Sharpened Vs Nirnhoned

bg22 · March 2017

So, I always hear "sharpened, sharpened, sharpened". And I've always went with the flow.

Until today.

I just wanted to test some stuff out, so I switched things up, and tried a weapon damage/crit build out.

My DPS increased by over 2,000 against a robust target. Is the crit making that big of a difference, or is the sustained weapon damage making the difference? (Too broke in game Atm to test everything else out lol)

Here are my before and after stats: First pic is with sharpened weapons and 10,000~ penetration and clever alch buff, wpn damage drops to 3,300~ when buff wears off (12 second buff). 2nd pic is with 5,000~ penetration and the weapon damage is constant.

[img][/img]

Izaki · March 2017

Your crit is extremely low. 80% is more or less the norm on non-khajiit stamina builds.

Clever alchemist is trash. Use hundings instead, even Twice-born star is better. Optimal is Two-Fanged snake.

Too much recovery and too much weapon damage, not enough crit (and probably max stamina). Why is your weapon damage that high?

Sharpened is a 12% increase in damage done, Nirnhoned is about 2.7% and Precise is 3.4%.

Browiseth · March 2017

sharpened is better

Voxicity · March 2017

Yeah sorry but I don't believe it

kadar · March 2017

If you're crit went up with your new setup, that's what made the difference, not nirn.

bg22 · March 2017

IzakiBrotherSs wrote: »

Your crit is extremely low. 80% is more or less the norm on non-khajiit stamina builds.

Clever alchemist is trash. Use hundings instead, even Twice-born star is better. Optimal is Two-Fanged snake.

Too much recovery and too much weapon damage, not enough crit (and probably max stamina). Why is your weapon damage that high?

Sharpened is a 12% increase in damage done, Nirnhoned is about 2.7% and Precise is 3.4%.

I got rid of clever alch. Running spriggans and hundings. Again, this is my PvP setup, so is 70% crit really considered low considering I'm running Impen armor? And if I switch to sharp daggers instead of nirnhoned you're saying I'll see almost a 10% increase in damage with these same stats?

What do you mean my weapon damage is too high? Is that a thing???

Ghettokid · March 2017

Prosperous

IronCrystal · March 2017

If this is for PvP, then does your DPS matter? PvP is all about burst damage anyways.

Bobby_V_Rockit · March 2017

70% crit is low? When did that happen?!

bg22 · March 2017

IronCrystal wrote: »

If this is for PvP, then does your DPS matter? PvP is all about burst damage anyways.

Yes it matters. You can either do enough damage or you can't. DPS is just a form of measurement...

Bobby_V_Rockit wrote: »

70% crit is low? When did that happen?!

I was wondering the same thing. I didn't know much higher was possible... I also don't understand why I have "too much weapon damage".

Ch4mpTW · March 2017

IronCrystal wrote: »

If this is for PvP, then does your DPS matter? PvP is all about burst damage anyways.

To an extent. Sustain is by far more important (in my opinion). Especially with all types of resource poisons being implemented nowadays, and other shenanigans involving CC. You can have all the burst in the world, but once your resources run dry — it's a wrap. Sure you can pop a potion to try and make things better, but potions alone can only get you so far. And when you're CC'd and have low resources, 9x out of 10 it means defeat. And PvP is pretty much a game of who runs out of options first.

Tommy_The_Gun · March 2017

for PvP - Sharpened
for PvE - Nirnhoned

KingJ · March 2017

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

for PvP - Sharpened
for PvE - Sharpened

Fixed it for you.

Sharpened is always better.

Izaki · March 2017

bg22 wrote: »

IzakiBrotherSs wrote: »

Your crit is extremely low. 80% is more or less the norm on non-khajiit stamina builds.

Clever alchemist is trash. Use hundings instead, even Twice-born star is better. Optimal is Two-Fanged snake.

Too much recovery and too much weapon damage, not enough crit (and probably max stamina). Why is your weapon damage that high?

Sharpened is a 12% increase in damage done, Nirnhoned is about 2.7% and Precise is 3.4%.

I got rid of clever alch. Running spriggans and hundings. Again, this is my PvP setup, so is 70% crit really considered low considering I'm running Impen armor? And if I switch to sharp daggers instead of nirnhoned you're saying I'll see almost a 10% increase in damage with these same stats?

