Precise or Sharpened for VMA?

Chilla_Deluxe · August 2016

Haven't seen a solid thread regarding this after DB since Sharpened got a big buff 5k penetration.

So down to my question would a Sharpened Greatsword or Precise Greatsword hit the higher numbers against the VMA mobs/bosses? Also not sure how resistance works with mobs. Care to explain the math? Kay thanks

Asmael · August 2016

Sharpened hits the highest, since you're the only one debuffing your opponents and reducing their armor.

Dracane · August 2016

Sharpened. I guess you will be too lazy to use major breach on your own

Vipstaakki · August 2016

I used precise myself.

Trublz · August 2016

Only bosses have resistance so they would be the only ones effected by sharpened. While all are effected by precise. <<<At least I think that's correct.
I'm dual wield so I use 1 of each

GreenhaloX · August 2016

If you have a good crit armor build, then a sharpened weapon would be better.

RoyJade · August 2016

You're alone, so each mob will have his full armor and resistance.
Magicka user have spell pen with their armor passive so precise is probably better against trash (who don't have a lot of resistance), but boss definitely have enough resistance to make sharpened better.
Stamina user don't have any armor pen, so sharpened are better for them.

If you use an armor/resistance debuff (especially magicka class with drain, stam DK with breath and stam NB with surprise attack), precise may be even better in some case.

And at last, I'm full precise on my stamsorc, because I need these nearly guaranteed heals when hitting the enemy.

Chilla_Deluxe · August 2016

GreenhaloX wrote: »

If you have a good crit armor build, then a sharpened weapon would be better.

50% crit , shadow mundus

Oreyn_Bearclaw · August 2016

In PVE, If you are trying to do damage, sharpened is the ONLY answer. On paper, people will argue you can make precise better with enough debuffs by a whole raid group, but in reality the best raid DPS run sharpened. My precise VMA inferno takes a back seat to Sharpened Crafted staff. It's more DPS. For stam weapons, Precise is better than nothing, but again, even in a raid with full stam debuffs and perfect warhorn, sharpened is outperforming since they changed the way it calculates.

In PVP, same answer. Not even worth discussing. Defending is better than precise.

Vildebill · August 2016

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

In PVE, If you are trying to do damage, sharpened is the ONLY answer. On paper, people will argue you can make precise better with enough debuffs by a whole raid group, but in reality the best raid DPS run sharpened. My precise VMA inferno takes a back seat to Sharpened Crafted staff. It's more DPS. For stam weapons, Precise is better than nothing, but again, even in a raid with full stam debuffs and perfect warhorn, sharpened is outperforming since they changed the way it calculates.

In PVP, same answer. Not even worth discussing. Defending is better than precise.

This "in reality" scenario must depend on how your raid group plays rather than fact since it's mathematically fully possible to reduce almost all armour on a boss. This information is taken from Jeckll's NB Stamina DD guide on Tamriel Foundry:

OPTIMIZED RAIDS
In a raid environment, you want to support your team rather than to go for your personal best performance. The following sets are awesome for your group and if your raid does not have one of them, you should consider being the one to use it:

1. Roar of Alkosh: Penetration Value: 3010 Armor and Spell Resistance => 6,02% Damage Increase for the whole raid. Drops in Maw of Lorkay.
2. Sunderflame: Penetration Value: 3360 Armor => 6,72% Damage Increase for all Stamina users. Drops in City of Ash, CP140.
3. Night Mother’s Gaze: Penetration Value: 2580 Armor => 5,16% Damage Increase for all Stamina users. Craftable.

Those sets combined with Major Fracture (5280 Armor), Minor Fracture (1320 Armor) and Crushing Enchant (1622 Armor) do give a raid a total of 17172 Armor Penetration = 34,34% Damage Increase.

Most bosses do have 18000 Armor, which means with this setup, your enemies are basically naked. That means you dont need to put a lot of points into the Penetration CP or use Sharpened Weapons in this kind of raid.

http://tamrielfoundry.com/topic/stamina-nightblade-pve-dps-guide-for-dark-brotherhood/

So, in short, in the scenario described above Sharpened is utterly useless. Of course it takes some practice and a well organized group to pull it off, but it's still fact.

So to answer OP:s question, use Sharpened in vMA since you are alone

Happy playing!

TheDarkoil · August 2016

I made a precise and a sharpened staff yesterday, figured one for mobs and one for bosses during trials but I noticed after a lot of testing the sharpened does a hell of a lot more damage even against regular mobs and the precise doesn't seem to even increase crit rate. I'm over 50 crit already and 7% extra just doesn't seem to make much difference.