Is there a penetration cap?

leothedino

I took a break from the game back before Xmas, and when I came back weapons are now all Infused/Nirnhoned. Was there a nerf to the penetration stat? How does it work now? Is there a soft/hard cap, if so, how much?

Liofa

No penetration cap . Sharpened got nerfed pretty hard while Nirnhorned and Infused got buffed a lot . That's all .

Runefang

Her sternum?

Jokes aside the cap is actually 18.2k penetration, anything more is a waste. Sharpened got nerfed so now people rely on other sources of penetration:
Infused torug's crusher
Alkosh
Night mother's gaze
Sunderflame
Light armor passive
Breach/Fracture
Blue CP

boombazookajd

I don't know what it is but I've seen several threads referring to a soft cap for penetration.

ofSunhold

I would ask @Gilliamtherogue ... or his YT channel, anyway.

I know overpenetration is a concern for people who do trials, so there's a ceiling there. I don't do trials, so I don't worry about it much.

Morgul667

For PVE 18k as mentined above

For PVP no limit on resistance so no limit on penetration, depends on your opponent but it's not rewarding to build toward penetration only

wow, this is hard to write without making any kind of pun

Lynx7386

Trials bosses have 18k resistances (18.2k to be specific), but you dont actually want that much penetration.

Major fracture/breach will drop that by almost 5280, minor fracture/breach by another 1320. That puts even the toughest trials bosses at 11,600 assuming those debuffs are being applied (which they should be). Then add in sunderflame and night mother's set debuffs, 2580 for night mother and 3440 for sunderflame, dropping the boss down to 5,580 resistances.

So as long as your trial group is decently organized and you have someone bringing these sets and debuffs (which any vet trial group should), you only need a max of 5580 penetration to hit the "cap". Past that amount you're wasting stats on something that isnt giving you any more damage potential.

Without even putting 100 points into the champion passives, you can easily get 2-3k penetration there. If you use the spriggan or spinner sets, they both give 3450 penetration (spell or physical), so you're already past the effective cap. Twice fanged serpent at 5 stacks gives 4300 penetration, nearly putting you at the cap without need for many champion points into penetration (for stamina builds).

Light armor passives already give you 4884 spell penetration, so magicka characters can completely forgoe a penetration set in a proper trials group. Destruction staff spells and attacks also ignore 10% of an enemy's resistances, which covers that last little bit at least for those abilities.


So really just figure out what debuffs you're working with and then build accordingly.

All overland bosses and mobs have 9100 resistances.
All dungeon and trials bosses and mobs have 18200 resistances.

Gilliamtherogue

Lynx7386 wrote: »

All overland bosses and mobs have 9100 resistances.
All dungeon and trials bosses and mobs have 18200 resistances.

Don't forget that mobs that are resistant to some damage types gain an extra 300 Resistance, so in some cases the cap is 18500.

Runefang

Lynx7386 wrote: »

Trials bosses have 18k resistances (18.2k to be specific), but you dont actually want that much penetration.

Major fracture/breach will drop that by almost 5280, minor fracture/breach by another 1320. That puts even the toughest trials bosses at 11,600 assuming those debuffs are being applied (which they should be). Then add in sunderflame and night mother's set debuffs, 2580 for night mother and 3440 for sunderflame, dropping the boss down to 5,580 resistances.

So as long as your trial group is decently organized and you have someone bringing these sets and debuffs (which any vet trial group should), you only need a max of 5580 penetration to hit the "cap". Past that amount you're wasting stats on something that isnt giving you any more damage potential.

Without even putting 100 points into the champion passives, you can easily get 2-3k penetration there. If you use the spriggan or spinner sets, they both give 3450 penetration (spell or physical), so you're already past the effective cap. Twice fanged serpent at 5 stacks gives 4300 penetration, nearly putting you at the cap without need for many champion points into penetration (for stamina builds).

Light armor passives already give you 4884 spell penetration, so magicka characters can completely forgoe a penetration set in a proper trials group. Destruction staff spells and attacks also ignore 10% of an enemy's resistances, which covers that last little bit at least for those abilities.


