armor pen>>spell pen???

[invader]

um probly gonna sound like a noob or something and i cant find a similar thread, been chatting with a friend about it so thought id ask away
so.. i see lots of melee these days stacked to the hilt with armor pen,, what i was wondering is why casters dont/cant use spell penetration in PvE in the same way melee does?? i did a bit of trial n error on my mage the other day and gemmed for some spell pen and did an ICC 10 run (got to 120 spell pen to try it) but my dps seemed to be exactly the same i think, so i gemmed back normal...

so yea i know spell pen is PvP, but i dont PvP so was wondering if it had any use besides that

[Atone]

Since Spell pen only goes through resistance which the bosses don't have

[Gungtah]

No

http://www.wowwiki.com/Spell_Penetration

[Takanasi]

spell penetration does not affect npc monsters, only players.

[Stings]

Well, Spell penetration removes the resistances of targets, i don't think that theres that many bosses with some resistances. Just keep it at spell power.

[Goldensilver]

No it doesnt have any use besides needing a small amount in PvP, it doesnt do the same thing as Armor Penetration in that it doesnt reduce the effectiveness of the targets armor past a base amount, if your strictly a PvE'er forget the stat exists, surprised it hasnt been done away with for cata

[Tiaca]

um probly gonna sound like a noob or something and i cant find a similar thread, been chatting with a friend about it so thought id ask away
so.. i see lots of melee these days stacked to the hilt with armor pen,, what i was wondering is why casters dont/cant use spell penetration in PvE in the same way melee does?? i did a bit of trial n error on my mage the other day and gemmed for some spell pen and did an ICC 10 run (got to 120 spell pen to try it) but my dps seemed to be exactly the same i think, so i gemmed back normal...

so yea i know spell pen is PvP, but i dont PvP so was wondering if it had any use besides that

Spell penetration only works for spell resistance. Bosses normally don't have any spell resistance. So spell penetration doesn't add anything for you.
If you would duel someone who has a lot of frost resistance (pala tank in frost gear and frost aura etc) you will notice your frost damage is a lot lower (in case you would be using frost as a mage)
Thats why you do see spell penetration in PvP to bring down the resistance of some classes with resistance buffs.

Normally all bosses have armor so thats why armor penetration does work for bosses (and pvp)

[invader]

cool, yea was just a query more than anything that my mage friend asked when we were on about armor pen n stuff cheers

[Fatale]

PvE bosses dont really have magic resistances of any sort -- (... Most likely some bosses have... I havent studied that much and I dont really care...) -- which means you really dont need spell pen against them.

[CaspianRoach]

SOME bosses (Lucifron in Molten Core, for example) do have hightened spell resistances. This to be the case only with classic WoW bosses though.

[Soothing Voice]

In PvE, targets of a higher level than the caster have a base resistance (2% of mitigation per level difference) which cannot be overcome by spell penetration nor by any other stat.

Wowwiki resolves all.

[Socialhealer]

(got to 120 spell pen to try it)

curse of elements says hi!

[Madskilz93]

130 spell pen cap pvp no need to have it on pve problem solved

[invader]

thx for the replies i thought it would be useless for PvE, but sometimes you just never know these days lol, until you try something,, like my dk for example, im frost dps (OS) and currently gemmed fully for 20 haste in every gem slot to try in only 251/264 gear and what a difference its made . (i just like arseing about with gear and gems trying stuff out) which is how this topic came about as now im hitting so fast the armor pen issue popped up with me and a friend (lots of armor pen would be wicked for white hits and obliterate) and then it turned into to spell pen lol, so had to try it out,but was cack, but until you try stuff you never quite know what works cheers anyway

[invader]

aye i do check out other means for info, but find actually asking others and getting answers on what they/you think is best way im always potching about trying stuff to see for myself, i know elitejerk types have done all the math already on stuff but when ya bored i find it kinda soothing to get away from the crap in trade channels and try new stuff lol,, i got tons of gold i dont spend so means nothing to me to regem,retalent a toon for fun and see what i may stumble upon cheers peeps