Buff Sundering Again

it would be nice if there was some kind of animation that went along when it's triggered.. least that would rile people up

Maybe I'm not thinking right...

A vampiric mod that takes an extra 3 damage from an opponent will in turn take a total of 15 damage in 5 shots.

A sundering modded bow 20/20 will have the chance of 20 percent armor penetration in 5 shots.

Now 15 damage is NOT alot. However I know when I hit a sundering shot because I no longer strike for 28-54 I strike for mid 70s to around 115.

To me it seems that sundering while not as consistent definately is either better, or comparable.

Nowhere near being "Trash" as some are making it seem.

I've also recently aquired "Sundering Shot" which is a factions skill only (I think) which offers an additional 20% armor penetration.

I'll try some tests with that tonight to see the difference between no sundering / 20% sundering and 40% sundering (if in fact it does stack).. I'll have to find 2 bows to mod to do this however as I am now using the dragos and that probably wouldn't be a fair compairison w/ the vampiric.

just to make it clear bows sundering mode is 5:1

so over 5 shots you do CONSISTENT 25 damage+ your initial damage.
beats sundering by alot

As a frame of reference, 25% Armor Penetration = ~32% more damage on 60 AL targets. (Run Lightning Orb for verification.)

Therefore, if your attack is dealing more than double its usual damage, I call bull. 20% Armor Penetration < 25% Armor Penetration.

What you're likely seeing is a critical hit, possibly at times stacked with the Sundering bonus. But the Sundering can not, and does not, provide that large a damage bonus.

Also, to note, Sundering does not apply to +damage mods. Read the Wind, Favourable Winds, and +damage from attacks all occur as a final additive amount that ignore armor.


Even if you wanted to be generous and say 20% AP = 30% additional damage, 6% more base damage on attacks on average works out to be very little. (Note: You get 20% more base damage for customizing your weapon, and a variable amount for your weapon's bonus. Usually 15% though.)



Also, 1 degeneration is in no way a serious drawback to Vampiric weapons. At worst, you have to use a Healing Signet every 40-60 seconds to counteract it (that's without actually hitting anyone). At best, it doesn't matter because it's completely handled by a heal party at every 20-30 seconds.

you mean vampiric is 5:1?

and another thing is that 20/20 doesnt mean 1 out of 5.. could be 0 out of 5 or 5 out of 5.

I still dont believe that vampiric is that much superior, if superior at all to sundering. I will post my results.

Also every vampiric weapon I've used is not 25 per shot .. Its 5 per shot .. 5x5 =25. Which still doesnt beat a single sundering hit in my experience.

Critical hits I did not take account for... But if that is the case I am scoring critical hits 1 in about 8 shots .. Does that seem right? Also help me understand the critical attack.. How much added damge would that be? Or is it based on a percentile?

At 16 weapon mastery it's a little over 20% chance of a critical hit.

A critical hit does damage = the max for the weapon * 1.4 (approximately)

A sundering process from a bow hitting for max damage (which is nowhere near assured but lets be nice to sundering), without a critical, against an AL 60 target deals 47.57 as opposed to the same conditions without a sundering process dealing 38.64. That is a whole extra 9 damage.

Over the course of a battle the repeats of the process are large enough that it is almost certain that the number of processes will tend to the mean. So sundering deals an extra 9 damage (which isn't true because it will process on low values as well as high values), every five hits. On the other hand vampiric will deal an additional 25 damage every five hits.

Sundering is horrible. Using numbers skewed to be favourable to sundering I can get it to add nowhere near the damage of vampiric for a bow. I could do the same for an axe, sword, dagger and hammer but I really can't be bothered.

Leave Sundering alone, it sucks we get the idea. But Assassin, Warriors and Ranger have enough armour ignoring damage as it is! Sort out the problem with Eles been utterly shit damage dealers (except bosses...) first, then come back to Sundering.

The degen for Vampiric means jack, plain and simple. Between fights, switch your weapon, in fights, using a self heal to cover up other bits of damage or a monk healing the damage Vamp did makes the drawback completely negligible. Besides, Hundred Blades, Cyclone Axe, Triple Chop, Barrage, Dual Shot? Multiple hitting attacks. A single barrage taking ~2 seconds meaning ~4 health lost has the potential to steal 30 health. The -1 regen just isn't worth mentioning.

Leave it. Use vampiric then if its so much better.

Vampiric does life steal not damage. Meaning it ignores armour, sundering just gives a percentual change of maybe having a little armour penetration.

