Nirhoned Versus Sharpened?

Tonestar34

Which is better do you think? I always thought surely you can not go past sharpened... But then I read somewhere someone like sharpened better when it comes to bows.

VaranisArano

It depends more of whether or not you need penetration for the content you're running. So in a group where you expect to reach max penetration, nirnhoned would be better for the extra weapon damage. In PVP, where penetration is almost always useful, I'd expect sharpened to be more generally useful.

Glurin

Last time I looked into it, which was quite some time ago, it all came down to how much penetration you could get without it.

Yakidafi

Nirnhoned will also buff your healing sharpened will not, so you have to think about that too.

Easily_Lost

What about in PVE?

Sparr0w

Also depends on the weapon, main/off hand, stam/mag etc...

Tonestar34

I had no idea nirhoned also buffed your healing. So with sharpened you need to put points into penetration. I was wondering what the point of penetration was... Still not quite clear on it... I actually hadn't put any cp points into it because I didn't understand what it was.

VaranisArano

Tonestar34 wrote: »

I had no idea nirhoned also buffed your healing. So with sharpened you need to put points into penetration. I was wondering what the point of penetration was... Still not quite clear on it... I actually hadn't put any cp points into it because I didn't understand what it was.

Penetration overcomes physical and spell resistances.

So in PVE, most mobs have about 9k resistances and bosses have around 18k resistances. In a group, you'll get certain amounts of penetration from group buffs and debuffs. For example, your tank can provide Major Fracture and Major Breach by using the Pierce Armor taunt, which debuffs physical and spell resistance by about 5k. For group content then, you want to aim to have enough penetration that your group won't overpenetrate. Mind you, this is more of something you do with trials groups where you want to be efficient.

In PVP, players can stack up to 32K ish resistances (or higher), so its more useful to stack penetration so you can get through your enemy's resistances.

Chrlynsch

VaranisArano wrote: »

Tonestar34 wrote: »

I had no idea nirhoned also buffed your healing. So with sharpened you need to put points into penetration. I was wondering what the point of penetration was... Still not quite clear on it... I actually hadn't put any cp points into it because I didn't understand what it was.

Penetration overcomes physical and spell resistances.

So in PVE, most mobs have about 9k resistances and bosses have around 18k resistances. In a group, you'll get certain amounts of penetration from group buffs and debuffs. For example, your tank can provide Major Fracture and Major Breach by using the Pierce Armor taunt, which debuffs physical and spell resistance by about 5k. For group content then, you want to aim to have enough penetration that your group won't overpenetrate. Mind you, this is more of something you do with trials groups where you want to be efficient.

In PVP, players can stack up to 32K ish resistances (or higher), so its more useful to stack penetration so you can get through your enemy's resistances.

Remember that penetration is close to useless against classes that stack shields, and some damage like bleeds ignores armor anyway so stacking penitration with a bleed build is counter productive.