I run the infused bow as a stamina Templar. Endless Hail hits even harder like this.
I don't know about dual wield. The best way is to do a few tests on Trials and stuff with the maximum amount of debuffs you can get on the bosses.
Also, do a few tests self-buffed to see where that takes you.
Perhaps 1 infused in DW is not a bad idea, or perhaps it drops your DPS. We are talking about 700 wep dmg so it's definitely worth testing.

This is making me want to finally run the vMA, I have 3 max characters, mag sorc and Magicka and stamina nightblades, which do you guys who've run it a lot think is the easiest to do this on now with the update?

well some interesting thoughts, hadn't considered the bow as most of the DPS is done from the other bar, meaning a flat buff to the enchant is going to give a lot of benefit very nice. @Latios is it the flat damage and the ramp up damage that are buffed by the 20% increase?

my thoughts on the infused one handed DW weapons is it depends how much of the damage is the flurry itself. I can buff all my dots and get 6-7% more Damage just from using 1 infused, but the actual flurry will be hitting less as I'm missing 1x precise or sharpened weapon.

looking at alcasts PvE DK DPS test , rapids, endless hail, light attack, flames of oblivion, standard, all contribute ~ 45% of the damage. I dont know how much damage you lose on those attacks, but using asayre's analysis we would expect a 3-4% loss in damage on the attacks that dont benefit from the maelstrom DW proc by usiong infused over precise.

So buffing the other 55% of your damage by 6 to 7% is pretty on par, or a very marginal gain, but only on single target fights. situational benefit at best on a class that is massively reliant on dot damage. Certainly not a trait to be upset with on the maelstom DW weapons.

willymchilybily wrote: »

well some interesting thoughts, hadn't considered the bow as most of the DPS is done from the other bar, meaning a flat buff to the enchant is going to give a lot of benefit very nice. @Latios is it the flat damage and the ramp up damage that are buffed by the 20% increase?

Both values are buffed that's correct, I got this bad boy today in the rewards and I'm quite sure it's best in slot. 20% is massssssive on endless hail and then switching back to sharpened daggers. Not sure how hard everyone else hits on theirs but I was getting 4400 ticks -.-

Just bumping that thread since the topic is really interresting and i would love to see a conclusion to it. @asayre @alcasts may have already answered somewhere else?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyqU4Yq4AJs

Already answered in the above video (TL;DW: Sharpened is the go-to).

Multiple Bloodspawn parses with both Infused and Sharpened has shown that Sharpened is indeed the best trait, since we get similar damage results on Endless Hail with both traits, not only this, but Sharpened also affects your other bow abilities.

These tests were done on a stam DK. We did not test Infused axes / daggers, but I doubt the loss of Sharpened / Precise on every other ability is worth it.

TL;DR:

• Sharpened is the best.
• Precise is a competitive 2nd place, if you have the right build for it (using TBS/Shadow and Trap)
• Nirnhoned is a competitive 3rd place, only if it is 1-piece, as the main-hand of a dual-wield bar... in any other setups (on non-DW or if used on both hands of DW), it is a distant 3rd
• Infused is a distant 4th.
• Defending, Charged, and Powered are dead last, of course. But the Maelstrom enchant is so powerful that even these traits are worth using if that's all you have.

Sharpened: As long as you are not overpenetrating, Sharpened is a whooping 8% overall DPS increase (8% for 2H/bow, and 4% per weapon for DW).

Infused: A 20% increase on the enchantment effect increases your WD by 19 before amps and your DoT's bonus WD by 619. If you have 35K stamina and 3K WD, you're looking at an effective ability pool of around 65K. So, compared to something like a Powered weapon, 19 WD is a 0.3% overall DPS increase (would be slightly higher after amps--maybe 0.4%) and the bonus WD would be around a 6% increase to the damage of your empowered DoTs, when compared to a trashy Powered weapon. Of course, only a portion of your overall DPS is from the empowered DoTs--your ground DoTs and your spammables won't be affected--so the overall DPS increase is much less. And if using just one infused weapon, only half of your Maelstrom procs will have the higher Infused empowerment. There are lots of variables, but on the whole, we're going to be looking at less than a 2% DPS increase for one weapon to be Infused instead of Powered.

Also, people have indicated that the Infused buff to Endless Hail doesn't carry over on bar swaps, so an Infused vMA bow is not BiS.

Precise: Precise is a 7% increase in crit chance (7% for 2H/bow, 3.5% per weapon for DW). If you are running Trap Beast (+.12 CHD), TBS with Thief/Shadow (+.18 CHD), Nightblade or Templar (+.1 CHD), and let's say 10% in crit damage from CP (+.1 CHD), then you're looking at a 1.0 CHD for Nightblades and Templars and a 0.9 CHD for everyone else, for a 7% and 6.3% DPS increase, respectively, from the 7% Precise crit chance. During those 9.5 seconds of Major Force following a War Horn, your CHD will be 1.3 CHD for Nightblades and Templars and 1.17 CHD for everyone else, for a 9.1% and 8.2% DPS increase, respectively, from the 7% Precise. All of these numbers will be much lower if you're not using Trap Beast and/or if you're not using Shadow. On the whole, Sharpened is still better, unless there is so much group resistance debuffing that Sharpened will overpenetrate, but that is unrealistic in practice.

Nirnhoned: In dual-wield, Nirnhoned should only be used in the main hand weapon. Since the off-hand only contributes 20% of the weapons damage stat, you should never use Nirnhoned in the off-hand. In the main hand, Nirnhoned provides an unbuffed 146 WD. I'm not at the game right now, but I think after buffing, it comes out to a bit over 200. Let's just say 200 for simplicity. For a typical stamina build with around a 65K effective pool, a Nirnhoned main hand weapon will increase your DPS by about 3%. In contrast, Sharpened on just one weapon is 4%. Versus Precise, Nirnhoned will outperform if your CHD is under 0.85. As I stated above, with TBS/Shadow, Trap Beast, 0.1 CHD from CP, you're looking at 1.0 CHD (Nightblades and Templars) or 0.9 CHD (Sorcs and DKs), so Precise is better. If you're not using Shadow (e.g., running Hunding or NMG with Thief), then Nirnhoned will be better, if you don't consider War Horns. And of course, during the 9.5s of Major Force from a War Horn, that balance shifts towards Precise--how much that matters will of course depend on the kind of Major Force uptime you have in your group.

On the off-hand, Nirnhoned only provides a fraction of the benefit, so it's effectively worthless. On a bow, Nirnhoned provides the same 146 unbuffed WD as it does on the main hand of DW, but instead of comparing against 4% Sharpened on just one weapon and 3.5% Precise on just one weapon, on a bow, using Nirnhoned means sacrificing the full 8% from Sharpened or the full 7% from Precise and so it drops jostling with Precise for 2nd place (better if not using TBS, worse if using TBS) to a far, distant 3rd place.