When hitting you steal 5 life making for a netswing of 10 life minus of course 2 life every second because of degen but since a sword ot axe
(3,-1, net swing of 6 minus 2 every second) will hit evey 1,33 seconds you still have a net swing of +/- 3,7 health evey second.

Vampiric isn't just better than sundering it totally rapes sunderings face.

These are all very good points. Vampiric is definately better than sundering. It goes through armor on every hit, and even goes through all enchantments and protections since it doesn't even count as "damage." That's one of the reasons Order of the Vampire is an elite skill. And that degen can be countered with watchful spirit, turning it into energy degen instead. Or just swapping weapons. Either way, it's completely negligable.

....Perhaps you guys will give ANet an idea to impliment a change... like nerfing vampiric. I mean, who says they will buff Sundering? They might just choose to go the other way.

A sundering weapon will do 40% more damage 20% of the time, so it is the equivalent of +8% damage all the time, with no penalty. Not a great mod, but I doubt you'll see a significant buff. As to whether sundering is better than vamp, that depends on how much base damage you are doing (8% of a big number...).

Yeup you guys were right.

I tested the vampiric vs sundering vs normal last night and you hit the nail on the head.

Sundering trails in damage over time by a significant amount.

Now I don't think that sundering should be buffed too much, but a minor adjustment is definately needed.

Thanks for the explination on critical hits also helped me out alot. :-)

I'm not gonna go through the math but in order to make sundering the equivalent of vampiric, they need to make it a permanent % penetration and balance it so - High armor targets sundering does as much or more than vampiric (more armor penetrated). And on low armor targets sundering does as much or less than vampiric (less armor penetrated).

Sundering is not supposed to be better than vamp, Vamp is +3 per hit with no percentage but it degens your health and though that can be over come with good ol mending it will also add an extra -1 to all mes degen skills. Whilst Sundering has a percentage which is a meger 20% but it is the only weapon mod that links in with other skills a W/Mo can have up to 60% per hit but the 60% drops to 40% after 10 seconds...I havn't tested the damage one is Judge's insight and and elite Faction strength skill called Primal rage if anyone wants to give this a go.

My views on Sundring being buffed? well once I see the figures with these two spells I might be able to say buff it to 25-30% but I can't say until I know how much damage it does.

Edit: just remebered the main warrior skill strength is 1% per lvl so you can have a max of 76% all in all

Unless something has changed, armor penetration doesnt stack and the highest value is used when appropriate. This alone makes vampiric superior in every possible situation. If you throw a sundering mod on a warrior, its wasted on every attack skill used essentially. It is wasted if you have judge's insight. It is wasted if you use attack skills with armor penetration built into it.

If the sundering mod is changed to triggering on every hit, then you effectivly give 10-20 ranks of strength to any profession with the mod or a "free" judge's insight to everyone with the mod, etc.

Basically its designed into a corner and *if* it were to be balanced against vampiric weapons, then it would have to get a buff in a different direction like a %chance to not miss or combine it with the weapon mastery skills and remove those garbage hilts. Even then, the overal effect from randomly always hitting or extra 1-2pts of weapon skill is questionable.

IMO all the chance to do anything mods suck, I would perfer if they were weaker and did a little bit on every hit, instead of a large amount some times.

Take sundering, 20% armor penetration, 20% of the time, and just change it to 5% armor penetration all of the time, simularly with most or all other mods. As for Barbed and other condition mods, if you switch to that weapon briefly just to get a bonus on a skill that inflicts that condition then switch back, it is a golden improvement, after which you switch back to whatever weapon does more damage regularly. I would even say that they could improve Sundering so it does 20% armor penetration only on skill attacks, that way it stacks where it is needed, instead of normal attacks.

Forgive me if I'm ignorant, but I realy want a increase chance of Critical mod, that is what Assassin realy needs, even increasing it 5% would be a golden addition, and having simular mods for physical weapons would be useful for an assassin/secondary class.

Perhaps they could improve sundering, but they already have and it apparently wasn't enough to satisfy some, if they improve it again, there is no point in tacking on a little bit more of what we have, it would be better to make it work in a different way which has stronger tactical implications, or they could leave it the way it is and make an alternate armor penetration mod which works different so anyone using current sundering mods doesn't get screwed out of what they might want to keep.

