How Pen is enough (...this again...)

Zama666 · December 10

Howdy,

If I have 19K pen, and running around Cyro runnign about by my lonesome. And my weapon does 4k damage.
How much damage do I do against a player with max resistance? No resistance?
Does pen do anything for siege?
Does 1 unit of pen cancel 1 unit of resistance?
If I am in group, should I rely on them for more pen?
Should I try to get my pen up further, or would I be sacrificing too much other stuff.
Should I just go back to PVE?

Tankz,

Z

loosej · December 10

I think you're focusing too much on a single stat. Running 19k pen is already on the high end, so your damage in PvP should be pretty good, but if you're just starting to PvP then I suspect there's a good chance you'll die before you get a chance to do any damage. But I don't know anything about your build or PvP experience, so I'll start by answering your questions before adding some generic advice.

Max resistance is 33k, giving 50% damage reduction (660 = 1%). One unit of pen does indeed cancel 1 unit of resistance, so with 19k pen a max resist opponent now has 14000 resistance, 14000 / 660 = 21.2% damage reduction. Against a (theoretical) opponent with no resistance, your pen doesn't do anything at all. Against an opponent with 15k resistance your extra 4k pen is wasted. But no worries, most people in Cyrodiil will be close to the resist cap (my builds all have about 27k - 30k resist), so it will be a rare occasion when you have too much pen.
You shouldn't rely on your group to get more pen, and probably shouldn't look into more ways to increase it. The goal is not to match the total resistance of your opponent. The goal is to live long enough yourself that you have a chance to take down your opponent.
I don't think pen does anything for siege, but there have been unintended interactions between siege and sets in the past so who knows.
No need to go back to PvE, Cyrodiil is (in my opinion) the best game mode eso has to offer (when it works). You can have a whole lot of fun, but you'll have to accept that you will die. A lot. It's part of the process. Try to analyze why it happened every time, sometimes it will have been bad luck, sometimes you will have done something you shouldn't have done.

When it comes to making a build for Cyrodiil, especially if you're new to the zone, the first stats you should focus on are your own resistance and health. It's a balancing act, too little and your opponents will take you down in two hits, too much and you won't do any damage yourself. With the exception of a few specialized glass cannon builds, all my builds try to follow this pattern:

Armor:

Big pieces (head/chest/legs) heavy armor, reinforced trait
Smaller pieces (shoulders/gloves/boots) medium armor (divines, impen or well fitted depending on the build)
Smallest piece (belt) light armor (again divines, impen or well fitted depending on the build)

Combined with Major Resolve (class skill probably) and Minor Resolve (vigor) this should get you close to 27k resistance. Red CP, set bonuses, passives... can get this a bit higher.

Enchants/Attributes:

Tri-stat enchants for all the body pieces is usually best, but don't spend the Hakeijo until you've tested a build for a while and are ready to commit to it. Start by putting health enchants on the big body pieces, and mag/stam on the small ones.
Don't put all your attributes into health, you won't do any damage. Put points into health until you have a health pool of about 30k (with food buff active), the rest goes to mag or stam. Usually I need 10-30 points of health depending on the sets I'm running.

Food:

Something with health and recovery if you're not running a sustain set (Bear Haunches, Jewels of Misrule, Frothgar...).
Sugar Skulls if you are running a sustain set.

Once you have your own resistance and health figured out is (in my opinion) when you should start looking into your offensive stats. Penetration will be my first priority at that point, coming mostly from sharpened weapon, lover mundus, set bonuses, possibly maces. Major Breach will usually come from Ele Sus (frost staff backbar), Minor Breach will come from physical dmg skills or absorb stamina glyph.

Kaysha · December 10

Damage reduction by resistance is capped at 50%. If you have 40k resistance the 19k pen will bring you down to 21k remaining.

Zama666 · December 10

@loosej THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!!!

my fears about pen are alleviated!

Now to dump shattered fate....

loosej · December 11

Zama666 wrote: »

@loosej THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!!!

my fears about pen are alleviated!

Now to dump shattered fate....

I was suspecting you run shattered fate, and while it is a very strong offensive set, it has some downsides:

Pen has no defensive value, it doesn't boost your healing. It only helps your defense if you're healing off damage you do, for example Ring of the Pale Order, Reaving Blows CP, Swallow Soul skill on nightblade.
It has no 2/3 piece bonus. So if you wear 5pc shattered fate on the frontbar, you get no bonus out of it on the backbar.

The good thing about it is that it's a crafted set, making it easy to build a 3 heavy / 3 medium / 1 light setup.