What do you mean my weapon damage is too high? Is that a thing???

Dude you talk about DPS then say you PvP... Those things don't coexist. Which is why I said that you focus too much on weapon damage and not enough on crit. DPS = damage per second, which is a number calculated over a longer period of time. In PvP, DPS is irrelevant, the only thing that is relevant is burst. Why is DPS irrelevant? Because you're stopping DPS to heal, dodge, block, etc. so its far from being a reliable measurement of the damage output your build can do. Don't test things on the dummy, test it in PvP. The results you see on the dummy are not even going to be close to what you have in PvP, because of Impen and other forms of mitigation like Hardy and Ele Defender. The dummy is a good way to test things for PvE such as rotations or comparing one PvE DPS setup to another (say BSW vs Necropotence on a Sorc or TFS vs TBS on a stamina class).

But yes. Any opponent that has enough armor will have take 12% more damage from running Sharpened. Because you have Spriggan and Power of the Light, but no access to Major Fracture (2H+DW) you have a base penetration of 5420, so sharpened will always deal 12% more damage to any opponent no matter what armor they wear. Doesn't apply to shields obviously. Precise is useless in this case, as you have more than enough crit for PvP. Nirnhoned is roughly 3% with those stats. So take your pick: do you want to do 12% more damage or 3% more damage?

There's a reason everyone says Sharpened is by far the best for damage dealing. Do you really think no one ran any calculations?

Izaki · March 2017

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

for PvP - Sharpened
for PvE - Nirnhoned

Nirnhoned is NEVER BiS for anything aside from Onslaught ganking. I don't know how you're making that claim (fix that in an edit please, so that people don't actually think that it is true and spend tons of gold mats on a nirnhoned weapon).

Like I said earlier:
Sharpened = 12% more damage done
Precise = 3.4% more damage done
Nirnhoned = 2.7% damage done

So even if full penetration is achieved in PvE (not realistic at all), Precise would still be better than Nirnhoned. In fact, When the target has 1.3k armor left Sharpened = Precise in terms of DPS. So yeah, Sharpened is best pretty much all the time.

Zagnut123Zagnut123 · March 2017

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

for PvP - Sharpened
for PvE - Nirnhoned

Nirn is never better. Precise is a better option over nirn but only if the mobs armour has reached zero.

Ep1kMalware · March 2017

IzakiBrotherSs wrote: »

Your crit is extremely low. 80% is more or less the norm on non-khajiit stamina builds.

Clever alchemist is trash. Use hundings instead, even Twice-born star is better. Optimal is Two-Fanged snake.

Too much recovery and too much weapon damage, not enough crit (and probably max stamina). Why is your weapon damage that high?

Sharpened is a 12% increase in damage done, Nirnhoned is about 2.7% and Precise is 3.4%.

Sharp is 8% increase sir. It's 1% for every 650 penetration. 5280/650=8.12

bg22 · March 2017

IzakiBrotherSs wrote: »

bg22 wrote: »

IzakiBrotherSs wrote: »

Your crit is extremely low. 80% is more or less the norm on non-khajiit stamina builds.

Clever alchemist is trash. Use hundings instead, even Twice-born star is better. Optimal is Two-Fanged snake.

Too much recovery and too much weapon damage, not enough crit (and probably max stamina). Why is your weapon damage that high?

Sharpened is a 12% increase in damage done, Nirnhoned is about 2.7% and Precise is 3.4%.

I got rid of clever alch. Running spriggans and hundings. Again, this is my PvP setup, so is 70% crit really considered low considering I'm running Impen armor? And if I switch to sharp daggers instead of nirnhoned you're saying I'll see almost a 10% increase in damage with these same stats?

What do you mean my weapon damage is too high? Is that a thing???

