The definition of "perfect mods"

I hate the color red.

I use armor stacks too, on almost every think that I can get em on. And you are right, 30 health isn't enough to save you, and you are right that things do add up. However, most of the time, overloading on one good thing and ignoring the others isn't the way to go. Going pure health, then you still get ripped through just as fast against non-armor ignoring effects.. If you are using pure armor, then you are vulnerable to armor ignoring effects. Balancing between both is good, even though I do usually favor armor than health.

My favorite color is red.

People die because of Melee classes pumping out high dps. Most of melee damage is armor ignoring, from +damage skills.

I'll stick with health unless I know something is coming which is going to be significantly affected by armor mods.

I like health, it's the only mod that protect you against EVERYTHING thrown at you. +armor doesn't work against degen. As for martial weapons, furious all the way. Sundering on scythes (dervishes use no adrenaline). Bows usually get vamp+hp, same with daggers.

Well, yes, technically they are perfect mods! Ok, I know what you mean, and I've had it way to often. You try to sell a weapon...it's got a furious mod instead of sundering...then you get whispered by the wammos. "Tat's nut purfict n00b!!11!". It can be fun to argue it out with them though

Sundering has use? OOOOH, I know, you mean hero fodder. Got'cha

Well yes, putting Sundering and Fortitude on a weapon can make it sell faster, but sometimes I have been able to sell weapons by salvaging the mods off and selling it as "clean". I've seen a reasonable number of people around wanting to buy "clean" weapons. Tbh, that's what I'd rather do instead of buying something someone's stuck a sundering mod on and having to change it, along with paying his over-inflated "Sundering Weapon" price.

Well I consider "Perfect" as the maximum value for a given weapon modifier. There is no such thing as a perfect TYPE of mod however. It does piss me off when people inflate the price for an item because its "20/20 SUNDERING WITH +30 HP LOL". I always state that I wont factor in the price of their ridiculous mods I dont need.

Vamp mods do more damage over the course of a battle than sundering does on average because vamp triggers every time and is consistent in it's damage. Personally for a sword I like zealous because there are a lot of energy related sword skills, then again I also run a W/E for earth magic armor buffs. Axe I like Furious, Scythe I like Zealous, Vamp, Ebon, Sundering in that order. Ebon just because I lurve my EDA build. Sundering is in there only because of the high crit and it's fun to use with Lyssa. Bows I'd rather have an elemental mod or vamp. I don't play hammers so I don't know nor do I play paragons so I have no idea what is good on a spear. Oh and as far as inscriptions 15^50 is probably fine on most of the other martial weapons but on a scythe it absolutely should be without question 15% while enchanted.

Perfect Mods?
Sundering?

A few times people have been selling things I wanted... only to advertise them with a Sundering Mod and cause me to reject them outright or ask if they have one with a Zealous Mod.

The ONLY situations in which I wouldn't use a Zealous mod are Warriors with Adrenaline Builds (Furious all the way)... Broad Head Arrow Rangers and the like (Silencing)... Ebon Dust Aura (Ebon... obviously)... and Staves / Wands. I might consider investing in some Cold dagger tangs if I ever try to use that A/D Grasp / Ox build.
... Okok... I'd never use a Zealous weapon with an Illusionary Weaponry build either, as that is just silly...
Vampiric? I'm just not fond of it. The healing isn't good and the extra damage isn't really enough for me to be bothered with mostly, especially since I'm VERY forgetful and kinda like my natural health regen after battles.


As for the end-piece... +20% Enchantments is law.
If not that then +1/20% for attribute suits me nicely too.
I'll only bother with a +30hp or +7 Elemental Armor if neither of the above is available. I have never understood the appeal of scraps of extra health except for super-health-heavy kits (for things like Grenth's Balance builds).


And the middle mod? The inscription?
I'm inclined generally to stick with 15^50 since if I'm not over 50% health I'm clearly doing something wrong. I will, dependant on build however, use other inscriptions for physical attack weapons. Scythes ALWAYS have 15% while Enchanted, as a Dervish without Enchants is no Dervish at all. Likewise, if I'm doing my usual Sin-work, the same applies. 15% in a Stance is usual for my W/Me builds since that almost invariably involves some sort of Inspiration stance. 15% / -10 armor is standard for bows... since the rangers tend to stay on the backline. 15/-5 energy will do for anyone whose energy I can manage effectively. +5 Energy is for caster weapons, as is the 10% spell recharge.
On the flipside I never use 20v50, 20/Hex or 10% fastcast.... and 15/-1 energy regen is RIGHT OUT (though I suppose on a 100% adrenaline build it MIGHT have a purpose, and it would just be funny with a Zealous mod).




