Whats so good about 10/10 armour penetration on weapon?

Heck, why even pay the 100k+ for a 15>50 bow at all, when there are just as good 15>50 bows to be aquired from collectors.

I am running a Poisoners Ascalon Bow of Fortitude currently. Req 9 max dmg, 15>50 +29 health and customized. Cost me squat, 5 Topaz crests. I love this bow and see no reason to waste all that money on a high end bow. Got the items to trade for the shortbow version now and I am going to go grab it tonight. Look for a Vamp string (prefer this to the 10/10 sundering for many of the reasons posted here) and either a Fort grip or +5 Defense grip. Unsure yet.

I might be mistaken, but last time I checked, you cannot get all variations of max damaxe, max native mod bows at collectors.

All types of 15-28, req 9, +15% damage while HP > 50% are availible from collectors. They're all called Ascalon bow though.

The weapon mod with "+1 weapon mastery - 20% chance" doesn't affect your natural weapon damage, only the damage from skills.

This means that it gives around 0.1% extra damage, depending on weapon/skill selection.

to the OP: sundering mods are pretty much pointless. say you're a warrior with a sundering sword hilt. you, on average, deal around 42 damage to a spellcaster. 10% of 42 would be 4.2 more damage. so, 46.2 damage to your target would be what you end up with. it's not great at all, people just assumed that 10% was "t3h 00b3r" and would "pWn t3h n00b|3s" and such. they never bothered to do the calculations.

but, keep it on the low. i can still get other mods for cheaper because of these crazy prices for crappy mods like this.

actually statistically it is a 10% chance to have the equivalent of 10 strength on that hit

What he means is, that since it's only a 10% chance, that once you hit for 10% Armour Piercing, that by the next time you hit with that 10% Piercing, you would of hit so many times without the bonus, that it would be watered down to a misely 1% average.

If that made sense

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't a horn bow have an inherant armor penetration of 10% always? Wouldn't putting a sundering string on a horn bow then be worth having a total of 20%, even if it was only 10% of your hits?

all bows have a % of armor penetration, but you must also take into account the distance, and height from you to your target

armor penetration does not stack like that

Yeah, actually, from what other people have said, it does, however, it would once again be more like 11% sundering, since .1*.1=.01 so a sundering string comes out to an average of 1% penetration each hit.

Actually, if you're lucky you can hit with that 10% AP all the time. Then again, you could never. 10% chance doesn't mean you will hit once every ten hits.

And that would be an extra 4.6, not 4.2dmg.

They are all called Ascalon bows, but they have the stats of specific bows. My current bow fires like a Composite bow. I am going to be picking up the Shortbow version soon.

There are limits though, the only flatbow is 15% while enchanted, not quite as useful.

Just did a test: went into comp arenas with some random prebuild and no points in marksmanship, brought an unmodded bow and a vamp bow. Attacked a warrior, all hits for 0 dmg. Put on vamp bow, all hits for 0 dmg but i'm getting 5 health per hit now. Attack a pet, all hits for 2-3 dmg. Put on a vamp bow, all hits for 2-3 dmg but i'm getting 5 health per hit now.

Conclusion: vamp bow adds no damage whatsoever, but merely gives you +5 per hit (even if it didn't do 5 dmg!), and changes your opponent view to show -5 of their damage as life stealing. Looks like sundering is the only string mod that increases damage. IMO all the strings suck unless you need ele damage.

Yes, my teammates were rather upset.

The +5 vamp damage per hit does not ignore damage reduction, MuKen. So, if he had one piece of knight's armor, a -2 damage shield and a minor rune of absorption, your attack would have done zero damage still.

Is it me or is this thread riddled with wrong information? Wheres Ensign when you need him? I could try to clarify some points (last time i checked, vamp hilt is +X unreducable dmg ON TOP of your regular dmg, which you receive as health), but after reading the "noone uses +armor mod" from Kriegar i might be considered out of touch with the game. I have to assume that people only use armor-ignoring damage now, since Ensign calculated that the armor mod usually offeres better protection against everything.

That's why I tried it on the pet too, or was he also wearing absorption and knight's boots?

Also, just did this test as well: distracting shot with and without vamp mod. Always does the same damage. I am quite certain that all the vamp mod does is give you 5 health per attack, no extra damage.

i dont really see a point in it either cuz u hit more dmg in 1 of every 10 hits but vampiric deals more dmg every time (well -1 regen is fixable by mending)

Err, I JUST POSTED a test with that shows that vampiric does not do any more damage ever. Now, if you'd like to point out some flaws somewhere in my testing methodology or an equally concrete evidence that contradicts what I'm saying, that's one thing, but plz avoid unqualified assertions to the contrary.

Vampiric does damage separate from your weapons damage, so I dunno if you get to see the -5 float up like you do with other damage.
However, I've been on the recieving end with my warrior; thanks to my buffs I took 0 damage from the guys attack, but still lost 5 each hit to "Vampiric". Total absorption of 4, for the record. Vamp ignores all.

I repeat, 10% chance != 1 every 10.