Dude you talk about DPS then say you PvP... Those things don't coexist. Which is why I said that you focus too much on weapon damage and not enough on crit. DPS = damage per second, which is a number calculated over a longer period of time. In PvP, DPS is irrelevant, the only thing that is relevant is burst. Why is DPS irrelevant? Because you're stopping DPS to heal, dodge, block, etc. so its far from being a reliable measurement of the damage output your build can do. Don't test things on the dummy, test it in PvP. The results you see on the dummy are not even going to be close to what you have in PvP, because of Impen and other forms of mitigation like Hardy and Ele Defender. The dummy is a good way to test things for PvE such as rotations or comparing one PvE DPS setup to another (say BSW vs Necropotence on a Sorc or TFS vs TBS on a stamina class).

But yes. Any opponent that has enough armor will have take 12% more damage from running Sharpened. Because you have Spriggan and Power of the Light, but no access to Major Fracture (2H+DW) you have a base penetration of 5420, so sharpened will always deal 12% more damage to any opponent no matter what armor they wear. Doesn't apply to shields obviously. Precise is useless in this case, as you have more than enough crit for PvP. Nirnhoned is roughly 3% with those stats. So take your pick: do you want to do 12% more damage or 3% more damage?

There's a reason everyone says Sharpened is by far the best for damage dealing. Do you really think no one ran any calculations?

Ty for your brilliant feedback. Damage is useless in PvP. Got it. Idk what these forums would do without you. I guess a second is a long period of time now. Also good to know.

bg22 · March 2017

doesnt nirnhoned help vigor tho?

Dantaria · March 2017

bg22 wrote: »

Ty for your brilliant feedback. Damage is useless in PvP. Got it. Idk what these forums would do without you. I guess a second is a long period of time now. Also good to know.

Oh, it's you. I remember you. And your sarcastic remarks to people, which are completely undeserved.

Read the post again, please.

IzakiBrotherSs wrote: »

Dude you talk about DPS then say you PvP... Those things don't coexist. Which is why I said that you focus too much on weapon damage and not enough on crit. DPS = damage per second, which is a number calculated over a longer period of time.

VetHM bosses fights take minutes. >2 minutes. So, actually... Yes. DPS, as a term, is irrelevant in PVP. Fights absolutely do not take that long. Burst is what PVP is about.

Read. Please.

If you do 45k DPS for 5 seconds and then 5k for 20 seconds, your actual DPS is 20k. PvE builds do 20k steadily and unchangingly every second for 50 seconds. For one minute. For 5 minutes. PvP builds make more damage, but for short period of time. PvE is about steady, constant DPS. PvP is about 45k dps for 5 seconds - burst.

Which is what @IzakiBrotherSs tried to explain to you. Got it?

Please. Start reading and stop attacking people.

EDIT. (Remark - I oversimplified, I admit. This "PvE steady DPS" is not exactly how it works. But I really want to make OP understand)

Izaki · March 2017

bg22 wrote: »

IzakiBrotherSs wrote: »

bg22 wrote: »

IzakiBrotherSs wrote: »

Your crit is extremely low. 80% is more or less the norm on non-khajiit stamina builds.

Clever alchemist is trash. Use hundings instead, even Twice-born star is better. Optimal is Two-Fanged snake.

Too much recovery and too much weapon damage, not enough crit (and probably max stamina). Why is your weapon damage that high?

Sharpened is a 12% increase in damage done, Nirnhoned is about 2.7% and Precise is 3.4%.

I got rid of clever alch. Running spriggans and hundings. Again, this is my PvP setup, so is 70% crit really considered low considering I'm running Impen armor? And if I switch to sharp daggers instead of nirnhoned you're saying I'll see almost a 10% increase in damage with these same stats?

What do you mean my weapon damage is too high? Is that a thing???

Dude you talk about DPS then say you PvP... Those things don't coexist. Which is why I said that you focus too much on weapon damage and not enough on crit. DPS = damage per second, which is a number calculated over a longer period of time. In PvP, DPS is irrelevant, the only thing that is relevant is burst. Why is DPS irrelevant? Because you're stopping DPS to heal, dodge, block, etc. so its far from being a reliable measurement of the damage output your build can do. Don't test things on the dummy, test it in PvP. The results you see on the dummy are not even going to be close to what you have in PvP, because of Impen and other forms of mitigation like Hardy and Ele Defender. The dummy is a good way to test things for PvE such as rotations or comparing one PvE DPS setup to another (say BSW vs Necropotence on a Sorc or TFS vs TBS on a stamina class).

