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Experienced cleric's chime in on armor penetration ideal stats
gwfleader
Member Posts: 11 Arc User
Doesn't a cleric need armor penetration? My power, crit, and recovery are very high with almost no armor penetration, and now I am thinking if I stack some armor penetration, my astral seal and sacred flame attacks would actually do something and hurt monsters? No? What is your thoughts on armor penetration for a cleric, how much is really needed after crit and recovery are 2200, and power is whatever higher, then stack armor penetration to what number?
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Rather than ArP, I stack additional Power for the boost to heal numbers as well as damage. ArP is undoubtedly more efficient for damage, but doesn't increase healing values.
~2500 ArP is commonly considered ideal for PvE and strong for PvP if you go that route.
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
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NIGHTSWATCH
It certainly helps improve the damage on the bosses and can be worth investing into moderate amounts of it if you are finding it easy to keep the party alive but since devoting points into armor pen will always reduce your power or defense capabilities it is typically better to simply stack power and/or defense rather than also using Armor Pen or Life Steal on a Cleric.
However this varies greatly. If you go full offense and self sufficient you will maim yourself for PvE content but you should be able to be more effective in PvP.
Armor penetration is purely a bonus to damage. It has almost zero effect on your healing.
AP generation: almost all comes from correct Power selection and number of targets hit (though Feywild will effectively nerf per-target AP to almost nothing relative to now). A little comes from Healing Action too.
Divinity generation: main sources are from correct feat selection, damage crits (not crit damage, just the fact it crit at all) and appropriate Power selection (including Class Features) for your build.
Repurpose Soul: you would be giving up something to gain Armor Penetration. Either Power or Crit or Recovery are likely sacrifices. This is a poor trade-off given the impact of these stats on overall Cleric output. Not everything a healer does is affected by Repurpose Soul anyway, unlike most of the non-ArP stats.
So, what is the point? The point is that a very few number of players also run hybrid damage builds in PvE. Plus, of course, some players also do PvP as a Cleric (!). The Feywild armor set will help damage output significantly in both those situations. The irony is that with all the incoming nerfs, hybrid builds are likely much less viable than they are currently.
However, a true DPS Cleric or experienced healing clerics would be using or switching to a set like High Prophet for the group debuffs in fights where they can afford to focus more on damage. DPS clerics, like any other class, would also have armor penetration jewelry and companion in PvE. Experienced DPS Clerics also know that it is not necessary to cap Armor Pen to ~2536 (24% Resistance Ignored) to increase your overall damage in a dungeon. ~2,000 ArP is sufficient since so much damage comes from aoe against trash, thus further limiting the value of the Feywild set.
In short, its a niche set whose core stats are also heavily devalued by existing sets AND by significant incoming changes to Cleric gameplay. As for its 4pc bonus, no one seems to know quite how it works yet so experienced Clerics are reserving judgement until it is tested or they see it for themselves.
Summary: it is completely pointless to stack Armor Penetration as a healing Cleric in PvE.
PVE-wise i dont think we need arpen at all, even if it may improve our dmg thus augment our "re-purpose heals", i still prefer something that would augment our base heals and defenses more. More crit and power would be better heck I'd be happier if i could get lifesteal or def instead of arp on armors, since i can certainly get arpen from accessories.
I wish Arpen had something to do with regard to our heals.... So in a way i find it useless for clerics in general. but then again now with the new armors we'd see clerics with 3k++ arpen.... hmmmmmm so i wonder hows that gonna be like.
Maybe they'll rework/nerf High Prophet's so that Feywild can be competitve :P
And especially if you're using PlagueFire, which already debuffs and also helps with AP generation.
If you pushed everything into Recovery, then maybe that's not much for you. But if your build is like mine, and you have a high critical chance, that's a lot of extra healing almost "for free".
Using myself as an example**, adding 1.2k crit would only be an extra 2% chance. Adding 1.2k recovery would only be 4% recharge speed, which turns out to be only a 2.26% reduction in cooldowns. For me, the flat 11.6% extra damage (and thus healing for Astral Seal and Repurpose Soul) is a much better value.
That said, it's important to note that the debuff from High Prophet and Plague Fire (as well as Divine Glow, Prophecy of Doom, and Nimbus of Light) all stack AFTER ArmorPen, and can push mitigation into negative numbers. Which means extra damage. Which means extra healing. ArmorPen itself can only reduce mitigation to zero. We know that weak trash has about 12.4% mitigation, which is only about 1.25k ArmorPen. If you use an Ioun Stone, you easily have 1250 in stat points to get your ArmorPen to that level, and if you crunch the numbers all the way, I sincerely believe it will net you more extra healing that stacking lots of recovery or crit over the soft caps. And you should be able to do it without sacrificing any Power, and maybe even picking up some Regen, Life Steal, or even Deflect to round out defenses.
Assuming that Daunting Light and Flame Strike will be fixed to proc Repurpose Soul as the patch notes hint at, adding ArmorPen would be quite good, since stacking other stats beyond the soft cap doesn't give you much. It's not unusual for me to see a 20k crit on Daunting Light. Splashing a 3k AoE heal "for free" is nothing to scoff at. It's actually more than my BoH will do.
1. You have to multiply percentage crit by the extra healing from Repurpose Soul. So, if you had 40% crit, you overall healing only increases by little more than 40% x 11% = 4.4%.
2. You did not take into account 1.2k of Power, which is the other non-DR stat. That's 48 damage bonus, which is equivalent to a major weapon upgrade and affects ALL output, including all heals.
So, the real value of an ArPen build comes from doing as much crit damage as possible to proc large (burst) heals from Repurpose Soul. This of course implies that it highly favors a hybrid or pure damage build, which is what most of the posters in the thread have been saying all the time.
ArPen has no value for a pure PvE healing build, which is the vast majority of the Cleric playerbase most of the time.
You are confusing me with several things. The extra damage from ArPen is a flat increase to Repurpose Soul heals from damage criticals. You're talking about overall healing, which I can't even address without looking at a specific scenario. So 11% ArmorPen is directly 11% bigger Repurpose Soul heals. It really has nothing to do with crit chance or overall healing. How much you proc Repurpose Soul from damage depends on a lot of things. But when you do, ArmorPen is going to be a flat increase to the size of those heals.
e.g. Let's say you crit with Sacred Flame for 2,500. Repurpose Soul would splash a heal for 375. If you added 11% ArmorPen, the 2,500 crit would do 11% more damage, or 2,775. 15% of 2,775 is 416. The same as taking the original heal amount, 375, and adding 11%. A flat increase.
How much this affects your overall healing would vary between DC's and content. You should run ACT the next time you do a dungeon and see yourself. Some of the results are pretty surprising.
I did take that into account. If you have hit the soft cap with Recovery and Crit, you should pick gear that has ArmorPen in place of Recovery or Crit. It's quite easy to find gear that has Power and ArmorPen. I wouldn't necessarily suggest sacrificing Power for ArmorPen, but it's a moot point because you don't need to. Most gear has 3 stats, and some rare blue gear has just two, with one being stacked double. So it's quite possible to get ArmorPen without sacrificing Power. What you sacrifice is some amount of Recovery or Crit beyond the point of diminishing returns.
Specifically with regard to the new Feywild gear, this is exactly what happens.
I don't know how you come to that conclusion. Even just from your At-wills, which even the purest healing-specced DC has to spam as much as possible, you're going to get some healing benefit from ArmorPen. You can't say "no value". Even if it only adds 2-3% to your total healing, it's essentially free. So why turn it down? It scales even better with Vorpal, which is the only choice for a pure healer.