impenetrable on everything?

shipv

I'm hearing two conflicting opinions on impen on gear. I've heard (and most of the builds say) put impenetrable on everything. I'm also hearing that that is no longer true, and having impenetrable on more than chest and/or another big item doesn't add anything and you loose the benefits of another attribute.
Anyone know which is true?
I'm a bit squishy so this detail is fairly significant to me.

Minno

Do the math. What's the crit resists you need to counter 50-60% crit hit DMG?

Minno

And then what do you need to negate 70, 80, 90 crit hit DMG

Aedaryl

The impenetrable give a fix value of critical resistance, doesn't matter if it's a big or small pieces.

In term of defense, impen is the best ratio you can find for a damage build.

VaranisArano

In PVP, I typically see all impen for defense, infused on the big pieces and the rest impen if you need more stats, and all divines for the super glass cannon builds.

The other time I run all impen is on my speed farmer so I don't have to pay as much in repair costs when I kill things.

TheDoomsdayMonster

If you don't put Impend on everything, the stronger players will melt you like a stick of butter...

DeadlyRecluse

Outside of a few niche builds (pure damage, dedicated rolly pollies, permablock setups that need sturdy), impen is just more efficient than pretty much any other trait.

If I have a few pieces of infused (on large pieces with tristat enchants) I don't sweat it, same with one or two divines if I haven't gotten around to transmuting them yet--but in general, 5-8 impen is pretty good.

susmitds

If you are medium armor, 4 impen is enough, simply because apart from rolling, nothing will save you from dying so you need some well-fitted
If you are heavy armor, it honestly depends on your build with a minimum of 4 impen. If blocking is how you defend, you should get some sturdy. Infused on big pieces is also an option but a risky one, as you are trading offense for defense. Otherwise all impen is also good.
If you are light armor, honestly you need as many impen as you can, at least 5, to survive while maintaining a base offense.

TheYKcid

The extra stats on infused are absolutely trivial. Reinforced is crap compared to impen even on a heavy chestpiece (which has the highest base resistance)—link to an analysis I did on this.

Imo there are really only 2 situationally-viable alternatives to impen. Well-fitted if your build is highly dependent on rolling/mobility, Sturdy if you're heavily invested into blocking. And you still want a few impen in those cases.

But generally you can't go wrong with full impen. It's your safest best.

NBrookus

Other situational alternatives to impen: wearing Impreg so you can afford some other armor traits, or wearing Transmutation and being very, very good about keeping it up 100%.

ScruffyWhiskers

Nerf Impen!

fred4

Listen to the last two posts (The YKcid, NBrookus). Impenetrable is a very efficient trait, compared to others. This is even more true this patch, as it even applies to shielding builds. Each armor piece gives you around 3.5% damage reduction on critical hits. It is common to run all Impenetrable. The minimum critical resistance that most people recommend is 2000. I run closer to 3000 these days, in CP.

The only alternatives, for PvP, are Well-Fitted and Sturdy. Do not consider anything else. In the past, people might have recommended Infused on the big pieces, but the main reason I can think of is stacking max magicka for shield size, which is no longer viable. Even when people run Will-Fitted or Sturdy, they tend to run only half of those, and the rest Impenetrable. The only option where you might not is when using the Impregnable or Transmutation sets.

In regard to those sets, Impregnable is good, but has competition from Wizard's Riposte, Fortified Brass, Armor Master, and Pariah. Transmutation is less effective than any of those, but provides a unique group buff and can thus be helpful in group play. It is also still possible to single bar, unlike Riposte. If you wish to do that, then Transmutation and Armor Master are your choices.

Reverb

Last week I switched from all impen to all sturdy on my DK. I like it, but I’ll probably swap some impen back in, and maybe do an infused shield play jewel or two instead.

shipv

I have two heavy and the rest light (magsorc) and six are impen. Even though I do pretty good keeping shields up and use healing ward, I seem to die fast compared to other magsorcs. Wasn't sure if impen was really doing that much for me on all of those pieces. Wizards Ripo and shacklebreakers w/domihaus and ilambris monster pieces.

fred4

shipv wrote: »

I'm also hearing that that is no longer true, and having impenetrable on more than chest and/or another big item doesn't add anything and you loose the benefits of another attribute.

Completely false. It is exactly the opposite. Impenetrable is useful for every build, this patch, whereas previously it was less useful for shielding builds. Whoever talked to you about big items must have been talking about Infused. Infused is no longer a good PvP trait. Personally I don't think it ever was, except perhaps in magicka stacking builds, in the past.

fred4

shipv wrote: »

I have two heavy and the rest light (magsorc) and six are impen. Even though I do pretty good keeping shields up and use healing ward, I seem to die fast compared to other magsorcs. Wasn't sure if impen was really doing that much for me on all of those pieces. Wizards Ripo and shacklebreakers w/domihaus and ilambris monster pieces.