I don't know in what configuration you use Shattered Fate. If you don't have a lot of sets collected and want something easy crafted, running 10 or 12 pieces on both frontbar and backbar is possible in Cyrodiil, just set it up like explained before so you have the necessary health/resist yourself.

Most people however will run a 5 piece defense/sustain set on the backbar and a 5 piece offensive set on the frontbar. This leaves room for a 2 piece monster set, a mythic, and one piece Trainee armor. If you do this and want to end up with a 3 heavy / 3 medium / 1 light setup (not saying it's a rule set in stone, but I do try to aim for it when possible), you have the following options:
(single-weight sets are only available in light, medium or heavy, these include most of the sets in your stickerbook)
(multi-weight sets are available in light, medium and heavy, these include crafted sets, Infinite Archive, and some overland sets)

2x single-weight sets: 1 should be available in heavy, 1 in medium
1x single-weight + 1x multi-weight: single-weight set can be anything you like
2x multi-weight: any sets you like

Some popular backbar options are:

Rallying cry (light): very strong offense/defense buff, easy to proc
Mara's Balm (heavy): used to be OP, still pretty strong defensive
Wretched Vitality (crafted): my personal favorite, easy to proc (use a skill like Race against Time to proc both major and minor component), huge amount of mag/stam recovery (meaning you can run Sugar Skulls instead of sustain food)

But those are just a couple of examples. Trying to make a build using sets that aren't meta can be a lot of fun, and as long as you keep your offense and defense balanced you can make most of them work.

Zama666 · December 12

@loosej

Wretched Vitality
5 items: While in combat, applying a Major Buff or Debuff with a duration to a target grants you 260 Magicka and Stamina Recovery for 15 seconds. While in combat, applying a Minor Buff or Debuff with a duration to a target grants you 130 Magicka and Stamina Recovery for 15 seconds.

So if I am running Saint and the Seducer:

(1 item) While in combat, you gain one of five random Major buffs which changes every 10 seconds. Enemies within 12 meters of you gain one of five random Minor debuffs depending on which buff you have. The available effects are: Major Berserk and Minor Maim Major Resolve and Minor Breach Major Force and Minor Brittle Major Evasion and Minor Vulnerability Major Courage and Minor Cowardice

Am I getting both 260 + 130 recovery?

Wretched Vitality give no Stam or Magicka increase, so my damage will be lower? (things scale fo max stats?)

Thoughts?

Z

loosej · December 12

I haven't tried Saint and the Seducer, but my guess would be yes. The description for Wretched Vitality reads "applying a Major Buff", not "activating a skill that applies a Major buff". You'd have to test it to be sure.

You're right that it doesn't give any damage increase, that's why you'd run this on your backbar. When it procs you get 2x 15 second buffs that stay on you, giving 260 + 130 recovery, even when you switch to the frontbar. In most cases you'll fill your backbar with buffs, vigor as HoT and Minor Resolve buff, a burst heal, and Ele Sus if you don't have another way to apply Major Breach. Your backbar weapon should be a defending ice staff or 1h+shield. Your burst damage will come from your frontbar set and skills, so it's ok to have a bit less damage on the backbar.

The missing stats are also more than compensated for using your buff food. Without the extra recovery of Wretched Vitality, you'd run something like Jewels of Misrule (Increase Stamina and Magicka Recovery by 357 and Max Health by 3927 for 2 hours). With the extra recovery you can run Sugar Skulls (Increase Max Health by 4620, Max Stamina and Max Magicka by 4250, and Health Recovery by 462 for 2 hours). So you could argue that the 5pc bonus of Wretched Vitality gives no extra recovery (you had it before from your food) but instead gives 4250 max magicka and stamina. On both bars.

Max stats compare to weapon dmg / spell dmg in an 11:1 ratio. So the 4250 max resource from Sugar Skulls gives about as much power as (4250 / 11 ~= 385) weapon dmg / spell dmg.

Having both resource pools higher is also nice no matter your build. Stamina based characters still have moments when they have to spam their (usually expensive) magicka heal a couple of times. And magicka based characters benefit from the extra stamina by being able to roll dodge just a bit more.

Coming back to Saint and the Seducer: if it works with Wretched Vitality, it will only work if you are on your backbar every 10 seconds when it procs. That sounds easy enough, but once you are in combat it will become pretty hard to track. But, like I said, most of your buffs should be on your backbar anyway, as long as you keep them up you shouldn't worry about tracking the recovery buff.