Guild Wars 2

Howdy – just thinking about the armor classes. Traditionally (i.e. in most rpgs/mmorpgs) there is some sort of penalty for wearing heavy armor, such as reduced dmg compared to light classes or reduced mobility. I’ve noticed that in GW2 there is no such detriment for wearing heavy armor. It is no surprise, then, that in GW2 the most popular classes by FAR in pve are warrior/guard.

Taking warrior as an example, they are one of the best dps’ers in the game, they wear heavy armor, AND they share the highest base hp in the game. While i take no issue with them dealing heavy damage, i think a nice change that would really balance out the classes would be to give light armor wearers the fastest endurance regen rate, and slowest to heavy armor wearers (with medium armor in between). And no, I’m not talking about a trait you have to spec into, just default passive endurance regen. Thoughts?

being punished for playing a class i like . gosh i dont know would i like that or not…. I dont know if you’ve noticed but GW2 isn’t most MMOs

It’s a bit like Rangers should get increased damage with a bow (As it was in GW1) if they had a height advantage.

Now Rangers get penalized by having a height advantage by mobs going invulnerable while the Ranger gets his face ripped off.

Great stuff not.

And yes light armour should offer more mobility and certain advantages, but not in Anets books.

mobs are only immune if they cannot attack you.
if they are ranged mobs and you are above them and they can still attack you ranged, they will not be immune.

also this same argument you make can be made for melee players, why go melee when ranged is ALWAYS safer without any penalization?
the best classes at ranged dps (most dps) are not the same ones who are equally good at melee. (ie, the non heavy armor classes)

Vashoom.8512:

mobs are only immune if they cannot attack you.
if they are ranged mobs and you are above them and they can still attack you ranged, they will not be immune.

That is actually not completely true, and we are talking about invulnerable not immune, two different things.

You surely forgot about how thief and ele was broken
For such a long time . Its time to shine for warriors
And.PvE … pve is so easy all u need is a zerker set on any class
If u are ranger shootin arrows with cleric’s i cant help sorry

I think if you’re having trouble with light/medium class armored characters you should look for some tips on how to play that specific class. I do quite well with my thief, and eles are pretty strong mother-kittens; you just gotta know how to use them correctly. I still need to learn a better way to play mesmers in PvE.

I’d recommend googling for builds or asking for advice on the class specific forums here.

*Ranger, Necro, Engi, Ele and all non-Mes-Guard-War professions, why even play these in PvE?
That I’d start with tbh…

Solid Gold.9310:

Vashoom.8512:

mobs are only immune if they cannot attack you.
if they are ranged mobs and you are above them and they can still attack you ranged, they will not be immune.

That is actually not completely true, and we are talking about invulnerable not immune, two different things.

If it can’t target YOU then you can’t hurt it. If it’s still hitting you that just means you’re within cleave/aoe of the person it is hitting.

Heavy armor is cosmetic. It does very little to your actual armor. Guardians and Warriors are great because of their skillset, not because they wear heavy armor.

Most light/medium classes already have a major boon over heavies – perma 25% run speed. Thief, Necro, Ranger and Ele has it. Mesmer is the only non-heavy class that doesnt have it. Warriors can get easy perma-swiftness with skills and traits though.

Dawdler.8521:

Heavy armor is cosmetic. It does very little to your actual armor. Guardians and Warriors are great because of their skillset, not because they wear heavy armor.

Most light/medium classes already have a major boon over heavies – perma 25% run speed. Thief, Necro, Ranger and Ele has it. Mesmer is the only non-heavy class that doesnt have it. Warriors can get easy perma-swiftness with skills and traits though.

If armor classes are purely cosmetic, why have them at all? I’m not sure what the dmg reduction % is for armor, but there must be a difference.

25% run speed are from signets, and are not permanent. Also, do those passive 25% run boosts work in combat? o.O

Mo Mo.1947:

I think if you’re having trouble with light/medium class armored characters you should look for some tips on how to play that specific class. I do quite well with my thief, and eles are pretty strong mother-kittens; you just gotta know how to use them correctly. I still need to learn a better way to play mesmers in PvE.

I’d recommend googling for builds or asking for advice on the class specific forums here.

i also main a thief, and i enjoy playing for the most part and don’t struggle with it in PvE ONLY because it’s almost mandatory to spec 15 traits deep into acrobatics for that extra endurance regen. I haven’t encountered many thieves that don’t spec it for that reason.