But yes. Any opponent that has enough armor will have take 12% more damage from running Sharpened. Because you have Spriggan and Power of the Light, but no access to Major Fracture (2H+DW) you have a base penetration of 5420, so sharpened will always deal 12% more damage to any opponent no matter what armor they wear. Doesn't apply to shields obviously. Precise is useless in this case, as you have more than enough crit for PvP. Nirnhoned is roughly 3% with those stats. So take your pick: do you want to do 12% more damage or 3% more damage?

There's a reason everyone says Sharpened is by far the best for damage dealing. Do you really think no one ran any calculations?

Ty for your brilliant feedback. Damage is useless in PvP. Got it. Idk what these forums would do without you. I guess a second is a long period of time now. Also good to know.

I don't even know why I'm bothering explaining anything to you if you aren't listening. I don't even know where you got the "damage is useless in PvP" thing since I never said such a thing, not in this post, nor in any other post. I haven't said that at all in fact, because its an absurdly stupid thing to say.

And "a second is a long period of time" what are you referring to? DPS isn't calculated per second, its calculated by the total damage done over a period of time then divided by the time the fight took. So yeah... Technically, if you burst someone in 1 second that would be your DPS. At this point I'm doing over 200k single target DPS on my stamina nightblade when I'm built for ganking. See why its stupid to use the term DPS in PvP now? But DPS is not the correct term to use in this situation.

Just for future notice, don't post on the forums asking for help if you're gonna make remarks like that to people who answer your question. Especially, to the people who are obviously more informed and more polite than you.

Go on use Nirnhoned.

@Dantaria Thanks!

bg22 · March 2017

Dantaria wrote: »

bg22 wrote: »

Ty for your brilliant feedback. Damage is useless in PvP. Got it. Idk what these forums would do without you. I guess a second is a long period of time now. Also good to know.

Oh, it's you. I remember you. And your sarcastic remarks to people, which are completely undeserved.

Read the post again, please.

IzakiBrotherSs wrote: »

Dude you talk about DPS then say you PvP... Those things don't coexist. Which is why I said that you focus too much on weapon damage and not enough on crit. DPS = damage per second, which is a number calculated over a longer period of time.

VetHM bosses fights take minutes. >2 minutes. So, actually... Yes. DPS, as a term, is irrelevant in PVP. Fights absolutely do not take that long. Burst is what PVP is about.

Read. Please.

If you do 45k DPS for 5 seconds and then 5k for 20 seconds, your actual DPS is 20k. PvE builds do 20k steadily and unchangingly every second for 50 seconds. For one minute. For 5 minutes. PvP builds make more damage, but for short period of time. PvE is about steady, constant DPS. PvP is about 45k dps for 5 seconds - burst.

Which is what @IzakiBrotherSs tried to explain to you. Got it?

Please. Start reading and stop attacking people.

EDIT. (Remark - I oversimplified, I admit. This "PvE steady DPS" is not exactly how it works. But I really want to make OP understand)

I do understand. What both of YOU fail to understand is idc ab opinions of whether knowing your DPS is relevant. All I'm saying is that with my PVP BUILD I'm pulling X DPS, and wanted to know if changing things would increase X DPS.

Reading, and reading comprehension are totally different skills.

MaxwellC · March 2017

@bg22
Don't use nirnhoned in PvP mate just go with sharpened. Nirnhoned helps with vigor due to it increasing the base value since vigor scales off of damage + stamina but it's benefits overall falls completely flat. (This is coming from someone who's a legate on 1 character and if I combine all I would be a warlord).

Your stats are incredibly fantastic for PvP especially having high recovery with over 50% crit and 4k + weapon damage that's insane. You should do fine if your rotation engagements are set (player by player based rotations is what I mean).

DPS does matter in PvP by that way to all the people fighting it. Damage per second is something you need to factor in when selecting your skills to build your rotation for player engagement. If you say DPS doesn't matter then I question your playtime in PvP.

Dantaria · March 2017

bg22 wrote: »

I do understand. What both of YOU fail to understand is idc ab opinions of whether knowing your DPS is relevant. All I'm saying is that with my PVP BUILD I'm pulling X DPS, and wanted to know if changing things would increase X DPS.

