Question on Spell Pen

P3ZZL3 · October 2016

So got a question on Spell Pen - Primarily the Spinner Set. If you predominantly play PVE/Dungeons and Trials - with the occasional PVP - is it a set to get and run, or is it not worth it.

If I use it, I'm going to lose 300 or so Spell Damage and 1400 Magika, but I'll gain 150 Spell Damage and 1800 Magika and 4000 Spell Penetration.

So, worth it or not?

Note: I'm a Breton Magplar

DannyLV702 · October 2016

I remember reading that 1,000 penetration is almost about the same as 100 spell damage

probablyafk · October 2016

DannyLV702 wrote: »

I remember reading that 1,000 penetration is almost about the same as 100 spell damage

Got a source for that?

I've read that in PVP 1* Spell Pen negates 1* Spell Resistance - if that's the case then in the OPs situation they'd be sacificing 110 Spell Damage (the +400 magicka = +40 spell damage right?) for 4000 Spell Pen ... which means it's he's going to win whenever PVP against anyone with more than 400 Spell Res (well, up to certain limits like around 17k-ish).

But how does that work in PvE? If it's the same it seems a much better way to go *if* mobs usually have a decent amount of Spell Res...

Sunburnt_Penguin · October 2016

DannyLV702 wrote: »

I remember reading that 1,000 penetration is almost about the same as 100 spell damage

I don't think that's correct. The damage equivalent of penetration depends on the target's resistance and what armour debuffs/penetration is already applied. The less, the greater the damage equivalent.

DannyLV702 · October 2016

probablyafk wrote: »

DannyLV702 wrote: »

I remember reading that 1,000 penetration is almost about the same as 100 spell damage

Got a source for that?

I've read that in PVP 1* Spell Pen negates 1* Spell Resistance - if that's the case then in the OPs situation they'd be sacificing 110 Spell Damage (the +400 magicka = +40 spell damage right?) for 4000 Spell Pen ... which means it's he's going to win whenever PVP against anyone with more than 400 Spell Res (well, up to certain limits like around 17k-ish).

But how does that work in PvE? If it's the same it seems a much better way to go *if* mobs usually have a decent amount of Spell Res...

I can't remember the thread. Everyone was speaking math so I was automatically turned off and left it

Baconfat79 · October 2016

It depends on a lot of factors. PvE mobs now have roughly 18k resistance. Your tank should be applying Major Fracture/Major Breach, which negates some of that. Sharpened trait on weapons negates a little more. Those two are "given", but the rest depends on your group's setup and your CP setup. Is anyone using Crusher enchant on weapons? That negates some. Is anyone running Alkosh set? That negates some. How many CP do you have into spell pen/physical pen?

Unfortunately, there is no easy answer to your question. You have to add up all the penetration from all possible sources to see what you are working with in your particular circumstance, and see if that extra pen is helping you or if it is overkill.

Taylor_MB · October 2016

1000 max stat = 100 weapon/spell dmg (approximately).

There is no direct correlation between penetration and dmg increase, because everything has different resistances.

For PvP (estimated without CP, to keep it simpler)
Light armour wearers with major resistance buffs will have around 13k
Medium armour wearers with major resistance buffs will have around 16k
Heavy armour can have anything up to the cap of 32k (correct me if this has changed)

These will go up and down by a few 1000 depending if people are wearing a mixture of armour for undaunted passives.

So if you are running 7pc light you have 2.5k pen (armour passives) + 5k from sharpened weapon + 5k from major breach (major debuff), you can negate (almost) all a light armour wearers resistance without spinner set. Penetration over your targets cap does not increase your damage done. Also remembering your penetration does nothing against shields (most magicka users run shields and most stamina tanks run shield, either the DK class skill or Bone Shield), everytime someone pops a shield, all your peneratration is wasted. For this reason I think Spinners and Spriggins are waayyyyy over hyped.

For PvE
I cannot recall what resistance bosses have, but with your base penetration + debuffs (that you and others are applying) it's probably not worth it. In saying that the 2, 3 and 4pc bonuses are really good, so it may just work nicely into your build to through the 5pc on there also.

Summary
I wouldn't spend your time farming it (or buying it). Yes tanks are the meta in PvP currently, but most of them run shields anyway and you'll be wasting penetration.

Dymence · October 2016

P3ZZL3 wrote: »

If I use it, I'm going to lose 300 or so Spell Damage and 1400 Magika, but I'll gain 150 Spell Damage and 1800 Magika and 4000 Spell Penetration.

?

Baconfat79 · October 2016

It's definitely possible to see diminishing returns with all the penetration available to us these days, so it really comes down to adjusting CP accordingly. If you use Spinner set, you're most likely going to want to pull some CP out of spell pen, and allocate it elsewhere (Elfborn for more crit damage, for instance). If you don't run that extra penetration on your gear, you want to add more CP to Spell Erosion to make up for it.

P3ZZL3 · October 2016

Dymence wrote: »

P3ZZL3 wrote: »

If I use it, I'm going to lose 300 or so Spell Damage and 1400 Magika, but I'll gain 150 Spell Damage and 1800 Magika and 4000 Spell Penetration.

?

