Spell Penetration - How Much in PvE?

Anacario · July 2016

I'm re-deciding all of my gear for my CP160 magsorc, and I was advised that I should be stacking spell pen, and that Sharpened was better than Nirnhoned on my lightning staff. However, I do mostly PvE, almost no PvP. Using Harven's Extended Stats, I found I have 11236 spell pen from all the available passives and my Sharpened lightning staff.

Is this necessary for PvE? Or is it overboard? If it is, can anybody recommend what staff trait I should be using?

Beardimus · July 2016

@rcurto94b14_ESO Im sure better qualified people than me will pop on, but I use Precise on PvE to increase Critical chance. Though most views are you don't need much over 55-60% and sharpened for PvP. Of course depends on your build etc

lolo_01b16_ESO · July 2016

Depends on your group. A common armour value for bosses is 18k. So without debuffs on the boss it would be fine, but in organized trial groups you can easiely get close to 10k armour debuff, so your 11k spell pen would be overkill.

Egonieser · July 2016

Sharpened doesn't serve much purpose in PvE as most mobs have a flat, low armour value bar some bosses. Light Armour passives are enough of a Focus rating for PvE.
Sharpened is almost exclusively a PvP trait and that's where it shines. For PvE only i'd suggest going either Precise or Nirnhoned.

hedna123b14_ESO · July 2016

rcurto94b14_ESO wrote: »

I'm re-deciding all of my gear for my CP160 magsorc, and I was advised that I should be stacking spell pen, and that Sharpened was better than Nirnhoned on my lightning staff. However, I do mostly PvE, almost no PvP. Using Harven's Extended Stats, I found I have 11236 spell pen from all the available passives and my Sharpened lightning staff.

Is this necessary for PvE? Or is it overboard? If it is, can anybody recommend what staff trait I should be using?

Sharpened is what you should be using for all PvE content. Typicallyrics bosses have 18.1k armor. You have the following debuffs available to you:
Base 100
Major breach 5280
Minor Breach 1320
Light armor 4884
Infused Crusher enchant 1920
Alkosh 3050
Total: 16554

Difference: 1546. 1546 is around a 3 % dps increase. Here is the deal though, wearing precise boosts your dps by anywhere from 2-4.5%. The issue comes in when you assume that Alkosh will be on target 100% of the time
There are very few groups in the world that can accomplish this and even with it the gain from a precise weapon in the best possible scenario becomes 1%. However if Alkosh is lost on the target for seem reason, you lose a whopping 10% dps if you do not use a sharpened staff. That's huge! So the choice is a fickle 1^ dps gain over a potential 10% dps loss....sharpened is BiS.

Anacario · July 2016

Egonieser wrote: »

Depends on your group. A common armour value for bosses is 18k. So without debuffs on the boss it would be fine, but in organized trial groups you can easiely get close to 10k armour debuff, so your 11k spell pen would be overkill.

18k, huh? I never knew exactly or even roughly how much armor/spell resist enemies or bosses had, so this helps a lot with decision making.

Egonieser wrote: »

Sharpened doesn't serve much purpose in PvE as most mobs have a flat, low armour value bar some bosses. Light Armour passives are enough of a Focus rating for PvE.
Sharpened is almost exclusively a PvP trait and that's where it shines. For PvE only i'd suggest going either Precise or Nirnhoned.

I might just go back to Nirnhoned then, it worked well enough on my old staff. Maybe keep my current sharpened staff for bosses, since rosin is cheap. Thanks!

hedna123b14_ESO · July 2016

Egonieser wrote: »

Sharpened doesn't serve much purpose in PvE as most mobs have a flat, low armour value bar some bosses. Light Armour passives are enough of a Focus rating for PvE.
Sharpened is almost exclusively a PvP trait and that's where it shines. For PvE only i'd suggest going either Precise or Nirnhoned.

Completely incorrect

hedna123b14_ESO · July 2016

rcurto94b14_ESO wrote: »

Egonieser wrote: »

Depends on your group. A common armour value for bosses is 18k. So without debuffs on the boss it would be fine, but in organized trial groups you can easiely get close to 10k armour debuff, so your 11k spell pen would be overkill.

18k, huh? I never knew exactly or even roughly how much armor/spell resist enemies or bosses had, so this helps a lot with decision making.

Egonieser wrote: »

Sharpened doesn't serve much purpose in PvE as most mobs have a flat, low armour value bar some bosses. Light Armour passives are enough of a Focus rating for PvE.
Sharpened is almost exclusively a PvP trait and that's where it shines. For PvE only i'd suggest going either Precise or Nirnhoned.

I might just go back to Nirnhoned then, it worked well enough on my old staff. Maybe keep my current sharpened staff for bosses, since rosin is cheap. Thanks!

Strictly Speaking PvE. Sharpened>Precise>Nirnhoned.