Need Help Settling Sharding Debate

Reichle - Sanctuary · May 2010

Aubree - Dreamweaver wrote: »

I remember being lvl 70 and doing drum boss in 1-2. Man he hit like a brick and I could not live through it. I was constantly told to "get more hp". I did get more hp, but still couldn't live through drummer. What made me live was, I sharded pdef. Pdef goes a lot further than hp in TT. That is because most of the aoe and attacks in TT are phys. You have 50 vit that is good enough, Go Pdef FTW

EXACTLY! Drummer and that other dude, in BB, they were hitting me for up to 1.5k! I had like 1.9k HP. My barb friend was actually worried I would die in BB. Luckily an LA cleric was there who kept chroming so I didnt die. I dont think 300 more HP from a full citrine set would have helped me so much as a full garnet set.

Paramedic - Dreamweaver · May 2010

Hazumu - Dreamweaver wrote: »

I'm sorry Para, but your logic is flawed.

1% p. def increase =/= 1% hp increase

however
1% p.def increase > 1% hp increase

Here is why:
For one thing, when you increase your hp, it's only there ONCE.
While the physical defense is in there with each and every strike you take.

But more importantly:
Clam Scout for example hits you for 1623 physical damage.
If we take away 1% from that you get 16,23. But as we know, it takes several hits and it's not too uncommon for a cleric to get 3 hits before the mob dies. That means that that 1% increased pdef alone saved you for 49 hp. But that's not all, the higher you get, the more they hit you for and thus the better the result.

However, this example is biased for the HP shards to begin with since if you have no garnets now, your pdef is propably very low and thus the return for adding a few is propably going to be a lot better than 1%. And don't forget, you can get more HP from refining your armor.

Besides, if we take myself as an example. I have 50% physical resistance with only my own buffs and I'm arcane wearer. With BM buff it shoots up to 57% and I haven't even finished my set yet. I'm still missing 2 pieces of my planned set and I expect to get my physical resistance up to 60% fully buffed with those adds. When we include that to my 4k+ HP base, the result is quite convincing. Especially so when I'm pretty much always last one to fall in any peculiar moment.

ur logic is flawed.

mobs which need to hit u few times just to kill arent threat for cleric.
we are talking about serious p.dmg which gonna one or 2-shot you without p.shell where 1% more p.def wont 'save u few times' and will work just once

anyway, if i wud be 89 and have 4k hp unbuffed already then i wudnt build more hp prolly, if i cud get more from p.def

maybe i will shock ya but i have parts of gear in inv with garnets b:quiet
tho i dont use them very often since they dont give me any super survivality boost

ManeK - Harshlands · May 2010

ive decided now...citrines FTW

Lylfo - Dreamweaver · May 2010

Aubree - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Totally disagree here....

I remember being lvl 70 and doing drum boss in 1-2. Man he hit like a brick and I could not live through it. I was constantly told to "get more hp". I did get more hp, but still couldn't live through drummer. What made me live was, I sharded pdef. Pdef goes a lot further than hp in TT. That is because most of the aoe and attacks in TT are phys. You have 50 vit that is good enough, Go Pdef FTW

Im going to say go pdef in everything (except cape and hat, only if you decide you want more hp )

I would suggest not to shard p def shards but instead look for a nice headgear, sleeve, and boots with a few of the p def + add ons. If you like seacaptain sleeve that much, bring an extra sleeve just for that boss. At my level I can find 2 x +94def easier than 2 x 100 hp.
Also, don't go for tt70,80 gears. They are really bad unless you stat a lot of vit, you probably won't notice it.

Hazumu - Dreamweaver wrote: »

I'm sorry Para, but your logic is flawed.

1% p. def increase =/= 1% hp increase

however
1% p.def increase > 1% hp increase

Here is why:
For one thing, when you increase your hp, it's only there ONCE.
While the physical defense is in there with each and every strike you take.

But more importantly:
Clam Scout for example hits you for 1623 physical damage.
If we take away 1% from that you get 16,23. But as we know, it takes several hits and it's not too uncommon for a cleric to get 3 hits before the mob dies. That means that that 1% increased pdef alone saved you for 49 hp. But that's not all, the higher you get, the more they hit you for and thus the better the result.