Take into account of course that my main is my Sin. Zealous Daggers of Enchanting are absolutely frickin essential (I never go anywhere without Critical Agility now). 15% while Enchanted too at present (and I'm goldlining besides, so if I'm not enchanted my skills don't work).
I have a backup pair of 15^50 Zealous Steel Daggers of Fortitude (only +29) but I barely ever use them now that I have Pywatt's Talons (15/Ench Zealous +20 Ench Black organic-looking daggers:~ GW:EN Green).


HENCE.... if I get Sundering mods on Golds... I tend to just merch them (unless the gold itself is awesome)... but if I get Zealous mods, they're almost inevitably a keeper).
.... Ok... except Hornbows.
W/R with high Strength and a Sundering Hornbow would be a laugh a minute... =P

I find +15/-1 inscriprions are ok on Necros, but ONLY Necros. Soul Reaping makes the -1 energy regen not matter too much in my opinion.

A ZB monk can swap. use ZB, regain energy, and swap back. Dervishes use those mods to get their rather pricey melandrus avatar up.

As for the Sundering vs Vampiric mods on weapons tests have been done at the new Damage Master NPC and the sundering has outperformed the Vamp in every test I've seen.

Furious did out perform Sundering on a full adren build, but on a mixed build the sundering was still king.

Which weapons are you using?
And are you doing it with Zero points in Strength?

Your 2nd sentence is correct, a friend test this, too.

But your first one... could it be that the Master of Damage does not count the lifesteal as damage?

330 rit makes good use of Seize the Day

That isn't the same.
We're talking about +15% Damage / -1 Energy Regen here;
not +15 Energy / -1 Energy Regen

Personally I just use sundering because it's more widely appreciated and because I can sell it for more. furious is only a ten percent chance so I think that it's the most overrated sword hilt or axe haft or w/e there is. I sometimes use zealous though on axes too cheap to be worth selling, but on my stygian I just keep a sundering

unfortunately, some mods are just better than others. sundering and vampiric are the king of physicals. the pure damage you'll gain from those two outstrips furious and zealous. unless your build specifically demands a certain mod, vampiric and sundering (with an elemental swap for dealing with warriors) are the way to go.

sundering and vampiric are different in how they make your opponents react. pressuring with a vampiric weapon will cause your opponents' monks to run out of energy faster, since they'll have no other choice but heal up the extra damage from lifesteal. pressuring with sundering can get you those unexpected kills, since a sundering critical eviscerate can instakill a target at around half health.

I did a test with 16 dagger mastery, sundering and vampiric daggers. Without skills, the vampiric is only marginally better. With skills, the sundering seemed to out-perform the vampiric, yet death only occured a second faster.

Death occured after 12 seconds with skills and vampiric.
Death occured after 11 seconds with skills and sundering.

Umm... that's incorrect. All the tests I've seen from the master of damage said the EXACT opposite.

On the warrior with 16 swordsmanship, 15 strength.

Death occured after 15 seconds with sundering.
Death occured after 14 seconds with vampiric.

Again, very miniscule difference.

Why is it that when you see," WTS perfect...." it is almost always followed by, "short sword" or some other cruddy skin? its an advertizment thats why.

My warrior has 5 or more (its been awhile) swords with the appropriate mods mated to shields, like:a customized sword that has 20% while hexed and the 2 while hexed mods on the shield.

Perfect, godly, and the like seldom are what they claim to be to all people and all builds. To each there own.

Oh, really?

I think you're wrong. Actually, I know you are wrong. But enough of that.

15^50 is by far the best martial inscription. There's no debate on that. Always run a 15^50 weapon. And if you customize it, that's +35% damage when your health is above 50%.

I agree that vamp is the way to go, but I still have a screenie of a 170+ Reaper's Sweep in my face in halls. I asked the guy later and he said it was a sundering mod.

Part of the problem with measuring Sundering vs Vampiric is that you have a random chance of critical hits during the testing.

On two 180 second tests the number of critical hits could balance but most likely they will not. On a Critical hit the sundering will deal more dmg inflating its dps and allowing for a better result than the vamp.

In the end it really comes down to a bit of luck. With a vamp mod you get a constant +3(for swords) however with a sundering if you land a critical hit while using a skill the dmg can be leathal.

Oh yeah, because you know you are right makes it so. What a great, logical arguement.

Well, a warrior should have a whole stable of weaps, which was why I was so dissappointed with the HoM, since I was hoping I could store some there.

Anyway, all mods have uses. I carry at least one element, a zealous, a furious and a vamp for sword, axe, hammer and scythe. Well, I tend not to use zealous so much for hammer. I also carry a sunder for hammer, axe and scythe. Though I tend not to run the axe sunder outside a guild team. I find that zealous is more useful in keeping me in energy to stance dance.