That said, I’m not proposing ridiculous increases in endurance regen like 2:1 for light:heavy… more like a 20% increase. small enough that it’s not OP, but large enough that over time you’d notice a difference.

Crysys.1297:

Taking warrior as an example, they are one of the best dps’ers in the game, they wear heavy armor, AND they share the highest base hp in the game. While i take no issue with them dealing heavy damage, i think a nice change that would really balance out the classes would be to give light armor wearers the fastest endurance regen rate, and slowest to heavy armor wearers (with medium armor in between). And no, I’m not talking about a trait you have to spec into, just default passive endurance regen. Thoughts?

Well, warriors also have no access to Protection/Invulnerable/Stealth.

As for your endurance regen idea, I don’t see how it could be balanced. If the current rate would be the base for Heavy armor, you would end up in a situation where an evasion specced Thief (20 Acrobatics, Withdraw, Vigorous Recovery) would be completely broken due to a massive amount of dodges and evades.

Olba.5376:

Crysys.1297:

Taking warrior as an example, they are one of the best dps’ers in the game, they wear heavy armor, AND they share the highest base hp in the game. While i take no issue with them dealing heavy damage, i think a nice change that would really balance out the classes would be to give light armor wearers the fastest endurance regen rate, and slowest to heavy armor wearers (with medium armor in between). And no, I’m not talking about a trait you have to spec into, just default passive endurance regen. Thoughts?

Well, warriors also have no access to Protection/Invulnerable/Stealth.

As for your endurance regen idea, I don’t see how it could be balanced. If the current rate would be the base for Heavy armor, you would end up in a situation where an evasion specced Thief (20 Acrobatics, Withdraw, Vigorous Recovery) would be completely broken due to a massive amount of dodges and evades.

huh?
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Endure_Pain
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shield_Stance

if i’m not mistaken, shield stance is the second longest invuln in the game, on the shortest cooldown.

as for protection, you have
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dolyak_Signet

…you even have a signet that boost endurance regen 50%! my proposition is a 20% increase for light.

Olba.5376:

Crysys.1297:

Taking warrior as an example, they are one of the best dps’ers in the game, they wear heavy armor, AND they share the highest base hp in the game. While i take no issue with them dealing heavy damage, i think a nice change that would really balance out the classes would be to give light armor wearers the fastest endurance regen rate, and slowest to heavy armor wearers (with medium armor in between). And no, I’m not talking about a trait you have to spec into, just default passive endurance regen. Thoughts?

Well, warriors also have no access to Protection/Invulnerable/Stealth.

As for your endurance regen idea, I don’t see how it could be balanced. If the current rate would be the base for Heavy armor, you would end up in a situation where an evasion specced Thief (20 Acrobatics, Withdraw, Vigorous Recovery) would be completely broken due to a massive amount of dodges and evades.

Sorry, i forgot to address your second point. I’d like to reiterate that balancing is the whole point of this thread. You say that granting a 20% increase in endurance regen would be imbalanced but the current scenario isn’t? remember using warr vs. ele:

warr: more armor, 18k base hp
ele: less armor, 10k base hp

default mobility is equal for both; run speed and endurance regeneration. If heavy armor doesn’t affect mobility (i.e. it isn’t heavy), why can’t all classes wear it?

lastly, as was mentioned above, another reason why warriors / guards are popular is because their toolkit (skills) are excellent.

so, what are the downsides to playing a warr?

Crysys.1297:

as for protection, you have
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dolyak_Signet

Dolyak signet gives you 180 toughness. Protection is a flat 33% reduction to incoming damage. One of those is less than a 10% increase in the armor of a full zerker. The other is not.

I don’t think the difference in the base armor is large enough to change anything.
Light Med Heavy
Total 920 1064 1211

291 difference between Heavy and Light
147 difference between Heavy and Medium
144 difference between Medium and Light

And remember for exotic armor the main stat gains a total of 315, the minors gain 224, not including trinkets or weapons.

Since I don’t have the time to do my own math, a quick google search gave:
http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/60838-math-damage-reduction-toughness-and-vitality/

Just looking at this:

Damage reduction ratio, R
= [(Damage taken with A armor) – (Damage taken with A+X armor)]/Damage taken with A armor
= [(K/A) – (K/(A+X))]/(K/A)
= 1 – A/(A+X)
= X/(A+X)

The formula implies that to reduce damage by 50%, you’ll have to double your current armor.
Adding 100 armor for (note the diminishing returns)
a soldier with 2127 armor gives 4.49% damage reduction
an adventurer with 1980 armor gives 4.81% damage reduction
a scholar with 1836 armor gives 5.17% damage reduction

To compare between the professions (with base armor),
a soldier has an additional 13.68% damage reduction compared to a scholar
a soldier has an additional 6.91% damage reduction compared to a an adventurer
an adventurer has an additional 7.27% damage reduction compared to a scholar

Ignore the DR part, as there is no DR on toughness, it’s just poor wording. The numbers are right and that’s all that matters.

