Free Stat SPR - Is it really useful?

[kirbysprite]

Okay this is from the official forums.

This is a question I've been asking myself for quite some time. A lot of people recommend SPR for a cleric. The 25 SPR, rest END or STR builds are common, and many people recommend SPR as the stat to add for supporting clerics, because it increases SP.

I, however, am not so sure it's that useful, particularly not after taking a closer look at what SPR really offers.

Now, a point of SPR gives three benefits: 5 max SP, 0.5 added M.def, and 0.2% critical bonus.

The max SP is supposed to be the best benefit for a support cleric, right? More SP means more heals. However, this is not necessarily the case with clerics in Fiesta. 25 SPR gives an extra 125 max SP - not a significant amount at high levels. More to the point, though, a cleric's healing capacity is dictated more by his stone and potion supply than it is by max SP. At high levels, clerics rarely rest to recover SP; they just use a stone. Clerics have plenty of SP with or without SPR, so getting full benefit from a stone is almost assured.

Now - here is one of the big myths about SPR - free stat SPR does *NOT* increase the amount a SP stone heals. (Neither does added SPR on gear, and the same is true with END and HP stones.)

It was easy enough to test whether SPR on gear increased a stone's healing amount - I just took off all my gear, used a stone, then put it all back on and used a stone. Sure enough, they healed the same amount.

Free stat SPR could well be different, though, so to test this I made a newbie cleric and leveled him to level 5, without using any of his free stat points. Here is what I found:
A level 5 cleric has 9 base spr. One SP stone restored 83 of his SP.
I then used free stats to raise his SPR by 5. He now had 9+5 SPR. The SP stone, however, still restored 83 SP.

Therefore, if you use stones to heal, the max SP benefit does not help you. If you rest, you do regain SP at a SLIGHTLY faster rate, but again, high level clerics rarely rest. Contrary to popular belief, SPR has almost no benefit for a pure support cleric.


The next benefit is magic defense, 0.5 per point. 25 SPR gives you 12.5 extra magic defense. This defense is like the defense on END - it's a flat reduction in the damage you take per hit, *not* an addition to your m.def score.

This is not useless. However, at higher levels 12.5 damage is not a lot when the magic using monsters are hitting for 200-300 - never mind when the magic attacks hit for 1000+, as the Heart Trumpies in TR do. The same could be said for END's defense - but END also adds block rate, which also helps against magic. This benefit alone is not a good reason to add SPR.


The final benefit of SPR is the increased critical rate. This is the reason many people favor 25 SPR in builds. 25 SPR gives an extra 5% critical rate, boosting damage. But how much, and how does it compare to the equivalent points spent in STR?

25 points in SPR adds a critical every 20 hits. So every 20 hits, 25 SPR adds, on average, an amount of damage equal to the damage of your average hit (including bashes, etc). 25 STR adds, on average, 600 damage per 20 hits, plus additional damage from critical hits that averages out to (600 * crit%).

What does this mean? It means that unless your average damage per hit (including bashes) is 600 or higher, 25 SPR will NEVER outdamage 25 STR. If you've got, say, 10% critical rate without SPR, your average damage has to be over 660 for the SPR to outdamage STR. Now, even capped clerics generally don't hit this hard. At level 70 with a hammer, I hit for 310-320 at most... now I use a mace, and hit for even less. At this point, I doubt any cleric hits hard enough to make SPR a better investment for damage than STR... not to mention, STR damage is more consistent.

In conclusion - if you add SPR for the extra SP, you're not really gaining any appreciable benefit. If you add it for the crit % and damage, you are voluntarily lowering your damage for the negligible benefits of SP and M.def.
Now, other classes might do enough damage to make the crit % from SPR worthwhile over INT or STR - but, as a cleric, I really can't see that happening until at least a cap raise or two from now.

Thoughts?

[Hessah]

Yup, it has been a long age debate...

"Theortically" (and apparently) 25 free-stat in STR is suppose to give you more dmg, compare to the crit rate you get from 25 SPR...

But.. we dont only get crit rates from free stat, we get it from earrings, weapon, cash shop costumes, scrolls / potions...

i think it'll all add up..

plus..i dont think 5% crit mean u ONLY get 1 crit every 20 hits...

5% is a CHANCE not a statistic.... you can still get 5 crits out of 20% if the chances are in ur favour...

[ThievingSix]

The main thing people forget is that the game doesn't calculate that you have had just crit so you won't get another one in the next 19 hits.

The game uses your crit percent as a random number seed. Meaning it's random luck.

[booyah8876]

That 25 SPR isn't for support clerics.

Really at a high lvl the only thing useful out of it is the 5% bonus crit.

That 5% is only useful for the PvP//Fighting clerics

=)

[Lexaeus]

In my own humble opinion I find that the 25 spr in free stat is actually of more use than putting in 25 str. I usually get crit chains of 3-5 thanks to my +8% crit hammer and +1% crit earrings so that means I have a 14% chance of actually doing a crit with each attack. Plus at lvl 70 the blue weapons give you another 4% increase in crit with a .1 second faster attack speed so you will be able to crit even more therefore outdamaging those who put the extra 25 points in str instead of spr. Plus the extra 125 sp points is good enough to cast lvl 10 heal with max sp cost about 2 times and if empowered with more power recovers over 3k-4k hp? (correct me if I am wrong. I am only a lvl 31 cleric) which would have more use in soloing and partying than the extra 30 attack which is not going to be much later on due to higher lvl enemies having more defense and hp. I don't really attack too often b/c I focus more upon healing in parties and kqs therefore the extra 125 sp comes to use more often than the extra 30 damage. Plus crits do like an extra 150% or 200% more damage so if you got a crit with a bash (usually every 5 bashes for me though I rarely use it) will deal more damage than a bash with only an additional 30 damage.

End is nice but after 50 end from free points the effects of the block rate are debilitated to only +.05% block rate while it does give hp, which is very useful, spr gives more benefits from 25 spr than an extra 25 end.

Str is more for stable damage but will be outdamage when it comes to crits.
Spr offers crits but is unstable at times but offers a great reward for those who take the chances by putting in 25 points in spr instead of str. Plus what is life but really a game of chances of anyways.

Lastly I think that clerics aren't about who can kill things fastest but who can survive the longest.

Just my two cents on this topic

[MikeyG]

For a mage, and a Fighter and for a cleric its useful.

I never really played an archer...

Id take an spr/int mage like mine over a pure int mage.

Or a spr/str fighter like mine over the pure str .

Cleric wise... i like spr/str , its what my 34 cleric is
and zukiz is end and 25 spr. I would pick that over pure end or pure str
or end/str anyday xD



Point proven?

[Ralath]

I loveeeeee my 25 SPR. ;D

I'm thinking about putting the rest of my points in SPR too but I can't decide. =.=

That's why I have about 24 stat points lying around.

[Lexaeus]

Don't put in any points in spr after 25 due to the critical rate decreasing from .2% per point in spr to only .1% in crit. The extra 24 points could go in str to help make your crits do more damage or whatever you want to put in there really. It is just a game so do whatever suits your style of playing.

[Laifun]

My cleric is 25 SPR and rest all STR. I hit crits quite alot and I need it D=

AAANNY amount of crit is very useful.. I remember having like alot of crit before or something and it was sooooo awesome D= (8% wep + 25% manthong + 5% valentines hat + 2% md earrings + 5% free-stat + 5% licence)

[Ralath]

55% crit????

*falls down*