Reading, and reading comprehension are totally different skills.

And now use logic.

Dummy tests are incorrect for burst environment. That's the first point.

The second, more important one, that if you actually hitted poor dummy for some significant amount of time, 2k dps is in range of simple human error.

When we talk about dps over some time, 20k = 22k. 22k can even be < 20k. Yep, that's right.

Now, if you had killed poor dummy 100 times with sharpened, then 100 times with nirnhorned, then had compared average in both cases numbers... Well, we could talk. But for now your "results" are completely unscientific.

Let me show you something. http://tamrielfoundry.com/topic/introduction-to-pve-damage-calculation-homestead/

That is a research. People actually run simulations. And provide spreadsheets.

Your numbers are nothing.

And if people who actually know what science is and use simulations (pretty much 100 and 100 scenario) tell you that sharpened is better then nirn - I suggest you listen to them.

Narvuntien · March 2017

I am trying to work out how you got for weapon damage so high did you gold all your gear? (Does gold gear make that big a difference?) or are you using the warrior stone?

I play the onslaught ganking build so I don't really care about DPS. My back bar is a sharpened bow. My crit is even less than what you have, if I want to crit I use cloak.I am running around trying to 1 shot or perhaps two snipe people.

I carry around a set of spriggans to switch to if I am doing PVE.

Izaki · March 2017

MaxwellC wrote: »

@bg22
Don't use nirnhoned in PvP mate just go with sharpened. Nirnhoned helps with vigor due to it increasing the base value since vigor scales off of damage + stamina but it's benefits overall falls completely flat. (This is coming from someone who's a legate on 1 character and if I combine all I would be a warlord).

Your stats are incredibly fantastic for PvP especially having high recovery with over 50% crit and 4k + weapon damage that's insane. You should do fine if your rotation engagements are set (player by player based rotations is what I mean).

DPS does matter in PvP by that way to all the people fighting it. Damage per second is something you need to factor in when selecting your skills to build your rotation for player engagement. If you say DPS doesn't matter then I question your playtime in PvP.

Not the same thing. Its still more centered around burst than actual DPS. Determining which skills are prioritized during engagement isn't so much about DPS as it is about priorities (duh). Priorities are what determines your max-DPS rotation in PvE. So in that respect, its the same, yes.
Also, no one here said DPS doesn't matter, I said it was an irrelevant way of measuring your damage in PvP.

I did say that I meant his stats were "wrong" thinking he was talking about a PvE build, just to make that clear. The stats are pretty dope.

Izaki · March 2017

Ep1kMalware wrote: »

IzakiBrotherSs wrote: »

Your crit is extremely low. 80% is more or less the norm on non-khajiit stamina builds.

Clever alchemist is trash. Use hundings instead, even Twice-born star is better. Optimal is Two-Fanged snake.

Too much recovery and too much weapon damage, not enough crit (and probably max stamina). Why is your weapon damage that high?

Sharpened is a 12% increase in damage done, Nirnhoned is about 2.7% and Precise is 3.4%.

Sharp is 8% increase sir. It's 1% for every 650 penetration. 5280/650=8.12

@Ep1kMalware Yeah I thought he was talking about PvE at first so that's why I mentioned 12%. You're right, it is roughly 8% due to the fact that player resistances are different to mob resistances.

xeNNNNN · March 2017

bg22 wrote: »

IronCrystal wrote: »

If this is for PvP, then does your DPS matter? PvP is all about burst damage anyways.

Yes it matters. You can either do enough damage or you can't. DPS is just a form of measurement...

Bobby_V_Rockit wrote: »

70% crit is low? When did that happen?!

I was wondering the same thing. I didn't know much higher was possible... I also don't understand why I have "too much weapon damage".

70% is the soft cap. anyone trying to tell you 70+ matters is....well.

Pushing 70+ will not increase your dps, max stam and weapon damage will provided you can maintain the 70%

Just to clarify, crit generally - magicka can run with less because they can crit harder, stam need more crit because they dont crit as hard for sustained periods so they need to crit more. so long as you're at 3k+ weapon damage self buffed and then 70% crit if possible for your build then you're fine. You'll still hit like a truck, just remember that if you're going to fight annoying set ups like bol tanks or stacking sorcs you're not gonna burst them down straight away.

