Light vs. Robes: Any hard data out there?

WarrenWolfy - Sanctuary wrote: »

My sister has a lvl ~50 Cleric and she was asking me about what armour she should be using. Anecdotally, the word on the street (well, forums actually) seems to be that both have their advantages. Robes are perceived as the more orthodox approach for spell-casters, while Light gives more survivability versus physical.

Well, I decided to crunch some numbers and at first glance it appears that for spell-casters, according to my limited objective data, Robes appear to dump on Light from a significant height.

I used one of the on-line character simulators to make a level 60 Cleric with Robes and another with Light armour. I then outfitted them with stock level 60 armour and recorded the defense. For Robes, pdef ends up being 319, which gives a damage reduction of ~11%. For Light, pdef is ~1000, which gives ~28% reduction.

For the Robe user, this means that 2140 HP gets multiplied to be effectively 2405 HP. However, the Light user has only 1230 HP, which even after adding in the damage reduction gives an effective HP of only 1708.

So my (early) conclusion seems to be that a Robe caster will be able to soak up roughly 40% more physical damage than a Light caster. And of course the Robe caster will also have a huge advantage in Magic defense as well.

Obviously there are a lot of factors I haven't examined yet, so I'm wondering if anybody has any objective data showing situations where Light has a proven defensive advantage over Robes? Or is the perceived better defense of Light just that: a perception that isn't sustained by objective facts?

I dont have any "hard data" but as a Cleric, our spells cost so much fricken mana, Idk how LA Clerics do it without ticking their SP Charm every 2 spells or so. Since LA needs dex and str reqs, all of that could go to Mag.

In my opinion, the only reason a Cleric would go LA would be for PvP purposes. (But I use Plume Shell when i can b:bye)

Depends on the goal.

For a PvE cleric, only pure-magic makes sense since 1) in solo grinding you can kill mobs much faster, and 2) in squads, your heals are much stronger. You will want to invest into HP shards and equipment refinement later on due to low HP or just put some points into vit instead of magic.

For a PvP cleric, either works depending on your play style. A pure-magic robed cleric can easily be killed quickly by an archer in a surprise attack, but if you see them coming, you can throw up a plume shell (absorbs up to 80% of physical damage) and you're safe. As long as you have enough HP to avoid getting 1 or 2-hitted and your reaction time is good, you can generally keep yourself alive by throwing many Ironhearts at yourself. On the other hand, if your reaction time is bad or you lag often, you might consider light armour. Damage for both light and robed are roughly the same as while light has much lower damage, there is a much higher chance of critting and thus 1-hitting opponents with a Tempest/Wield Thunder.

As a venomancer, however, I've gone the vit-mag build, wearing full robes but using pdef shards. As a result, at lvl 81, unbuffed I have 3.3k HP, 2.5k pdef in human form and 5.2k pdef in fox form. That's much more HP and pdef than most light armours at my level. On the down side, I had to invest heavily in my equipment (finding the right full-elemental equipments with +pdef bonuses, adding up to 3 sockets each and infusing flawless garnet shards, then finally +3 refining them), something poorer classes like clerics usually can't afford. You may say my damage is less than light armour classes due to the lower crit rate, but in both PvP and PvE, my phoenix is my main damage dealing source, so my focus is survivability to be able to support my phoenix and add on negative status effects in PvP.

In the lower lvls though (under lvl 60), it is better to stay arcane as you will be able to lvl faster in PvE. If you only care about PvE, pure magic or vit-mag is the best and easiest build. Generally, clerics go pure robe, wizards go robe or light, venos go robe, light or heavy, archers go light, and blademasters and barbarians go heavy. On a side note, many do chose light armour due to its cheaper equipment costs as, in the lvl 70+ ranges, many of the best light armour equipments can be gotten as molds through trading mysterious chips. The chip costs for these molds are also very low (usually 4-8 chips) and thus each piece of equipment will cost only from 500k to 1 mil coins - much cheaper than TT armour in general. Just a thing people often keep in mind.

~Desiree

BowlinBob unless you have created a nuke cleric with using only the minimum required in strength to wear robes and the rest going into Magic then your magic should be about the same as LA right? Don't most who enjoy the HP advantage over LA clerics put the remaining points into Vitality? So in your classification there should be 3 clerics in discussion here, LA, vitality, and full attack/Nuke. Otherwise if you are not talking about a nuke cleric then the magic attack and MP should be the same. So why would a LA tick their charm any faster then another cleric? (Obviously of course the Nuke cleric would tick theirs not as quickly because they'd have tons of mp). Maybe the only difference being that an arcane robe wearer would more likely have items and gear that offer + mp stats, but other then that no bug difference.

