Penetration, Sharpened, etc.

FrancisCrawford

I need to make or transmute some staves, so it's time to consider traits again. After most patches, the story is:

• Sharpened is best ...
• ... unless that makes you over-penetrate.

So where do we stand today?

Details of my situation include:

• My hierarchy of interests is probably: Tough dungeons > casual trials > VMA.
• There are a lot of appealing stars in blue, all the more because I like Elfborn (I'm making some Mechanical Acuity sets, and I heal a lot).
• In some cases I have a strong priority for Mundus stone. In other cases The Lover would be fine if that's the right choice.
• I'm looking to equip a magblade and some magicka sorcerers.

Also, I'm assuming that the right number of infused staves per build is one (for a weapon power glyph). Does that sound correct? I

Sixty5

As a DPS you are best going for Nirn or Infused on your main staff, depending on what you are playing and personal preference.

Back bar is pretty much the same, though infused is a bit more weighted there, given the value of a weapon damage glyph.

As for healing, Resto staff you can choose from infused, defending, powered or nirnhoned, and a number of higher end healers like a charged lightning staff back bar.

If you are playing casually, sharpened is honestly fine, as it doesn't matter if you are pulling 30k or 35k dps, so having optimal trait/cp setup is irrelevant.

Honestly though, when in doubt, just go Nirnhoned.

FrancisCrawford

Sixty5 wrote: »

As a DPS you are best going for Nirn or Infused on your main staff, depending on what you are playing and personal preference.

Back bar is pretty much the same, though infused is a bit more weighted there, given the value of a weapon damage glyph.

As for healing, Resto staff you can choose from infused, defending, powered or nirnhoned, and a number of higher end healers like a charged lightning staff back bar.

If you are playing casually, sharpened is honestly fine, as it doesn't matter if you are pulling 30k or 35k dps, so having optimal trait/cp setup is irrelevant.

Honestly though, when in doubt, just go Nirnhoned.

Why is nirnhorned ahead of sharpened? Would that be true even for dual pet sorcerers?

And what glyphs would you like to Infuse beyond weapon damage ones?

Sixty5

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

Sixty5 wrote: »

As a DPS you are best going for Nirn or Infused on your main staff, depending on what you are playing and personal preference.

Back bar is pretty much the same, though infused is a bit more weighted there, given the value of a weapon damage glyph.

As for healing, Resto staff you can choose from infused, defending, powered or nirnhoned, and a number of higher end healers like a charged lightning staff back bar.

If you are playing casually, sharpened is honestly fine, as it doesn't matter if you are pulling 30k or 35k dps, so having optimal trait/cp setup is irrelevant.

Honestly though, when in doubt, just go Nirnhoned.

Why is nirnhorned ahead of sharpened? Would that be true even for dual pet sorcerers?

And what glyphs would you like to Infuse beyond weapon damage ones?

Sharpened has been lowered to 2500-ish penetration, and with penetration being pretty easy to get from the CP system, you can pretty easily hit pen cap without it, meaning that you can run a trait that boosts your overall damage.

Infused with a Shock enchant on a Sorc is rather strong, likewise for a DK with a flame enchant, as you basically get double boosts to the elemental glyph.
Nirnhoned back bar is better when you are casting single target DOT's as these keep the stats of the bar they were cast on.

I'd probably go with Infused on a double pet sorc, since pets don't inherit most of the stats that weapons give, and being that they are most of your damage, you are probably going to get the most bang for your buck out of infused weapons (Shock front bar, Weapon damage/Crusher back bar)

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO

Why is nirnhorned ahead of sharpened?

because it is always useful.

Would that be true even for dual pet sorcerers?

yes

And what glyphs would you like to Infuse beyond weapon damage ones?

on fire enchant and one lightning. basically you want the same enchant on your front bar that your wall of elements is, ie, if your wall is lightning you want a lightning glyph on your front bar and if your wall is fire, you want a fire enchant on your font bar.

weapon damage glyphs need to be activated by light or heavy attacks, that is why i don't use them, i just put the other damage glyph(fire or lighting) of my front bar on my back bar. that way the enchant goes off just from wall.

as for infused vs nirn on the back bar, it is entirely up to how long you stay on your back bar.

FrancisCrawford

Sixty5 wrote: »

Sharpened has been lowered to 2500-ish penetration, and with penetration being pretty easy to get from the CP system, you can pretty easily hit pen cap without it, meaning that you can run a trait that boosts your overall damage.

Infused with a Shock enchant on a Sorc is rather strong, likewise for a DK with a flame enchant, as you basically get double boosts to the elemental glyph.
Nirnhoned back bar is better when you are casting single target DOT's as these keep the stats of the bar they were cast on.

I'd probably go with Infused on a double pet sorc, since pets don't inherit most of the stats that weapons give, and being that they are most of your damage, you are probably going to get the most bang for your buck out of infused weapons (Shock front bar, Weapon damage/Crusher back bar)

Light armor wearers get 4884 penetration from the armor passive. Destro staves get to take 10% off the top of spell resistance, but only for destro damage (which for me is usually Blockade and basic attacks). Major Breach is stripping 5280 spell resistance. What else is stripping resistance -- the Spell Erosion CP?

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

Sixty5 wrote: »

Sharpened has been lowered to 2500-ish penetration, and with penetration being pretty easy to get from the CP system, you can pretty easily hit pen cap without it, meaning that you can run a trait that boosts your overall damage.

Infused with a Shock enchant on a Sorc is rather strong, likewise for a DK with a flame enchant, as you basically get double boosts to the elemental glyph.
Nirnhoned back bar is better when you are casting single target DOT's as these keep the stats of the bar they were cast on.

