Judge's Insight

First of all, hello everyone, thanks for all the threads, all the great infos, and so on.

But, after a couple of searchs, I'm almost sure (you noticed the almost right ?) that what's disturbing me haven't been discussed already.

As you might have guessed, it's about Judge's Insight.

I just don't understand. Is this skill a joke or is there something that I don't get ?

It gives you sacred dmgs and a 20% armor penetration.

Since what's good about sacred dmgs it's that they're supposed to ignore armor.... What the hell ?

If anyone see a point I didn't get, please get me out of confusion.

Don't know if you found this thread yet, but this might help you out:
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=26242

He is how its been explained to me. Spells dealing in Holy damage Ignore armor and are based on AL60 so what you see is what you get. That is spells only though. Judges Insight simply makes your weapon more effective it is not a spell that does holy damage. You now have 20% armor penetration which is a whole lot better than the best sundering mod with 10% AP 10% of the time you have 20% 100% of the time. Now that its holy damage any armor bonus for just physical or just elemental has no effect. Plus of course it pwns undead. The spell does exactly what it says it does. There is nothing that I know of that has a bonus vs holy damage but I may be wrong. I dont believe holy is technically elemental either so its unaffected by winter or GC but I have no proof of that so dont swear by it. The spell is worth it just for the armor pen IMO.

if u have
judges 20 + sundering 10 + pentrating
doesnt that mean u have 50% or am i wrong?

I know that Judge's and Penetrating stacks, but I don't think it does with Sundering or a Horn bow. I may be wrong...darn it...now I have to look this up to appease my curiosity.

I found this post by SonOfRah whom I trust as a most reliable source of GW. Here's the post:



SonOfRah
"""
Armor Penetration

Armor penetration is an important aspect when you are figuring out your target's EAL. Obviously, the less armor they have, the more damage they receive.

Armor penetration can be gained via 3 methods.
1) Strength attribute
2) Skills
3) Weapons

Strength grants 1% base armor penetration per attribute level. Skills can either grant a base AP% (i.e.: penetrating attack) or can grant a bonus AP% (i.e.: judge's insight). Weapons can grant a bonus AP% through the sundering prefix (weapon upgrade) or can have an inbuilt AP bonus on the weapon itself (i.e.: Horn bows have a 10% base armor penetration value).

The difference between a base armor penetration and a bonus armor penetration is shown by the way they stack, as well as the way the skill description is written.

If multiple base armor penetration is in effect (e.g.: strength attribute and penetrating blow) then the highest armor penetration value is taken. In the above case, the 20% base armor penetration from penetrating attack is used instead of the base penetration from the strength attribute (because penetrating attack's is higher than strength's).

Then, if any bonus armor penetration is in effect, it gets added to the base penetration.

The highest possible armor penetration is 50% (sundering +10%, penetrating blow/attack 20% base, judge's insight +20%).

Base armor penetration is shown in the game by a basic number. E.g. this spell has 25% armor penetration, or: This attack has 20% armor penetration.
Bonus armor penetration is shown in the game by the addition symbol. E.g. +20% armor penetration.

Spells do not gain any armor penetration that are granted from weapon modifiers, attributes or other skills unless it specifically states on the skill that it does.

e.g.: Judge's Insight does not grant 20% armor penetration to spells, nor does Strength or item modifiers. However, if a skill states "your next spell has +10% armor penetration" then it would.

Unfortunately, no skill grants another spell armor penetration. Only some specific skills (such as Air damage spells) have armor penetration.
"""

My final note:
Many of the experts here consider a perfect Sundering Bowstring +10% AP at 10% chance as crap. The reason for this is that a perfect Vampiric Bowstring (steal 5 Health at the cost of 1 Life Pip) is far more effective than the Sundering Bowstring in terms of damage.

Thanks for finding Rahs postings and I agree I take most anything that comes from him as true until proven wrong..after all he was right about the piece of knights armor thing lol. Didnt know sundering stacked with all that or that the strength based penetration could be "overwritten" although I have been told that the armor Pen from Str att only applies to skill attacks and not regular...guess Ill have to make my monk use my tanks ax for a while to see what kind of damage it does for normal attacks to compare when I get time lol. Thanks for the clarification though