Guild Wars 2

Hi,

I’ve been researching stuff for my equipment, and if my math is correct, then vitality is better than toughness.

Damage done = (weapon damage) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) / (target’s Armor)

So if you double your armor, then you get 50% less damage.

Assume someone is attacking you with 3.000.000 damage every second without it being divided by your current armor, and you have the default 2000 armor (if you equip full exotics).

You can choose between 1000 toughness or 1000 vitality, so

• 1000 Toughness: You have 15000 HP and 3000 armor:
  That means 3.000.000/3000 = 1000 DPS so, you will be dead in 15 seconds.

• 1000 Vitality: You have 25000 HP and 2000 armor:
  That means 3.000.000/2000 = 1500 DPS so, you will be dead in 16.667 seconds.

Now maybe you’re thinking, Vitality is only good when coupled with toughness.
Well, if you do

• 500 vitality and 500 toughness: You have 20000 HP and 2500 Armor
  That means 3.000.000/2500 = 1200 DPS so, you will be dead in 16.667 seconds.

This is why, i think that vitality is better. Not to mention that vitality also helps out against conditions, which toughness does not.

I forgot where I’ve read this but some people say that a good “general” rule to follow is:

light armor: vit > tough
heavy: tough > vit

or something.. :/

If you got a lot of heals you plan to use, toughness is better. If you get to face mostly condition damage, vitality is better.

Assuming that you are looking at no forms of healing generation, that sounds about right. But for builds that are designed to generate constant sources of healing through item, food, and trait procs, your proposed Time to Kill starts to look very different.

In general, Vitality is a more useful stat and is universally good on every character build. However I will still take Toughness over Vitality for about half of my characters because their specific builds are designed for it.

(Nor does this address the issue of Agony damage in the Fractal dungeon series. Since it deals damage as a % value of your max Health score, it can actually be something of a penalty if you have a high Vitality score since your incoming damage is much harder to heal away.)

I think vitality is better than toughness, its a conclusion I have reached just playing about with various builds…

If you want to be the ultimate survivor go vitality and then stack as much regeneration as possible, I think its called a apothecary build, you can get 1,000+ health regeneration per sec, I believe, with regeneration from various sources always on the go…

You will be exceptionally hard to kill…

I fail to see how in a health regeneration spec, toughness is better.
If we assume that we have 500 hp/sec, and we subtract that from the current DPS, we’ll have 30 seconds on 1000 toughness and 25 seconds on 1000 vitality. Vitality still being better.

You do realize you just stated that in the health regen build, the toughness will live longer with your own math (30s on toughness v 25s on Vit). Following that, your conclusion is that Vitality is better.

The explanations and your own math pretty much follows the difference, ignoring your erroneous conclusion. Vitality will get you more immediate hp to protect from burst, but does very little in a long fight as its just a higher starting point and does not amplify your sustainability.

kurath.9406:

Vitality will get you more immediate hp to protect from burst, but does very little in a long fight as its just a higher starting point and does not amplify your sustainability.

This pretty much says it all. It’s the only logical conclusion of the discussion you see in every game with a HP and a defense stat.

Veldan.4637:

kurath.9406:

Vitality will get you more immediate hp to protect from burst, but does very little in a long fight as its just a higher starting point and does not amplify your sustainability.

This pretty much says it all. It’s the only logical conclusion of the discussion you see in every game with a HP and a defense stat.

I agree with this assessment.

Having a lot of Vitality is nice, but all it does is protect you from burst damage. You get hit hard if you don’t put points in toughness, and will make you burn through that Vitality quickly. Also, the higher your HP, the less useful your heals become.

Toughness is useless against condition damage and large burst damage, but it lowers the amount of damage taken. It works pretty well if you’re big on healing or regen’ing your health.

I prefer Toughness over Vitality, but a combination of both is best.

Don’t forget that toughness and vita affect your aggro on mobs as well. Toughness gets you more aggro while vita gets you less.(hence Guardians having the lowest vita in the game while some of the highest toughness).

Also, as others already mentioned, Having a ton of vita does nothing to help you when receiving heals. The less damage you take, the better those heals will be. Meanwhile, you could have all the HP you want, if the heals cannot keep up with the damage you are taking, it’s worthless. This is why a typical tank/support Guardian stacks toughness and no vita.

Oops, brain fart. Yes, with regen toughness is better, however this does not account for conditions, which is a major vitality pro. Let’s assume the 3.000.000 damage is 50% condition damage.

In that case, armor will only protect against 1.500.000 while the other half will deal full damage. I know dividing 1.500.000 by stock armor isn’t right, but since i will be using the same value both times it won’t make a difference.

1000 Toughness: 1.5m / 3000 + 1.5m/ 2000 = 500 + 750 – 500 healing = 750, making you last 20 seconds.

1000 Vitality: 3m / 2000 = 1500 DPS – 500 healing = 1000 which makes you last for 25s

Keep in mind that conditions can be cleansed tho.

Okay now do that factoring in skills and that as a warrior you can easily reach 33k HP and 3.3k Armor.

How long does it take to die now ?

Well, first of all you chose both vitality and toughness, which is not the purpose of this thread. Second, a warrior is as sturdy as tank but as mobile as a building, meaning you may last 36 seconds, but that’s all you’ll do. Last.

Assuming 3.000.000 damage / 3300 = 909 DPS over 33k HP = 36s
With conditions 50%, 1.5m / 3300 + 1.5m / 2000 = 454 + 750 = 1204 over 33k HP = 27s