So really just figure out what debuffs you're working with and then build accordingly.

All overland bosses and mobs have 9100 resistances.
All dungeon and trials bosses and mobs have 18200 resistances.

Just remember that Night Mother's and Sunderflame only debuff physical not spell resistance. But there is also an infused crusher enchant and Alkosh to consider.

In either case its sound advice, never wear a pen set to a trial unless you have a great reason. Some CP plus all the debuffs is sufficient.

It can be ok to be slightly over penetrating in an optimal scenario though especially if you're in a progression group. People die/aren't great at keeping up the debuffs so if you're all learning the vet trial don't expect perfection.

Ragnarock41

Morgul667 wrote: »

For PVE 18k as mentined above

For PVP no limit on resistance so no limit on penetration, depends on your opponent but it's not rewarding to build toward penetration only

wow, this is hard to write without making any kind of pun

high penetration in PvP is a big big waste most of the times.

Asardes

For mobs & bosses in veteran trials & dungeons it's 18.2K, and 18.5K if they are resistant to that damage type. That is considered against a maximum resistance cap of 50K so they get 36.4% and 37% mitigation respectively from incoming damage, not considering any penetration. When adding penetration you actually need to substract and then divide the values to find out how much % damage you gain. If you get more penetration than those values, then you waste damage potential. So it's important not to spec too much in penetration, for example using sharp weapons and the Lover mundus if you are in a good group that provides debuffs (Sunderflame, Night Mother's Gaze, Alkosh, Torug w crusher enchant), that, when stacked with your own penetration, surpass that value. When running dungeons usually you don't have all of those available, so you can't over-penetrate, and thus waste damage potential. Also note that overland mobs only have half resistance, and that holds true for most mobs in vMA, so you only need about 9.1K to completely overcome their resistance.

leothedino

Lynx7386 wrote: »

Trials bosses have 18k resistances (18.2k to be specific), but you dont actually want that much penetration.

Major fracture/breach will drop that by almost 5280, minor fracture/breach by another 1320. That puts even the toughest trials bosses at 11,600 assuming those debuffs are being applied (which they should be). Then add in sunderflame and night mother's set debuffs, 2580 for night mother and 3440 for sunderflame, dropping the boss down to 5,580 resistances.

So as long as your trial group is decently organized and you have someone bringing these sets and debuffs (which any vet trial group should), you only need a max of 5580 penetration to hit the "cap". Past that amount you're wasting stats on something that isnt giving you any more damage potential.

Without even putting 100 points into the champion passives, you can easily get 2-3k penetration there. If you use the spriggan or spinner sets, they both give 3450 penetration (spell or physical), so you're already past the effective cap. Twice fanged serpent at 5 stacks gives 4300 penetration, nearly putting you at the cap without need for many champion points into penetration (for stamina builds).

Light armor passives already give you 4884 spell penetration, so magicka characters can completely forgoe a penetration set in a proper trials group. Destruction staff spells and attacks also ignore 10% of an enemy's resistances, which covers that last little bit at least for those abilities.


So really just figure out what debuffs you're working with and then build accordingly.

All overland bosses and mobs have 9100 resistances.
All dungeon and trials bosses and mobs have 18200 resistances.

Very informative, thank you. Just what I was looking for!

Datolite

Ragnarock41 wrote: »

Morgul667 wrote: »

For PVE 18k as mentined above

For PVP no limit on resistance so no limit on penetration, depends on your opponent but it's not rewarding to build toward penetration only

wow, this is hard to write without making any kind of pun

high penetration in PvP is a big big waste most of the times.

Would you say 5000 penetration is too high?

Also, a sort of unrelated question: would a nirnhoned trait on a staff increase the spell damage for skills on that bar?

Brrrofski

In pve, it's 18k.

In PvP, it's whatever the resistances of who you're fighting it. Keep in mind shields negate penetration and pen doesn't buff straight healing (ones based on % of damage given will be buffed) so I don't invest too much.

