Let’s Talk Weapon Traits...

Ch4mpTW

I’ve been hearing constantly mixed things about weapon traits, and how sharpened is absolutely garbage nowadays. Even if solo’ing in either PvE or PvP. Now is this the actual case, or is this simply another 1 of those phases the community goes through in parroting what their favorite YouTuber or Twitch streamer said?

The reason why I ask this, is because the new DLC is right around the corner. And thus, we are approaching the end of HotR. Certainly enough calculations have been made, and the amount of number crunching should’ve produced by no what is considered to be the BIS trait for weapons.

Or... Is it not that simple? Is it that certain classes benefit from certain traits more so than just a universal trait that should be sought after by all classes? And even then, is it a situation where as 1 trait might be better for a particular weapons and on a particular bar?

Does anyone actually know what is what anymore?

Betsararie

Sharpened is not the powerhouse it once was at all, but still performs fine in PvP and in some specific cases is even BiS.

From what I have gathered, it isn't used much in PvE anymore.

To answer your question, there is no universal best weapon trait anymore (something the merits of which can be debated).

Most of the time it's nirnhoned. It might be infused or sharpened depending on the circumstance.

generalmyrick

my math says nirn by a mile...unless you're a tank or healer.

Stinkyremy

To my knowledge Nirnhoned is the go to trait now after it's buff and defending/sharpened nerfs.
Of course that is craftable only though.

Really weapon traits are situational, use your intelligence not the meta.
For example, if you are a mag sorc who is stacking CP in elemental damage, infused trait on a weapon with an elemental enchantment will do you much more dam than even nirn trait. The same could be said for a dps stacking high crit using precise over nirn or sharp.
A resto staff should have charged or defending rather than a more damage trait.
On my main, tank, my 1h axe I use decisive. combine that with heroic strike, akaviri dragon set and low 1h ult I get my ult every 30 secs-1min.

Just use what is situational or that compliments your build and gear.

code65536

Instead of making a thread with a vague and clickbaity title as you are apt to do, you could've done a quick search and found that sharp is still BiS for solo parsing but undesirable in group content because of the amount of penetration you'll be getting from other sources devalues of effectiveness of the trait relative to other traits.

Malic

Who ever is telling you sharpened is garbage doesnt know what they are talking about. Its not the powerhouse it used to be but its still potent.

The weapon trait changes was actually a good move by ZOS. Giving credit where credit is due, the nerf to sharpened just made other traits viable which we needed. In pvp if 90% of the people are running one or two traits, its unbalanced.

I use sharpened on my mageblade that extra spell pen is great.

Ch4mpTW

Stinkyremy wrote: »

To my knowledge Nirnhoned is the go to trait now after it's buff and defending/sharpened nerfs.
Of course that is craftable only though.

Really weapon traits are situational, use your intelligence not the meta.
For example, if you are a mag sorc who is stacking CP in elemental damage, infused trait on a weapon with an elemental enchantment will do you much more dam than even nirn trait. The same could be said for a dps stacking high crit using precise over nirn or sharp.
A resto staff should have charged or defending rather than a more damage trait.
On my main, tank, my 1h axe I use decisive. combine that with heroic strike, akaviri dragon set and low 1h ult I get my ult every 30 secs-1min.

Just use what is situational or that compliments your build and gear.

So if a solo player was utilizing say a Maelstrom lightning staff on their back bar, would they still utilize Nirnhoned? Mind you that this is for PvE circumstances. Or would they aim for an infused lightning staff for example? Do you see why I’m so confused now?

MLGProPlayer

Blanco wrote: »

Sharpened is not the powerhouse it once was at all, but still performs fine in PvP and in some specific cases is even BiS.

From what I have gathered, it isn't used much in PvE anymore.

To answer your question, there is no universal best weapon trait anymore (something the merits of which can be debated).

Most of the time it's nirnhoned. It might be infused or sharpened depending on the circumstance.

Unless the values have changed, infused is the best trait in most PvE scenarios.

Betsararie

Ch4mpTW wrote: »

Stinkyremy wrote: »

To my knowledge Nirnhoned is the go to trait now after it's buff and defending/sharpened nerfs.
Of course that is craftable only though.

Really weapon traits are situational, use your intelligence not the meta.
For example, if you are a mag sorc who is stacking CP in elemental damage, infused trait on a weapon with an elemental enchantment will do you much more dam than even nirn trait. The same could be said for a dps stacking high crit using precise over nirn or sharp.
A resto staff should have charged or defending rather than a more damage trait.
On my main, tank, my 1h axe I use decisive. combine that with heroic strike, akaviri dragon set and low 1h ult I get my ult every 30 secs-1min.

