Curse

Thomas.knbk · Feb 24, 2007, 08:18 PM // 20:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by tomcruisejr

However, despite this increased efficiency, higher armor is still higher armor, and a hit against 80 AL does a lot less damage than a hit against 48 AL. In general, seek to strike the target with the lowest AL possible .

Well, duh, 75% of 100 will always be more than 75% of 60...
I'm not a fan of Sundering swords and axes. For normal pressure Zealous is way better because you have more energy to spend on pressuring, for Spiking vamp wins over Sundering because it's guaranteed dmg, and vs an axe or sword the target will switch to a +10vs slashing anyway. (and +10 vs blunt against a hammer)
A hammer is a different story, because the effectiveness of Zealous is greatly reduced with this weapon. Often to the point that it's a net energy loss compared to when you wouldn't be in a sundering set (due to kiting, blocks etc.)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patrick Smit

some numbers, when u score a critical u do with 30% armor pentration 15/15/14 (vs 60/80/100 AL) damage more in 1 hit with an axe,

I'm sorry, but that is wrong. A critical hit deals the maximum dmg of your weapon, but treats your weapon mastry as if it was 4 points higher. So a critical hit with an axe at 12 axe mastry deals the max dmg (28), but treats your weapon mastry as if it was 16 (115% of your normal dmg). That's 32.2 dmg. Then you get the 15^50 and 20% costumization bonuses, making a critical hit with an axe at 12 mastry deal 28 x 1,15 x 1,15 x 1,20 = 44,436 dmg on a 60AL target. Critical hits have nothing to do with armor penetration.

That said, my weapon sets as a warrior include

Zealous axe/sword or sundering hammer of fortitude, shield +30HP and +10AL vs (whatever your opponent is using)
Vampiric weapon for Spikes, shield same shield
icy/ebon weapon for warrior bashing, same shield
wand for ranged adrenaline building and killing archers from outside, same shield

Seamus Finn · Feb 24, 2007, 08:41 PM // 20:41

Honestly though, the average dps is not usually that relevant. Would the +5 on the scythe suddenly make gift a less efficient heal than if the scythe were sundering? Doubtful. Even if added up across time, the benefits from vamp over sunder are VERY SMALL. I wouldn't doubt that they do more damage but neither swap really has any effect on whether or not the monks will break.

Because of this, and the fact that lots of "top warriors" act pretty independantly, I believe they chose sundering because they are both just damage mods and one, though inarguably more efficient, isn't really worth the hassle of worry about vamping significant damage while running off to be a hero or getting fouled up in finnicky weapon swaps just because you want to go exploring for a bit. Honestly, elemental tends to be the new "damage mod" unless you are pounding a low armor taget without a shield.

However, thinking that the choice between sundering and vamp is going to win or lose you a match is proabably the most flawed view on the matter you could have.

P.S. always run 30 health over 5 armor unless you have a sword for 1v1ing. Then the 5 armor becomes more useful.

Ensign · Feb 24, 2007, 09:32 PM // 21:32

DPS doesn't kill people. Big criticals kill people.

Peace,
-CxE

Patrick Smit · Feb 24, 2007, 09:45 PM // 21:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Divinus Stella

....
The "sundering is better for spiking" argument is pointless, you only get the extra dmg from sundering once in every 5 hits, if you desperately need the extra 8 dmg a sundering weapon will score over the vamp once in every 5 spikes to kill then your spike sucks.

Here u clearly forgot the use of 2 or more melee all using sundering. Chances are that each hit in the spike phase will be sundering the target, with 3 vampiric waepons u will do a constant 9 more damage, but with sundering u add some stachasticity in there, sometimes the damage output will be lower, but also it has a chance to be higher. Supported by bionomial calculus i could show u even the chance that all 3 of them are sundering, it will be awesome damage compared to vampiric weapons. With three melee there is a chance of almost 50% that one of them is sundering. If you could enhance the damage by using GftE that would mean that in half of spike phases (again the rounds of hits) at least one is adding 15 damage compared to 9 of vamp weapons. there are also chances that two or even three melee hit sundering resulting in 30 and 45 more damage compared to the 9 extra damage from vamp weapons. These chances are 9.6% for two sundering hits and 0.8% for three sundering hits.
obviously these spikes will be more difficult to handle due increased damage, and therefore are more likely to result in a succesfull spike.