I'd probably go with Infused on a double pet sorc, since pets don't inherit most of the stats that weapons give, and being that they are most of your damage, you are probably going to get the most bang for your buck out of infused weapons (Shock front bar, Weapon damage/Crusher back bar)

Light armor wearers get 4884 penetration from the armor passive. Destro staves get to take 10% off the top of spell resistance, but only for destro damage (which for me is usually Blockade and basic attacks). Major Breach is stripping 5280 spell resistance. What else is stripping resistance -- the Spell Erosion CP?

Spell Penetration:

target debuffs

Infused Crusher- 2107

Infused Crusher with Torug- 2740

Roar of Alkosh- 3010

Major Breach- 5280

Minor Breach- 1320

self only buffs

Light Armor Passive- 4884

Spinners set- 3450

Sharpened 2h- 2752

CP's: Variable, depending of sets and debuffs in use.


also the destro 10% gets taken off after all the debuffs on the target just like maces, ie crusher, major and minor breach, alkosh, so it is really not worth mentioning. the absolute most it could be is 1810 pen but most of the time you will have at least Major Breach on the target, which bring it down to 1282. then it just gets worse from there.

Gothren

Sixty5 wrote: »

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

Sixty5 wrote: »

As a DPS you are best going for Nirn or Infused on your main staff, depending on what you are playing and personal preference.

Back bar is pretty much the same, though infused is a bit more weighted there, given the value of a weapon damage glyph.

As for healing, Resto staff you can choose from infused, defending, powered or nirnhoned, and a number of higher end healers like a charged lightning staff back bar.

If you are playing casually, sharpened is honestly fine, as it doesn't matter if you are pulling 30k or 35k dps, so having optimal trait/cp setup is irrelevant.

Honestly though, when in doubt, just go Nirnhoned.

Why is nirnhorned ahead of sharpened? Would that be true even for dual pet sorcerers?

And what glyphs would you like to Infuse beyond weapon damage ones?

Sharpened has been lowered to 2500-ish penetration, and with penetration being pretty easy to get from the CP system, you can pretty easily hit pen cap without it, meaning that you can run a trait that boosts your overall damage.

Infused with a Shock enchant on a Sorc is rather strong, likewise for a DK with a flame enchant, as you basically get double boosts to the elemental glyph.
Nirnhoned back bar is better when you are casting single target DOT's as these keep the stats of the bar they were cast on.

I'd probably go with Infused on a double pet sorc, since pets don't inherit most of the stats that weapons give, and being that they are most of your damage, you are probably going to get the most bang for your buck out of infused weapons (Shock front bar, Weapon damage/Crusher back bar)

thats not true. sharpened works really well with volatile famiilar and a 2 set monster helm pet mask. they inherit the penetration.

FrancisCrawford

One thing you guys are helping me realize is that one needs to think carefully about one's rotation, especially for the two questions:

• Which staff influences what fraction of the DPS?
• What will glyph proc rates be with and without Infused?

Sixty5

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

One thing you guys are helping me realize is that one needs to think carefully about one's rotation, especially for the two questions:

• Which staff influences what fraction of the DPS?
• What will glyph proc rates be with and without Infused?

The staves part heavily depends on your rotation and what class you are playing.
On a pet sorc, your back bar staff contributes very little, but you are still going to want it gold.

As far as enchants go, buffs/debuffs have a 10 second cooldown, so gold infused is going to put your weapon damage enchant on a 6 second cooldown.

Actual damage enchants such as fire or frost have a base cooldown of 4 seconds, meaning that infused will drop that to a 2.4 second cooldown.

davey1107

Why (and when) nirn currently beats sharp

Penetration helps you push through an enemy’s armor. If an enemy has 10k armor and you have 10k penetration, technically you’re ignoring all of their armor and your attack is slipping right through. (This is a simplification, but close enough). There are cases where penetration isn’t helpful. For example, the portion of an attack hitting a damage shield. Or heals. So if you have huge penetration and hit a boss with a ward, the attack can kinda go ftttzt.

Nirn increases the weapons output at the start of the formula. It hits armor harder, hits the enemy harder, hits shields harder, and makes your heals bigger.

There’s some hypothetical number where a certain amount of sharpened will outperform the buff from nirnhoned. I don’t know what the exact break even point is, but consensus is that sharp USED to overperform, but when it was reduced nirn became better.

Izaki

On Magicka builds, Infused on front bar and back bar is BiS.

The glyphs depend on the class you're playing. On a Mag Sorc you wanna go with the Shock glyph on the front bar and Berserker on the back bar. On everything else, you wanna go with Fire glyph on front and Berserker back bar. If your Sorc is a Dunmer (like mine, because my inner RPer made me do this), you could go with a Fire glyph on the Sorc as well.

Sharpened by itself will be only slightly stronger than Nirnhoned, but since you can get penetration through a lot of different ways (Major Breech + Lover + Light Armor already nets you about 14k, a Crusher enchant on top from the tank and about 40 points into Erosion and you're gucci), Nirnhoned is just better overall since it buffs your Light and Heavy attacks in a much more efficient way than Sharpened. But Infused Berserker glyph with a high uptime + the 30% stronger direct damage enchant with 50% shorter cooldown will out-DPS Nirnhoned anyway. So yeah. On magicka, its Infused.

FrancisCrawford

Sixty5 wrote: »

[

Actual damage enchants such as fire or frost have a base cooldown of 4 seconds, meaning that infused will drop that to a 2.4 second cooldown.

Thanks! I thought it was 5 seconds.