Question about Sword upgrades

1. Is it worth paying around 40k for a 20/20 armor penetration mod for my sword? How much extra damage would that do? And would the 20/20 penetration stack on top of my strength attribute penetration?

2. Which would make me last longer in battle... Having a +30 health mod or having the pommel of defense with armor +5? (or the pommel of shelter/warding with armor +7 towards physical/elemental dmg).


Heh heh, I'm really trying to make this sword top notch for PvP.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance to anyone who answers my questions.

1. Hell no it's not worth it, as even a Vampiric mod will give more added damage (not to mention healing). Yes, the sundering penetration stacks on top of your Strength penetration.. Doesn't make it any more worth it though.

2. Depends on what kind of battle you are going into, I'd suppose. Lots of degen, you'd want the Fortitude; more hard-damage though and I'd choose the Defense. I'm sure a Pro will show up soon to give you a run-down on that.

Vamp/Fortitude

or

Zealous/Fotitude

...and you're on your way to victory my friend!

I personally don't like vampiric upgrade too much. I find quite boring to have to switch a weapon every time you're not fighting. I would go with a 10% furious, especially if you have a few adrenaline skills on your bar.
About the old armor/fortitude upgrade... well a lot depends on your pockets. Price/benefit ratio is higher for the armor upgrade as it costs 3-5k only opposed to 10 times more for a perfect fortitude.
I would go with fortitude though, considering that I see more armor-ignoring damage lately rather than physical-elemental.. Just to name a few, smiting skills, bloodspikes, soul-barbs spikes etc..
In PvE though a +5 armor is fine as well.

Zealous/Defense is what I use atm, but I'd go for a Zealous/Fortitude.

Sundering is better for spiking as it gives a large boost of damage occasionally. For a sword i think that its not worth to go sundering, as they have a relatively small standard deviation to start with. On an axe its a different matter.

Becuase Sword warriors generally have many energy skills in pvp, i would go for zealous. Its a sword for any occasion essentially. If you getting into pvp you will also want a vampiric sword, and a sword that does elemental dmg (for attacking warriors)

Furious isnt really worth it. Generally warriors are spiking together, and pressure only occasionally. That means it doesnt really matter if your adrenaline builds up 1 hit faster, becuase you still gonna have to wait for a spike to be called. Even in a pressure situation i would take the extra damage from vampiric over the small chance that my attack chain starts sooner.

Hilt, this is entirely down to personal preference. I prefer fortitude becuase health is more useful over a wider variety of circumstances. Health doesnt really help vs degen much (you will die slightly later, its true, but your still taking the same amount of damage) at least, not in gvg. Where it really helps is against armour ignoring spikes. Having that extra 30 health can save your life.

+5 armour however is much better vs normal damage. I think +5 armour is considered more 'pro' becuase you can switch to a +30+30 staff if you require more health, and you still gain the benefits of the armour.

So, in summary, its a 15^50 sword, with a zealous mod and +5 armour for me .

What they said about the damage mod. I prefer +armor mods when you know you'll have a monk behind you, and health when you don't. Think of that extra armor as a bit of energy management for the monk working his arse off to heal you. With a monk behind you, a fortitude mod only serves to make it easier to shrug off spikes.

Sundering is not better for spiking. As you never know if it's gonna' take effect. If you want 20% armour penetration on a spike, and you have no need to fear enchantment removal, just use Judge's Insight for a 'constant' +20% on all your strikes.
That on top of a vampiric is the best way to go, as this is 'ensured' damaged. Not a random, unknown quantity like a 20% chance.

What Arya said about the pommel. One thing a warrior is not short of is armour.

More interesting things about penetration (in GW for those dark minds):

-Penetrating Blow/Chop doe's not stack with Judges Insight. Don't know why, but I assume that it's an order of operations thing. You are already enchanted with JI so you already have +20 AP. Penetrating Blow/Chop is an attack that has 20 AP. I assume this is negated.
-Penetrating Blow/Chop will stack with a 20/20 mod. I assume the mod comes into effect after the the attack skill, so the +20 makes the total 40% AP.
-JI will always stack with a 20/20 mod.

I like the vampiric upgrade quite a lot (Victos blade), but the need to switch to another weapon when not attacking is really annoying.