Vamp Or AP - Guild Wars Forums

Blazing · Sep 09, 2006, 12:30 AM // 00:30

Witch does rly do more damage? Vampiric Mod or Armour Penetration?

Just a stupid new question since im making 3 perfect axes & 3 perfect swords (each of these sets are Zealous, Vamp Or AP & double adrenaline) & one Perfect Storm Bow (Zealous). time to go leet W ^^.

Answer fast thanx in advance

Silver_Fang · Sep 09, 2006, 12:36 AM // 00:36

constant damage or a unreliable spike chance

Don Zardeone · Sep 09, 2006, 12:40 AM // 00:40

best 3 upgrades are:
- vamp
- zealous
- elemental

followed by
- condition lengtheners
- furious

ending with
- sundering

Try searching for " vampiric sundering "
You'll find a comparison sooner or later where is being explained that sundering, even at 20/20, still can't match the AVERAGE damage of vamp.

However, if your sundering strikes while you're hitting a critical hit, that's a lot of damage. But vamp is reliable, letting sundering strike is too low a chance.

Use vamp to fight rangers and monsters/people who have high armour against ele damage (rangers, elementalists).
Use an elemental upgrade to fight people/monsters with higher armour against physical (warriors are a good example)
Use zealous as utility or to power things like flurry

I have not used furious long enough to have a decent opinion about it so moo

Blazing · Sep 09, 2006, 12:50 AM // 00:50

I actually use Vamp, Zealous & Furious Axe & Swords & i like the furious more than elemental damage cause i an do more adrenal ataks.

Anyway you answered my question NICELY thanx thanx thank YOU!

Thanx again

Ess Age · Sep 09, 2006, 01:06 AM // 01:06

The information Don Zardeone gave about elemental upgrades is not exactly true! For the AL it doesn't matter which kind of damage the weapon deals, as long as the armor has no additional modifier. Elemental is only of use if a specific enemy has a weakness agains that specific type of damage (eg. Titals in the last missions agains cold damage). In general you can say that elemantal damage is too specific to be useful (with the exception of e.g. cold damage when there's Spinal Shivers on the target) Against Warriors Sundering is definitely the best mod as you will penetrate 20% of a strong armor with a chance of 20%.

Relambrien · Sep 09, 2006, 01:14 AM // 01:14

Alright let's see here...and I'll base this on a 60 AL target.

Customized 15^50 axe at 16 Axe Mastery deals 63 damage with Wild Blow. With a vampiric mod and 5 attacks, that's 66 * 5 which is 330 damage.

Same axe, same attribs, but with a 20/20 sundering mod...

It will likely deal 63 * 4 + 77 damage over five attacks. That's 329 damage.

The actual probability that the sundering mod will take effect once in those five attacks is...

1 - .8^5, or about 68%.

This means Vampiric should deal more damage in the long run, but even so, the two mods in this case are pretty equal. Sundering is probably better for spiking, due to the chance that you'll get that extra damage, whereas Vampiric is better for extended dps.

For those who want to verify or contest these tests results, here are the relevant stats. Also, the results of another test are shown near the end.

Attribs:

Axe Mastery: 16
All others: 0

Skills:

Wild Blow

Weapon:

Furious PvP Axe
Double Adrenaline on hit (chance: 10%)
Damage +15% (while Health is above 50%)
Damage +20%
Customized

Target: Suit of 60 Armor on the Isle of the Nameless

Results:

Wild Blow with this weapon dealt 63 damage, 5 times in a row. This ensured what I already knew: that Wild Blow always deals the same amount of damage if there are no changing modifiers.

With a 20/20 Sundering weapon identical to the one above, save for the changed mod, the 14th hit with Wild Blow dealt 77 damage. The next set took 11 hits to trigger. The next took three. There was no variation to the increased damage; it was always 77.

I will now conduct a test of 10 Wild Blows each for a Sundering and a Vampiric Axe.

Total damage from Sundering: 630
Total damage from Vampiric: 660.