Inscriptions, I prefer 15^50 or 15 stanced. You can keep a stance up pretty well, and if you have 600+ hp you don't really go under 50% unless something really goes wrong. I also have a 15 vs hexed I use sometimes in hex heavy teams. Some use 15 enchanted with their conjure crip slash builds but I found that if conjure goes down early cause of stripping you have a downtime of like 40 secs with no damage bonus.

As for armour or fort, I have both, though I prefer fort. +30 helps with degen I guess, but for me it's more about not getting spiked. Or in pve, it keeps you from getting instakilled if your PS goes down. Not very many things will one hit someone with 600+ vs 405 hp, unless you got some crazy terratank setup that takes half your bar. Or you're some 55-105 type. If you're going solo, then armour is good, since you're not caring about surviving long enough for your monk to get to you, and you relying mostly on avoiding and reducing damage.

Anyway, I personally just strip the mods if I find them and stick them on a nice skin for martial weaps. Then resell. Some stuff is hard to sell, but a 20/20, 15^50 +30 is not. Just smile and accept the trade. Then take the money and buy whatever mods you find most useful.

That's exactly why I feel my testing is so flawed and so variable. I've watched my assassin do some very brutal damage with sundering at times, yet vampiric is more consistent. And yet between a warrior and an assassin, only using a weapon and no skills at all, the kills seem to be very closely linked to each other by a matter of 1-2 seconds.

As it has been said already, 20/20 is one of the worst mods in the game, yet ppl try to push it as "perfect", i wouldnt want 20/20 if it were free, and i stay clear of sellers pushing weapons with 20/20 as perfect as prolly they so nub they will want ridiculous price for it...

If enough damage is being focused on you to make you go below 50%, and assuming your monks don't return you to a high level of health rapidly, then you have other places to be besides hitting their soft targets.

Most people now say that sundering is garbage because they heard that, the same way people used to think sundering was good because others told them that. Do you have any justification for your statement, or are you just parroting?

I haven't been active in PvP since spring/summer 2006 so things have changed a lot between now and then, but back then our GvG team focused on adrenaline spikes - sundering made helluva difference when it procced.

like i said before, mods are over rated... a top guild will still rape u with mod less weapons

mods are the icing on the cake nothing more, they are nice to have but not at all the deciding factor to win a battle

and in pvp, most people play with pvp characters anyway witch have all mods available… and then u can decide for your self what are perfect mods.

Exactly my thoughts. I'd rather find out first-hand than listen to a bunch of people say it is without saying why it is.

How long does it take with neither?
I mean... for instance... with Zealous, which won't do squat to direct damage.

Just so we have some sort of outside frame of reference. We need a "control" if you will to determine whether it is even worthwhile using EITHER of the above.


Are you one of those nutters who runs a Dervish with Forsaken insignias? Do you honestly believe that a Dervish will be below 50% health LESS than it will be without enchantments? This is the class which uses Enchants for health and energy management and upon which half their skills rely... remember?

Do you honestly think a Dervish that is brought below 50% and not healed back up is going to be still trying to kill targets? If you're being beaten down either too fast to be healed, or your monks have too little energy/too much pressure, you mitigate.

Dervishes don't bamf... to the best of my knowledge.

As far as I'm aware (and it is worth noting that two thirds of my one year's play time {precisely} have been dedicated exclusively to my Sin)... when a Dervish gets below 50% health, they slam on more Earth Prayers enchants and carry on.

On the other hand... if my main gets below 50% health... then he makes like Nightcrawler and BAMFs out. Unless you're talking D/A (or the Dervish has a certain Ebon Vanguard skill)... they don't have that option... do they?



Then again... I suppose this is all a moot point. Dervishes should be BOTH above 50% health and Enchanted while in combat. Loss of either is cue to fix both.

Besides... what the heck else am I supposed to do with all those 15/Ench inscriptions I keep getting? I simply don't aquire enough 15^50s to kit ALL weapons with them!

Its simple really, people below 50% should be kiting and retreating because something is obviously WTFPwning them.

Good dervishes don't rely on tons of earth prayers to stay alive, time stalling tanks in AB do that.

