Nirhoned

Lissiexx · August 2016

Can someone confirm this affects spell dmg too? I made two torugs swords sharpened to replace my nirhoned set and lost 423 spell dmg. I can not see anything I have done differently. Going on 11% that would be 22% with two swords. Which I think adds up. Anyway please can someone confirm this. Thanks.

Browiseth · August 2016

it just raises your weapon's damage stat, which affects both spell and weapon damage stats

Nestor · August 2016

Yep, you lost the boost to the Spell Damage by reducing weapon damage. However your overall DPS should go up, a bit.

There was a thread not too long ago where someone chewed on the math, and Nirn came in a close second to Sharpened.

Lissiexx · August 2016

That is a big difference though I can't see how sharpened could be better maybe I will try and find that thread. OK thank you guys for responding.

code65536 · August 2016

It raises the damage stat of that item by 11%. Not your overall WD/SD.

For a CR160 gold item, nirnhoned will add a mere 146 unbuffed WD/SD for staves, bows, 1HS, and the main weapon of dual-wield.

The off-hand in a dual-wield setup only contributes 20% damage (a bit more if you figure in the DW passive to boost the WD contribution of the off-hand--this does passive does not affect SD, though), so making a 2nd weapon nirn will add only 29 SD and something like 31-32 WD (if you figure in the passive).

In PvE, Nirnhoned is the third best trait, somewhat trailing behind Precise. The best trait, by a very, very wide margin, is Sharpened.

Don't craft Nirnhoned weapons, unless it's to sell to someone for research. The only Nirnhoned weapons that I use are the ones that I haven't bothered to recraft as Sharpened or the ones that were rewarded to me in vMA (I'd prefer Sharpened, of course, but I'll take what I can get and Nirnhoned isn't as bad as some of the other traits that drop).

And never use Nirnhoned as the off-hand weapon in a dual-wield setup. 2x Sharpened would be better, but if you can't afford to recraft both, then Nirn on the main-hand and Sharpened on the off-hand is an excellent compromise.

TL;DR: Nirnhoned was nerfed into the ground in the DB update. Don't use it.

Lissiexx · August 2016

But my overall spell damage goes down when I switch to sharpened - if does not affect it then why does it happen?

Sallington · August 2016

k_hartley4349b16_ESO wrote: »

But my overall spell damage goes down when I switch to sharpened - if does not affect it then why does it happen?

Spell damage isn't the only stat you need to worry about. Spell penetration is more important than an extra bit of Spell Damage.

Lissiexx · August 2016

I would agree but over 400 is a big difference.

UltimaJoe777 · August 2016

Sallington wrote: »

k_hartley4349b16_ESO wrote: »

But my overall spell damage goes down when I switch to sharpened - if does not affect it then why does it happen?

Spell damage isn't the only stat you need to worry about. Spell penetration is more important than an extra bit of Spell Damage.

Unless you're a healer.

Jaronking · August 2016

k_hartley4349b16_ESO wrote: »

I would agree but over 400 is a big difference.

Did you make them gold?IG not than ghats probably the difference you seen.

Aquanova · August 2016

Sharpened is superior for dps in pve and pvp.

andreasranasen · August 2016

I've made my Torugs Pact dual + staff in both Nirn, Precise and Sharpened to compare the stats. Nirn gives you A LOT more spell dmg. Changing my Nirn Staff to Precise or Sharpened it takes off around 150 spell dmg and over 200 weapon dmg.

(These are gold weapons)

UltimaJoe777 · August 2016

andreasranasen wrote: »

I've made my Torugs Pact dual + staff in both Nirn, Precise and Sharpened to compare the stats. Nirn gives you A LOT more spell dmg. Changing my Nirn Staff to Precise or Sharpened it takes off around 150 spell dmg and over 200 weapon dmg.

(These are gold weapons)

The best way to compare Sharpened with Nirnhoned is to actually attack something with equal weapons of both traits. I did this and found on my Magicka DPS that, due to using Destruction Staves, Light Armor, and Spell Erosion, Nirnhoned was superior in PvE. In PvP though yes Sharpened would be superior for PURE DPS.

andreasranasen · August 2016

UltimaJoe777 wrote: »

andreasranasen wrote: »

I've made my Torugs Pact dual + staff in both Nirn, Precise and Sharpened to compare the stats. Nirn gives you A LOT more spell dmg. Changing my Nirn Staff to Precise or Sharpened it takes off around 150 spell dmg and over 200 weapon dmg.