The Sundering mod, as you notice, did not activate even once out of those ten possible times. The probability of this is 10.7%.

It took four more hits to trigger the Sundering mod, meaning that on the 14th hit it triggered. The probability of the mod NOT triggering 13 times in a row is...about 5.5%. This is disturbing in that three times out of four, Wild Blow had to be used 10 or more times to trigger the Sundering mod. So perhaps it is not as reliable as math would have it, therefore increasing the power of the Vampiric mod.

Ulivious The Reaper · Sep 09, 2006, 01:18 AM // 01:18

Vamp is good for constant damage addition, but sunder is good for the spikes to suprise the monk.. thats how i see it and after reading numerous articles i'll stick to my vamp..

jimmy_logic · Sep 09, 2006, 01:24 AM // 01:24

Vamp FTW and a Switch Elemental Bow For other purposes.

Ess Age · Sep 09, 2006, 01:36 AM // 01:36

@Relambrien you can't say that it's not activated in 20% of the cases unless you've made hundrets of repetitions to minimize the relative error. It's too late here to calculate the average amout of hits you need to get a correct result. But it's definitely more than 28

I am sure that Anets RNGs are good enough to satisfy such an simple distribution.

btw... as I said before: Sundering is only effective agains high-AL-targets!

Shadowfox1125 · Sep 09, 2006, 01:42 AM // 01:42

Vamp
Zealous
Elemental
Furious
Sundering

That's how I'd number them.

Shigernafy · Sep 09, 2006, 02:04 AM // 02:04

I will say it now, I take no credit for these numbers whatsoever.
This shows how much extra damage the respective mods do to what target.

Quote:

Originally posted by Fender
Against an AL 60 target:
Perfect Vampiric:
Sword - 8.8%
Axe - 8.4%
Hammer - 9.7%
Bow - 12.4%
Perfect Sundering(20/20):
4.6% for all weapons.

Against an AL 70 target:
Perfect Vampiric:
Sword - 10.4%
Axe - 10.0%
Hammer - 11.6%
Bow - 14.7%
Perfect Sundering(20/20):
6.4% for all weapons.

Against an AL 100 target:
Perfect Vampiric:
Sword - 17.6%
Axe - 16.9%
Hammer - 19.4%
Bow - 24.8%
Perfect Sundering(20/20):
8.3% for all weapons.

Savio · Sep 09, 2006, 02:15 AM // 02:15

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10033346

@Ess Age: You're pulling information out of nowhere, just stop.
Typical warrior armor: 80 AL + 20 AL vs physical
Sundering = Physical damage against 100 AL. It has a 20% chance to reduce it to 80 AL.
Ebon = Elemental damage against 80 AL. It's 80 AL all the time.
Guess which mod is more effective?

Also, sundering is less effective against higher AL targets.

@Relambrien: you, like ubermancer in the above link, are making the rather flawed assumption that you're getting a critical hit every time. At 16 axe mastery it's about 23% of the time. The chances of you getting one critical+sundering hit in 3 hits (where it supposedly counts) is 10%; the chances of two of those are 0.6%.

@Ulivious: look at the link and percentages above.

To be honest, sundering isn't as bad as it used to be, but it still trails behind vampiric. And it still would be at the bottom of my list of mods to use. (10% always would sound a bit nice.)

Relambrien · Sep 09, 2006, 03:56 AM // 03:56

I never claimed my tests were complete, thorough, and totally accurate. Quite the opposite. Thanks for trying to help, of course. As always, the more opinions the better.

Caelus The Fallen · Sep 09, 2006, 11:28 AM // 11:28

Vampiric by a mile, and as Savio points out, Sundering becomes even less useful as AL increases (yeah you penetrate more armour, but your bonus damage is a multiple of your base damage, which is smaller due to high armour).
I've heard this "spike" argument for Sundering a few times, but really, it makes no sense - Sundering also unreliable so you cant count on it when you unleash a spike, and since +damage from attack skills is added AFTER armour, you dont get any more bonus damage from Sunderig than you would from an ordinary attack.
Sundering is rubbish, and really has little reason to exist.