Solandri - Heavens Tear wrote: »

light is able to survive constant phys damage (e.g. if you're soloing and the mob has gotten to melee range) 37% better.

well for arcane users most of them use cyclone to kite when soloing physical mobs. (for clerics anyways) unno about mages and venos.

imo, these are pretty closely geared:

hybrid:
http://pwcalc.ru/pwi/?char=50ffa5350a3e2e84

light:
http://pwcalc.ru/pwi/?char=b14f9f4c62e032cd

with what's shown here, i can conclude that:

skill robe, light
hp 4014, 3414
mp 6855, 5992
matk 4243-5327, 3644-4186
crit 6%, 11%
pdef 34% reduction, 46% reduction
mdef 64% reduction, 55% reduction

hybrid has:
more hp, mp, matk, mdef

light has:
more crit and pdef(but that's not always the case, as i know many that use mdef adorn)

robed hybrid cleric > light

Solandri - Heavens Tear wrote: »

I've been playing around with that on my cleric. Kiting takes more time. I've been trying to decide which is worse - the 4-5 sec to kite for an extra hit, or the 1-2 sec to toss a heal on myself but risk dying and have higher repair bills. (My cleric gets a ton of mana pots from my veno so mana cost of the heal is not really an issue.)

The only time I can't stand kiting is if the mob is of metal element, then yea.. it takes a while.. god forbid if its a increased life metal physical mob ಥ~ಥ

they glow pink

Bowlinbob - Lost City wrote: »

well for arcane users most of them use cyclone to kite when soloing physical mobs. (for clerics anyways) unno about mages and venos.

Wizards have Gush, venos...don't have to kite anything most of the time.

Some misconceptions stated earlier in the thread (don't feel like going back to quote):

Clerics only get 5 hp per vit point: it's 10 hp per vit. Still not much, but better.

Clerics and venos normally go full int: I am of the belief that full int doesn't work well at all on clerics if you want to do squad activities like TT. You just don't stay alive. End of story. Most clerics add some vit.

To the person who didn't know a LA cleric past lvl 50, I am one. I've been one since day 1 because I wanted to try out the build to the fullest. In my experience:

I don't notice too much of a difference in heals, since base matk is only a percentage of our heal spells. In any case I have never failed to keep a tank alive when everyone in squad knows their job. What I think is more noticeable is the attack spells we have; there is where I see the difference in damage. Note that a full vit build and LA build both have the same matk, both are putting in 6 mag every two levels. I also have 9% crit. This is quite a lot in actuality, and fun to see pop up on the screen .

About the charm ticking: yes we have a smaller mana pool, but when the charm ticks it ticks for less value since our 75% is less mana than full int. Clerics=charm eaters anyways b:surrender.

Important things to remember are that clerics can wear both arcane and LA sets of armor. When i was in my 50s and 60s while grinding I'd switch to a decent arcane set, although now I have gear that's good enough that I don't feel like switching anymore. Also, LA clerics shard fully with +hp gems. If they don't, they're just plain stupid. This, along with hp mods on armor, makes up for a ton of the hp that is missing (the OP pointed out how much less LA has; but it's plain idiotic not to look for +hp gear to make up for that). I have close to 2.9k hp unbuffed, which is pretty decent. I'll have 3k at 80. I also have the pdef to survive in those TT aoe bosses where some clerics with a bit more hp do not. I was able to survive 1-3 soulbanisher with only 2.6k hp (unbuffed).

I still think vit builds are most suited for clerics. I am going to restat at 90 because that's the point where it stops becoming viable. Any time earlier than that though, I think the LA build brings a bit of fun into the game. There have been many sticky situations when I've found I could tank a physical boss for a few hits or try some things that squishy arcane armor wouldn't let me previously. If the person rollling LA puts a bit of effort into their gear (as anyone should) it's a unique alternative and makes things fun.

PainGame - Lost City wrote: »

"Clerics only get 5 hp per vit point: it's 10 hp per vit. Still not much, but better."

True it is 10 hp at higher lvls. But base start is 5 hp per. Unlike venos who are 8 hp per start and BM and Barbs 10 hp per. That means a new char gets 5 hp for 1 vit and later lvls u get increases but the increases over all are lower then the classes except for wizard who is the same.

best bet on any squishy class is put in HP shards into your armor and + it up

... Did you read what you just wrote? It's stupid and false

Clerics get 10 HP per 1 vit no matter what level they are. Period. BMs are 15 HP per vit, Barbs are 17, etc There is no magic level where your vit suddenly gives you more HP per point of it. Vit gives a static gain to HP just as mag gives a static gain to MP.

Yes, only a idiot cleric goes light

Mysticlifex - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Yes, only a idiot cleric goes light

only idiotic clerics go pure int. b:bye

Nightfaii - Harshlands wrote: »

Edit: on top of that, robe gives more magic resistance. (venos see more aoe magic attacks than physical melee attacks when in PVE anway)

Technically, any LA caster can carry a set of robes for higher mdef and switch to those if they know they're going to be facing magical AOE. The robe user OTOH can never wear LA for higher pdef.

Tearvalerin - Sanctuary wrote: »

in my straight opinion, youre basically cutting your healing, damaging, and hp/mp potential with light armor, just for the sake of taking a hit. at lower levels its not very noticable but when youre talking 85+ its very significant of a drop :P. im pretty darn sure, with enough strategic experience, a robe can avoid getting hit in PVP, and not need stinkin LA at all.

please tell me how can a slow class as a cleric avoid being hit. You will get hit, end of story b:bye