The Items I would swap out, to get the benefits of the Spinner set are giving me 300 Spell Damage and 1400 Magicka.
If I take them out I lose that benefit.
Then if I put in the Spinner set - I get the 150SD and 1800 Magicka.
Means I gain 400 MAgika and 4000 Spell Pen, but I lose 150 Spell Damage in the process.

Capiche?

Dymence · October 2016

P3ZZL3 wrote: »

Dymence wrote: »

P3ZZL3 wrote: »

If I use it, I'm going to lose 300 or so Spell Damage and 1400 Magika, but I'll gain 150 Spell Damage and 1800 Magika and 4000 Spell Penetration.

?

The Items I would swap out, to get the benefits of the Spinner set are giving me 300 Spell Damage and 1400 Magicka.
If I take them out I lose that benefit.
Then if I put in the Spinner set - I get the 150SD and 1800 Magicka.
Means I gain 400 MAgika and 4000 Spell Pen, but I lose 150 Spell Damage in the process.

Capiche?

Yeah I got it, I was just nitpicking because you didn't bother to do the math and post 'real' gains and losses in your OP

P3ZZL3 · October 2016

That's because I'm in my 40's and don't do Math

I ask the intelligent young whippersnappers in the forums to do it for me

Jbugz97 · October 2016

also remember spell penetration has no effect on shield

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO · October 2016

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

from this thread you can see that around 1700 spell pen is worth around 250 spell damage.

these quotes here lead me to this belief.

So you would expect 183 Spell Damage for a staff and 219 Spell Damage for dual wielding swords. Thus if we’re dual wielding swords, Nirnhoned leads to an increase ability tooltip of roughly 3.2%.

Precise provides 3.5% increase in ability tooltip, this value can be achieved if Sharpened removes at least 1750 resistance

s7732425ub17_ESO · October 2016

This document explains a lot:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/1/d/1HhjUFzSEbuHrWY9bPaoX4iY_Xpt3TLymylwFi0gBUPc/pubhtml?gid=1891798234&single=true

In summary, 500 penetration = 1% damage in PVE.

As for your spell power question, 64 Spell Damage = 1% damage. Equivalently, 672 magicka/stamina = 1% damage.

idk · October 2016

@P3ZZL3

I remember reading that with light armor spell pen, the alkosh debuff that precise slight (extreemly slightly) outshines precise, but since the alkosh debuf up time is not reliable then it's stil best to use sharpened.

That may give you an idea of total numbers. It's easier to reach the spell pen cap than the physical pen. As one needs the cap the benefit of additional penetration becomes less.

I'm not a math expert. I'm about as dumb as dirt.

Hamrb · October 2016

Im going to round this all off slightly for easier math.
The armor cap is 33000 physical and spell.
That's equal to 50% damage mitigation
So with that math 3300 penetration equals 5% more damage.
Roughly

Keep in mind you can't take an enemy beyond 0 armor.

Swomp23 · October 2016

@P3ZZL3 Hi there,

Spinner is probably a perfectly good set, but by looking at @Alcast (which I have a very big tendency to believe) Beamplar build, Mother's Sorrow is now BiS for Magicka DPS. That's even more true for Templars, since you have 10% more dmg on crits from the Piercing Spear passive.

http://alcasthq.com/beamplar/

Alcast · October 2016

Swomp23 wrote: »

@P3ZZL3 Hi there,

Spinner is probably a perfectly good set, but by looking at @Alcast (which I have a very big tendency to believe) Beamplar build, Mother's Sorrow is now BiS for Magicka DPS. That's even more true for Templars, since you have 10% more dmg on crits from the Piercing Spear passive.

http://alcasthq.com/beamplar/

For Trials its not worth it as you are almost close to 0 Resistance on boss with sets like Alkosh, crusher enchantment, taunt and sharpened weapons.

If you Solo and maybe 4man dungeons, then prolly yes.

Swomp23 · October 2016

Hi there @Alcast !
Thx for the clarification! Still kinda noob to this game, in fact I only dipped the tip of my toe in end-game content, but I read a lot of stuff online. It's nice to see the whys behind your choices and your explanations on when does a set perform better than another.
Keep up the good work!

P3ZZL3 · October 2016

Thanks for all the responses folks

@Alcast Good to see ya pop up

Thing is, and this is by no means a dig at @Alcast but I'm trying to avoid cookie cutter meta's. They are sooooo boring to me. I like the variety and seeing what's out there. Personally, I get a LOT of satisfaction from running a non Meta build and beating things

Maybe I'm a masochist

Can't load the beamplar build as the site's saying it's down...

Waffennacht · October 2016

Im going to assume you'll not receive group buffs.

4000 pen is soomething like 6% more damage.

You say you gain 400 magicka but lose 150 spell dmg? So let's just do a simple rounded conversion and make magicka 40 spell damage.

So you lose 110ish spell damage for 6% damage. Let's say an attack does a tooltip of 10k. That's 600 more damage via spinner, and im gonna guess 110 spell damage would be 500 damage or less via 110 spell damage.

Spinners should result in more dps than your alternative.

The only reason it wouldn't do more damage is if your opponent has less than 10k armor (and if no group buffs they'll have that much)

I would recommend spinners.