Spell Penetration: How Much Is Really Needed?

[Line-dog]

While making a lap around the Orchard with my guild last night I finally hit level 13 with my Sorc Smoking Gun. So I tell the guys I'll run outside get my level and BRB. When I get back in I have some great fun with my new spell Flesh to Stone. However, when we get to the Masterwork Flesh Golems things change. I could _not_ get through their SR. I have the Spell Pen. feat, Spell Pen. II ENH, and the necklace with Spell Pen VI + Taint of Evil (Smoking is Neutral). From the combat log, my best and last attempt was a 18 (+18) and that failed to get past his SR! Give me a break. They got energy resistance out the ying yang and Shield up for immunity to MM. I was relegated to casting Haste and heightened Glitterdusts. I was going to swap Symbol of Fear for Disintegrate once I had the Dancing Ball and a potency VI item.

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SIDE NOTE:
BTW, I could not figure out how my combat log was showing +18 to my Spell Penetration. Shouldn't that be:
+13 Level 13
+2 SP feat
+2 SP II ENH
+2 Item Necklace and Sceptre don't stack
+19

I figure either my alignment got switched away from True Neutral during creation and I didn't notice and the taint of evil is dinging me for a level. Or, since i leveled and went into combat I wasn't getting credit for my new level with regard to spell pen. Or (less likely), I failed to switch in either of my Spll Pen. items due to game lag ignoring my keystroke. But that would mean I get +1 for rabbit gloves and I don't think that is likely. I'll have to verify this next time I can log in.

[Kraldor]

Golems are supposed to be immune to all spell-resistance susceptible spells (mouthful, eh?). Instead of implementing this in DDO, all golems just have insanely high SR scores that can't be beaten. It's just a waste of SP to try to get any of those spells to work.

Also, if you had a negative level from the taint of evil, you would see a red exclamation point in the top right of your screen.

[skraus1]

Try disentegrate. Golems are the sole reason I carry it on my sorcs.

[sirgog]

Treat Golems as though they have an SR of 100 - totally unpassable.

To answer your general question about spell penetration - I would suggest that a 'nuker' build take minimal if any penetration, and a CC-based sorc should absolutely max out their penetration (2 feats, 3 enhancements, yeah I know it costs a lot but in Mod 6 you need it).

If you are a nuker that dabbles in crowd control, I would advise 1 Spell Pen feat and the first 2 enhancements.

[Mad_Bombardier]

Max Bonus for Spell Penetration is: 16 (caster level) + 4 (SP and GrSP feats) + 3 (ImpSP3) + 3 (GrSP item) = +26.
Anything +22 or better at L16 is pretty good.

[Line-dog]

Golems are supposed to be immune to all spell-resistance susceptible spells (mouthful, eh?). Instead of implementing this in DDO, all golems just have insanely high SR scores that can't be beaten. It's just a waste of SP to try to get any of those spells to work.

Treat Golems as though they have an SR of 100 - totally unpassable.

OK. Well that is reassuring. Among those monsters that have SR, Golems are an exception, and not ones to judge my ability to bypass SR from.

Also, if you had a negative level from the taint of evil, you would see a red exclamation point in the top right of your screen.

Good point: I would have noticed a red excalmation point a long time ago.

Try disentegrate. Golems are the sole reason I carry it on my sorcs.

I love to nuke. But there are two reasons I haven't already gotten disintegrate: 1) I don't have a level VI item to increase the spell's damage; 2) I have watched people use Symbol of Fear in ways that made certain quests (or some rooms in PoP) far less frustrating. And SoF has been a great OH S#!~ button. Like Flesh to Stone, I sometimes think of SoF as an I Win button. My plan was to trade out SoF for disintegrate about the time I could pick up the disco ball.

To help answer the question "How Much Is Really Needed?", I will start posting the SRs of creatures I run across . Unless, of course, it violates one of the site rules