Conjure Vs Strength

Ok so for a warrior build, I got a quick question. Would 10 strength do more damage with armor penetration than Conjure flame with the + damage? I am speccing Axe/Tactics/Fire magic atm (for the lack of strength shields for my heroes) and was wondering if the loss of armor penetration is a big deal in PvE. Eventually I plan to drop tactics for strength but ATM would it matter?

PvE or PvP?

Conjure skills are very strong and speccing 3 less from Strength really does not affect your armor penetration/critical strikes to such an extent to make it a trade off.

But as you've mentioned, if you want the best out of conjure, you're going to have to go full offensive and drop your tactics attribute/skills.

10 XXX Magic + appropriate conjure + appropriate fire damage mod on axe > +10 Strength without factoring in the loss of strength skills (only the IAS really matters at this point), and +3 lifestealing / 20/20 to axe.

This is of course assuming enchant strips are not that frequent in the area you are doing.

Strength as a primary attribute is really only used to access powerful warrior skills, the 1% per str attribute only factors into special attacks used, and since static +damage effects ignore armor already, only the base damage will be affected by Strength.

Since you are devoting a lot of points into tactics I am assuming you are running the more offensive skills available to that attribute line to compensate for the loss of flail / rush from Strength.


Assuming "ATM" = Normal Mode, then no, it will not matter

atm means at the moment lol. I only play HM nowadays.

Sounds like a weak build to me, maybe you could share it.

I wouldn't use conjure in pve.. That 1sec cast is just too much for me.
If you want to play PvE effectively, go Hammer.

Besides that, there's a lot of stripping in PvE which will probably make strength more usefull in the end.

PvE foes in HM tend to have high armor, which means that the AP gained from strength will be much higher.

I'd go with strength, but sharing your build would help

I know.... but "at the moment" is relative to your progress in the game which I have no knowledge of since you didn't tell me.

Underlined is opinion based, and the OP did not need an opinion. Your personal tastes are your own.
Bold is laughable, you can be effective in PvE with MANY warrior builds so long as your swinging your sword/axe/hammer/other prof's weapon (compare this to a caster). You would be surprised how much of your damage comes from just auto attacks.


This is ~true. But on the same flip of the coin, static +damage is better since it applies to all attacks and bypasses armor.

Generally I would agree with this, flail is too awesome to pass up for a non elite.

I agree, it is hard to manage a skill's effectiveness just by itself.

In closing, if you want to keep your enchant on you (IE not let it get removed prematurely) COVER it, heroes are awesome at it.

I would NEVER use a conjure anything in PvE. Using a conjure forces you to use an elemental mod on your axe/sword/hammer. Which means you miss out on a ton of physical buffs. (barbs, mark of pain, etc....you get the point)

On its own, no.
Remember that Strength's bonus only applies to attack skills, not regular attacks. Conjure's bonus is also completely armour ignoring and so isn't diminished by increased armour level, whilst the effective plus damage gain from AP does diminish with increase AL.
However, skills you may want to use in Strength become weaker and more importantly, you're locked into using an elemental weapon and your damage decreases a fair bit if Conjure is stripped. Since you no longer hit for physical damage, you can't use Barbs, Mark of Pain or Orders in your team build either.

But the biggest question of all is this.
Why are you using Warrior heroes?

Because I don't have 10 Warriors. I can't always be the melee dps lol.

Yeah I know AI melee doesn't know how to flail/pump out the best dps compared to human, and the lack of pve skills doesn't help them. But I do like to use all my heroes just for fun, since at this point in the game, I have done mostly everything (cept for money titles) So I am just playing for fun.

But even though im not playing for the best, I still want my damage as good as it can be in certain aspects. Eventually I will get a strength shield and thus spec in strength, but I wanted to know if the damage loss is significant for now.

Seems as though its good enough for now from what your telling me, ty.

I'm not worried about loosing out on MoP and whatnot since I am making a fairly balanced team, with only around 1-2 physicals. My mesmer (the character I am doing this on) will most likely be able to out dps MoP with 2 physicals, allowing the necro to go full Death/utility(restoration/protection?)/SR

TY for all the input. Though I have to disagree that conjure is as useless as some to make it to be. PvE enchant stripping isn't THAT constant from my experience unless in elite areas.

Well a H/H casterball doesn't need melee DPS, but whatever.
I can't lambast you for running something subpar and questionable if you've already stated that's more or less your aim.

1% armor penitration is roughly 1% damage

conjure is better as long as it doesnt get stripped and you can fit it