Just use what is situational or that compliments your build and gear.

So if a solo player was utilizing say a Maelstrom lightning staff on their back bar, would they still utilize Nirnhoned? Mind you that this is for PvE circumstances. Or would they aim for an infused lightning staff for example? Do you see why I’m so confused now?

For PvE mag sorc we were running nirnhoned lightning back, infused lightning front, but to be honest I have no idea why. I barely PvE. The math is out there somewhere from one of the math geniuses around here.

This setup has allowed me to reliably break 30k dps on target dummy.

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

Blanco wrote: »

Sharpened is not the powerhouse it once was at all, but still performs fine in PvP and in some specific cases is even BiS.

From what I have gathered, it isn't used much in PvE anymore.

To answer your question, there is no universal best weapon trait anymore (something the merits of which can be debated).

Most of the time it's nirnhoned. It might be infused or sharpened depending on the circumstance.

Unless the values have changed, infused is the best trait in most PvE scenarios.

That is fascinating, I will have to read through that. So why were so many people running nirned on back ?

Ch4mpTW

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

Blanco wrote: »

Sharpened is not the powerhouse it once was at all, but still performs fine in PvP and in some specific cases is even BiS.

From what I have gathered, it isn't used much in PvE anymore.

To answer your question, there is no universal best weapon trait anymore (something the merits of which can be debated).

Most of the time it's nirnhoned. It might be infused or sharpened depending on the circumstance.

Unless the values have changed, infused is the best trait in most PvE scenarios.

Ah ha! This is what I was looking for. Some hard information to examine. Thank you very much for linking that thread. I’d give you 50 insightfuls, if I could.

Chronicburn

So I've heard the great news ...

We will soon be able to spend weeks or months farming mats to change our sets to other traits ...

Which ZOS WILL THEN NERF INTO CRAP ... making us all wonder why we spent the time doing that ...

Just saying, wait a couple months and then come tell me how right I was

Stinkyremy

Ch4mpTW wrote: »

Stinkyremy wrote: »

To my knowledge Nirnhoned is the go to trait now after it's buff and defending/sharpened nerfs.
Of course that is craftable only though.

Really weapon traits are situational, use your intelligence not the meta.
For example, if you are a mag sorc who is stacking CP in elemental damage, infused trait on a weapon with an elemental enchantment will do you much more dam than even nirn trait. The same could be said for a dps stacking high crit using precise over nirn or sharp.
A resto staff should have charged or defending rather than a more damage trait.
On my main, tank, my 1h axe I use decisive. combine that with heroic strike, akaviri dragon set and low 1h ult I get my ult every 30 secs-1min.

Just use what is situational or that compliments your build and gear.

So if a solo player was utilizing say a Maelstrom lightning staff on their back bar, would they still utilize Nirnhoned? Mind you that this is for PvE circumstances. Or would they aim for an infused lightning staff for example? Do you see why I’m so confused now?

Again, it is situational.
if you are using an infused flame staff with a flame enchantment against an frost atro you are gonna be doing mega dps, but using an infused frost staff with a frost staff enchant against a frost atro wont be doing as much dps as even sharpened.
The same could be said against PvP but this depends on the opponents cp, which anyone with sense would have quite a lot in elemental defence.
So nirn will beat infused 99% of the time.
I dont even see why anyone would want to use sharpened in PvP anyway as most people would have at least 15k resistances and sharpened is like 2.5k legendary weapon so it virtually negates it's uses (without debuffs).

IMO nirn is best overall, infused is best if you are running a specific enchantment elemental/poison/disease/oblivion ect and sharpened is just meh. Everything else is situational too.
No point in a healer or tank running nirn weps.

I'm not into the mathematics of meta though, I just use common sense.

Tannus15

Sharpened is still good, but the way CP works gimps it a bit.
Sharpened gives about the same damage increase as precise, but the fact that I can't get crit chance from CP and the thief mundas was over nerfed makes it a poor choice.

I can now bump up my pen with the Lover and CP, increase my crit with precise and be approaching full penetration with as much crit as I can find.

If I use sharpened I get back maybe 25 CP, but there is nothing I can spend them on to increase my crit chance. I can increase my crit damage, but without increasing the chance it's a smaller improvement.