(These are gold weapons)

The best way to compare Sharpened with Nirnhoned is to actually attack something with equal weapons of both traits. I did this and found on my Magicka DPS that, due to using Destruction Staves, Light Armor, and Spell Erosion, Nirnhoned was superior in PvE. In PvP though yes Sharpened would be superior for PURE DPS.

I haven't actually tried them out. Just compared the stats and was like mehhh. Thanks, will try Sharpened in PvP and compare them

UltimaJoe777 · August 2016

andreasranasen wrote: »

UltimaJoe777 wrote: »

andreasranasen wrote: »

I've made my Torugs Pact dual + staff in both Nirn, Precise and Sharpened to compare the stats. Nirn gives you A LOT more spell dmg. Changing my Nirn Staff to Precise or Sharpened it takes off around 150 spell dmg and over 200 weapon dmg.

(These are gold weapons)

The best way to compare Sharpened with Nirnhoned is to actually attack something with equal weapons of both traits. I did this and found on my Magicka DPS that, due to using Destruction Staves, Light Armor, and Spell Erosion, Nirnhoned was superior in PvE. In PvP though yes Sharpened would be superior for PURE DPS.

I haven't actually tried them out. Just compared the stats and was like mehhh. Thanks, will try Sharpened in PvP and compare them

Yeah Penetration stacked as much as possible in PvP is how you get past at least SOME of that bulkiness that some builds have that go up to like 40k Resistances. PvE doesn't use that much Resistance though, and Penetration doesn't have as much to bypass. For PvE, leaving Penetration to things like I mentioned, and for Stamina builds Maces, is best and then go with Precise or Nirnhoned, especially if you heal in addition to damage.

Of course, Nirnhoned is also viable in PvP too because of healing.

Berenhir · August 2016

UltimaJoe777 wrote: »

Sallington wrote: »

k_hartley4349b16_ESO wrote: »

But my overall spell damage goes down when I switch to sharpened - if does not affect it then why does it happen?

Spell damage isn't the only stat you need to worry about. Spell penetration is more important than an extra bit of Spell Damage.

Unless you're a healer.

Or you fight someone with a shield like magsorc, magblade or magplar.

code65536 · August 2016

UltimaJoe777 wrote: »

andreasranasen wrote: »

I've made my Torugs Pact dual + staff in both Nirn, Precise and Sharpened to compare the stats. Nirn gives you A LOT more spell dmg. Changing my Nirn Staff to Precise or Sharpened it takes off around 150 spell dmg and over 200 weapon dmg.

(These are gold weapons)

The best way to compare Sharpened with Nirnhoned is to actually attack something with equal weapons of both traits. I did this and found on my Magicka DPS that, due to using Destruction Staves, Light Armor, and Spell Erosion, Nirnhoned was superior in PvE. In PvP though yes Sharpened would be superior for PURE DPS.

I happen to have two old generic destruction staves, both VR16 gold. One Sharpened. One Nirnhoned. I fished it out of a mule to do some quick testing with the Thralled Warrior in the lobby of vet Spindle...

Sharpened:
Light attack: 2150, 3741 crit
Funnel Health: 7057, 12280 crit

Nirnhoned:
Light attack: 1992, 3465 crit
Funnel Health: 6364, 11073 crit

We see here that in a basic test (no tank debuff, no Major Sorcery), Sharpened outperformed Nirnhoned by 7.9% for light attacks (basic staff attacks favor Spell Damage) and 10.9% for a class ability.

But, admittedly, that's not a very fair test. In a group PvE scenario, you'll have a tank debuffing the enemy, and you should be keeping Major Sorcery up. Both of those should shift things in favor of Nirnhoned. So, for this next set of tests, I used Mark Target to debuff the resistance and cast Entropy to apply Major Sorcery.

Sharpened:
Light attack: 2694, 4688 crit
Funnel Health: 8468, 14734 crit

Nirnhoned:
Light attack: 2532, 4405 crit
Funnel Health: 7770, 13520 crit

As expected, the gap narrowed. But it's still substantial. For staff attacks, Sharpened outperformed by 6.4%, and for class abilities, by 9%.

