I suspect my maths is wrong. Failing to understand Tzogvin's Warband

screamingabdabs

Hi,

Several folk have recommended Tzogvin's Warband in chat, forums and various build videos and so I have been slowly collecting it. Its stats seem ok, but I crunched some numbers, compared it to Dragonguard Elite and now I'm confused.

Tzogvin's Warband

(2 items) Adds 657 Critical Chance
(3 items) Adds 657 Critical Chance
(4 items) Adds 1487 Offensive Penetration
(5 items) When you deal Critical Damage, you gain a stack of Precision, increasing your Critical Chance by 177 for 5 seconds, up to 10 stacks max. At max stacks, you also gain Minor Force, increasing your Critical Damage done by 10%. This effect can occur once every half second.

Dragonguard Elite

(2 items) Adds 657 Critical Chance
(3 items) Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
(4 items) Adds 129 Stamina Recovery
(5 items) You gain a stack of Dragonguard Tactics for 5 seconds when you deal direct damage to an enemy from the front or their sides, up to 10 stacks. Each stack of Dragonguard Tactics increases your Critical Chance by 275. You can only gain one stack every 0.5 seconds.

In the below I'm using the crit number to percentage calculation from http://esoacademy.com/critical-strikes/
The numbers

Tzogvin's Warband - 1314 crit chance (around 8.7%) each stack (max 10) adds 177, total of 1770 (around 11.8%), so at 10 stacks you get 3084 (20.56%). You have to crit to get a stack
Dragonguard Elite - 657 crit chance (around 4.3%) each stack (again 10 max) adds 275, total of 2750 (around 18.3%), so at 10 stacks you get 3407 (22.71%) Need to attack from front or side to stack.

It looks like Dragonguard Elite gives a higher 10 stack bonus and would be easier to stack(?) and the extra base crit in Tzogvin seems to be negated by the higher stack value of Dragonguard Elite. So that leaves the Penetration/damage difference and minor force for Tzogvin's.

I found a post - https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/581814/penetration-vs-damage - where someone posted that weapon damage adds 1% per 50 and penetration adds 1% per 662 pen (as 662 armour removes 1% damage). I have no idea if this is still accurate but if it is then

Tzogvin's Warband 1487 pen is around 2.25% extra damage
Dragonguard Elite 129 damage is around 2.58% extra damage

So Dragonguard Elite appears to edge it again(?) leaving the minor force of 10% of Tzogvin's as its plus? I feel I must have got this wrong, in the maths or just in my understanding, but is that 10% requiring multiple critical strikes to gain worth it? The fact you have to critical strike to get a higher chance to critical strike with Tzogvin's seems odd and I'm guessing you need a fairly high base critical rating in order to reliably get the 10 stacks. Anyone know what this is?

So my confusion is that you have to be able to reliably crit to stack Tzogvin's, kind of negating its extra crit chance, and if you are able to you gain 10% extra crit damage for 5 seconds. But there are skills that do this for 20 seconds (eg Barbed trap) and wouldn't it be better to use one of these since you are able to crit so much?

Hoping someone can shed light on this.

Treeshka

I have crafted the Dragonguard Elite set and tested it, and as it says in the tooltip you can only get stacks if you are attacking the boss from in front of them or their front sides. In most of the cases you stand behind the boss during raids and proccing this set could become tricky. But for example in Sunspire if you are going with a critical chance set you may try this Dragonguard set.

On the other hand Dragonguard set has one piece Stamina Recovery bonus which most of the time is waste nowadays. Since you do not need much recovery.

Tzogvin is very easy to use, and wherever you stand relative to boss does not matter you will get stacks as long as you deal critical damage. In some cases the penetration you get from this set also comes in handy in some cases.

I would definitely go with Tzogvin because it is easier to proc and also giving you minor force.

El_Borracho

Agree with @Treeshka. Most of the time you will be behind the boss, or dealing with a mobile boss. You can always use Dragonguard Elite for situational fights with Barbed Trap to get Minor Force.

If you want a set that is like Dragonguard but doesn't have the front/side condition, I'd suggest Berserking Warrior, aka AY:

(2 items) Adds 657 Critical Chance
(3 items) Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
(4 items) Adds 657 Critical Chance
(5 items) When you deal Martial melee damage, your Critical Chance is increased by 241 for 5 seconds, stacking up to 10 times. This effect can occur once every half second.

Its a beast when run with skills like Deadly Cloak, Jabs, Hurricane, Stampede, etc. that does a physical damage tick