What I realy want to see though is an additional mod available for two handed weapons or other weapons which take up two hands (daggers). It is certainly a disadvatage mod wise to compare a single handed weapon with all the fixings including a shield or off hand with max mods, to a Hammer, Bow or Daggers user who gets nearly half as many mods and an obvious lack of addition from off hands like armor and energy. Hammers hit harder but attack slower, Daggers only hit as fast as Swords, and high points in Dagger Mastery for a few dual strike doesn't match sword and sheild, two handed weapons and staffs really deserve an additional mod, or dual offensive mods, like Vampiric and Zealous, or Sundering and Furious, or higher levels of effectiveness on their mods (and I know some do). As far as mod imbalance goes, I think dual handed weapons are way behind single handed + off hand combinations, much more so than Sundering is to Vampiric mod. And as usual I find it funny that people choose to squack about the holes in the damn wile water spills over the top.

Keaping the +20% penetration and having it take effect only and on all attack skills seems like a really good idea to me. Or maybe 15%.
That would add an obvious difference between the reasons to use either sundering or vampiric. Sundering would be better for skills, and vampiric would be better for auto-attacks.

I agree. Do something about the staff/hammer/dagger issue first. Especially the staff thing. With the common introduction of +5 energy swords and axes, there is absolutely no reason to run a staff. Ever. Staffs are stupid. Think about it this way.

Staffs give +10 energy base, have 2 base mods, and have 2 mods you can put on them.

Both of the 2 base mods can be on your offhand (you just have to look for the right offhand, usually 20/20, but if you want something like bleeding duration + 20% recharge, you can find it).

Staff wrappings and sword/axe hilts have the same mods, so they offset each other.

Insightful staff head is offset by the energy +5 sword, and you can still get both mods on your offhand, so by running the sword + off-hand you get +17 energy instead of +15, and still get all your mods. Therefore, there is absolutely no reason to run a staff. The only thing you can do with a staff that you can't do with a sword and offhand is a +60 hp staff. However, I have a number of things that substitute. I can substitute on of my base mods (recharge, cast time, condition duration) for +30 hp and thereby also have +30 hp, and STILL have 5 more energy than you. Or I can just choose to have 30 less hp and 5 extra energy. Either way, I really don't see a reason to ever use a staff now.

/unsigned

Just remove the POS mod completely. It's junk.

yes im sry i made mistake

very true, this is why sundering is not my prefered mode

yes thats what i wanted to say. when you are using vampirik mode, you KNOW that after shooting 5 arrows at the sam etarget you will do an +25 damage OVER ALLL hits, but as u pointed out, you cant realy predict that with sundering. also, sunderuing migh do more damage on diffrent armors, lik evs a warior its going to be less damage. but a vamp bow will consistantly drop+5 damage to every arrow no matter what is the armor

it might not do super dmg but it's still the best ''Dmg'' mod that dosent have any drawbacks..
the sundering is an good all around mod since you wont be runing around whith VAmp mod all the time cause that whould be silly...

Learn to weapon switch... or teach your monks to deal with having to heal a -1 degen.

If you could actually work out the numbers yourself, you would see that it is *still* mostly garbage.

It did cost me my survivor title when my 5 year olf hurt himself and I had to go ...

geeze
it's pretty obvious that you switch weapon if you have a weapon whith vamp mod it's not rocket science to figure that one out,why should monk haft deal whith it if you are wasting your hp on a mod your mod your problems..

so what whould you have chossen then if you couldent chose vamp mod then
sundering is still the best alternative to the vamp if you are looking for some extra dmg..

wow...what do you people want? I can picture it already:

Update: December 2nd, 2007

Sundering mods are increased to 80%/80%


If you didn't like it at 10/10, and don't like it at 20/20, don't you think it's about time you pick a different mod?

Why would you not be able to choose Vamp? That is a silly arguement, that doesn't make Sundering any more attractive.

Or you could just use Elemental, because just about everyone uses Armor vs. Physical these days.

i Asked you WHICH you whould have chossen but you make it into a such big deal.i think it's stupid runing around whith vamp as primary weapons,thats why i think sundering is an good all around ''Dmg''mod first you run upp to what ever you want to attack then you switch to vamp and so on..
and second what are we talking about anyways it seems half the ppl are talking about pvp and the rest about pve...

Agree whith Talon he's go a point there

SUPERB IDEA FOLLOWING BELOW

How to make sundering suck less and improve PvE assassins!
Make sundering activate on critical hits!

Sundering Sword hilt: 20% armor penetration on a critical hit

What would happen?