I have no idea what kind of tests you did. The math simply does not support Nirnhoned coming anywhere close to the performance of Sharpened. And some basic testing confirms what the math predicted all along.

This is with 5p Julianos, 2p Nerien'eth, 3p Infallible, and a generic staff (I don't have a Nirnhoned Maelstrom staff to compare against a Sharpened one). If I had used Willpower or a Maelstrom staff, the balance would shift even more in favor of Sharpened.

My sources of penetration in these tests were the light armor passive (4884), destruction staff passive for the light attack tests (10% of enemy resistance), Spell Erosion (1437), Sharpened (5160), and Major Breach (5280). Bosses inside vet dungeons typically have a bit over 18K resistance. The trash have pretty substantial resistance too--after all, I tested this on the first trash mob in the dungeon and not a boss, and it showed Sharpened as the clear winner.

And finally, to address your point about Sharpened being best for "pure DPS". Um, isn't that the goal here? We're not talking about tanks or healers here--we're talking about the DPS role. Besides, many DPS self-heals are based on a percentage of damage done (e.g., DK Embers, NB Strife, Templar Sweeps), so the more damage you do, the more self-healing you get.

TL;DR: Sharpened beats Nirnhoned in PvE. By a wide margin. The theorycrafting says so, and basic tests confirm it.

UltimaJoe777 · August 2016

code65536 wrote: »

UltimaJoe777 wrote: »

andreasranasen wrote: »

I've made my Torugs Pact dual + staff in both Nirn, Precise and Sharpened to compare the stats. Nirn gives you A LOT more spell dmg. Changing my Nirn Staff to Precise or Sharpened it takes off around 150 spell dmg and over 200 weapon dmg.

(These are gold weapons)

The best way to compare Sharpened with Nirnhoned is to actually attack something with equal weapons of both traits. I did this and found on my Magicka DPS that, due to using Destruction Staves, Light Armor, and Spell Erosion, Nirnhoned was superior in PvE. In PvP though yes Sharpened would be superior for PURE DPS.

I happen to have two old generic destruction staves, both VR16 gold. One Sharpened. One Nirnhoned. I fished it out of a mule to do some quick testing with the Thralled Warrior in the lobby of vet Spindle...

Sharpened:
Light attack: 2150, 3741 crit
Funnel Health: 7057, 12280 crit

Nirnhoned:
Light attack: 1992, 3465 crit
Funnel Health: 6364, 11073 crit

We see here that in a basic test (no tank debuff, no Major Sorcery), Sharpened outperformed Nirnhoned by 7.9% for light attacks (basic staff attacks favor Spell Damage) and 10.9% for a class ability.

But, admittedly, that's not a very fair test. In a group PvE scenario, you'll have a tank debuffing the enemy, and you should be keeping Major Sorcery up. Both of those should shift things in favor of Nirnhoned. So, for this next set of tests, I used Mark Target to debuff the resistance and cast Entropy to apply Major Sorcery.

Sharpened:
Light attack: 2694, 4688 crit
Funnel Health: 8468, 14734 crit

Nirnhoned:
Light attack: 2532, 4405 crit
Funnel Health: 7770, 13520 crit

As expected, the gap narrowed. But it's still substantial. For staff attacks, Sharpened outperformed by 6.4%, and for class abilities, by 9%.

I have no idea what kind of tests you did. The math simply does not support Nirnhoned coming anywhere close to the performance of Sharpened. And some basic testing confirms what the math predicted all along.

This is with 5p Julianos, 2p Nerien'eth, 3p Infallible, and a generic staff (I don't have a Nirnhoned Maelstrom staff to compare against a Sharpened one). If I had used Willpower or a Maelstrom staff, the balance would shift even more in favor of Sharpened.

My sources of penetration in these tests were the light armor passive (4884), destruction staff passive for the light attack tests (10% of enemy resistance), Spell Erosion (1437), Sharpened (5160), and Major Breach (5280). Bosses inside vet dungeons typically have a bit over 18K resistance. The trash have pretty substantial resistance too--after all, I tested this on the first trash mob in the dungeon and not a boss, and it showed Sharpened as the clear winner.