SO if the spike consists of 2 or three consecutive hits by the 3 melee attackers using sundering you will in 51 % of the spikes deal less damage then with vamp weapons (supported by GftE) while in 49% of the spikes you will deal quite a bit more damage compared to the spike with vamp weapons, statistics says so. So my conclusion is valid. Without trying to push criticals vampiric weapons gain more of an advantage, but saying that vamperic is always superior to sundering is incorrect to my opinion supported with arguments.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thomas.knbk

....
I'm sorry, but that is wrong. A critical hit deals the maximum dmg of your weapon, but treats your weapon mastry as if it was 4 points higher. So a critical hit with an axe at 12 axe mastry deals the max dmg (28), but treats your weapon mastry as if it was 16 (115% of your normal dmg). That's 32.2 dmg. Then you get the 15^50 and 20% costumization bonuses, making a critical hit with an axe at 12 mastry deal 28 x 1,15 x 1,15 x 1,20 = 44,436 dmg on a 60AL target. Critical hits have nothing to do with armor penetration.

That said, my weapon sets as a warrior include

Zealous axe/sword or sundering hammer of fortitude, shield +30HP and +10AL vs (whatever your opponent is using)
Vampiric weapon for Spikes, shield same shield
icy/ebon weapon for warrior bashing, same shield
wand for ranged adrenaline building and killing archers from outside, same shield

I used critt because thats easy to test on the dummies ^^. So all my damage results are not derived from formulas but from my pvp char using wild blow versus wooden kegs. Therefore they can't be wrong, they are experimentally determined.

Crits have nothing to do with sundering, but it makes comparing critical vamp hits, and critical sundering hits a bit more easy. I state just a little above in this message, that if you can promote criticals, that sundering will shine over vamp weapons. If u do not use critical inducing skills/mechanics then its probably better to go for vamp weapons.

Thom Bangalter · Feb 24, 2007, 09:51 PM // 21:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

DPS doesn't kill people. Big criticals kill people.

Peace,
-CxE

Word.

Also, here's a great thread on the subject:

http://www.teamquitter.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=415

Ensign · Feb 25, 2007, 12:31 AM // 00:31

There are a couple good posts in that thread.

Some more points:

Sundering gains more value the more independently you act. If all you're doing is sticking with the team and beating on things in a big fight, the drawback on vampiric is negligible. If you're skirmishing and running around a lot, a vampiric weapon might as well not even be in one of your slots, you'll be swapping out of it so often.

Sundering gets better the higher you pump your weapon mastery. Vampiric adds static +damage per hit, sundering increases everything by a percentage, the higher your base damage the more sundering adds.

Sundering has synergy with other armor penetration abilities. Every point of armor penetration you get on an attack is more valuable than the last since armor works exponentially. Basically if you have Strength or a skill with armor penetration, sundering procs will do even more damage with those skills than either sundering or base AP would do separately. Easy example: an Eviscerate critical with no strength will deal 95 damage. With 9 Strength, it deals 102 damage (+7). With 0 Strength and a sundering proc, it would deal 109 damage (+14). But with 9 Strength and a sundering proc, Eviscerate hits for 118 (+23 damage) - two more damage than you would have gotten with each separately. It's not neccessarily a big effect, but when you get the 16 spec, procced Spear of Lightning for 119 you can start to really see the benefits of stacking like this.