However, this example is biased for the HP shards to begin with since if you have no garnets now, your pdef is propably very low and thus the return for adding a few is propably going to be a lot better than 1%. And don't forget, you can get more HP from refining your armor.

Besides, if we take myself as an example. I have 50% physical resistance with only my own buffs and I'm arcane wearer. With BM buff it shoots up to 57% and I haven't even finished my set yet. I'm still missing 2 pieces of my planned set and I expect to get my physical resistance up to 60% fully buffed with those adds. When we include that to my 4k+ HP base, the result is quite convincing. Especially so when I'm pretty much always last one to fall in any peculiar moment.

Hazumu, your theory is flawed as well. You are suggesting that a cleric will be hit repeatedly througout a situation. There is no reason for a cleric to get hit more than once in any situation in a squad unless it is a fail squad. That said, having more HP allows people to react better and allows you to react bettter as well. Clam scout hit you the 1st time for 2k dmg, you can pop a plume shell and its 400dmg after that. More HP also allows for more time to get the heal in. Also I am pretty sure I can outheal most mobs even with my pathetic def so theres no need for p def in PVE maybe except for the TT boss's AOE.

I'm sorry that I'm a metal mage wanabe and I kept my vit really low(still at 5) and I'm really poor as well so I couldn't afford flawless shards until my 80s. (I still have all flawless in my gears and I'm level 99) Right now, my citrine shards accounts for about 500hp. I am sure that if you have about 50 vit, you don't need that much HP anymore and should starting building on your physical resistance. But for me, damage and heal matters to me as well. Don't think that survival is all about def and hp only.

Right now, my IH heals about 800 a tick. I have about 4k hp. I can comfortably solo monsters who deals about 2k damage to me. Imagine, 4k hp, if your heals are not good enough, having that much hp or def would not do you any good.

As of now, I can probably solo up to DoD and kimsa and I have 0 event gear. However, I would say that telling you all of these does not make my opinion right or my playing style the best. The people above me found what works with their toons and I found what works with mine. If you are still unsure, I would suggest you to go with mixed sharding. Experiment with the ratio with the pwi calculator.

XxLady_XelxX - Dreamweaver · May 2010

Hazumu - Dreamweaver wrote: »

I'm sorry Para, but your logic is flawed.

1% p. def increase =/= 1% hp increase

however
1% p.def increase > 1% hp increase

Here is why:
For one thing, when you increase your hp, it's only there ONCE.
While the physical defense is in there with each and every strike you take.

But more importantly:
Clam Scout for example hits you for 1623 physical damage.
If we take away 1% from that you get 16,23. But as we know, it takes several hits and it's not too uncommon for a cleric to get 3 hits before the mob dies. That means that that 1% increased pdef alone saved you for 49 hp. But that's not all, the higher you get, the more they hit you for and thus the better the result.

However, this example is biased for the HP shards to begin with since if you have no garnets now, your pdef is propably very low and thus the return for adding a few is propably going to be a lot better than 1%. And don't forget, you can get more HP from refining your armor.

Besides, if we take myself as an example. I have 50% physical resistance with only my own buffs and I'm arcane wearer. With BM buff it shoots up to 57% and I haven't even finished my set yet. I'm still missing 2 pieces of my planned set and I expect to get my physical resistance up to 60% fully buffed with those adds. When we include that to my 4k+ HP base, the result is quite convincing. Especially so when I'm pretty much always last one to fall in any peculiar moment.

Where the hell are you finding Clam Scouts that hit for that kind of damage? Couldn't you use a more believable example? D=

/random

To OP: Despite the answers given here, there is no truly right answer. Gonna have to try things out for yourself and see what works. But for the record...both HP and Phys Def are highly addictive and once you get a bit of either (or both), whatever you have will never be enough. XD

Bagoly_ - Sanctuary · May 2010

Since a cleric doesn't really suffer from little pokes because of heals , let's talk about oneshots...

Here's my craptastic gear that I will wear@90. Partly pdef sharded, with items which have pdef addons instead of hp or vit.
4035 HP and 53% phys dmg reduction.
Things will hit me 47% of their original damage.
Oneshot: 4035/0,47=8585,1

Let's see a HP-variant of my craptastic gear.
4603 HP and 41% phys dmg reduction.
That's 59% of original damage.
Oneshot: 4603/0,59=7801,6

With the pdef-variant gear one must deal 783,4 more damage to take me down even if I have 568 HP less.