Ess Age · Sep 09, 2006, 12:28 PM // 12:28

sry, I didn't see that four out of six armor types have +20 vs. physical. Then of course elemental is better. So it's not warriors, it's high-AL-level in common.

But altogether your dmg output with elemantal dmg is reduced as there is a strong penalty against rangers and elemantarists and absolutly no bonus agains all the other clases (except most warriors).
On the other hand sundering does 20% AP in 20% of the cases agains all enemies...

Quote:

Guess which mod is more effective?

Savio · Sep 09, 2006, 12:46 PM // 12:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ess Age

But altogether your dmg output with elemantal dmg is reduced as there is a strong penalty against rangers and elemantarists and absolutly no bonus agains all the other clases (except most warriors).

That's why warriors typically have both an elemental (usually ebon) weapon and a vampiric weapon. Elemental is used against warriors and targets with +armor versus physical, and vampiric against rangers, elementalists, other targets with +armor versus elemental, or targets with no damage type resistance. Two weapons do a whole lot more than one weapon trying to cover all the bases.

Ole Man Bourbon · Sep 09, 2006, 03:02 PM // 15:02

Don't underestimate Furious in an adrenaline-heavy build. When you can get a few double adrenalines in row you can get a pretty awesome spike. I think Furious is key on a hammer warrior, cause more adrenaline is more KD chains.

Loki Seiguro · Sep 09, 2006, 03:10 PM // 15:10

i refer vamp or zealous on a warriors mods depending on what skills you use a zealous or furious one would be good

Spike · Sep 09, 2006, 04:15 PM // 16:15

While vamp appears to do more damage everyone seems to forget you are LOSEING 3hp per second EVERY second while useing one. This to me anyway makes it pretty much useless. I prefer ele damage or even sundering to loseing HP all the time.

Yanman.be · Sep 09, 2006, 04:23 PM // 16:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ess Age

The information Don Zardeone gave about elemental upgrades is not exactly true! For the AL it doesn't matter which kind of damage the weapon deals, as long as the armor has no additional modifier. Elemental is only of use if a specific enemy has a weakness agains that specific type of damage (eg. Titals in the last missions agains cold damage). In general you can say that elemantal damage is too specific to be useful (with the exception of e.g. cold damage when there's Spinal Shivers on the target) Against Warriors Sundering is definitely the best mod as you will penetrate 20% of a strong armor with a chance of 20%.

OMG.

Warriors have 80+20 vs ele ( gladiator's )

Thus, use elemental.

Sep 09, 2006, 12:30 AM // 00:30	#1
Blazing Academy Page Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Portugal Guild: [LoBo] Profession: W/	Vamp Or AP Witch does rly do more damage? Vampiric Mod or Armour Penetration? Just a stupid new question since im making 3 perfect axes & 3 perfect swords (each of these sets are Zealous, Vamp Or AP & double adrenaline) & one Perfect Storm Bow (Zealous). time to go leet W ^^. Answer fast thanx in advance

Sep 09, 2006, 02:15 AM // 02:15	#12
Savio Teenager with attitude Join Date: Jul 2005 Guild: Fifteen Over Fifty [Rare]	http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10033346 @Ess Age: You're pulling information out of nowhere, just stop. Typical warrior armor: 80 AL + 20 AL vs physical Sundering = Physical damage against 100 AL. It has a 20% chance to reduce it to 80 AL. Ebon = Elemental damage against 80 AL. It's 80 AL all the time. Guess which mod is more effective? Also, sundering is less effective against higher AL targets. @Relambrien: you, like ubermancer in the above link, are making the rather flawed assumption that you're getting a critical hit every time. At 16 axe mastery it's about 23% of the time. The chances of you getting one critical+sundering hit in 3 hits (where it supposedly counts) is 10%; the chances of two of those are 0.6%. @Ulivious: look at the link and percentages above. To be honest, sundering isn't as bad as it used to be, but it still trails behind vampiric. And it still would be at the bottom of my list of mods to use. (10% always would sound a bit nice.) __________________ People are stupid.