Same deal with infused. On a stamina build it directly increases your poison enchantment damage and makes it proc more often in a long fight. You can't improve this through CP or Mundas, so it's a very strong trait now.

Betsararie

Stinkyremy wrote: »

Ch4mpTW wrote: »

Stinkyremy wrote: »

To my knowledge Nirnhoned is the go to trait now after it's buff and defending/sharpened nerfs.
Of course that is craftable only though.

Really weapon traits are situational, use your intelligence not the meta.
For example, if you are a mag sorc who is stacking CP in elemental damage, infused trait on a weapon with an elemental enchantment will do you much more dam than even nirn trait. The same could be said for a dps stacking high crit using precise over nirn or sharp.
A resto staff should have charged or defending rather than a more damage trait.
On my main, tank, my 1h axe I use decisive. combine that with heroic strike, akaviri dragon set and low 1h ult I get my ult every 30 secs-1min.

Just use what is situational or that compliments your build and gear.

So if a solo player was utilizing say a Maelstrom lightning staff on their back bar, would they still utilize Nirnhoned? Mind you that this is for PvE circumstances. Or would they aim for an infused lightning staff for example? Do you see why I’m so confused now?

Again, it is situational.
if you are using an infused flame staff with a flame enchantment against an frost atro you are gonna be doing mega dps, but using an infused frost staff with a frost staff enchant against a frost atro wont be doing as much dps as even sharpened.
The same could be said against PvP but this depends on the opponents cp, which anyone with sense would have quite a lot in elemental defence.
So nirn will beat infused 99% of the time.
I dont even see why anyone would want to use sharpened in PvP anyway as most people would have at least 15k resistances and sharpened is like 2.5k legendary weapon so it virtually negates it's uses (without debuffs).

IMO nirn is best overall, infused is best if you are running a specific enchantment elemental/poison/disease/oblivion ect and sharpened is just meh. Everything else is situational too.
No point in a healer or tank running nirn weps.

I'm not into the mathematics of meta though, I just use common sense.

Sharp is fine in PvP if you're not running a crafted set, I wasn't when the patch first hit so I kept with sharpened until I switched to my nirn weapon and it was fine.

Nirn is undoubtedly better, though, as has been previously stated.

Ch4mpTW

Stinkyremy wrote: »

Ch4mpTW wrote: »

Stinkyremy wrote: »

To my knowledge Nirnhoned is the go to trait now after it's buff and defending/sharpened nerfs.
Of course that is craftable only though.

Really weapon traits are situational, use your intelligence not the meta.
For example, if you are a mag sorc who is stacking CP in elemental damage, infused trait on a weapon with an elemental enchantment will do you much more dam than even nirn trait. The same could be said for a dps stacking high crit using precise over nirn or sharp.
A resto staff should have charged or defending rather than a more damage trait.
On my main, tank, my 1h axe I use decisive. combine that with heroic strike, akaviri dragon set and low 1h ult I get my ult every 30 secs-1min.

Just use what is situational or that compliments your build and gear.

So if a solo player was utilizing say a Maelstrom lightning staff on their back bar, would they still utilize Nirnhoned? Mind you that this is for PvE circumstances. Or would they aim for an infused lightning staff for example? Do you see why I’m so confused now?

Again, it is situational.
if you are using an infused flame staff with a flame enchantment against an frost atro you are gonna be doing mega dps, but using an infused frost staff with a frost staff enchant against a frost atro wont be doing as much dps as even sharpened.
The same could be said against PvP but this depends on the opponents cp, which anyone with sense would have quite a lot in elemental defence.
So nirn will beat infused 99% of the time.
I dont even see why anyone would want to use sharpened in PvP anyway as most people would have at least 15k resistances and sharpened is like 2.5k legendary weapon so it virtually negates it's uses (without debuffs).

IMO nirn is best overall, infused is best if you are running a specific enchantment elemental/poison/disease/oblivion ect and sharpened is just meh. Everything else is situational too.
No point in a healer or tank running nirn weps.

I'm not into the mathematics of meta though, I just use common sense.

@Stinkyremy Wait, so ESO is on some Pokémon logic now (e.g. flame damage applies extra damage to frost enemies)? I knew that this was the case (to a degree) all along (such as lightning damage being strong against Daedric enemies), but now it’s being factored more so into things with the approaching changes?

Sixty5

Honestly weapon traits are just personal preference or what fits best in with the build you are running.

