Empower vs Penetration?

Fiddling around with the 3rd support for my flame surge boss killer. It'll be in a Doon Cuebiyari so it'll get the lvl 30 iron will. Also want to spec conc since I want to use it as a single target high damage spell.

Flame Surge + Iron Will + Conc + (Empower vs Fire Pen or ??)

Empower would be great for boosting the damage but fire pen might be more helpful for fire resist enemies. Or if there's another option I'm overlooking, please let me know! :D

All bosses have some amount of resistance and tough rares also often have it, a setup like that should go straight for penetration and never look back.

Assuming you don't have +gem level, you will get AT BEST 31% more damage (with emp lvl4 and no flat spell damage on gear/auras itd.).

With fire penetration you get 37% more damage AT WORST. When you meet monnster with 75% fire res, your damage is more than doubled.

The choice is clear I think.

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CookieVortex wrote:

With fire penetration you get 37% more damage AT WORST. When you meet monnster with 75% fire res, your damage is more than doubled.

I'm going to be a major douchehat here and say that technically speaking, there are plenty of cases where Fire Penetration's damage boost is less than 37%, and technically there exists the niche case where Fire Penetration will provide less of a damage boost (towards specific enemies) than Empower.

This is because penetration is based on the resistance equation, and if you have lowered the enemy's resistance by means of a Curse or two, Fire Penetration will see diminishing proportional returns similar to how "increased damage" does.

FP "more damage" with Level 20 Flammability, enemy begins with 0% Fire Resistance: 25.69% more
FP "more damage" with Level 20 Elemental Weakness, enemy begins with 0% Fire Resistance: 26.62% more
FP "more damage" with Level 20 Elemental Weakness and Flammability, enemy begins with 0% Fire Resistance: 20.22% more

However, for my actual opinion, I'll have to be the third to unanimously vote Fire Penetration, because the arguments I just presented are more purely academic and in actual fact, Fire Penetration will help a lot more in your situation because of reduced curse effect on bosses and higher starting Fire Resistance in the majority of cases.

In case you were wondering:

FP "more damage" with Level 20 Flammability and Elemental Weakness, enemy is a boss and begins with 75% Fire Resistance: 74% more
FP "more damage" with no curses, enemy is a boss and begins with 75% Fire Resistance: 148% more

mobs resistances can dip well beyond 0%. -120% is normal for some dual curses and EE

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CookieVortex wrote:

When you meet monnster with 75% fire res, your damage is more than doubled.

Its only getting it back to what it would be anyway, and the amount of time you go against a full fire res mob is far too low to justfiy the permanent damage drop that would come with not using empower.

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subtleorwhat wrote:

Its only getting it back to what it would be anyway, and the amount of time you go against a full fire res mob is far too low to justfiy the permanent damage drop that would come with not using empower.

Which is exactly what a 'bosskiller' skill is for, and giving up a 3-link for such an occasion is probably worthwhile as long as it can outdps your main.

Gotta go with raics and Vipermagi on this one: Fire Penetration all the way!

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kreca73 wrote:

mobs resistances can dip well beyond 0%. -120% is normal for some dual curses and EE

Sure, if you run a multi curse setup that includes both ele weakness and flammability, then you can get any mob to way below 0% resistance. Although i wouldn't necessarily call it normal to have a multi curse setup with EE and +50% curse effect.
Still, in that case you would only get as much damage increase from fire pen as from a lvl 2 Empower, so Empower wins - if you can afford to get a lvl 3-4 one.

However, in the likely case that you are fighting a boss with some significant fire resistance, are using only one offensive curse, or are up against a tough mob with high fire res and curse immunity/reflect, then fire pen wins hands down.

My point is that against regular mobs, both options can put out comparable damage with Fire Penetration being basically free compared to a rather costly lvl 3+ Empower.
Empower is somewhat stronger against mobs that are naturally weak against fire but those die fast any way. Fire penetration can in some cases give you less damage increase against weak mobs but will outperform empower significantly on those rares and bosses where it matters most.


[TLDR]
Fire Penetration: consistent high damage
Empower: bigger tooltip but significantly weaker against highly resistant or curse immune mobs

Pen gems are amazing if you deal primarily one type of damage. You're essentially multiplying your damage by the percent that you penetrate. Resistance can go into the negatives and pen gems don't care about overcapped resistances so you're gaining a huge advantage with them.

Empower is better for your tooltip dps and it's better if you're dealing lots of different elemental damage types rather than just 1.