As for your initial post.

54% isnt that great but running 7 impen would explain the lack of crit to an extent. I actually run divines/infused on my magblade in pvp because I cannot for the life of me feel any use out of impen, the only character i do is on my mag dk.

Find a middle ground dont stack into a single direction otherwise you'll bottle neck your own build... i.e dont force your entire build into crit because if you dont have enough weapon damage you'll crit but not hard enough. Same in reverse and the same in stam pool. As for nirnhoned, yes you increase the damage done by your weapon by 10% but sharpeneds debuff is enormous and allows for way more damage than you would think. Stick with sharpened. Its a lot better. Find the middle ground for your build and balance it, you'll enjoy it a lot more and likely see more consistent results.

FleetwoodSmack · March 2017

Ghettokid wrote: »

Prosperous

BiS! BIIIIIIIIIIIIS

bg22 · March 2017

MaxwellC wrote: »

@bg22
Don't use nirnhoned in PvP mate just go with sharpened. Nirnhoned helps with vigor due to it increasing the base value since vigor scales off of damage + stamina but it's benefits overall falls completely flat. (This is coming from someone who's a legate on 1 character and if I combine all I would be a warlord).

Your stats are incredibly fantastic for PvP especially having high recovery with over 50% crit and 4k + weapon damage that's insane. You should do fine if your rotation engagements are set (player by player based rotations is what I mean).

DPS does matter in PvP by that way to all the people fighting it. Damage per second is something you need to factor in when selecting your skills to build your rotation for player engagement. If you say DPS doesn't matter then I question your playtime in PvP.

Thank you. Cheers.

xeNNNNN wrote: »

bg22 wrote: »

IronCrystal wrote: »

If this is for PvP, then does your DPS matter? PvP is all about burst damage anyways.

Yes it matters. You can either do enough damage or you can't. DPS is just a form of measurement...

Bobby_V_Rockit wrote: »

70% crit is low? When did that happen?!

I was wondering the same thing. I didn't know much higher was possible... I also don't understand why I have "too much weapon damage".

70% is the soft cap. anyone trying to tell you 70+ matters is....well.

Pushing 70+ will not increase your dps, max stam and weapon damage will provided you can maintain the 70%

Just to clarify, crit generally - magicka can run with less because they can crit harder, stam need more crit because they dont crit as hard for sustained periods so they need to crit more. so long as you're at 3k+ weapon damage self buffed and then 70% crit if possible for your build then you're fine. You'll still hit like a truck, just remember that if you're going to fight annoying set ups like bol tanks or stacking sorcs you're not gonna burst them down straight away.

As for your initial post.

54% isnt that great but running 7 impen would explain the lack of crit to an extent. I actually run divines/infused on my magblade in pvp because I cannot for the life of me feel any use out of impen, the only character i do is on my mag dk.

Find a middle ground dont stack into a single direction otherwise you'll bottle neck your own build... i.e dont force your entire build into crit because if you dont have enough weapon damage you'll crit but not hard enough. Same in reverse and the same in stam pool. As for nirnhoned, yes you increase the damage done by your weapon by 10% but sharpeneds debuff is enormous and allows for way more damage than you would think. Stick with sharpened. Its a lot better. Find the middle ground for your build and balance it, you'll enjoy it a lot more and likely see more consistent results.

Thank you.

bg22 · March 2017

Narvuntien wrote: »

I am trying to work out how you got for weapon damage so high did you gold all your gear? (Does gold gear make that big a difference?) or are you using the warrior stone?

I play the onslaught ganking build so I don't really care about DPS. My back bar is a sharpened bow. My crit is even less than what you have, if I want to crit I use cloak.I am running around trying to 1 shot or perhaps two snipe people.

I carry around a set of spriggans to switch to if I am doing PVE.

Flawless dawnbreaker, and 2 fighters guild abilities on main bar, nirnhoned daggers, Rally, 2 wpn Dmg jewelry glyphs, 1 wpn Dmg wpn glyph. Only thing gold right now is my weapons. No, I'm using Thief.