I tend to think of it in these sort of terms
Nirnhoned will boost your damage against all targets, regardless of defense and will boost your heals
Precise will boost your damage against everything without shields, but gets mitigated by Impen, and will also boost heals
Infused will boost your damage against all targets, but only works single target
Sharpened will boost your damage against everything without shields, but will also boost your damage with proc sets

Personally for me in PVP I like to have some sort of counter against shield stacking, so an Infused front bar with an oblivion damage glyph is the way to go.

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO

Ch4mpTW wrote: »

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

Blanco wrote: »

Sharpened is not the powerhouse it once was at all, but still performs fine in PvP and in some specific cases is even BiS.

From what I have gathered, it isn't used much in PvE anymore.

To answer your question, there is no universal best weapon trait anymore (something the merits of which can be debated).

Most of the time it's nirnhoned. It might be infused or sharpened depending on the circumstance.

Unless the values have changed, infused is the best trait in most PvE scenarios.

Ah ha! This is what I was looking for. Some hard information to examine. Thank you very much for linking that thread. I’d give you 50 insightfuls, if I could.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/359916/mundus-trait-and-cp-optimisation-for-pve-damage-dealers/p1

Really people need to read this and read it well. The most important part is In a pve dps senario, the difference between the worse and the best is only 6%. So if you are doing crap DPS, it is most likely YOU are the problem. Not the gear traits you have.

Stinkyremy

Ch4mpTW wrote: »

Stinkyremy wrote: »

Ch4mpTW wrote: »

Stinkyremy wrote: »

To my knowledge Nirnhoned is the go to trait now after it's buff and defending/sharpened nerfs.
Of course that is craftable only though.

Really weapon traits are situational, use your intelligence not the meta.
For example, if you are a mag sorc who is stacking CP in elemental damage, infused trait on a weapon with an elemental enchantment will do you much more dam than even nirn trait. The same could be said for a dps stacking high crit using precise over nirn or sharp.
A resto staff should have charged or defending rather than a more damage trait.
On my main, tank, my 1h axe I use decisive. combine that with heroic strike, akaviri dragon set and low 1h ult I get my ult every 30 secs-1min.

Just use what is situational or that compliments your build and gear.

So if a solo player was utilizing say a Maelstrom lightning staff on their back bar, would they still utilize Nirnhoned? Mind you that this is for PvE circumstances. Or would they aim for an infused lightning staff for example? Do you see why I’m so confused now?

Again, it is situational.
if you are using an infused flame staff with a flame enchantment against an frost atro you are gonna be doing mega dps, but using an infused frost staff with a frost staff enchant against a frost atro wont be doing as much dps as even sharpened.
The same could be said against PvP but this depends on the opponents cp, which anyone with sense would have quite a lot in elemental defence.
So nirn will beat infused 99% of the time.
I dont even see why anyone would want to use sharpened in PvP anyway as most people would have at least 15k resistances and sharpened is like 2.5k legendary weapon so it virtually negates it's uses (without debuffs).

IMO nirn is best overall, infused is best if you are running a specific enchantment elemental/poison/disease/oblivion ect and sharpened is just meh. Everything else is situational too.
No point in a healer or tank running nirn weps.

I'm not into the mathematics of meta though, I just use common sense.

@Stinkyremy Wait, so ESO is on some Pokémon logic now (e.g. flame damage applies extra damage to frost enemies)? I knew that this was the case (to a degree) all along (such as lightning damage being strong against Daedric enemies), but now it’s being factored more so into things with the approaching changes?

Of course each enemy has resistances, weaknesses, immunities ect.
hitting a storm atro with lightening will say "target is immune" ect

Masel

Most people in PvE put at least 2k worth of spell penetration into spell erosion /piercing. So instead, you might as well just use a sharpened weapon and gain the damage back by investing the free cp points into elfborn/elemental expert/Master at arms.

So sharpened is still totally fine to use.

Tasear

Depends on build

zaria

Masel92 wrote: »

Most people in PvE put at least 2k worth of spell penetration into spell erosion /piercing. So instead, you might as well just use a sharpened weapon and gain the damage back by investing the free cp points into elfborn/elemental expert/Master at arms.

So sharpened is still totally fine to use.

Looks like sharpened is very nice if low cp and want to use cp other places

NyassaV

Nirn/Sharp on backbar and infused on frontbar (offhand sharp if DW)

JerzeeDevil

Stinkyremy wrote: »

To my knowledge Nirnhoned is the go to trait now after it's buff and defending/sharpened nerfs.
Of course that is craftable only though.