Sep 09, 2006, 12:36 AM // 00:36	#2
Silver_Fang Lion's Arch Merchant Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Manchester UK Profession: Rt/	constant damage or a unreliable spike chance

Sep 09, 2006, 12:40 AM // 00:40	#3
Don Zardeone Wilds Pathfinder Join Date: Oct 2005	best 3 upgrades are: - vamp - zealous - elemental followed by - condition lengtheners - furious ending with - sundering Try searching for " vampiric sundering " You'll find a comparison sooner or later where is being explained that sundering, even at 20/20, still can't match the AVERAGE damage of vamp. However, if your sundering strikes while you're hitting a critical hit, that's a lot of damage. But vamp is reliable, letting sundering strike is too low a chance. Use vamp to fight rangers and monsters/people who have high armour against ele damage (rangers, elementalists). Use an elemental upgrade to fight people/monsters with higher armour against physical (warriors are a good example) Use zealous as utility or to power things like flurry I have not used furious long enough to have a decent opinion about it so moo

Sep 09, 2006, 12:50 AM // 00:50	#4
Blazing Academy Page Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Portugal Guild: [LoBo] Profession: W/	I actually use Vamp, Zealous & Furious Axe & Swords & i like the furious more than elemental damage cause i an do more adrenal ataks. Anyway you answered my question NICELY thanx thanx thank YOU! Thanx again

Sep 09, 2006, 01:06 AM // 01:06	#5
Ess Age Academy Page Join Date: Nov 2005	The information Don Zardeone gave about elemental upgrades is not exactly true! For the AL it doesn't matter which kind of damage the weapon deals, as long as the armor has no additional modifier. Elemental is only of use if a specific enemy has a weakness agains that specific type of damage (eg. Titals in the last missions agains cold damage). In general you can say that elemantal damage is too specific to be useful (with the exception of e.g. cold damage when there's Spinal Shivers on the target) Against Warriors Sundering is definitely the best mod as you will penetrate 20% of a strong armor with a chance of 20%.

Sep 09, 2006, 01:14 AM // 01:14	#6
Relambrien Wilds Pathfinder Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Delaware, USA Guild: Error Seven Operators [Call] Profession: W/	Alright let's see here...and I'll base this on a 60 AL target. Customized 15^50 axe at 16 Axe Mastery deals 63 damage with Wild Blow. With a vampiric mod and 5 attacks, that's 66 * 5 which is 330 damage. Same axe, same attribs, but with a 20/20 sundering mod... It will likely deal 63 * 4 + 77 damage over five attacks. That's 329 damage. The actual probability that the sundering mod will take effect once in those five attacks is... 1 - .8^5, or about 68%. This means Vampiric should deal more damage in the long run, but even so, the two mods in this case are pretty equal. Sundering is probably better for spiking, due to the chance that you'll get that extra damage, whereas Vampiric is better for extended dps. For those who want to verify or contest these tests results, here are the relevant stats. Also, the results of another test are shown near the end. Attribs: Axe Mastery: 16 All others: 0 Skills: Wild Blow Weapon: Furious PvP Axe Double Adrenaline on hit (chance: 10%) Damage +15% (while Health is above 50%) Damage +20% Customized Target: Suit of 60 Armor on the Isle of the Nameless Results: Wild Blow with this weapon dealt 63 damage, 5 times in a row. This ensured what I already knew: that Wild Blow always deals the same amount of damage if there are no changing modifiers. With a 20/20 Sundering weapon identical to the one above, save for the changed mod, the 14th hit with Wild Blow dealt 77 damage. The next set took 11 hits to trigger. The next took three. There was no variation to the increased damage; it was always 77. I will now conduct a test of 10 Wild Blows each for a Sundering and a Vampiric Axe. Total damage from Sundering: 630 Total damage from Vampiric: 660. The Sundering mod, as you notice, did not activate even once out of those ten possible times. The probability of this is 10.7%. It took four more hits to trigger the Sundering mod, meaning that on the 14th hit it triggered. The probability of the mod NOT triggering 13 times in a row is...about 5.5%. This is disturbing in that three times out of four, Wild Blow had to be used 10 or more times to trigger the Sundering mod. So perhaps it is not as reliable as math would have it, therefore increasing the power of the Vampiric mod.