And finally, to address your point about Sharpened being best for "pure DPS". Um, isn't that the goal here? We're not talking about tanks or healers here--we're talking about the DPS role. Besides, many DPS self-heals are based on a percentage of damage done (e.g., DK Embers, NB Strife, Templar Sweeps), so the more damage you do, the more self-healing you get.

TL;DR: Sharpened beats Nirnhoned in PvE. By a wide margin. The theorycrafting says so, and basic tests confirm it.

It's quite simple. I made 2 Inferno Staves of the same level, one Nirnhoned, one Sharpened, gave them to my mage who has a large amount of Spell Penetration via passives (Penetrating Magic for 10% Spell Resist ignore, Concentration for 4884 Penetration, Spell Erosion which at the time gave oh I don't know about 2k Penetration?), then proceeded to perform heavy attacks and compare numbers. Nirnhoned did more, but not by much. I could run another comparison later with more accurate stats if you like.

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO · August 2016

UltimaJoe777 wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

UltimaJoe777 wrote: »

andreasranasen wrote: »

I've made my Torugs Pact dual + staff in both Nirn, Precise and Sharpened to compare the stats. Nirn gives you A LOT more spell dmg. Changing my Nirn Staff to Precise or Sharpened it takes off around 150 spell dmg and over 200 weapon dmg.

(These are gold weapons)

The best way to compare Sharpened with Nirnhoned is to actually attack something with equal weapons of both traits. I did this and found on my Magicka DPS that, due to using Destruction Staves, Light Armor, and Spell Erosion, Nirnhoned was superior in PvE. In PvP though yes Sharpened would be superior for PURE DPS.

I happen to have two old generic destruction staves, both VR16 gold. One Sharpened. One Nirnhoned. I fished it out of a mule to do some quick testing with the Thralled Warrior in the lobby of vet Spindle...

Sharpened:
Light attack: 2150, 3741 crit
Funnel Health: 7057, 12280 crit

Nirnhoned:
Light attack: 1992, 3465 crit
Funnel Health: 6364, 11073 crit

We see here that in a basic test (no tank debuff, no Major Sorcery), Sharpened outperformed Nirnhoned by 7.9% for light attacks (basic staff attacks favor Spell Damage) and 10.9% for a class ability.

But, admittedly, that's not a very fair test. In a group PvE scenario, you'll have a tank debuffing the enemy, and you should be keeping Major Sorcery up. Both of those should shift things in favor of Nirnhoned. So, for this next set of tests, I used Mark Target to debuff the resistance and cast Entropy to apply Major Sorcery.

Sharpened:
Light attack: 2694, 4688 crit
Funnel Health: 8468, 14734 crit

Nirnhoned:
Light attack: 2532, 4405 crit
Funnel Health: 7770, 13520 crit

As expected, the gap narrowed. But it's still substantial. For staff attacks, Sharpened outperformed by 6.4%, and for class abilities, by 9%.

I have no idea what kind of tests you did. The math simply does not support Nirnhoned coming anywhere close to the performance of Sharpened. And some basic testing confirms what the math predicted all along.

This is with 5p Julianos, 2p Nerien'eth, 3p Infallible, and a generic staff (I don't have a Nirnhoned Maelstrom staff to compare against a Sharpened one). If I had used Willpower or a Maelstrom staff, the balance would shift even more in favor of Sharpened.

My sources of penetration in these tests were the light armor passive (4884), destruction staff passive for the light attack tests (10% of enemy resistance), Spell Erosion (1437), Sharpened (5160), and Major Breach (5280). Bosses inside vet dungeons typically have a bit over 18K resistance. The trash have pretty substantial resistance too--after all, I tested this on the first trash mob in the dungeon and not a boss, and it showed Sharpened as the clear winner.

And finally, to address your point about Sharpened being best for "pure DPS". Um, isn't that the goal here? We're not talking about tanks or healers here--we're talking about the DPS role. Besides, many DPS self-heals are based on a percentage of damage done (e.g., DK Embers, NB Strife, Templar Sweeps), so the more damage you do, the more self-healing you get.

TL;DR: Sharpened beats Nirnhoned in PvE. By a wide margin. The theorycrafting says so, and basic tests confirm it.