Really weapon traits are situational, use your intelligence not the meta.
For example, if you are a mag sorc who is stacking CP in elemental damage, infused trait on a weapon with an elemental enchantment will do you much more dam than even nirn trait. The same could be said for a dps stacking high crit using precise over nirn or sharp.
A resto staff should have charged or defending rather than a more damage trait.
On my main, tank, my 1h axe I use decisive. combine that with heroic strike, akaviri dragon set and low 1h ult I get my ult every 30 secs-1min.

Just use what is situational or that compliments your build and gear.

Lots of PvP reward sets drop in Nirnhoned. Weapons AND Armor.

essi2

How much value-add Sharpened gives you depends entirely on what your Pen is before Sharpened, what other gear you have and what CP points you have invested.

Other traits :cough: Infused, is very popular in PvE atm though.

Asardes

Sharpened is not useless, especially if it's off-hand and you are not yet at penetration cap. It will give you a damage increase of 2.75% in PvE (mobs have 50K resistance cap cap) and 2.08% in PvP (players have 66K resistance cap) for 1H weapon and double for 2H weapons unless you have reached the penetration cap, which is hard unless stacking Lover mundus and multiple debuffs and set bonuses, with a lot of CP in penetration or you are attacking overland mobs that only have 9.1K resistance; the ones in instanced group content have 18.2K and those in vMA vary, most have around 12K. Players wearing 5L/1M/1H armor will still have around 9.2K physical resistance and 11K spell resistance, not considering class and race passives. A caveat is that in PvP shields cannot be pierced.

A ninrhoned main hand weapon will give you around 200 extra spell and weapon damage, 225 with minor/major sorcery/brutality (offhand matters very little); a 2H one will give you 236 spell and weapon damage, or 295 buffed. Note that here various other class and skill line passives also apply, for example on a stamina Templar slotting trap and flawless dawnbreaker on the front bar nirnhoned would amount to 284 for a main hand dagger. If he already has 4.8K weapon damage fully buffed and 36K stamina will have around 8.3K "weapon power". Thus the nirnhoned main hand dagger will add 3.4% damage, or even better, let's say 3.6% since light and heavy attacks scale off weapon damage more than maximum stamina. So nirnhoned main hand will increase damage by 3.4%. Running sharpened on main hand, or as a single weapon doesn't make much sense in PvE if nirnhoned is avalilable (with the coming re-traits it will be for every set). In PvP the gap between sharp and nirnhoned opens even further, since players have a higher resistance cap and some run shields, which cannot be pierced, but can be downed faster with higher weapon and spell damage.

Precise adds 3.5% critical chance for every 1H weapon and 7% for a 2H weapon. Critical hits do 1.5x base skill damage by default. If a player puts 56 CP in precise strikes or elfborn it will have another 20%, with 66 CP, this reaches 22%. The latter will be the maximum, since you can only gain 3% more from spending the other 34 CP in that star. So 1.70-1.72 is the typical value. Over a longer fight a precise dagger will add between 2.45-2.52% DPS based solely on CP. But Templar and NB have another 10% bonus from Piercing Spear and Hemorrhage passives respectively. Also running trap gives another 10%. You can have 100% up time of those in PvE. So the bonus is really between 1.80-1.92, meaning a 2.8-3.22% bonus from precise; and it gets much better within a well coordinated group that can run debuffs almost to the resistance cap and have 80% or better major force uptime from war horn - that would add another 12% (15%*80%), bringing the multiplier to 1.92-2.04 and the precise bonus to 3.22-3.64%. Note that the lower end is quite close to 1H sharpened. Non-CP capped players may even get better results with sharpened since they have less CP to spend on penetration and critical bonuses, especially if they are not Templar or NB and are not running a trial with a good guild. Precise is less valuable in PvP since players are wearing full impenetrable 1.8K critical resistance from 7 pieces of impenetrable armor will give around 27.5% critical hit mitigation since the base for critical resistance is 6.6K. That means a player with 56 points in critical strikes or elfborn, hitting a player in full impenetrable will only do 0.70*(1-27.5%) = 0.51 bonus damage, or 1.51 overall. On non-CP is 0.36, or 1.36 overall. So sharp will outperform precise in PvP.

Infused is much harder to calculate since the proc depends on weaving and rotation. Especially on 2W setups the enchants are procced depending on which weapons hits the target - the main hand hits more often so infused is better there. In practice Infused/Nirnhoned main hand or 2H weapon and Precise/Sharp off hand will probably give results within 2% of each other in PvE.