Vampiric would still be the weapon of choice but sundering would be the main rival. Stances would suddenly be something that doesn't last since people would suddenly use wild blow for the 20% ap that is guaranteed (unless blinded right?)
Assassins would probably get overpowered though.

Think of the possibilities!

And the price on sundering would raise too.

And in PvE sundering still sucks more than vampiric as well. It simple math why is it so hard to admit vampiric is the better mod?

You sundering folks are just being stubborn with out any basis to go on.

Credit for this list go to: Fender from Wrath of Nature it was posted on another forum but i'll dump it here for downright comparison.


Against an AL 60 target w/ perfect vamp your damage increases over base by:
sword 8.8%
axe 8.4%
hammer 9.7%
bow 12.4%

Against an AL 60 target w/ perfect 20/20 sundering your damage increases over base by 4.6% for all weapons. Much better than the 1.1% a 10/10 sundering mod would get, but still well below vamp.

vamp vs AL 70
sword 10.4%
axe 10.0%
hammer 11.6%
bow 14.7%

sundering 20/20 vs AL 70 compared to base all weapons 6.4% (10/10 = 1.3%)

vamp vs AL 100
sword 17.6%
axe 16.9%
hammer 19.4%
bow 24.8%

sundering 20/20 vs AL 100 compared to base all weapons 8.3% (10/10 = 1.9%)

If you like vampiric better, use vampiric and leave sundering.

Or maybe i should start a petition: Buff non max damage weapons because they deal less damage than a max damage one

I wouldn't really call that a fair comparison though. People get non-max damage weapons because they have nothing better until they get to the higher level areas. You use them because you have little choice.

If you just crafted a nice bow at the weaponsmith and you want to put a damage mod on it, you have a choice between vampiric and sundering.

Heh, here's what I picture -

Update: December 2nd, 2007
Vampiric mods changed to only trigger 10%-20% of the time.

This is not true. In a choice of four mods, a sword/focus locks you into one being an insightful, or 10% recharge, which is not allways optimal.

Or they could just balance Weapons/Armor, just like how they balance skills so that more things become viable for use?

How about make Sundering Penetrate 10% Armor always?
Would that be better?

Yet another thread about sundering, arrrgh! It's fine as it is (it did need the recent buff as it used to be literally useless), as it has NO drawbacks. None. Use vamp and your lifebar drops, use ele and you may reduce effectiveness Vs certain armours, use zealous and energy drops, use poisioned, crippled, etc, specific bonus related to an attack skill....etc.


Sundering is well known as the noob mod; People want that one leet skinned sword with leet 15^50 with the one leet mod (sundering). For gods sake, learn to play the game and have an armoury of swords/whatever weapon you use. Any warrior worth their salt should have at least 5-10 weapons for various tactics etc, that 400k spent on a leet sword could buy you an armoury of weapons and shields and respect from fellow players for your knowledge, ability and understanding of the game, now over a year has past the wheat really is getting separated from the chaff

constant damage boost with no drawback, nah. Warriors do enough damage by just point-clicking as it is ^_^. Perhaps different sundering mods for the various weapon classes...an assasin 10% chance/100% penetration mod would be intresting and kind of in the style of an assasin...

Why would you buy a sundering weapon so you can run up and go im so leet with my sundering mod to the mobs so you could then switch to a vamp wep? any decent player that is paying attention would switch to an empty weapon slot then switch back to your vamp wep when you need to fight. you dont need to hold a sundering weapon so you dont lose health when you arent fighting, its the same as holding nothing.

Except there is no drawback to Vamp, Zealous, Poison, Cripple, or Elemental mods, so long as you know how topush the F1-4 keys to switch weapons.

There is no reason to swap into Sundering. Never. Not a single use for it.

Zealous outperforms other mods in energy management. Elemental outperforms other mods for damage vs warriors. Vampiric outperforms other mods on everything else.

You use Sundering for damage. It does not outperform Elemental mods against warriors. It does not outperform Vampiric against anything. It is a broken mod. It is not fine as is.

If you know how to use Vampiric, you will not lose a single point of health from it and in some circumstances will gain health. Again, there is no drawback to Vampiric if your F1-4 keys are working properly and even if it was just "+3/5 unconditional damage bonus" and "-1 health regan" with no lifestealing/gaining (ie, a real -1 health regan), it would still be the prefered mod over sundering. That shows itis not balanced.

a little bit signed
maybe vamp is better, but it has a drawback, even if that drawback is soo minor it still is one, sundering doesn't have one at all
i agree sundering is not that good, but it doesn't have a drawback at all, vamp has