Conflicting Advice

valesia

Ok guys so im a power share paladin at 12k so pretty much a newb still next on my upgrade list is Gems

So half the prot paladins tell me go radiant on everything the other half say use assassins whatever from my mount and go black ice for def and radiant for offense. Now im am most likely never going to tank TONG or CR im just not that kinda dedicated but still looking to improve where i can. So whats the general consensus for defensive enchants Radiant or Black Ice ?

veywiil

Using Rank 14's as the example, but keep in mind that the stat pools work out to about the same % at all ranks.

So Radiant gives you 4000 hp which translates into 400 base power due to the passive, only 100 that is shared out pretty simple math so far.

Black Ice on the other hand is a bit different. It gives you 700+350+350 worth of stats. 1400 total, however you only gain 10% of that as base power with assassins covenant. That's 140 base power, shared out that is 35. End of story?

Not exactly. You can multi stack assassins covenant multiple times, but is it 'worth' it?

WARNING: Math below is not guranteed to be accurate; someone please correct this if I'm mistaken in how these stack.
Let's assume you have 5x assassins covenant. Just for giggles, I rounded a few numbers to keep the math as whole numbers.
700+350+350 = 1400
1400 * 0.9 = 1260 (140 power gained)
1260 * 0.9 = 1134 (126 power gained)
1134 * 0.9 = 1020 (113 power gained)
1020 * 0.9 = 918 (102 power gained)
918 * 0.9 = 826 (92 power gained)

Total of 573 base power, which power shared is 143. That is technically better than radiant.

Next question what is the cut off point for it.
3 Assassins covenants is only 379, which is not enough, you need 4 assassins covenants to make this work.

Keep in mind you are losing all those extra slots of insignia bonuses to other things such as artificers. So I'd go with radiant unless the stacking math is wrong.

zephyriah

veywiil#8685 said:

Using Rank 14's as the example, but keep in mind that the stat pools work out to about the same % at all ranks.

So Radiant gives you 4000 hp which translates into 400 base power due to the passive, only 100 that is shared out pretty simple math so far.

Black Ice on the other hand is a bit different. It gives you 700+350+350 worth of stats. 1400 total, however you only gain 10% of that as base power with assassins covenant. That's 140 base power, shared out that is 35. End of story?

Not exactly. You can multi stack assassins covenant multiple times, but is it 'worth' it?

WARNING: Math below is not guranteed to be accurate; someone please correct this if I'm mistaken in how these stack.
Let's assume you have 5x assassins covenant. Just for giggles, I rounded a few numbers to keep the math as whole numbers.
700+350+350 = 1400
1400 * 0.9 = 1260 (140 power gained)
1260 * 0.9 = 1134 (126 power gained)
1134 * 0.9 = 1020 (113 power gained)
1020 * 0.9 = 918 (102 power gained)
918 * 0.9 = 826 (92 power gained)

Total of 573 base power, which power shared is 143. That is technically better than radiant.

Next question what is the cut off point for it.
3 Assassins covenants is only 379, which is not enough, you need 4 assassins covenants to make this work.

Keep in mind you are losing all those extra slots of insignia bonuses to other things such as artificers. So I'd go with radiant unless the stacking math is wrong.

Unfortunately for the OP, I'm going to conflict this information.

Unless something has changed or I'm misreading this, the numbers are way off. Yes, insignia bonuses stack, but with severe diminishing returns. A second bonus of the same type only gives around 25% as much as the original or about 2.5% more power, not 10%. USing those numbers, It would take Five Assassin's Covenants to give about 280 power total from a rank 14. I must admit I have never actually tried it with Assassin's Convenant, but have with several others.

veywiil

zephyriah said:

Unfortunately for the OP, I'm going to conflict this information.

Unless something has changed or I'm misreading this, the numbers are way off. Yes, insignia bonuses stack, but with severe diminishing returns. A second bonus of the same type only gives around 25% as much as the original or about 2.5% more power, not 10%. USing those numbers, It would take Five Assassin's Covenants to give about 280 power total from a rank 14. I must admit I have never actually tried it with Assassin's Convenant, but have with several others.

Thank you for correcting me. I was unsure of the math to began with.

dupeks

1st copy of an insignia gives 1x bonus, each additional copy gives 0.25x the bonus as mentioned above. So if I remember correctly, at full 5 slots you get 1x + 4*0.25x = 2x the bonus, which would translate 20% of your defensive stats to power.

Conclusion still holds, radiant wins out by a good bit for Prot OPs. Radiant also helps with Aura of Courage damage, which is a significant source of personal dps (especially for mid levels).