Asardes

Also in PvP the problem of penetration is more complex, for two reasons:
1) Since players are considered to be VR16/CP160 (practically level 66), as opposed to NPCs, which are level 50, their mitigation is considered against a cap of 66K, as opposed to 55K. Thus a player having 18.2K resistance will have a mitigation of 27.6%, as opposed to a mob which will have 36.4%.
2) Virtually all magicka players use one or more shields, and penetration is not counted against those; only the overflow damage from your skills will be considered against penetration.
Thus in PvP it is more advantageous to invest in other stats, such as weapon/spell damage and maximum stamina/magicka, which increase damage both against shielded and unshielded enemies. Concerning stamina, bleed damage is classified as physical unresistable damage, and thus is not mitigated by resistances but scales with weapon damage and maximum stamina, just like skills.

Neoauspex

Shields drop though, armor doesn't. So penetration is still pretty handy in PvP.

Tasear

Lynx7386 wrote: »

Trials bosses have 18k resistances (18.2k to be specific), but you dont actually want that much penetration.

Major fracture/breach will drop that by almost 5280, minor fracture/breach by another 1320. That puts even the toughest trials bosses at 11,600 assuming those debuffs are being applied (which they should be). Then add in sunderflame and night mother's set debuffs, 2580 for night mother and 3440 for sunderflame, dropping the boss down to 5,580 resistances.

So as long as your trial group is decently organized and you have someone bringing these sets and debuffs (which any vet trial group should), you only need a max of 5580 penetration to hit the "cap". Past that amount you're wasting stats on something that isnt giving you any more damage potential.

Without even putting 100 points into the champion passives, you can easily get 2-3k penetration there. If you use the spriggan or spinner sets, they both give 3450 penetration (spell or physical), so you're already past the effective cap. Twice fanged serpent at 5 stacks gives 4300 penetration, nearly putting you at the cap without need for many champion points into penetration (for stamina builds).

Light armor passives already give you 4884 spell penetration, so magicka characters can completely forgoe a penetration set in a proper trials group. Destruction staff spells and attacks also ignore 10% of an enemy's resistances, which covers that last little bit at least for those abilities.


So really just figure out what debuffs you're working with and then build accordingly.

All overland bosses and mobs have 9100 resistances.
All dungeon and trials bosses and mobs have 18200 resistances.

This means precussor is an overland boss dummy.

Bobby_V_Rockit

Tasear wrote: »

Lynx7386 wrote: »

Trials bosses have 18k resistances (18.2k to be specific), but you dont actually want that much penetration.

Major fracture/breach will drop that by almost 5280, minor fracture/breach by another 1320. That puts even the toughest trials bosses at 11,600 assuming those debuffs are being applied (which they should be). Then add in sunderflame and night mother's set debuffs, 2580 for night mother and 3440 for sunderflame, dropping the boss down to 5,580 resistances.

So as long as your trial group is decently organized and you have someone bringing these sets and debuffs (which any vet trial group should), you only need a max of 5580 penetration to hit the "cap". Past that amount you're wasting stats on something that isnt giving you any more damage potential.

Without even putting 100 points into the champion passives, you can easily get 2-3k penetration there. If you use the spriggan or spinner sets, they both give 3450 penetration (spell or physical), so you're already past the effective cap. Twice fanged serpent at 5 stacks gives 4300 penetration, nearly putting you at the cap without need for many champion points into penetration (for stamina builds).

Light armor passives already give you 4884 spell penetration, so magicka characters can completely forgoe a penetration set in a proper trials group. Destruction staff spells and attacks also ignore 10% of an enemy's resistances, which covers that last little bit at least for those abilities.


So really just figure out what debuffs you're working with and then build accordingly.

All overland bosses and mobs have 9100 resistances.
All dungeon and trials bosses and mobs have 18200 resistances.

This means precussor is an overland boss dummy.

Dont know about that... I’d more say the precursor is an overland single NPC enemy, i cant kill an overland boss in 4 seconds lol.

WuffyCerulei

There's no cap, but in pve, there's such thing as overpenetration.