It's quite simple. I made 2 Inferno Staves of the same level, one Nirnhoned, one Sharpened, gave them to my mage who has a large amount of Spell Penetration via passives (Penetrating Magic for 10% Spell Resist ignore, Concentration for 4884 Penetration, which at the time gave oh I don't know about 2k Penetration?), then proceeded to perform heavy attacks and compare numbers. Nirnhoned did more, but not by much. I could run another comparison later with more accurate stats if you like.

Take out the Spell Erosion points and put them into elfborn or eledamage. Then sharpened would be a lot better.

UltimaJoe777 · August 2016

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

UltimaJoe777 wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

UltimaJoe777 wrote: »

andreasranasen wrote: »

I've made my Torugs Pact dual + staff in both Nirn, Precise and Sharpened to compare the stats. Nirn gives you A LOT more spell dmg. Changing my Nirn Staff to Precise or Sharpened it takes off around 150 spell dmg and over 200 weapon dmg.

(These are gold weapons)

The best way to compare Sharpened with Nirnhoned is to actually attack something with equal weapons of both traits. I did this and found on my Magicka DPS that, due to using Destruction Staves, Light Armor, and Spell Erosion, Nirnhoned was superior in PvE. In PvP though yes Sharpened would be superior for PURE DPS.

I happen to have two old generic destruction staves, both VR16 gold. One Sharpened. One Nirnhoned. I fished it out of a mule to do some quick testing with the Thralled Warrior in the lobby of vet Spindle...

Sharpened:
Light attack: 2150, 3741 crit
Funnel Health: 7057, 12280 crit

Nirnhoned:
Light attack: 1992, 3465 crit
Funnel Health: 6364, 11073 crit

We see here that in a basic test (no tank debuff, no Major Sorcery), Sharpened outperformed Nirnhoned by 7.9% for light attacks (basic staff attacks favor Spell Damage) and 10.9% for a class ability.

But, admittedly, that's not a very fair test. In a group PvE scenario, you'll have a tank debuffing the enemy, and you should be keeping Major Sorcery up. Both of those should shift things in favor of Nirnhoned. So, for this next set of tests, I used Mark Target to debuff the resistance and cast Entropy to apply Major Sorcery.

Sharpened:
Light attack: 2694, 4688 crit
Funnel Health: 8468, 14734 crit

Nirnhoned:
Light attack: 2532, 4405 crit
Funnel Health: 7770, 13520 crit

As expected, the gap narrowed. But it's still substantial. For staff attacks, Sharpened outperformed by 6.4%, and for class abilities, by 9%.

I have no idea what kind of tests you did. The math simply does not support Nirnhoned coming anywhere close to the performance of Sharpened. And some basic testing confirms what the math predicted all along.

This is with 5p Julianos, 2p Nerien'eth, 3p Infallible, and a generic staff (I don't have a Nirnhoned Maelstrom staff to compare against a Sharpened one). If I had used Willpower or a Maelstrom staff, the balance would shift even more in favor of Sharpened.

My sources of penetration in these tests were the light armor passive (4884), destruction staff passive for the light attack tests (10% of enemy resistance), Spell Erosion (1437), Sharpened (5160), and Major Breach (5280). Bosses inside vet dungeons typically have a bit over 18K resistance. The trash have pretty substantial resistance too--after all, I tested this on the first trash mob in the dungeon and not a boss, and it showed Sharpened as the clear winner.

And finally, to address your point about Sharpened being best for "pure DPS". Um, isn't that the goal here? We're not talking about tanks or healers here--we're talking about the DPS role. Besides, many DPS self-heals are based on a percentage of damage done (e.g., DK Embers, NB Strife, Templar Sweeps), so the more damage you do, the more self-healing you get.

TL;DR: Sharpened beats Nirnhoned in PvE. By a wide margin. The theorycrafting says so, and basic tests confirm it.

It's quite simple. I made 2 Inferno Staves of the same level, one Nirnhoned, one Sharpened, gave them to my mage who has a large amount of Spell Penetration via passives (Penetrating Magic for 10% Spell Resist ignore, Concentration for 4884 Penetration, which at the time gave oh I don't know about 2k Penetration?), then proceeded to perform heavy attacks and compare numbers. Nirnhoned did more, but not by much. I could run another comparison later with more accurate stats if you like.

Take out the Spell Erosion points and put them into elfborn or eledamage. Then sharpened would be a lot better.

