword...

Yep, nobody wants a good-sword, you need a GREAT-SWORD.

teladoy

I forgot my CP I have 3% dmg using maces, that is about 50 dmg, nothing if we compare it with 1000.

Anyway I think the problem I that 20% armor penetration is a very high crazy amount, compare it with the poor 5% high damage.

I think one day they will fixed it, is pretty clear that something is wrong.

GreenSoup2HoT

I use two handed axes just for the look. I dont care if its better or not. I need to handicap myself or else i'd be to good.

It would be nice if balance was more of a priority when it comes to Zos fixes. However it is not.

Forestd16b14_ESO

Well I really don't wanna say anything bad about greatswords been useing them since Oblivion but penetration > damage cause penetration also goes through blocks while GS more damage gets blocked by block. Simple as that want to chip more damage use penetration. Really the only reason we see so many GS is cause of that 5% damage bonus and of course WB cause hey why bother with penetration when you jsut spam WB with a GS to drain there stamina in 3 hits then just unleashes 2 more to finish them off cause hey 5% more powerful WB.

Stikato

Jeckll wrote: »

Sword doesnt do 5% (or 2.5% for a 1h) since Update 7. It increases the Weapon Damage you get from the said Weapon by the said percentage instead.

You can easily check if by looking at your character screen when equiping a maul and a sword with the same damage.
Known since Update 7 PTS - never got fixed yet.

Only viable 2h is a Maul.

Just reposting this in case people missed it. This explained a lot, thank you!

And to elaborate:

Greatsword does NOT do +5% damage
It does NOT increase weapon damage stat on char sheet by 5%
What is does is increase the weapon damage of only that weapon, nothing else.

So more like a 1-2% increase in overall damage, maybe?

ContraTempo

I don't see a big advantage to a weapon being more effective against low armor targets anyway. It seems to me that targets with high armor -- and often high health -- are the ones where you would need the advantage. If that low armor target is not dying quickly then he is doing something to stay alive -- healing, using shields, etc. -- so you need to use strategies that interrupt or otherwise address that activity.