Finally, the caveat. If you are apt to go devo banedin all the time, then black ice technically allows you to share more, since the HP->power mechanic is for prot OPs only. Many end-game compositions end up preferring banedins over prots, so there is an argument there for black ice enchants being the situational BiS over radiant.

But the difference here is so not dramatic (most HP/defensive stats do not come from enchants), so anyone giving you a hard time about it is being a sillyhat.

valesia

ok me and my calculator are far less confused now. So now off to figure out when to stop stacking defense and start stacking radients

dairyzeus

dupeks said:

1st copy of an insignia gives 1x bonus, each additional copy gives 0.25x the bonus as mentioned above. So if I remember correctly, at full 5 slots you get 1x + 4*0.25x = 2x the bonus, which would translate 20% of your defensive stats to power.

I believe multiple Assassin's Covenants are unique and actually even a little worse than this. Last I knew the second assassins drew from the defensive stat pool after 10% had been taken away from the first assassins.

So a second assassins would only give you 2.5% of 90% of your defensive stats converted to power.


I'm with dupeks though. If you ever think you'll go healadin at some point in the future (and you probably will?) I'd go for black ice and assassins.

mebengalsfan

Most of the OP I run with do not use Assassin Cov as it does little for power sharing and many prefer other insignia bonuses. Most use straight up Rads on Defense for extra power sharing.

Now if you want plan to use Assassin Cov and still share power through HP you can swap out Rads for Draonics or Demonics since both of these defensive enchants provide 700 in defensive stats and only 1K less HP than a R14 Rad. Assassin Cov will now conver these enchants from 700 defensive stats over to 70 power that would provide 17.5 power just from these enchants plus any other defensive stats you have.

If you are using Assassin Cov and have Rads on defense slots already than there is no point in changing.

fightdawalrus

> @mebengalsfan#9264 said:
> Most of the OP I run with do not use Assassin Cov as it does little for power sharing and many prefer other insignia bonuses. Most use straight up Rads on Defense for extra power sharing.
>
> Now if you want plan to use Assassin Cov and still share power through HP you can swap out Rads for Draonics or Demonics since both of these defensive enchants provide 700 in defensive stats and only 1K less HP than a R14 Rad. Assassin Cov will now conver these enchants from 700 defensive stats over to 70 power that would provide 17.5 power just from these enchants plus any other defensive stats you have.
>
> If you are using Assassin Cov and have Rads on defense slots already than there is no point in changing.

You should point and laugh at those pallies who aren't using AC.

Some pallies use x2 AC or x3 AC to maximize power share. On devo, I have 60k power with no companion summoned and im on console without the new stuff.

dupeks

mebengalsfan#9264 said:

Most of the OP I run with do not use Assassin Cov as it does little for power sharing and many prefer other insignia bonuses.

I respectfully disagree, and am somewhat surprised that's your experience. Almost all of my OP friends run AC (prot or devo, doesn't matter).

For those players looking to max support, AC provides quite a bit of shareable power. As was pointed out elsewhere, it's not uncommon to run 2x or 3x on a BiS build to get every drop of power out and over to your main dps.

This also synergies nicely with shep's devotion and artificer's persuasion, which are 2 other common bonuses to run.

veywiil

I would always recommend running at least one, as it can easily be between 3-4k power for me as a passive. Multi-stacking can get a little more iffy in my mind. I've never been one to maximize power share to the 39th degree, but I do run one AC, with a second one as a possibility if I ever need too; mainly there is to many other bonuses I like, (gladiators guile speed boost is just too nice for speed runs).

mebengalsfan

fightdawalrus#5058 said:

> @mebengalsfan#9264 said:

> Most of the OP I run with do not use Assassin Cov as it does little for power sharing and many prefer other insignia bonuses. Most use straight up Rads on Defense for extra power sharing.

>

> Now if you want plan to use Assassin Cov and still share power through HP you can swap out Rads for Draonics or Demonics since both of these defensive enchants provide 700 in defensive stats and only 1K less HP than a R14 Rad. Assassin Cov will now conver these enchants from 700 defensive stats over to 70 power that would provide 17.5 power just from these enchants plus any other defensive stats you have.

>

> If you are using Assassin Cov and have Rads on defense slots already than there is no point in changing.



You should point and laugh at those pallies who aren't using AC.



Some pallies use x2 AC or x3 AC to maximize power share. On devo, I have 60k power with no companion summoned and im on console without the new stuff.

I was talking Devo pallies though, I typically run with Protection.