DPS doesn't kill people. Big criticals kill people. I can't stress this enough. When you're beating on monsters in PvE DPS is a relevant concept, when everything is nice and predictable. Guess what, predictable damage and attacks rarely beat good teams. Vampiric does more raw DPS with autoattacks and when you aren't getting crits, so what? I don't get killed by Eviscerate for 50, +5 vampiric. I get killed when they land a lucky Bull's Strike for 90 into Eviscerate for 110.

I know full well what the math says about DPS, and vampiric being nearly twice as good as sundering - and I equip the sundering, with the vampiric in the pack for special situations. Certainly there are builds and situations where vampiric is better, but while vampiric would have absolutely dealt higher overall damage, sundering will get you more kills.

For a GvG warrior there are basically two required weapons, your damage weapon (sundering or vampiric) and an elemental (if I know which one you're using, you're using the wrong one). After that there are a bunch of situational weapons that you might want to use - Zealous, Furious, condition duration (crippling with YAA!), negative energy sets to drop off Wither or Malaise, positive energy sets to activate skills at a particular time, ranged weapons to charge adrenaline at range or kill archers...stick 'em all in the pack, and put 'em in weapon sets as neccessary.

Peace,
-CxE

llsektorll · Feb 25, 2007, 12:58 AM // 00:58

depends on the build .... GG
usually carry vamp, zealous, elemental, and misc. mod

j_unit66 · Feb 25, 2007, 01:17 AM // 01:17

i use:
shield:
45hp/-2 stance
30hp/-2stance
30hp/-5(20%)

axe/sword
vampiric and weapon mastery +1
zealous and 30hp
zealous and 5armor
elemental and 30hp
zealous and 5armor
vamp and +30hp
(switch between armor an health depending on wat ur playing against)

hammer
vampiric of hammer mastery
furious of fortitude/armor
ele of fortitude/armor
vampiric of fortitude/armor

and a long range weapon

Divinus Stella · Feb 25, 2007, 01:36 AM // 01:36

I think most of the benefit warriors feel from sundering is psychological, they see a crit and think its all sundering.

Theres more benefits to vampiric than people credit, the math sides with vampiric, the larger packets of damage from sundering are nice, i supose the damage in larger packets does have a suprise factor, but in my eyes vamp still shines ahead.

Thom Bangalter · Feb 25, 2007, 01:38 AM // 01:38

why would you want to run something as terrible as -2 in stance when it's so easy to get +10 armor vs a damage type, or reduce blind and reduce cripple?

Dzan · Feb 25, 2007, 01:48 AM // 01:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Divinus Stella

Theres more benefits to vampiric than people credit, the math sides with vampiric, the larger packets of damage from sundering are nice, i supose the damage in larger packets does have a suprise factor, but in my eyes vamp still shines ahead.

As has been mentioned, it depends if your build gets kills with large packets of damage or sustained dps. Pretty much every gvg build with warriors gets kills with large packets of damage, so...

v for Valkier · Feb 25, 2007, 01:56 AM // 01:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

DPS doesn't kill people. Big criticals kill people.

This pretty much sums up why sundering is superior over vamp. But vamp hammer still pwns.

Imo, if you pick sundering over vamp, or if you pick vamp over sundering, the difference is minimal enough that it wont decide if you won or lost the game. So who cares.

Anyway like most people have already stated, best is zealous, elemental, vamp/sundering

Just my 2 cents.

Symbol · Feb 25, 2007, 02:31 AM // 02:31

Quote:

Also, here's a great thread on the subject:

E-drama! Awesome!

