How much Spell Pen needed?

[SirValentine]

Anyway, as far as SR is concerned, I can only confirm that barbazu in eDA have SR of 33 (with my 30 spell pen I succeed on a 4, fail on a 3). Havent done any conclusive testing elsewhere, but could do that in the next few days... Will probably check out norm/hard/leet Amrath, any other tips?

Ah, thank you! This is exactly the kind of detail I was looking for. Other than the obvious Elite Amrath, other places I happened to noticed spell resistance failures often were the eladrin in Running With The Devils, and the kobold casters in Epic VoN1.

[maddmatt70]

There's other items with spell pen, I wouldn't trash a dual shard item just yet.
What sort of content are you running?

Epic content you want to aim for near 30 spell pen, which is difficult to do without wizard and/or favoured soul past lives. For just sort of normal raids and amrath and what you have should be fine, since you'll probably be doing a lot more blade barriering than you will be using spells with a spell pen check.

It is unclear to me if a 30 is required. I think solo farming epic chronoscope is a nice general goal though.

For my cleric who is on her last life and will be an 18 cleric 1 wiz 1 monk with one wiz past life/3 sorc past lives. I will take spell pen 3 enhancement, 1 spell pen feat, and make a greater spell penetration 9 item from lob which should put me at a 28 spell penetration which my guess will be sufficient. I think low to mid 20s is too low which I have on my sorc for the purposes of non nuke spell against certain targets, but high 20s is probably good against anything but drow.

[tinyelvis]

To be sufficient you need to be in the 30s. To be pretty uber you need to be in the 40s. Spell resistance is a ridiculous concept ( unlike any other in the game). In my mind, a high save is a high spell resistance. Why the need for an arbitrary second roll? It just adds unnecessary complexity, lag, and makes balancing harder for developers. But, it is a concept we have to deal with.

I suggest unless you are an elf or wizard, or dont mind being just sufficient after grinding the top end gear, then you forgo spell pen completely like the rest of the masses and kill things evocationally.

BTW, its not just drow end game that have uber high spell resistance. There are elfs, outsiders, undead, and even ridiculously pirates.

[SirValentine]

BTW, its not just drow end game that have uber high spell resistance. There are elfs, outsiders, undead, and even ridiculously pirates.

You have any numbers on just how "uber" the spell resistance is on those? Never personally noticed an issue with undead or (non-drow) elves, and the various outsiders seem to have noticably less SR than do Epic drow. But, like I said, I'm looking for hard numbers so I can make an informed decision about how much spell pen to build for.

[DeafeningWhisper]

After careful thinking (and the fact I pulled Rhal's Might (bleed/puncturing) and a Dreamspitter with Reaver seal in the same run) I've chosen to go Evocation/melee focus.

Stats:

Str 14
Dex 8
Con 16
Int 8
Wis 18
Cha 8

Feats:
1 Toughness
1 Empowered Healing
3 Maximize
6 Empowered Spell
9 Heighten (really needed/useful without any Spell Pen?)
12 PA (or Extra Turning, Extend or GSF: Evo not sure)
15 Quicken
18 SF: Evo