Shacklebreaker + Domi / Ilambris will stack a fair amount of magicka. Shields are now capped at 40% / 50% of your health. Best get an addon that shows your shield size. Riposte gives you 1x health, so perhaps your build is balanced just right, but if not, first thing is to move CP out of Bastion and into the other defensive stars. You might also boost your defenses in the following ways:

1x Monster set that gives you resistances (Chudan, Pirate Skeleton, Lord Warden)
2x Monster set, such as Pirate Skeleton, Troll King (maybe), Blood Spawn
Defending back bar weapon
Protective jewelry trait(s)
Lightning Form
Power Surge

Minno

fred4 wrote: »

shipv wrote: »

I have two heavy and the rest light (magsorc) and six are impen. Even though I do pretty good keeping shields up and use healing ward, I seem to die fast compared to other magsorcs. Wasn't sure if impen was really doing that much for me on all of those pieces. Wizards Ripo and shacklebreakers w/domihaus and ilambris monster pieces.

Shacklebreaker + Domi / Ilambris will stack a fair amount of magicka. Shields are now capped at 40% / 50% of your health. Best get an addon that shows your shield size. Riposte gives you 1x health, so perhaps your build is balanced just right, but if not, first thing is to move CP out of Bastion and into the other defensive stars. You might also boost your defenses in the following ways:

1x Monster set that gives you resistances (Chudan, Pirate Skeleton, Lord Warden)
2x Monster set, such as Pirate Skeleton, Troll King (maybe), Blood Spawn
Defending back bar weapon
Protective jewelry trait(s)
Lightning Form
Power Surge

Good post!

Adding to this, Ice staff in CP gives 1500 as well if you have the bulwark CP passive. Run that with 1 protective lets you roll 2 max mag and you can dedicate your other sets for sustain/stat/damage procs.

fred4

One other thing is to get the Psijic skill line so that, when you block, you get the added Psijic shield. If you have no use for any Psijic skill, then Temporal Guard makes a nice passive ultimate on the defensive bar, giving you Minor Protection and the block shield. Personally I don't like pure defensive / healing ultimates in solo play. They tend to merely delay your inevitable demise and prevent you from bursting with an offensive ultimate. That's why Temporal Guard is a surprisingly good option. You'll rarely use it, but the passives make it worthwhile.

Xeniph

The best rule of thumb is:

If you have to ask how much Impen you should be running, you need 7 pieces of it.

For those that don't need help answering this question, they are the only ones imo that should be playing with traits on a build by build basis.

However, for future reference 1% of crit mitigation is roughly 68 impen.

Average crit damage multiplier in CP pvp will hover around 80% for most classes but Templar and NB. Those 2 classes will hover around 90%.

Of coarse there are folks lower and some higher. But that bracket is fairly safe to build for.

Impen is a feast or famine trait. It only works on crit damage, therefore it does nothing to reduce any damage that isn't . However you would be surprised just how tanky you start to become @3000+.

Hope that helps.

kaithuzar

TheYKcid wrote: »

The extra stats on infused are absolutely trivial. Reinforced is crap compared to impen even on a heavy chestpiece (which has the highest base resistance)—link to an analysis I did on this.

Imo there are really only 2 situationally-viable alternatives to impen. Well-fitted if your build is highly dependent on rolling/mobility, Sturdy if you're heavily invested into blocking. And you still want a few impen in those cases.

But generally you can't go wrong with full impen. It's your safest best.

I do not agree with your analysis due to the basis that you clearly stated of not taking any existing critical resistance or other resistance values into account.

I firmly believe that there is a ratio or maybe a linear graph that can show at what point “extra crit resistance” becomes ineffective.
I also believe crit resistance is entirely based on the opponent(s) you are fighting & an average can be assumed based on the ~40% crit builds that are typically seen in Cyrodiil.

IE... if, hypothetically speaking(not factual numbers), you are mitigating an extra 10% critical strike dmg (the difference of going from 50% to 60% crit resist), & only 2/5 hits are crits, I would argue that by increasing your base resistances & thus mitigating the damage from all 5 attacks would be of more value.

This is merely my assumption & I don’t have math to back it up; maybe someone can help verify my hypothesis?

shipv

Swapped my Ilambris out for pirate skeleton which is impen so that makes 7 impen, (since I had to ask!) Maybe the resists will put me over edge. Thank you for all of the responses. This was extremely helpful

TheYKcid

kaithuzar wrote: »

TheYKcid wrote: »

The extra stats on infused are absolutely trivial. Reinforced is crap compared to impen even on a heavy chestpiece (which has the highest base resistance)—link to an analysis I did on this.