So with no additional toughness (or vit) on gear a zerker warrior vs. a zerker ele will take ~14% less damage per attack and has an EHP of 21,284 vs. 10,805.

For a knight (armor, ascended trinkets, weapons, 30 points in their toughness trait line, no runes or back item or food buffs) warrior vs. a knight ele the the difference narrows a lot. The warrior will take 48.19% less dam than a zerker ele, and the ele will take 43.21% less damage than a zerker ele, so ~5% less damage for the warrior. With EHPs of 35,463 vs 19,026. Not saying that this an ideal build, just showing the extremes.

So you may just say I proved your point. But there are the weapon/utilities/traits that make up for that extra bit. Eles have easy access to both regen and protection (for the other light classes, thieves have stealth/blind and mesmers have clones for mitigation), warriors don’t have protection at all and limited access to regen (only reliable way is with a grandmaster trait and banners) and vigor.

And those are the “downsides” to playing a warrior. No protection or regen (and possibly no vigor). And yes we have do have block skills and some CC weapons, but eles get dodges, blinds, etc.

A bunker ele will (usually) outshine a bunker warrior because of the extra regen/protection that they can give themselves. And a zerker ele can still gain those boosts or rely on their evading skills, which warriors only have 1 of to mitigate the ~14% damage difference.

@Wallace i won’t quote your thorough post (as it is long), but thank you for it.

You make some great points here, but the argument ultimately comes back to the class toolkit. Every class has their own unique skillset, otherwise there’d be no point in having classes at all. I like the idea that classes can utilize each of their respective skills to fulfill certain roles in a group. That’s great.

In my opinion, your gameplay in an rpg should be about compromise.
It seems that warrs and guards going “full zerker” are really the only classes that doesn’t really have to make compromises? 14% damage reduction is quite a lot imo. When i started running Arah on my thief, I realized that unless I got lucky with Lupi’s targeting, pretty much all of his attacks would deal more damage than my pitiful 10.8k HP if i ran out of endurance. That green slime projectile thing he throws hits me for over 11k with some toughness (and mandatory vit) mixed in with my current zerker set. Thus, we squishies make compromises; speccing full zerker just isn’t viable especially if you need to melee imo.

Why doesn’t heavy zerker gear, then, have less armor than tank gear to make them equally as squishy as all other classes? In that case, they’d still have almost 2x the HP than thieves and eles and STILL wouldn’t get one-shotted by Lupi. I guess at the end of it all, i find it frustrating that squishy classes need to be more conscientious of survivability skills and traits just because they’re squishier by default (despite not doing more damage than warriors by default).

Anyway – the impression i get is that something like this would never be implemented by anet anyway… though i do enjoy reading your opinions.

I’ve often thought all armor types should be made available for all classes, with advantages/disadvantages to each, so that people with different playstyles could tweak their chars the way they wanted to. As mentioned, heavy armor should be heavy, reducing either speed or endurance regeneration, but providing the best defense of the armor classes. Low would be on the opposite end of the spectrum, providing the least amount of defense, but with better speed/endurance regeneration. And medium would sit where it’s at — in the middle, not the best of both worlds, but providing better defense than light/less than heavy, but less speed/endureance reg loss than heavy but more than light.

I know the “logical” conclusion people reach is “i’m a warrior, why wouldn’t i want a scrapyard’s worth of metal protecting me”, but what if you had a warrior in mind that was more of a “sword-saint” type char who didn’t believe in armor because your skill with the blade was defense enough? Or, on the flipside, an ele char who was just a wee bit timid and felt safer within a cumbersome steel can?

I know one point of contention that has been raised is by locking char types to armor classes, it makes them easier to identify in PvP situations, but from what lil wandering I’ve done in WvW (and I know it’s not the same), it’s when another player starts hammering into me that I figure out what type of char it is, and that usually happens a lot faster than me checking out their armor and going, “Oh, heavy armor, must be a war/guar”.

Plus, by opening up all armor types to all classes, it provides a lil more variety to the game.

I just want the skins from other armour types, I don’t see why my thief can’t get those awesome asura goggles T_T