Armor penetration in PVP

hamletswords

Does armor penetration work on the damage resistance part of tenacity or does it only work against defensive damage resistance?

How much arp would you recommend?

Also, random question- is nimble blade any good for bonus non-crit damage? I'm pretty new to 60 and will be re-speccing soon and it looks like it might be pretty good, especially since I've been experimenting with lesser bilethorn/duelist flurry in PVP.

godlysoul2

I'm not sure about tenacity. For arm pen ~ 2k is generally good. However, which stat is best to add is dependent on what your other stats are already at because stats have different diminishing returns. For example, adding ~ 200 arm pen from 2603 -> 2797 will grant you 1% arm pen bonus. Yet, adding 200 crit from 1921 -> 2121 only adds .8% crit. The values get smaller the more you add, but at a different rate for each stat. This does not factor in things such as how much damage resistance your opponent has though. That is why people generally stop adding arm pen around 2k and just go with crit. If you have more arm pen than your opponents resistance, the stat is wasted. However, if it can go through tenacity, then there probably would not be any bounds on arm pen if you wanted a purely offensive build. Also keep in mind other modifiers such as +25% crit severity while stealthed (Executioner feat) or the fact that crit is reduced based on your opponents tenacity. (Crit hit suppression ~18-22%). Overrun Crit (Executioner feat) will also add significant damage too. Messing with those numbers is really only viable if you consider going with a vorpal enchantment though. For non-vorpal enchantments, adding straight % damage will be more reliable than adding crit %.

For nimble blade the math is easy. Say you have 40% crit chance. You will non-crit 60% of the time, meaning 60% of the time you will have a 35% to do 20% damage.

(.6)*(.35)*20 = +4.2% damage

It depends on how you look at it. ~4.2% damage is significant, but you also have to look at what you lose from that. (Keep in mind with lower crit it provides more damage, higher crit less damage). Most people in PvP will argue stealth builds are best. Therefore, the feat nimble dodge becomes extremely useful because it can give you a 20% stamina used reduction when using a roll while stealthed. If you take the early tree feat that gives stealth per dodge roll, this allows you gain more stealth time via this method much easier. It also makes it a lot easier to use an in and out attack approach from stealth because you will have more stamina to work with more often to let you hit and roll out. It also helps make sure that you don't get stuck without a roll when you re-stealth after using ITC/SS as your opponent would easily be able to track you down and CC you if you do not roll while entering stealth.

That is probably more information than you were looking for, but to give a shorter response, just get arm pen ~2k and if you are going with a stealth build, nimble dodge is most likely going to work better than nimble blade. Otherwise, nimble blade does provide significant damage and is viable.

EDIT: Here is a link that shows offensive stats and how it scales with the more you add if you are interested in maximizing potential.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XR4KdpzlbqU

(Skip to about halfway through to see the spreadsheet.)