Imo there are really only 2 situationally-viable alternatives to impen. Well-fitted if your build is highly dependent on rolling/mobility, Sturdy if you're heavily invested into blocking. And you still want a few impen in those cases.

But generally you can't go wrong with full impen. It's your safest best.

I firmly believe that there is a ratio or maybe a linear graph that can show at what point “extra crit resistance” becomes ineffective.
I also believe crit resistance is entirely based on the opponent(s) you are fighting & an average can be assumed based on the ~40% crit builds that are typically seen in Cyrodiil.

IE... if, hypothetically speaking(not factual numbers), you are mitigating an extra 10% critical strike dmg (the difference of going from 50% to 60% crit resist), & only 2/5 hits are crits, I would argue that by increasing your base resistances & thus mitigating the damage from all 5 attacks would be of more value.

I addressed those points in the 2nd and 3rd paragraphs of the post I linked...

Another point to add is that impen protects you from bleeds, a major source of damage right now, against which resistances do jack.

iCaliban

TheDoomsdayMonster wrote: »

If you don't put Impend on everything, the stronger players will melt you like a stick of butter...

To be fair, even with all impen, any non heavy build will get melted anyway. Good groups all focus 1 player at a time, and if you arent running with a very strong healer, its basically a one shot anyway.

1v1, impen is invaluable. Maybe a couple well fitted for medium armor builds

Emma_Overload

You need at least 3300, no ifs ands or buts. 4100+ if you are having trouble with high crit damage gankers.

kaithuzar

I “feel” as if I saw almost no difference open world cp Cyrodiil 3400 crit resist vs 2800

Waffennacht

kaithuzar wrote: »

I “feel” as if I saw almost no difference open world cp Cyrodiil 3400 crit resist vs 2800

Well it's a difference of like 9%

If after all mitigation an attack does 4k dmg at 3400 you'll take, 4.4k at 2800, you wouldn't see a big difference there

Minno

Waffennacht wrote: »

kaithuzar wrote: »

I “feel” as if I saw almost no difference open world cp Cyrodiil 3400 crit resist vs 2800

Well it's a difference of like 9%

If after all mitigation an attack does 4k dmg at 3400 you'll take, 4.4k at 2800, you wouldn't see a big difference there

2800= 41%
3400= 50%

It's also impen first, minor maim second, armor third in the order of mitigation. If you are getting smacked with a 15k tooltip, but they have 1.7chd, they have a 1.29/1.2chd. 15k times 1.29/1.2 = 19350/18000. Then your armor could reduce it by 10% on most builds after heavy penetration (19350x0.9=17415). Then battlespirit (17415. x0.5= 8707). You can keep going for CP and major/minor protection, etc.

And that assumes a build is stopping at 1.7chd, in CP you could see that get to 80 or 90 in some cases, and in nCP you'll see 60-70 but ALOT less impen, unless you roll trans/impreg sets.

At the end of the day, armor/battlespirit will reduce the tooltip heavily, but impen reduces the initial tooltip so your mitigation doesn't have to work overtime.

kaithuzar

Minno wrote: »

Waffennacht wrote: »

kaithuzar wrote: »

I “feel” as if I saw almost no difference open world cp Cyrodiil 3400 crit resist vs 2800

Well it's a difference of like 9%

If after all mitigation an attack does 4k dmg at 3400 you'll take, 4.4k at 2800, you wouldn't see a big difference there

2800= 41%
3400= 50%

It's also impen first, minor maim second, armor third in the order of mitigation. If you are getting smacked with a 15k tooltip, but they have 1.7chd, they have a 1.29/1.2chd. 15k times 1.29/1.2 = 19350/18000. Then your armor could reduce it by 10% on most builds after heavy penetration (19350x0.9=17415). Then battlespirit (17415. x0.5= 8707). You can keep going for CP and major/minor protection, etc.

And that assumes a build is stopping at 1.7chd, in CP you could see that get to 80 or 90 in some cases, and in nCP you'll see 60-70 but ALOT less impen, unless you roll trans/impreg sets.

At the end of the day, armor/battlespirit will reduce the tooltip heavily, but impen reduces the initial tooltip so your mitigation doesn't have to work overtime.

Sorry I just woke up & feel brain-dead, what’s “chd”?

heng14rwb17_ESO

i dont use impen.
i run 32500 high resist build.

kaithuzar

heng14rwb17_ESO wrote: »

i dont use impen.
i run 32500 high resist build.

But do you run s&b/frost staff & block? That’s highest damage mitigation in game

Minno

Crit hit damage