So pdef provides more survivability for me. Things can be different with an other build or more expensive gear although.

Lylfo - Dreamweaver · May 2010

Bagoly_ - Sanctuary wrote: »

Since a cleric doesn't really suffer from little pokes because of heals , let's talk about oneshots...

Here's my craptastic gear that I will wear@90. Partly pdef sharded, with items which have pdef addons instead of hp or vit.
4035 HP and 53% phys dmg reduction.
Things will hit me 47% of their original damage.
Oneshot: 4035/0,47=8585,1

Let's see a HP-variant of my craptastic gear.
4603 HP and 41% phys dmg reduction.
That's 59% of original damage.
Oneshot: 4603/0,59=7801,6

With the pdef-variant gear one must deal 783,4 more damage to take me down even if I have 568 HP less.

So pdef provides more survivability for me. Things can be different with an other build or more expensive gear although.

While this is true, this is a very biased way of presenting your information. What about magical one shots(like from wurlord)?
The only place this would come useful is when you are facing Belial with his random aggro, really. If something can one-shot you, I am pretty sure you wont go to it and let it one shot you. There are skills like plume shell,guardian light, ...etc etc

Bagoly_ - Sanctuary · May 2010

Lylfo - Dreamweaver wrote: »

While this is true, this is a very biased way of presenting your information. What about magical one shots(like from wurlord)?

A week ago or so I survived the first 7 hits of 2-3 Wurlord without BB (bad pull, after that the tank went down). I survived the first hit then Guardian Light and Absolute Domain ftw ^^ The 8th shot killed me tho'. b:surrender
If we don't count genie skills:
Wurlord hits 11875 average according to PWdatabase. With 72% mag dmg reduction (seems to be the average @90), it's 3325. According to the mentioned site, his max dmg is 17812. With 72% reduction, one need ~5K hp to survive that. With barb buff, it's very ok. (Noone does 2-3 without a barb I guess...)

Lylfo - Dreamweaver wrote: »

If something can one-shot you, I am pretty sure you wont go to it and let it one shot you. There are skills like plume shell,guardian light, ...etc etc

Oneshots (or twoshots) usually happen unexpectedly. You must have extremely fast reactions (and zero lag) if you want to rely on Plume Shell/Guardian/genie skills to survive. Pdef protects you 24/7.

Btw I'm not biased towards pdef, I vote for balance between pdef and hp.

ManeK - Harshlands · May 2010

hmm, still citrines ftw! they defend you against magic and pdef to some extent...plus it makes you feel safer

Bagoly_ - Sanctuary · May 2010

@ManeK: I don't want to convince you at all cost, but since you're on a pvp server, you benefit from pdef even more than us. Shard citrines but refine your (good) pdef ornaments and get items with pdef addons at least if you do so...

Aya__ - Heavens Tear · May 2010

my 2 cents
i was too lazy to do math so i went with a gut feeling ^.^
tt70 set - my own. citrines + some refining. worked real well.
tt80 set - borrowed. citrines + some refining. worked but... i died a lot. plume shell is great, and i am charmed, but to set up plume shell you have to have free hands and that 0,5 sec to cast. and i usually died in bb, with charm and pots and genie on cooldown or just after bb got dropped. something needed to be done about it b:cry
tt90 - my own. on armor went with garnets and decided to make up lost hp with refines, cape is 50/50, and hat full citrimes. refining took me a lot because i used orbs only to +6, rest was raw or on tishas... effect: my hp dropped at first, but my survivability went up A LOT. now with my own buff and bm's bell i have 8 times pdef i had, so all these nasty aoes hit me for far less. im happy with what i have... maybe id have to up refines a little because i die too fast in rb and i really really need to beat it but still for 90+ i recommend garnets or some garnet+citrine combination...

Paramedic - Dreamweaver · May 2010

Aya__ - Heavens Tear wrote: »

my 2 cents (...)
90+ i recommend garnets or some garnet+citrine combination...

another example of biased opinion. u had to shard with garnets not because it s good to do so on 90+ but because u are wearing set which gives mainly HP bonuses (90 green boots and top). it s ur own 'fault' that u had to fix ur p.def with garnets.

