Guild Wars 2

I don’t get it!
If all the professions can use both melee weapons and range weapons in the games with perfect skills on them, why they are been set different defense on them?
I do get it we need light, median, and heavy armor in game, it make sense that different profession needs different looks armor.
But as a game with all the professions can do both melee and range well, why heavy armor can have more defense than median and leather?
I think this is one of the problem why warriors and guardians are so strong in this game.
It would never be balance if the armor and weapon attack points is not balance!

The numbers on armor work like this:

The Defense stat from armor plus Toughness = the Armor stat.

Raw damage is divided by the Armor stat to come up with damage taken.

The below numbers are based on Berserker Ascended Light versus Heavy armor. The 916 constant is the base Toughness

Light Armor: 916 + 967 = 1883
Heavy Armor: 916 + 1271 = 2187

Now, assume a raw damage hit of 1,000,000 and another of 10,000,000

1,000,000/1883 = 531
10,000,000/1883 = 5310
1,000,000/2187 = 457
10,000,000/2187 = 4572

Guardian v. Elementalist, both with base health of 10,805. The Ele drops on the 21st 1m hit and on the 3rd 10m hit. The Guard drops on the 24th 1m hit and on the 3rd 10m hit.

Warrior v. Necromancer, both with base health of 18,372. The Necro drops on 35th 1m hit and on the 4th 10m hit. The Warrior drops on the 41st 1m hit and on the 5th 10m hit.

Discussion:

• The Defense stat from heavy armor provides some advantage.
• Since the danger in PvP is more from faster, lower damage attacks and in PvE from slower, higher damage attacks, that advantage is less in PvE and somewhat greater in PvP.
• The light armor character takes about 16% more damage per hit compared to the heavy armor character.
• Since armor and raw damage would be constants in any comparison, adding Toughness via traits and/or gear would reduce the difference in damage taken by light versus heavy armor characters.
• Base health provides much more survivability than armor type.
• GW2 provides active defenses (dodge, block, reflect, invulnerability). These can be used to avoid damage altogether, and are not specific to armor type. These abilities are somewhat more heavily loaded on low-health professions than on high health professions.
• Healing, both active and passive, also weighs much more heavily into balance issues than armor type. Warriors went from being considered one of the worst sPvP professions to one considered OP by essentially doubling the passive healing on Heal Sig.

Conclusion: there are balance issues in GW2, but armor type is arguably the least of the reasons for such concerns.

And then you have mobs that do 30000+ damage after armor…

IndigoSundown.5419:

The numbers on armor work like this:

The Defense stat from armor plus Toughness = the Armor stat.

Raw damage is divided by the Armor stat to come up with damage taken.

The below numbers are based on Berserker Ascended Light versus Heavy armor. The 916 constant is the base Toughness

Light Armor: 916 + 967 = 1883
Heavy Armor: 916 + 1271 = 2187

Now, assume a raw damage hit of 1,000,000 and another of 10,000,000

1,000,000/1883 = 531
10,000,000/1883 = 5310
1,000,000/2187 = 457
10,000,000/2187 = 4572

Guardian v. Elementalist, both with base health of 10,805. The Ele drops on the 21st 1m hit and on the 3rd 10m hit. The Guard drops on the 24th 1m hit and on the 3rd 10m hit.

Warrior v. Necromancer, both with base health of 18,372. The Necro drops on 35th 1m hit and on the 4th 10m hit. The Warrior drops on the 41st 1m hit and on the 5th 10m hit.

Discussion:

• The Defense stat from heavy armor provides some advantage.
• Since the danger in PvP is more from faster, lower damage attacks and in PvE from slower, higher damage attacks, that advantage is less in PvE and somewhat greater in PvP.
• The light armor character takes about 16% more damage per hit compared to the heavy armor character.
• Since armor and raw damage would be constants in any comparison, adding Toughness via traits and/or gear would reduce the difference in damage taken by light versus heavy armor characters.
• Base health provides much more survivability than armor type.
• GW2 provides active defenses (dodge, block, reflect, invulnerability). These can be used to avoid damage altogether, and are not specific to armor type. These abilities are somewhat more heavily loaded on low-health professions than on high health professions.
• Healing, both active and passive, also weighs much more heavily into balance issues than armor type. Warriors went from being considered one of the worst sPvP professions to one considered OP by essentially doubling the passive healing on Heal Sig.

Conclusion: there are balance issues in GW2, but armor type is arguably the least of the reasons for such concerns.

The problem is, the raw damage would never got that.
let image the real stats, lets use your 1883 and 2187 as the defense, the damage you taking is = (Weapon strength) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) / (target’s Armor)
lets see war rifle f1 skill as a test, strength 1100* power 2700* 3.3 coeff=9801000
9801000/1883=5205 with crit 110% 5205*2.1=10930
9801000/2187=4481 with crit 110% 4481*2.1=9411

as you said, Guardian v. Elementalist, both with base health of 10,805.
now the difference is, elemental = 1shot, but guardian still has 1400 hp.
And you must now, down and not down, means a lot different in gw2, like dodge/heal incoming next.

Giotto.2607:

The problem is, the raw damage would never got that.
let image the real stats, lets use your 1883 and 2187 as the defense, the damage you taking is = (Weapon strength) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) / (target’s Armor)
lets see war rifle f1 skill as a test, strength 1100* power 2700* 3.3 coeff=9801000
9801000/1883=5205 with crit 110% 5205*2.1=10930
9801000/2187=4481 with crit 110% 4481*2.1=9411

as you said, Guardian v. Elementalist, both with base health of 10,805.
now the difference is, elemental = 1shot, but guardian still has 1400 hp.
And you must now, down and not down, means a lot different in gw2, like dodge/heal incoming next.

Not quite. 110% critical damage would yield 2.6x base damage, not 2.1.

9,801,000 * 2.6 = 25,482.600
/1883 = 13,532
/2187 = 11.651

Both characters have been one-shot.

Can we come up with scenarios where the armor makes a difference? Of course we can. Does the defense stat matter. Math says yes.

Kill Shot has a lengthy cast time, and ought to be dodged, blocked or reflected. Still, let’s assume that for whatever reason, this doesn’t happen. It sure would do a lot of damage. Health pool would still have a greater effect on survivability than defense differential.

It seems to me like if OP was in charge of the balance, we would only have 1 profession in the game…

Try to remember that different professions have different abilities. Armor is not the one and only factor in balance.

The MASSIVE health difference is even worse.