Sep 09, 2006, 01:18 AM // 01:18	#7
Ulivious The Reaper Desert Nomad Join Date: Jan 2006 Guild: The Shadowed Assassins Profession: W/Mo	Vamp is good for constant damage addition, but sunder is good for the spikes to suprise the monk.. thats how i see it and after reading numerous articles i'll stick to my vamp..

Sep 09, 2006, 01:24 AM // 01:24	#8
jimmy_logic Wilds Pathfinder Join Date: Sep 2005 Profession: R/	Vamp FTW and a Switch Elemental Bow For other purposes.

Sep 09, 2006, 01:36 AM // 01:36	#9
Ess Age Academy Page Join Date: Nov 2005	@Relambrien you can't say that it's not activated in 20% of the cases unless you've made hundrets of repetitions to minimize the relative error. It's too late here to calculate the average amout of hits you need to get a correct result. But it's definitely more than 28 I am sure that Anets RNGs are good enough to satisfy such an simple distribution. btw... as I said before: Sundering is only effective agains high-AL-targets!

Sep 09, 2006, 01:42 AM // 01:42	#10
Shadowfox1125 Forge Runner Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: PST Profession: W/	Vamp Zealous Elemental Furious Sundering That's how I'd number them.

Sep 09, 2006, 03:56 AM // 03:56	#13
Relambrien Wilds Pathfinder Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Delaware, USA Guild: Error Seven Operators [Call] Profession: W/	I never claimed my tests were complete, thorough, and totally accurate. Quite the opposite. Thanks for trying to help, of course. As always, the more opinions the better.

Sep 09, 2006, 11:28 AM // 11:28	#14
Caelus The Fallen Krytan Explorer Join Date: May 2005 Location: Glasgow Guild: Voice of the Darkness Profession: E/Mo	Vampiric by a mile, and as Savio points out, Sundering becomes even less useful as AL increases (yeah you penetrate more armour, but your bonus damage is a multiple of your base damage, which is smaller due to high armour). I've heard this "spike" argument for Sundering a few times, but really, it makes no sense - Sundering also unreliable so you cant count on it when you unleash a spike, and since +damage from attack skills is added AFTER armour, you dont get any more bonus damage from Sunderig than you would from an ordinary attack. Sundering is rubbish, and really has little reason to exist.

Sep 09, 2006, 03:02 PM // 15:02	#17
Ole Man Bourbon Jungle Guide Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Atlanta Guild: GONG Profession: W/E	Don't underestimate Furious in an adrenaline-heavy build. When you can get a few double adrenalines in row you can get a pretty awesome spike. I think Furious is key on a hammer warrior, cause more adrenaline is more KD chains.

Sep 09, 2006, 03:10 PM // 15:10	#18
Loki Seiguro Desert Nomad Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: IGN: Scarlet Test Ace Guild: We play Isketch in [HoH] Profession: E/	i refer vamp or zealous on a warriors mods depending on what skills you use a zealous or furious one would be good

Sep 09, 2006, 04:15 PM // 16:15	#19
Spike Jungle Guide Join Date: May 2005 Location: In front of my PC Guild: Kai Profession: E/Mo	While vamp appears to do more damage everyone seems to forget you are LOSEING 3hp per second EVERY second while useing one. This to me anyway makes it pretty much useless. I prefer ele damage or even sundering to loseing HP all the time.