Bagoly_ - Sanctuary wrote: »

http://pwcalc.ru/pwi/?char=d2a6b9739a4a3981

(...)

So pdef provides more survivability for me. Things can be different with an other build or more expensive gear although.

i think u missed what this topic is about. it s not against p.def lol

and if p.def gems provide u so much survivality then why u have half of ur gear sharderd with citiriens? :P

actually,
ur build is example of that im trying to spam with pwclac site here b:surrender

i mean, making build with chacking stats not by mood, feeling or because some high lvl cler sed u to do so

it s obvious that u fix hp or p.def if u have it too low, but that dont depend on level and there is no golden rule 'to shard with.. '.
it depends on ur vit cap, gear and bonuses, refine and also on things u want to do. ( u could even consider ur mp pool in some cases, since it becomes ur hp on p.shell).

ur current build is pretty well balanced, and ur saying u wudnt go fully citrine which is ok (tho imo even full citr build wudnt be bad, i find them both kinda equal in your case).

but to be fair, we both know you wouldnt go full garment, because you would get just 53->56% p.dmg resistance and lose whole 330 HP (nerf to 3.7K unbufed :P).

that just wouldnt be worth it, unless you really desperate fot any bit of p.def

Bagoly_ - Sanctuary · May 2010

Paramedic - Dreamweaver wrote: »

it s not against p.def lol

I know, I know, just wanted to give an example how balance gives better result than simply say "go for citrines" or "go for garnets" without checking the gear's bonuses and the build.

Paramedic - Dreamweaver wrote: »

and if p.def gems provide u so much survivality then why u have half of ur gear sharderd with citiriens? :P

Paramedic - Dreamweaver wrote: »

but to be fair, we both know you wouldnt go full garment, because you would get just 53->56% p.dmg resistance and lose whole 330 HP (nerf to 3.7K unbufed :P).

^That's why. You answered your own question. The second quotation contains exactly the thoughts came to my mind when I planned that build.

Paramedic - Dreamweaver wrote: »

ur current build is pretty well balanced, and ur saying u wudnt go fully citrine which is ok (tho imo even full citr build wudnt be bad, i find them both kinda equal in your case).

I had thoughts about the full citrine variation, then I decided to do the partly garnet thing, cuz I can raise my HP later with a little bit of luck and patience with refines. Raising the pdef would be harder.

Aya__ - Heavens Tear · May 2010

Paramedic - Dreamweaver wrote: »

another example of biased opinion. u had to shard with garnets not because it s good to do so on 90+ but because u are wearing set which gives mainly HP bonuses (90 green boots and top). it s ur own 'fault' that u had to fix ur p.def with garnets.

but you see, i sharded tt90 with garnets not because i spent lots of time with pwicalc trying out green top with different combinations. i sharded garnets because tt80 sharded with citrines didnt work for me. any aoe, or any mob that aggroed on bb, or anytning that sneaked up on me hit me very hard. so i thought that to my new armor i can add more pdef with garnets, and just refine for hp. i knew it will be expensive but thought it may work - and imo it did work, im satisfied with result so i recommend it to others who are fed up with being squishy...

Tojop - Dreamweaver · May 2010

Aya__ - Heavens Tear wrote: »

tt90 - my own. on armor went with garnets and decided to make up lost hp with refines, cape is 50/50, and hat full citrimes. refining took me a lot because i used orbs only to +6, rest was raw or on tishas... effect: my hp dropped at first, but my survivability went up A LOT.... maybe id have to up refines a little because i die too fast in rb and i really really need to beat it but still for 90+ i recommend garnets or some garnet+citrine combination...

Wait, you have TT 90 green refined to at least +6, and you die too quickly in rebirth? What are you doing, Rebirth Omega? b:shocked

Lylfo - Dreamweaver · May 2010

Aya__ - Heavens Tear wrote: »

but you see, i sharded tt90 with garnets not because i spent lots of time with pwicalc trying out green top with different combinations. i sharded garnets because tt80 sharded with citrines didnt work for me. any aoe, or any mob that aggroed on bb, or anytning that sneaked up on me hit me very hard. so i thought that to my new armor i can add more pdef with garnets, and just refine for hp. i knew it will be expensive but thought it may work - and imo it did work, im satisfied with result so i recommend it to others who are fed up with being squishy...

