Kicked from DR Leveling because I don't slot Protect for low level dungeons?

[Shurrikhan]

At level 15-20, a typical player's defense sums up to, what, 3% mitigation? Maybe a whole 5%?
So Protect gives a whopping .45 to .75% mitigation, rather than tripling your damage over most of your GCDs. Hmm...

[seekified]

At level 15-20, a typical player's defense sums up to, what, 3% mitigation? Maybe a whole 5%?
So Protect gives a whopping .45 to .75% mitigation, rather than tripling your damage over most of your GCDs. Hmm...

Precisely this. Some people just get nervous and angsty without Protect/Stoneskins, I guess, but there's really no logical reason for it.

I once had a tank in Snowcloak who refused to tank unless he got a Stoneskin. I proceeded to point out to him that Stoneskin is a fairly useless crossclass as a SCH, and he proceeded to become angry and leave.

[Lemuria]

Honestly, it doesn't matter one way or the other. To those who argue that damage > DR, I'd remind them that at lower levels the difference in damage is negligible between cleric and non-cleric for Arcanists, and not really worth more than a footnote on Astro's either. In addition, the difference in protection at low levels with or without Protect is also pretty negligible. Basically, go with whatever you're more comfortable with.

I think people are just used to seeing shiny buff icons though. They want to see Protect on whether they need it or not, just because they're used to having it not because it offers much in the way of protection at low levels.

I once had a tank in Snowcloak who refused to tank unless he got a Stoneskin. I proceeded to point out to him that Stoneskin is a fairly useless crossclass as a SCH, and he proceeded to become angry and leave.

I'm going to be controversial and say that Stoneskin in general is no longer very useful as a whole. With the one good trait long since removed from the game (Conjurer's stronger Stoneskin), it's basically a longer casting cure spell that costs more. With a single cure, I can restore 3k hp at high levels, the equivalent of Stoneskin on a 30k HP tank. I'll cast Stoneskin~ga at the start of a big fight, but it's not something that's worth recasting since it doesn't do anything of note anymore.

So yeah, Stoneskin isn't just a useless crossclass, it's pretty useless in general these days.

[Rennies]

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With Mind gear, the difference is not negligible. Nobody is going to queue up for leveling roulette as Scholar and wear the Int/Mind gear. I agree with your point about Stoneskin though, that is more of a noob trap than anything... healers using stoneskin mid pull (double the cost of Cure, shields about half the health you'd recover with Cure).

At the end of the day, these people are arguing that a placebo buff (and yes, that is literally all it is) is better than damage efficiency, and this thread will be laughed at for as long as it remains on the front page.

[Mithrahn]

With Mind gear, the difference is not negligible. Nobody is going to queue up for leveling roulette as Scholar and wear the Int/Mind gear. I agree with your point about Stoneskin though, that is more of a noob trap than anything... healers using stoneskin mid pull (double the cost of Cure, shields about half the health you'd recover with Cure).

At the end of the day, these people are arguing that a placebo buff (and yes, that is literally all it is) is better than damage efficiency, and this thread will be laughed at for as long as it remains on the front page.

It is negligible in lower level dungeons, aka Sastasha, Tam-Tara Deepcroft, Copperbell Mines, because at those levels there is barely any difference in your INT/MND even if you're 'wearing MND gear'.

Having said that, Cleric Stance is still my #1 slot... unless PvP cause you can't cleric there :V

[Shurrikhan]

Precisely this. Some people just get nervous and angsty without Protect/Stoneskins, I guess, but there's really no logical reason for it.

I think most people are unaware that Defense, unlike Crit, is an absolute stat, and as such starts very low. Foresight is damn near pointless at low levels because of how little the value being multiplied is, whereas it surpasses Awareness for averaged mitigation around ilvl 130 or so. Or they forget that Defense is a stat at all, and figure that Protect gives an unscaling 15% bonus mitigation (which would then be huge, but still worth less than Cleric Stance).

I once had a tank in Snowcloak who refused to tank unless he got a Stoneskin. I proceeded to point out to him that Stoneskin is a fairly useless crossclass as a SCH, and he proceeded to become angry and leave.

I had the same thing a couple roulettes ago, until I pointed out that at his current CD usage, it would absorb only a single attack, whereas my Benefic II could crit for almost his entire HP pool (undergeared and underskilled). Not so subtle jab aside, he eventually stopped insisting on it.