Mystic- · Feb 25, 2007, 02:56 AM // 02:56

My sets are Sundering/Vampiric/Ele/Zealous for Axe/Hammer/Sword. Also have a Spear (-5 Energy Furious Mod > Malaise + Adren) and a Bow. Tbh the mod that you use greatly changes as the battle does and also on your template/team build. If I was playing a spike build and was carrying Eviscerate/Executioners as my spike builds I would ALWAYS go for Sundering on those spikes. If my template had Dismember/Executioners~Crit Chop, no doubt about it I would use vampiric. When building up I always have my vampiric out as it helps with nice DPS. Obviously it you where to spike a Warrior you would always ALWAYS use an ele dmg weapon. Once again depending on your template your weapon mod choice would change, if you carried a heavy energy bar you may want to always stick to your zealous. What I do is pump out all my energy on my vamp axe and then spend a few seconds of building up time also getting some energy with my zealous. Thats just how I play though :O

Hammer = Vamp 10000% of the time? Sundering also has some lucky potential on a hammer once again depending on your template. Zealous is just ftl as it has been quoted earlier in this thread as it just doesnt add up nicely enough.

Anyway to sum up, what you have to realise is that many things do rely on luck, wether it be scoring a wonderful crit at just the right time to go throuth an infuse and time kill a monk, or managing to JUST kill the opponent thanks to that extra 3 or so damage from your vamp. Everything always varies and there just is no right answer to what is the BEST weapon choice. There just isn't one.

And one more thing. 30 Health > 5 armor. How many times have you JUST died to degen?

twicky_kid · Feb 25, 2007, 03:26 AM // 03:26

Vamp
Elemental
Zealous
Sundering (only on spikes)

+30 hp on each. More hp gives your monk more time to save you.

5 armor is 1/16 dmg reduction at best. Must less when you add in the +20 vs physical.

DIH49 · Feb 25, 2007, 10:07 AM // 10:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by v for Valkier

This pretty much sums up why sundering is superior over vamp. But vamp hammer still pwns.

Lord no, sundering hammer is amazing. With high hammer and high strength, a sundering hammer is just fantastic. Only time I ever use vamp is if I know I'll be sitting for a while on a target with prot spirit, like a flagger. Then vamp is nice because it gets around the damage cap while sundering doesn't do a thing for you.

TheOneMephisto · Feb 25, 2007, 03:06 PM // 15:06

If there was a skill that had a 1/4 cast time and insta-killed an enemy, but only worked 1/20 times you used it, you would still take it.

Given, that's an extreme example, but bursts of damage is better than constant damage IMO, as teams can adapt to deal with constant damage, but bursts of damage catching monks off-guard is what kills.

Divineshadows · Feb 25, 2007, 04:09 PM // 16:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheOneMephisto

If there was a skill that had a 1/4 cast time and insta-killed an enemy, but only worked 1/20 times you used it

There is. It's called lamentation and it's on a 20 second recharge instead of working 1/20th of the times you use it. This recharge makes it balanced, right?

Quote:

Originally Posted by DIH49

Lord no, sundering hammer is amazing. With high hammer and high strength, a sundering hammer is just fantastic. Only time I ever use vamp is if I know I'll be sitting for a while on a target with prot spirit, like a flagger. Then vamp is nice because it gets around the damage cap while sundering doesn't do a thing for you.

Nice point about working around prot spirit. It can also help you trigger spirit bond less. Vampiric is a good mod for killing the 55 monks that wander into TA from RA quicker. In general though, I think sundering over vampiric is the mod of choice for melee in TA only because of the introduction of ZB as a strong anti-pressure tool. For those matches where the opposing team's monk is using some other elite (why?!?), you can swap in a vampiric from the pack instead of sundering to increase your pressure. It's a good thing that they buffed sundering mods, because they were an utter joke before.

Clinically Proven · Feb 27, 2007, 12:59 AM // 00:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thom Bangalter

Word.

Also, here's a great thread on the subject:

http://www.teamquitter.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=415

No, actually this is a BAD thread on the subject, full of bad advice, bad reasoning, misinformation and a whole truckload of e-drama.

icedwhitemocha · Feb 27, 2007, 04:16 AM // 04:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clinically Proven

No, actually this is a BAD thread on the subject, full of bad advice, bad reasoning, misinformation and a whole truckload of e-drama.

It's actually a great read though. Highly entertaining.