Dervishes are the new wammos, but they are disguised as something cool so they can get into groups :P

I've always seen 15^50 as a "catch-all"...it's sort of the lazy way out. That's in no way a bad thing, but with conditions such as "while enchanted" or "versus hexed" you actually have to remember to apply those enchantments, or that hex, to gain the +15% damage. Inscriptions such as 15/-5e, 15/-10 armor are more sort of passive. You don't need to think about them...you just get the 15% for a constant penalty. 15^50 is sort of in the middle somewhere. A good player shouldn't be at less than 50% health that often, and good monks/rits shouldn't let that happen. I personally prefer 15^50s on most weapons as it is an easier condition to meet instead of having to apply an enchantment or hex, or having to take an energy or armor penalty.

Other items are sort of the same. Shields, for example, have -5(20%) inscriptions, and -2 (stance) inscriptions. It takes some form of concentrated effort to keep a stance up for the -2 reduction, the -5(20%) mod is a lazy way out which required less effort.

Of course, most Dervishes use enchantments, but I'd still feel that the 15^50 mod works fine here, since in a good few areas of PvE enchantment stripping is in abundance.

Makes sense I suppose... but don't they have anything that only triggers when below 50% health.... like we (Sins) have Shroud of Distress? Not of course that I advocate sitting around in combat with Shroud of Distress up... but it does help prevent death. And just because something is WTFPwning them doesn't mean they shouldn't fight it at all (Dungeon bosses tend to do that from time to time, but they still need to be beaten).

Oddly enough... I just can't seem to process "kite" in my head without some sort of BAMF or Dash (necessary 50% boost to break aggro) involved.... or luring of course. I've been Sinning too long. v_v;
More often than not these days, decreasing health means I need to up my Critical rate to trigger Way of Perfection healing (if there is a spirit nearby, they're usually guaranteed to be lower level and thus trigger criticals more often)... or kill what I'm attacking before it kills me. That is practically law if my health is decreasing slowly... though if I see it spiking down my usual choice is to leg it.

Dervishes though?
I have a Dervish.... but I just can't get used to playing him. All the preparation before combat is a pain in the arse... but refreshing all the enchants at exactly the right time is awkward too, especially when I have to be hitting things too.


15/-10 is for Rangers... IMHO. If they're right at the back they shouldn't be getting too much hate.... and blocking stances should help too.
15/-5e is a very nice one provided one is comfortable with their energy management... making it not much of a penalty at all.
The only ones I never use are the 20% ones, 10% fastcast... and the absolutely crippling 15/-1er


Not many areas have so much that it can strip ALL a Dervish's enchants and stop him slamming another one on instantly.... or so I've found. When that sort of thing happens, I do have an emergency 15^50 weapon, but generally I'd just stay out of combat altogether.

If someone is taking so much damage they are going below 50% health, then something is wrong. They shouldn't be hanging around to fight, they should be kiting and finding out why they are getting so badly beaten down before they do die.

Kiting isn't using skills to avoid combat or damage, kiting is moving to prevent damage. If there's a melee guy on you, move. He will be hitting less frequently. If you are being hit with projectiles, move as they fire at you, they will miss (ie dodge them). Damage mitigation through movement. Don't run around randomly, recognise what is hitting you and move to best mitigate the damage from that source.

For what it is worth... I don't tend to think much of folk who sit around at the back doing no more than contemplating what they got wrong. Hitting things is FAR more useful, even if it could potentially result in them dying. At the very least they could change HOW they're doing what they're doing on the fly. They can do all the contemplating and build changing they like once they return to an outpost... or while their corpse is waiting for a res.


... I know that while I'm running around, I cannot use most skills (except stances)... and I certainly can't attack and move at the same time.

Now you mention it though, I do know that movement can play tricks with AI. I can divert an annoying hammer warrior off onto another character by moving away from him, then run back to him and wail on his backside... (provided there aren't more threatening fleshies around to assassinate)... Then again, if the next nearest ally is a monk then I'm doing something wrong... and am probably better off just taking the beating myself (Sins aren't warriors, but we are blessed with more armour than healing Monks).

Oddly enough though... most of that is far too much hassle for me. If I'm still healthy and able to hit things, then I'm in there turning enemy monks / nukers into wassail. If I'm not both of the above then I'm retreating sharply to a position where I can be re-enabled post haste. Playing cat-and-mouse isn't my style (and I hate it when they play mouse too, though I only let them get away if they're leading me away from the rest of their party... No bastard outkites an assassin and gets away with it).

No it's not, and since you obviously don't PvP, it's not worth explaining any further. No offence intended, but since you don't need to mitigate damage in 99% of PvE, there's no point trying to explain this to you, especially if my very simple explanation above did nothing but make you think about tricking AI.

I see a perfect mod as one that has max stats. I.E 20/20 10/10 +30 etc.

If I'm attacking a warrior I will use elemental mods, If I'm attacking a squishy I'll use furious or zealous or vamparic. I will only use sundering if I'm attacking a warrior boss or something.