TT80 are not the best gears....and it is really bad especially when you compare them to tt90 lol. To say that TT80 with citrines is worse than TT90 with garnets might not be so accurate as well as the gears themselves are very different.

Edit: What i meant is comparing sharding garnets and citrines by using those 2 sets of gears as comparison is not fair

But yea, sharding with garnets are not a bad idea once you hit lvl 90+. Reason is, TT90 actually gives alot of HP (or you can do tt80 gold, they are smilar to tt90 in terms of add ons)

Aya__ - Heavens Tear · May 2010

Tojop - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Wait, you have TT 90 green refined to at least +6, and you die too quickly in rebirth? What are you doing, Rebirth Omega? b:shocked

it felt like it b:cry
its exactly +6 so far, when i recover financially a little after getting sage res and ih im planning to +7 it.
im a real rb noob, was only on one run in delta... from my point of view everything went fine till stunners came. they dropped my bb all the time so it was a frenzy of heal, get spark, put up again, and at one moment i didnt survive a gank from them - actually died only once but was hit for so much i got thrown to 1k b:surrender
maybe today ill be able to try again... keeping fingers crossed...

Tojop - Dreamweaver · May 2010

vacuity powder is FTW b:victory

Deceptistar - Sanctuary · May 2010

Reichle - Sanctuary wrote: »

EXACTLY! Drummer and that other dude, in BB, they were hitting me for up to 1.5k! I had like 1.9k HP. My barb friend was actually worried I would die in BB. Luckily an LA cleric was there who kept chroming so I didnt die. I dont think 300 more HP from a full citrine set would have helped me so much as a full garnet set.

makes me remember my youthful cleric days in TT too. I always wondered why all the other clerics use to die alot and all the horror stories i heard. I was completely fine somehow. There was no diff. in refines back then but the shards were diff. Many of the new clerics sharded HP thinking how their measly 700-1000 overall pdef would be covered. In actuality they were jello soldiers adding more jello to their armour thinking the thicker the jello is, the longer they last.

The last thing you want to build is a character that moderately lasts against magic and gets one hit on physical.

Somehow now im seeing more noobs lvling faster and recommending full HP again...at all lvls

_Neve_ - Heavens Tear · May 2010

i use citrines and nope im not a 1 hit too phys mobs lol
and there is no way id ever switch too garnets.
i was always perfectly fine in any tt fb or anything else. so yeah im happy wth my citrines and am gonna stick with tem till the end^^
why would citrine shards be a bad choise anyways? extra hp helps with mag and phys dmg.

RedsRose - Lost City · May 2010

It all really depends on what you are willing to put into it with refining...

I am in

with my pdef b:dirty and would not change it...I can take more phys hits and do not have to worry so much about healing as often (in my experience).

Either route is not a bad one, it just all depends on what you are willing to do with refine.

I was full HP sharded until i changed at level 100 and full vit until I changed at level 101. I am now full Pdef sharded and a base of 80 vit.

Play and shard how you will...I just

the pdef b:chuckle

Aubree - Dreamweaver · May 2010

Ok one more story.

FB99 seat at infernal spikewing. That boss is mean at lvl 93. We had a full squad in there a couple hours trying to kill this boss. I kept dying and the barb kept dying. So they thought we needed a vit cleric. I had about 4500 hp and the cleric they brought had 6k hp. Guess who died first? Not me. I LOL'd to myself cause she kept bragging about how easy she could do it cause of her vit. While she had tons of vit, she also had no def. Pdef>Vit

I have 5.8k hp (till I get a good orb sale, after refines I will have 7k hp) and 8k pdef and 12.3k mag resist, just my buffs and survive a lot longer than Vit/HP clerics.

Live and Learn, then shard pdef b:cute

Aya__ - Heavens Tear · May 2010

Aubree - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Ok one more story.

