Sword upgrade opinion

I have a max dmg spatha perfect vamp 3:1 +14% dmg above 50% +25 health and a max dmg Wingblade armor penetration 10%:9% +15% dmg above 50% +29 health. The armor penetration upgrade is a much more desired upgrade than the vamp but I find that the vamp is more effective in game. I know that the armor penetration upgrade is not perfect but I really notice that my vamp sword will take out enemies much faster than my wingblade. I just wonder everyones opinion on which is better the vamp or the armor piercing upgrade?

3:1 Vampiric is +3 armor ignoring damage per hit, with some incidental lifegain. 10/10 Sundering is +3 damage 10% of the time under ideal circumstances. Which is better, +3 damage 100% of the time or +3 damage 10% of the time conditionally?

Vampiric is the better upgrade. It isn't close. Sundering is more valuable because people don't know better and are bad at math. It's that simple.

Peace,
-CxE

Yup, vampiric does a lot more dmg than sundering. But most ppl just cant do math.

says the creator of the calculators ... in the same respect thats why people also take fortitude grips over defense ... its a mines bigger competition and ...

do you really expect these 14 year olds to know the math lol

I concur. Vampiric is supreme. You cant beat a constant effect. My Idea of an Ideal sword would be this: damage: 15-22, damage +15% while enchanted, Vampiric 3:1, Enchantments last 20% longer. (Vampiric is a hilt and enchantment is a pommel upgrade).

Thank you Ensign....I fear that people will never realize that Sundering is an almost useless upgrade.

Well there are a bunch of reasons why people perfer Sundering / Fortitude over Vampiric / Defense. Fortitude is a very visible upgrade that might be ultimately misunderstood but the effect is still really obvious. Defense? Who knows what that does? Plus Fortitude is more rare, and people have learned to associated rarity with quality for some reason. Granted even if you do know the difference there are reasons to run Fortitude over Defense, but Defense is still seriously underappreciated.

Vampiric vs. Sundering have the same sorts of issues - perfect Sundering is more rare (rare = good!), and while its effect isn't very visible the visibility on Vampiric is terrible. All players actually see is the -1 health degen and the +health they get when they hit someone. The extra damage inflicted by the weapon is completely invisible to the user - the target sees it just fine, with the -3 or -5 Vampiric popping up with each hit. But for a naive user Vampiric would just appear to work like Zealous, costing you health and giving back a bit per hit, which would make it poor.

Plus I'm sure a bunch of people use Sundering over Vampiric just because of the health degen - they don't want to weapon swap and anything with a drawback is inherently bad.

Or something, I'm not good at reading the mind of the average newbie. I'm just sure that there are reasons why people prefer what they do, even if it doesn't make any mathematical sense.

Peace,
-CxE

well,

* i dont like vampiric because the efect is too small only vamnp 5:1 hammer is nice but swords an axes suck i guess

*Sundering aint that good also, since it has only 10% penetration, and u always have that (only) 1 out of 10 hits...

*Why is, for an example, Upgrades like Schoking or Icy better then sundering or vampiric?? here it is--> when u do lightning dmg with ur sword it doesnt count the +20 armor for warrior or the +10 for monks, since it is seen as elemental dmg. So myt conclusion is that that is 90% of the times much better then sundering

*Zealeous can be quite effective in missions, but i dont like it much in pvp, becuase they usually run so you arfe not constantly hitting--> means less energy

The best answer is to ask first: what are you trying to do with it?

I have two swords for two very seperate occassions:


They have different purposes. I am a professional runner, running elite clients to the forge, through the ascension missions, to granite citadel, and so forth. When running I don't use my sword to fight and I don't get hit enough to do much damage, I don't want a constant health degeneration from my sword that can't be offset by attacks, and I am targeted by health degeration spells that ignore armor and chew through my health. Plus I do like to have something very expensive and flashy to inspire confidence in my customers. The sundering longsword of fortitude is perfect for runners.

When fighting, the vampiric longsword of defense is the way to go, as it deals plenty of damage, some of which ignores armor, and when fighting, extra armor is invaluable and comparable to 30 points of extra health. So when I am using my sword as a sword, the less expensive mods are the better ones.

Ensign's point is that most people need a sword for the latter reason, not the former, yet they still buy swords like my top one, which doesn't make a lot of sense.

So you are saying elemental damage is a better upgrade than vampiric or sundering. Is there a damage difference between the different types of elemental damage? and does the math support that?

well... elemental damage in certain area's of pve might do more damage in the one and less in the other from a pvp side of view the ele armour and ranger armour have +vs elements and it means that certain hexes such as mark of pain and weaken armour wont work cause u will no longer deal psychical damage

So basically elemental damage weapons in certain circumstances can lose damage effectiveness where vamp or sundering is constant. Now it makes sense because I have a fire damage sword that at times I notice when fighting it does very little damage but could not figure out why.

Arena power.

Uh... You do realize axes and swords are actually faster than hammers right? Hammers will technically do a little bit more damage with vampiric it hardly makes vampiric useless on an axe or sword though.

Completely unrelated:
Ensign what about things that lengthen or shorten durations like quick recovery from blind or a crippling weapon. I heard it was 33% is that true?