I will do the test without Spell Erosion then, but I'll wait until I actually NEED to redo my CPs so I don't waste 3k lol

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO · August 2016

Well I would do it sooner then later.

Also read this-

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/262295/nirnhoned-precise-and-sharpened/p1

UltimaJoe777 · August 2016

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

Well I would do it sooner then later.

Also read this-

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/262295/nirnhoned-precise-and-sharpened/p1

I'm in no hurry. Besides, if all it takes is a measly 2k Penetration for Nirnhoned to top Sharpened then I'd rather do Spell Erosion and Nirnhoned than no Spell Erosion and Sharpened. Besides, a large amount of the % from Elfborn and Elemental Expert comes from the earlier points.

code65536 · August 2016

UltimaJoe777 wrote: »

I will do the test without Spell Erosion then, but I'll wait until I actually NEED to redo my CPs so I don't waste 3k lol

I highly doubt that a few hundred points of extra penetration from Erosion would close that substantial gap between Sharpened and Nirnhoned. I wouldn't spend the gold barking up that wrong tree (that said, I would still lower it if you switch to using Sharpened).

What enemies were you testing this on? My tests are always max-level CR160 enemies inside instanced content (not overworld content). E.g., vet dungeons, vDSA, trials, etc. Overworld or underleveled enemies will typically have less resistance.
What did your stats look like? Nirnhoned increases your damage by a flat amount, whereas Sharpened increases your damage by a percentage. This means the more base stats you have, the more powerful Sharpened becomes. If you did this test naked with just staves, Nirnhoned would easily win. If you did this test without food, the balance would shift towards Nirnhoned. With a typical magicka build with Julianos, Willpower, blue max-stat food, and 40K+ magicka, Sharpened should be the clear winner by a comfortable margin.
Were your heavy attacks always fully-charged? The amount of damage a heavy attack does is proportional to the amount of charging it had, so if you released one just a little too early, it would do less damage. This is why I prefer light attacks when testing staff attack damage. Also, staff attacks favor Spell Damage more so than casted abilities, which is why I always test both. That having been said, Sharpened should still come out on top with staff attacks.

UltimaJoe777 · August 2016

code65536 wrote: »

UltimaJoe777 wrote: »

I will do the test without Spell Erosion then, but I'll wait until I actually NEED to redo my CPs so I don't waste 3k lol

I highly doubt that a few hundred points of extra penetration from Erosion would close that substantial gap between Sharpened and Nirnhoned. I wouldn't spend the gold barking up that wrong tree (that said, I would still lower it if you switch to using Sharpened).
What enemies were you testing this on? My tests are always max-level CR160 enemies inside instanced content (not overworld content). E.g., vet dungeons, vDSA, trials, etc. Overworld or underleveled enemies will typically have less resistance.

What did your stats look like? Nirnhoned increases your damage by a flat amount, whereas Sharpened increases your damage by a percentage. This means the more base stats you have, the more powerful Sharpened becomes. If you did this test naked with just staves, Nirnhoned would easily win. If you did this test without food, the balance would shift towards Nirnhoned. With a typical magicka build with Julianos, Willpower, blue max-stat food, and 40K+ magicka, Sharpened should be the clear winner by a comfortable margin.

Were your heavy attacks always fully-charged? The amount of damage a heavy attack does is proportional to the amount of charging it had, so if you released one just a little too early, it would do less damage. This is why I prefer light attacks when testing staff attack damage. Also, staff attacks favor Spell Damage more so than casted abilities, which is why I always test both. That having been said, Sharpened should still come out on top with staff attacks.

1. Honestly don't remember, I think a scaled down normal pledge trash mob.
2. I was statted as my mage is now: fully.
3. Yes, fully charged.

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO · August 2016

You understand that if you move the points out of spell erosion and the elf born and eleexpert, you are guaranteed more damage? Yes there is diminishing returns on them, but it is still worth it. Depending on your class, you ought to have eleexpert maxxed and at least 14% into elfborn. As dps of course.

UltimaJoe777 · August 2016

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

You understand that if you move the points out of spell erosion and the elf born and eleexpert, you are guaranteed more damage? Yes there is diminishing returns on them, but it is still worth it. Depending on your class, you ought to have eleexpert maxxed and at least 14% into elfborn. As dps of course.