FB99 seat at infernal spikewing. That boss is mean at lvl 93. We had a full squad in there a couple hours trying to kill this boss. I kept dying and the barb kept dying. So they thought we needed a vit cleric. I had about 4500 hp and the cleric they brought had 6k hp. Guess who died first? Not me. I LOL'd to myself cause she kept bragging about how easy she could do it cause of her vit. While she had tons of vit, she also had no def. Pdef>Vit

I have 5.8k hp (till I get a good orb sale, after refines I will have 7k hp) and 8k pdef and 12.3k mag resist, just my buffs and survive a lot longer than Vit/HP clerics.

Live and Learn, then shard pdef b:cute

i have crazy friends who take me places im actually a little too low to be in... my first time in SOT was still in tt80 full citrines gear, spikewing flattened me b:surrender first we tried without bb, didnt go well, then with bb, i stopped dying everry second hit and died only when bb was dropped instead. i got my tts 90, sharded and refined them since then, and got some experience too (im really fast with elixirs now lol). result - last sunday, full run in sot, havent died even once with 4,6k hp (we didnt have barb) b:victory if i ever decide to get 99 armor it will be full garnets too
@ Neve - citrines arent bad. they are great in fact. its just... you cant refine for pdef and each piece of armor can hold max 4 stones....

Paramedic - Dreamweaver · May 2010

ok im not sure cuz all those bosses names still mixing in my mind, but cant u just simply heal outside of his aoe on max range instead making ur life so hard?

i know some bosses in 99s have infinite range like that gaumob from abaddon but many dont- like last boss in sot which u have just turn back to avoid aoe or just max range on bomb guy if u do full run (maybe even snake lady -not sure tho)

when i started do bh100/fb99 i wondered if everyone got 'reset note' at 100lvl or is it just op gear fault that they dont even try to do things different - just expect u to bb (even if boss interupt it) and everyone stand in random place = 5 meters from boss

Joshcja - Sanctuary · May 2010

a good setup is hat and cape phys def with 2 phys def orns and main armor citrines

its kinda the rule of thumb for arcanes imo

_Neve_ - Heavens Tear · May 2010

Aya__ - Heavens Tear wrote: »

@ Neve - citrines arent bad. they are great in fact. its just... you cant refine for pdef and each piece of armor can hold max 4 stones....

very true, you just ned the cash for the refines b:surrender

and didnt die in the 99s anymore since the very first time i tried (was somewhere in my mid 80s i believe) now hubby and me just duo them for the fun and chance of drops when we have time^^

Tamias - Archosaur · May 2010

Even on my messed up vit/mag cleric on HT w/ some random points in dex I didn't really die much and I usually sharded for Cits.

Since I now TW more often than not, I'm constantly HP charmed as well as carrying around damage reduction/absorption damage pots. I find that refines + sharding for Cits make a real difference.

The one thing that should also be taken into account is your weaponry. I know someone mentioned the Shaykyamuni's Light sword-hard to get 2 socketed but when you do have that flawless saphs and refines increase the damage output. I did use Grief's Breath but found that the +11 vit didnt really do much (only about 100ish HP added what a rip offf XD) and opted instead for my 2 socketed max adds Alacantha Wand. I love how much damage I put out now and my IH spams on myself keep me alive even on the worst 3-4 mobs on me. (except when they're Pshy. mobs w/ increased attack or sac assault...then it doesn't look too pretty)

I used to never shard my stuff and I had to do some real monkey work to keep myself alive. Pure mag is no joke-surviving is really hard and charm ticks make me cry. Drummer boy never bothered me and he never hit hard enough to kill me though I will agree that having anything less than 3k HP either in the higher TT's or TW is asking for suicide. W/ plume shell, full pots and 79 cleric buff on me, I still get 1 shotted for a 3.2k crit from Calam Arma after they get their double damage off. In TT's when people let off 007's happy aoe that hits me for over 1.3k a hit I would have liked a bit more HP to survive.

Annnyways, do what works best, experiment and find your playstyle. All I have to say is lag is a bish no matter how sharded + refined you are b:chuckle

Qingzi - Harshlands · May 2010

_Neve_ - Heavens Tear wrote: »

very true, you just ned the cash for the refines b:surrender

and didnt die in the 99s anymore since the very first time i tried (was somewhere in my mid 80s i believe) now hubby and me just duo them for the fun and chance of drops when we have time^^

Isn't FB99 inside Lothranis/Momaganon? And don't you need to be at least lvl89 to get there?

Need Help Settling Sharding Debate

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