Countering Impenetrable/crit mitigation

Matt45045 · October 2016

I run a high crit build in PvE, I know a lot of people run impenetrable and otherwise mitigate crit damage. Is there a way to counter this in PvP with something like penetration or is there no way to get the crit damage back up once it is mitigated?

fred4 · October 2016

Well, you can run the Shadow Mundus. Crit damage can also be increased via CP.

You can't counter Impen with penetration. I have about 2K Impen in PvP. Crits are still noticeably higher, on me, than normal hits. I find this is generally true and will typically crit on others in the 1.3 to 1.6 range with my NB, who has a nominal 1.65 crit modifier. It is highly unusual that crits are completely mitigated nor am I sure it's possible. It's a balancing act and nobody completely prioritises crit mitigation.

I find crit percentage valuable in PvP. For example, with all these proc sets around, it's one of the few ways you can boost both your normal damage and your proc damage.

When you see someone one-shotting another player, it usually involves consecutive crits. I was duelling a Khajiit Nightblade recently, who had over 80% crit. Very deadly.

Asardes · October 2016

Critical mitigation is capped at about ~3.3K. So having more than that amount of critical resistance won't get you more mitigation. In PvP it's more useful to stack penetration and weapon damage. So you can swap your thief mundus for warrior (more weapon damage) or serpent (more sustain) since in PvP you won't get as much support as in PvE. You can also stack armor penetration with set like Spriggan and Kra'gh but that will work mostly against heavy armor opponents. If targets block a lot and/or have shields, that can't be crited or penetrated, so simply having more damage and/or using various stuns and CCs will be more effective. Using proc sets like Viper, Red Mountain and Velidreth will also increase your damage passively.