I go for a more evened out approach that will eventually benefit me more in the long run.

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO · August 2016

Did you read that for post from @asayre? It is very clear that sharpened is the way to go if you are a dps. Not sure what more can be said.

UltimaJoe777 · August 2016

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

Did you read that for post from @asayre? It is very clear that sharpened is the way to go if you are a dps. Not sure what more can be said.

You do it your way, I do it my way. That's all that CAN be said, and applies to pretty much everyone and everything. I won't deny Sharpened has its advantages, but Nirnhoned isn't as useless as some people claim it is, and that is all I'm basically trying to say.

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO · August 2016

What you are saying is that nirn is not useless, no one said it was, but it is NOT the best for dps. Simple as that. It is behind sharpened AND precise.

UltimaJoe777 · August 2016

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

What you are saying is that nirn is not useless, no one said it was, but it is NOT the best for dps. Simple as that. It is behind sharpened AND precise.

Precise is debatable as it influences the CHANCE to critically hit, and while every little bit helps 7% isn't THAT much of a difference to the RNG that governs critical hits. Sharpened being better or worse is situational. Depends on how much Penetration you have from other sources.

In PvP though it depends on whether the target is squishy or not.

code65536 · August 2016

UltimaJoe777 wrote: »

1. Honestly don't remember, I think a scaled down normal pledge trash mob.

And there's the problem.

UltimaJoe777 wrote: »

You do it your way, I do it my way. That's all that CAN be said, and applies to pretty much everyone and everything. I won't deny Sharpened has its advantages, but Nirnhoned isn't as useless as some people claim it is, and that is all I'm basically trying to say.

That's fine for subjective matters of opinion and preference. But when it comes to what trait is best for a DPS, this is a simple objective question with a clear, straightforward answer in math, supported by hard in-game evidence.

Nirn has its uses. But they are rather niche cases. For players who do a mix of healing and DPS, Nirn will do less DPS than Sharpened, less healing than Powered, but more healing than Sharpened and more DPS than Powered. Nirn is also useful if you expect your enemy to use shields as their primary means of defense (this is virtually never an issue in PvE).

For someone whose primary role is that of DPS, Sharpened is better. And that's an objective fact, not a matter of taste or opinion.

UltimaJoe777 wrote: »

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

What you are saying is that nirn is not useless, no one said it was, but it is NOT the best for dps. Simple as that. It is behind sharpened AND precise.

Precise is debatable as it influences the CHANCE to critically hit, and while every little bit helps 7% isn't THAT much of a difference to the RNG that governs critical hits.

In PvE, crit is king, and stacking crit chance and crit damage is not optional if you want to reach the kinds of high DPS at the top tier. And while crit RNG can be erratic in short fights, in the kinds of long parses you get in vet trials, your overall crit through that long fight is relatively stable.

Take, for example, my magblade. If I run trap or if someone guards me, I'll have a CHD of 0.86. That means a 7% increase in crit chance will, in the long run (e.g., a long vet trial boss), translate into 6% more overall damage. That's a lot, esp. if you consider that adding 146 extra unbuffed spell damage from Nirnhoned will, by my estimate, increase my overall damage output by only 2%.

And this is not even considering War Horns. If War Horns are active--esp. in well-coordinated groups--Precise can overtake Sharpened as the best trait.

UltimaJoe777 wrote: »

Sharpened being better or worse is situational. Depends on how much Penetration you have from other sources.

LOL. You sound like Wrobel when people brought up how OP sharpened was. His response was that Sharpened is "situational" (his exact word). Well, if you're a DPS, it's by far the best trait to have in 95% of situations. I guess that's technically "situational". Nirnhoned is a "jack of all trades, master of none" trait, with much emphasis on the "master of none" part.

And keep in mind that in my tests, Sharpened still outperformed Nirnhoned by a significant, wide margin even though I tested with more penetration than you: Concentration, Major Breach, destro passive, and Spell Erosion (I have less than 1K less Spell Erosion than you). With Stamina, there are more sources of penetration in a well-coordinated raid, so you can overpenetrate more easily (though keeping a decent uptime on that penetration would be tricky), but then in such a coordinated group, Precise really starts to shine--if Sharpened loses, it'll be to Precise, not to Nirnhoned.