Armor penetration vs. power?

runonnike · November 2013

So I've heard people saying that a little armor penetration with fewer power is better than very very little armor penetration with a lot of power. So I went to the Trade of Blades and decided to test on the dummies. However, I was doing more damage with around 9k power and 90 armor pepentration than 7k power and 1k armor penetration. Has anyone else tested this? Also, does armor penetration go into negatives?

Thanks guys

dante123pl · November 2013

i think dummies doesnt have damage resistance at all and ArP doesnt go into negatives

runonnike · November 2013

Oh well, how about on other people in PVP or monster in PVE?

fondlez · November 2013

1. Dummies in Trade of Blades have no mitigation. So, you cannot test any aspect of Armor Penetration (ArP) stat rating or its underlying Resistance Ignored stat there.

2. Resistance Ignored provides no benefit below zero mitigation.

3. Players almost always have mitigation. So do most monsters, especially in dungeons where they typically start with 12% for trash and upto 24% mitigation for bosses.

Resistance Ignored is always a flat damage increase up to the mitigation of the target. It is only because there are targets with different mitigations that can influence how much is optimally effective to stack.

So, yes, you want Resistance Ignored, either from ArP or CON (GWF) or DEX (GF). Note these sources all sum together.

runonnike · November 2013

Oh, so the only use for dummies is showing off? And dark enchantments is more damage than radiant enchantments of the same rank?

godlysoul1 · November 2013

Just do the simple math. Look at how much power you have and how much damage it has per hit, then look at how much arm pen bonus you get, and run some numbers to see on normal attack and encounters how much damage it adds. Especially with module 2 though, if you are building for pvp, there will be less spam hits from sure strike, and more slower but slightly more powerful hits from threatening rush, meaning even less of a boost from power per hit instead of getting a % damage boost. Power may be slightly better for at-wills like sure strike where it hits low damage but hits frequent since power adds damage each hit, but aside from that, its generally accepted that arm pen is better for every class when compared to power. The general convention that tends to work best is to go arm pen > crit > power.

tang56 · November 2013

My GF with 2k arpen(24% mitigation ignored total) will always out perform a flat 10k power GF with no arpen in terms of damage. This has nothing to do with skill, etc. Arpen is just better that power until you hit softcap.

pando83 · December 2013

For PvE, it's common knowledge that you need around 24% DR ignored (your total DR ignored is constitution points past 10 + the value from your ArP stat. If you have 15 constitution, you add 5% DR ignored to the value from your ArP stat. If you've constitution focus feat, it's even more) cause it's the max mobs have, then you can go power. In PvP, it depends:

TRs-CWs-DCs usually have more than 24%, but not much. Tanks, instead, have far more DR (42-45-50%). So, if you plan on being a tank killer in PvP, you have to go ArP. Simple reason: it's the stat that stacks better. Diminishing returns are at very high values, far higher than any other stat. (on my toon i have 1.6k ArP and it gives me 17% DR ignored. To that, i add my constitution past 10).

So, if you're going to just PvE, go 24% ArP, then stack power.
If you are PvP focused, it depends. If you plan on just targeting TRs-CWs-DCs and nothing else, you can go up between 28-30% ArP. If you want to, for example, kill a sentinel tank GWF, stack as much ArP as you can and you'll see more results than just stacking power.

If you're a GWF with deep gash, try a balance, since power feeds your deep gash damage (if i remember well, it's 15% of your power every second for 5 seconds). Also, i've heard that deep gash was buffed in module 2.

nonameidk · December 2013

For the math behind the stats go to
Calculating stats and their effects
and also
Diminishing returns
Note: I did not make any of these, I just found them on the forums and bookmarked them.

You will want to have about 1,8k or so of armor pen, about 3.5k of crit and the rest into power. Reason for this is that crit and armor pen have the best dmg per point ratio, however they also have diminishing returns. Power on the other hand has no diminishing returns and is the only way of buffing your dmg output after you've hit the softcaps on crit, armor pen and recovery(about 3k would be good, but it is in no way required)

So in conclusion,
Get 24% armor pen (see the first link 2nd post)
Get 3300-3500 of critical strike chance
Get about 3000 recovery if you find dailies useful
Dump the rest into power

runonnike · December 2013

Oh, ok thanks guys

Armor penetration vs. power?

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