What's really better 15^50 or 15^-10?

Well, I've been thinking about this, I know everyone prefers 15^50 because it's a stable boost with no loss. But there is times where you are low on health, or when soloing etc.

With 15-10armor you ALWAYS get the boost, and -10 armor doesn't seem like a big deal. You have like 70 armor per peice for assassin x5, so 350 armor? what's 10 armor of 350?

Is your armor value just 70 (for each area of your body?) If so then I could see 10 armor being huge, but if the armor values add together it doesn't seem like much...

Does 10 armor really effect a lot more damage taken to you? It seems like you could shake it off and keep a perma 15% damage up.

it'd be 70 armor - 10

not 350 -10

Armor does not add up. Every time you are attacked, the enemy attacks one of the armor pieces. -10 armor makes your armor go down to 60, and is a big deal for an Assassin.

You have 70 armor and hits are divided into which piece of your body they hit. 10 armor is a big deal. Losing 10 armor will increase damage by about 19%.

IMHO, rangers can get away with +15/-10 long and flat bows. They have great range which translates to "almost never directly targeted by mobs". Ofcourse, 15^50 is a must for shorter range bows.

If you are running 15^50 and you get <50% health, then with 15/-10 you would probably be <40% health, in which case you need to GTFO quick, not hang around and take more hits. 95% or more of your time should be spent at >50% health, so take the 15^50.

Pretty much what Kunder says, if you're health is more likely to fall below 50% then taking 20% more damage is not advisable and if you're unlikely to be hit you'd pretty much always get the bonus from a 15^50.

I basically agree with the above. If you are in a situation where your health is going below 50%, having -10 armor would only make it worse, plus, having a mere +15% damage won't get you out of that situation much quicker.

And yes, it's 70 minus 10 not 350 minus 10 - the -10 armor is significant, especially for a melee class.

Tbh I dont use 15^50 or 15-10s....for the most part I am of the opinion that 15 vs hexed, 15 stance, and 15 while enchanted are almost always better depending on your build.

On an assassin, the +15% isn't going to do a whole lot. The extra % doesn't affect any +damage done through skills, it only affects the base damage of the daggers. So an extra 15% damage would only amount to: 1.15 x [7-17] ~ 8-20. An increase of 1 to 3 damage per hit isn't going to do a lot.

My personal preference is to just use a +5 energy inscription with my daggers, but if you want extra damage then, as essence said, use a +15% while enchanted/stance/hexed. -10 armor can be a bit hefty of a price, especially for an already fragile profession. I recommend +15%(enchanted) with Critical Agility.

Hope this helps. =)

-10 AL increases damage taken by ~19%. It is an amazingly terrible mod that should never be used. Period.

15^50 is generally considered the best damage mod because it comes very close to being unconditional. Seriously, how often does your backline let you stay at < 50% health... and, when they do, how often to you continue attacking rather than start kiting?

Depending on build, 15^ench and 15^stance can have 100% uptime unless they are stripped or something renders you unable to recast.

Everything else is too generally too conditional.

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There's also the point that daggers do such low base damage, especially against HM monster armor, that you don't suffer much by going with a non-damage mod like +5e.

I always use 15^50 too.

That got me thinking though... 15^50 is almost unconditional but not quite. There will be downtimes. If you arn't always going to be stanced or enchanted, what about 15/-5 energy? Everyone knows that total energy =/= energy management, and as long as you have energy management, i wouldnt think that the -5 energy would be a problem. Maybe on those with a low energy pool (warriors), it could be problematic, but they should be using "while in a stance" anyway. Otherwise, it seems like a completely negligible downside.

I agree with this, though I still stick to 15^50s because I want to be able to change my build without need to use storage space up on an excessive amount of weapon sets. As a Warrior, you already have 4 Hammers, 4 Axes, and 4 Swords (Elemental, Vamp/Sundering, Zealous, Furious). If you were ever to get particularly with hex/stance/enchant stuff, that'd be 36 inventory slots used on weapons for just a single character.

15^50 is more general purpose, and saves on inventory space.
I agree mods like +15/-10 arm or +15/-5 energy are bad. If you are under 50% HP, you need that armor more than ever anyway. Same thing goes for the -energy, you need it to use Sprint or Dash or whatever to escape and recover, and changing to a high energy set could cause your HP to become 1, which would be very bad, so...