Patch 3.0 - the return of Precise and Nirnhorned to PvP?

Subversus

Now before you all jump at my throat like angry parrots hear me out!

With the sustain and constitution nerfs it is safe to say that heavy has been somewhat eliminated out of the PvP meta. This being the case, the resistances of most people will go down by a LOT. There will also be a lot of mag sorcs in the field next patch, which will make sharpened even more useless.

Does this mean Nirnhorned will take its place back as the rightful king of PvP? Will my precise vMA maul finally get the gold mat treatment and be put to use? What do you fellow gamers think?

Majeure

Don't forget the new front-loaded CP system, that makes investing into penetration a much more viable option.

I'm not a math person though, so no idea, but it seems much more viable than before at least.

DisgracefulMind

Sharpened will probably still be the highest hitter, honestly.

technohic

So if a lot of people are sorcs making sharpened pointless; that makes precise not?

Subversus

Majeure wrote: »

Don't forget the new front-loaded CP system, that makes investing into penetration a much more viable option.

I'm not a math person though, so no idea, but it seems much more viable than before at least.

Good point!

DisgracefulMind wrote: »

Sharpened will probably still be the highest hitter, honestly.

What about the fact that we have to run more sustain now? Lower damage would make the nirnhorned damage boost much more valuable in theory, right? I guess we have to wait and see for the meta.

HugeMuffin

Probably not. I've seen posts that say that HA will still be incentivized, but even if people switch to medium armor for the stam regen, sharpened weapons will let people swap out their pen traits sets for sustain sets and IIRC, sharpened hasn't changed so any pen up to the resist of your enemy is a sizeable damage increase. Unfortunately, shifts to PvP meta don't happen instantly and as long as penetration helps you win more fights than it loses, it'll still be a go-to trait.

I could see more magicka/stamina steal glyphs with the enchant chance trait builds starting to edge their way in if people find a way to make that work.

Subversus

technohic wrote: »

So if a lot of people are sorcs making sharpened pointless; that makes precise not?

Was thinking more that precise is some sort of middle ground if sharpened is rendered useless, though that will most likely not happen..

DisgracefulMind

Subversus wrote: »

Majeure wrote: »

Don't forget the new front-loaded CP system, that makes investing into penetration a much more viable option.

I'm not a math person though, so no idea, but it seems much more viable than before at least.

Good point!

DisgracefulMind wrote: »

Sharpened will probably still be the highest hitter, honestly.

What about the fact that we have to run more sustain now? Lower damage would make the nirnhorned damage boost much more valuable in theory, right? I guess we have to wait and see for the meta.

We'll definitely see. It's much easier when these things come to live, in my opinion. Much more flexibility to solidly test things in a real PvP environment. I'm all for other traits being viable, so hopefully that becomes the case.

The_Lex

Subversus wrote: »

Now before you all jump at my throat like angry parrots hear me out!

I've never seen an angry parrot jump at someone's throat before. Must be shocking to see.

Subversus

The_Patriarch wrote: »

Subversus wrote: »

Now before you all jump at my throat like angry parrots hear me out!

I've never seen an angry parrot jump at someone's throat before. Must be shocking to see.

It marks you for life!

Synozeer

The_Patriarch wrote: »

Subversus wrote: »

Now before you all jump at my throat like angry parrots hear me out!

I've never seen an angry parrot jump at someone's throat before. Must be shocking to see.

Parrots, no, but rabbits...

Jsmalls

I think nirnhorned should be added to the overland loot table personally. As well as other loot tables. Is not even a great trait, but the variety would be nice...

Izaki

Subversus wrote: »

Majeure wrote: »

Don't forget the new front-loaded CP system, that makes investing into penetration a much more viable option.

I'm not a math person though, so no idea, but it seems much more viable than before at least.

Good point!

DisgracefulMind wrote: »

Sharpened will probably still be the highest hitter, honestly.

What about the fact that we have to run more sustain now? Lower damage would make the nirnhorned damage boost much more valuable in theory, right? I guess we have to wait and see for the meta.

The fact that you have to focus more on sustain doesn't change the fact that Sharpened is the biggest increase to damage you can currently get from a weapon trait...

SodanTok

if you think heavy will be eliminated from PVP meta you will be badly surprised.
But as other pointed out sharpened is still the best trait and probably would be even if everyone was in light armor (shieldless ofc)

t3hdubzy

I wear 5 light 2 heavy. With volatile armor i have 27k spell resist and 23k physical resistance. 0 cp buffing either one of these.

If a maul ignore 20 percent 4600
18400
Sharpen gold weapon
5160
13240
Spriggan 4000
9240
85 cp into penetration 4554
4554
4684
Major fracture
5280
Puts it below 0

This assumes you are running a maul, and a penetration set.

Otherwise there is still resistance to eat through even on a light armor charachter.

Solariken

Sharpened is equally powerful against all armor types as it's a flat penetration value and most builds still won't contain more total penetration than most LA players' resistances.

With that said, I do expect to find more magicka builds in the field so Nirnhoned might become slightly more useful.

Also as @Majeure said, everybody will have access to a little more base penetration due to CP changes.

I still don't understand why penetration was ever changed to flat values rather than percents. The only legitimate reason to have penetration values in MMOs is to provide a viable counter to high resistance targets at the cost of sacrificing damage against lower resistance targets... It's supposed to be about choices, not pidgeon-holing players into a needing a BIS stat and penetrating their posterior orifice at the point of RNG. These devs are amateurs.

NightbladeMechanics

There are no diminishing returns to resistances in this game, just a cap at 31,600. Therefore, as long as you don't penetrate an enemy down to 0 resistances, sharpened will still outperform.

Attacking into shields will be the only wildcard here, however you will still deal more damage to the sorc's health bar with sharpened after bursting past shields, and the stronger diminishing returns on cp makes points in shattering blows more feasible to get past shields in the first place.