Nirnhoned vs Sharpened

Ir0nB34r

I know that there have been plenty of topics on this in the past, but I have not seen any recently (using the search tool). So I was wondering if people's thoughts and opinions were still the same after months of updates and changes.

This topic is especially relevant now since we will be able to transmute the Nirnhoned trait onto weapons that we'd normally not be able to get them on. So what trait would be better, within the context of a Magicka DPS (in my case, a Sorc)?

I also had a question about Nirnhoned on Staves and how it relates to spell power. Does having a staff with nirnhoned increase your spell power, not only for the weapon itself, but the abilities cast on that bar?

WrathOfInnos

I believe infused is best in most cases. If you use a weapon and spell damage glyph it will typically give 348 spell damage with 50% uptime, so effectively 174 spell damage. If you use the same glyph with an infused staff it gives 452 spell damage with 100% uptime, so infused adds 278 spell damage.

Nirnhoned is 15% of your weapon's damage, or 1335 in the case of a staff. This works out to 200 spell damage. So 78 spell damage less than infused.

It's a little harder to compare, but even other glyphs usually result in better results with infused than other traits. Sharpened can still be competitive, but only if you are not already reducing the target's resistances to zero.

Edit: Spell power affects most skills cast on that bar if they cost magicka, not just staff light and heavy attacks.

s7732425ub17_ESO

It is very easy for magicka builds to reach the penetration cap without sharpened. You'll hit it in most optimized raid guilds. So everyone has switched to either infused or nirn. I strongly recommend infused because it's much more versatile- you can switch out enchants if you need to switch up gear sets versus having to retrait or make a new weapon. Infused also gives you big burst damage in PVP if you want to play some of that.

Brutusmax1mus

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

I believe infused is best in most cases. If you use a weapon and spell damage glyph it will typically give 348 spell damage with 50% uptime, so effectively 174 spell damage. If you use the same glyph with an infused staff it gives 452 spell damage with 100% uptime, so infused adds 278 spell damage.

Nirnhoned is 15% of your weapon's damage, or 1335 in the case of a staff. This works out to 200 spell damage. So 78 spell damage less than infused.

It's a little harder to compare, but even other glyphs usually result in better results with infused than other traits. Sharpened can still be competitive, but only if you are not already reducing the target's resistances to zero.

Edit: Spell power affects most skills cast on that bar if they cost magicka, not just staff light and heavy attacks.

Its more like nirn is 374 damage (nirn increase plus average glyph damage with uptime) and infused is 452.

But that's average. You're burst will hit harder with the nirn plus 348 damage from the glyph for 5 seconds but less when the glyphs on cooldown.

For pvp, learn to time your glyph proc with your burst and go nirn imo.

For pve keep the sustained damage.

death_pudding

In the current meta, everyone runs infused. The infused trait would buff the vMA enchant while you were on your front bar, if your vMA staff was also infused. That couple with a flame or shock glyph on your front bar would boast some very high numbers. Sharpened isn't necessary anymore because we have other means of achieving the penetration cap with out it. (Alkosh, CP, etc.)

Next patch however, with the enchants on all Master's, Maelstrom, and Asylum weapons being changed to set bonuses rather than enchants, infused will no longer buff the vMA staff. Making nirnhoned BiS for front and back bar next patch.

Nirnhoned will buff your spell damage by about 200 and give higher single target and AOE damage than infused would provide.

Narvuntien

Infused front bar.
Nirnhoned on back bar.

For PVE.

For PVP I still think Sharpend is important, there is still a lot of heavy armor. Also Poisons are nasty so Sharpened, front bar with poisons and Nirnhoned back bar with your Heals.

WrathOfInnos

death_pudding wrote: »

Next patch however, with the enchants on all Master's, Maelstrom, and Asylum weapons being changed to set bonuses rather than enchants, infused will no longer buff the vMA staff. Making nirnhoned BiS for front and back bar next patch.

I disagree with this statement. The ability to add enchants to a VMA, Master, or Asylum weapon makes infused much more valuable. Infused VMA back bar with a weapon/spell power glyph is likely the best possible combination, for rotations that are on the back bar frequently enough to proc it. This frees up the front bar weapon to have any one of various damage glyphs that can proc every 2s with infused.

TheRealPotoroo

s7732425ub17_ESO wrote: »

It is very easy for magicka builds to reach the penetration cap without sharpened. You'll hit it in most optimized raid guilds. So everyone has switched to either infused or nirn. I strongly recommend infused because it's much more versatile- you can switch out enchants if you need to switch up gear sets versus having to retrait or make a new weapon. Infused also gives you big burst damage in PVP if you want to play some of that.

How do you calculate your penetration?

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO

TheRealPotoroo wrote: »

s7732425ub17_ESO wrote: »

It is very easy for magicka builds to reach the penetration cap without sharpened. You'll hit it in most optimized raid guilds. So everyone has switched to either infused or nirn. I strongly recommend infused because it's much more versatile- you can switch out enchants if you need to switch up gear sets versus having to retrait or make a new weapon. Infused also gives you big burst damage in PVP if you want to play some of that.

How do you calculate your penetration?

Pve mobs have at most 18200, so

Base -100

Light armor-4884

Pierce armor- 5280

Sharp-

DeHei

You dont need much maths to know what is better.

- Krit traits aren´t useful in PvP because of impen, what reduce the kritdamage
- kritdamage is a possibility to increase your kritdamage as higher as a common impenetrable build with 7 impen parts reduce... but you need high krit rating to make this successful and need to ignore some stats, which you maybe need too...
- penetration with sharpened is fine, but does not work on shieldstackers and doesnt increase your healingabilites. On the other hand just with sharpened you are able to increase the damage of proccsets! This is good to know..
- nirnhoned increase damage, heals and there isnt an argument against. For PvP its just logically to use this trait!
- Infused can be useful for special builds like an oblivion build or on a permafrost-/rootbuild with warden, but this isnt the best choose for common builds.
- charged is very tricky, but maybe on a statuseffectbuild with forcepulse this can be the best option for PvP too. As soloplayer in PvE this can sometimes the best trait, so you need to test it in PvP. I really like this for example on my magicka warden.

WrathOfInnos

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

TheRealPotoroo wrote: »

s7732425ub17_ESO wrote: »

It is very easy for magicka builds to reach the penetration cap without sharpened. You'll hit it in most optimized raid guilds. So everyone has switched to either infused or nirn. I strongly recommend infused because it's much more versatile- you can switch out enchants if you need to switch up gear sets versus having to retrait or make a new weapon. Infused also gives you big burst damage in PVP if you want to play some of that.

How do you calculate your penetration?

Pve mobs have at most 18200, so

Base -100

Light armor-4884

Pierce armor- 5280

Sharp-

Also:

Power of the Light - 1320 (Templar skills)

Alkosh Set - 3010

Crusher Glyph - 1622

Infused Crusher - 2109

Torugs Pact Infused Crusher - 2741

Spinner Set - 3450

Flame Blossom Set - 1487

Lover Mundus - 2752 to 4197 (0 to 7 divines)

Champion Points - Up to 5280

Sharpened Weapon - 2752

It is easy to get to 18200 without sharpened weapons.