Rogue skills/perks to increase boss DPS

[Tomcat]

What gives the best DPS boost when fighting bosses?

[Rain4524]

poison weapons, dagger mastery, jokester

[Tomcat]

poison weapons are better than armor pen?

[Katitoff]

Originally posted by Tomcat:

poison weapons are better than armor pen?

mobs have no armor

[Sarokan]

Originally posted by Tomcat:

poison weapons are better than armor pen?

You have to differentiate here:

1. In general, bosses have -22% physical damage reduction (=PDR), which is equivalent to an Armor Rating of 0. Therefore, melee attacks cause an additional 22% bonus damage to bosses. Since bosses have no PDR, increasing Armor Penetration does not change your damage against bosses.

3. Poison weapon perk deals a dot of magic damage per stack. This damage can be improved with magic penetration due to bosses having from 4.6% to 33% magic damage reduction.

4. Basically, poison weapons are useful because the full 5 stack can deal decent damage over time, especially with magic peneration.

5. The situation is completely different with damage from firearms (= projectiles). Because many bosses have resistance to projectiles, armor penetration can help you to overcome this.

Remember:
-Armor penetration is not useful against bosses unless we are using firearms.
-Poison weapon is a common perk for rouges when fighting bosses.