Guild Wars 2

I haven’t played enough to answer my own question. Most of my playtime (a great deal of hours) is on a Ranger and I feel like I haven’t experienced the game as I should have.

I have always thought about the armor types and the health levels the classes can have. They also played a big part when I chose which class to play.

Unfortunately, I didn’t know that the Ranger was what it was and is back then.

Now, to the questions…
(HIGH = 18k health, MED = 15k, LOW = 10k

Considering that the Warrior has HEAVY armor and HIGH health which is the ‘best’ possible combination in terms of damage absorbtion, how does professions with LIGHT armor and LOW health compensate for their lack of absorbtion?

How does other combinations compensate for this? HEAVY + LOW, MEDIUM + MEDIUM, LIGHT + HIGH (or Guard, Engi/Ranger, Necro) etc

light armor professions are much better at avoiding damage. mesmer, for example, can make a million clones that are attacked instead of you. I definitely have more fun jumping circles around people and not getting hit than just being a damage sponge.

Necro in light have ~20k hp without vitality traits.

Mystic Starfish.2586:

Light armor classes aren’t usually in melee range anyway (unless you’re a dagger ele or something), so I’d put my stats in damage more than survivability. It’s up to you how you want to play a class, so you can put points in health and toughness, but all it means is that a fully specced defense ele won’t be as resilient as a fully specced defense guardian (in terms of health/armor). Skill obviously comes into play

Nope, not this.

Everything can melee and you’re most likely expected to in dungeons. Most of the light classes have some decent backup. Mesmer’s have stealth, clones, and a low cd evade + block on sword. Eles have cantrips, healing, boons, auras. Guardians that have a low health pool but high armor have a lot of condition removal with invulnvs, blocks, and healing. Everything depends on your builds.

If you’re in PvE it’s just full damage. PvE is generally easy to survive.

WvW You’re looking at very typical meta builds in zergs. Small roaming is where it starts to vary like PvP.

As others have said the less armored/less hp combos usually have options that make up for it. Boons (regen and protection), better access to some conditions (blind, immobilize, daze, stun), and different skills/mechanics (pet/clones/minions/summons to damage or absorb, stealth to avoid, lots of block or evade skills, an extra hp bar, etc).

You can also look at it that certain classes have different focuses. Sure, each class can do just about anything, but some classes are better at certain things. Warriors (to go with your example) only have 1 combo field and somewhat limited burst options (at least on weapons). And sure they have high hp and armor, but they lack many protective boons; very limited access to regen and no protection or retaliation.

solrik.6028:

……
Considering that the Warrior has HEAVY armor and HIGH health which is the ‘best’ possible combination in terms of damage absorbtion, how does professions with LIGHT armor and LOW health compensate for their lack of absorbtion?
…..

i know this sounds trite, but your main method of damage mitigation should always be NOT getting hit. The “absorbtion” capability you ask about is your measure of how many “Holy Crud!” hits you can take before being downed. Lighter classes just have much fewer of those (maybe just one) and thus must be played much more defensively in general.

It doesn’t really make much of a difference, ive played Warrior (Heavy Armor + High Health) Guardian (my main, Lowest HP high armor) and Ele ( my 2nd main Lowest armor lowest HP) and the playstile for each is different. Each class has a way of compensating for the lack of armor or health. While the warrior may have high armor and health he will have to work harder to get that big heal off. Where as a guardian for example will have many ways of mitigating damage either through blocking, or boons or dodge heals.

Few exemple.
- Guardian (Low Hp, High Armor) : They have a HP regen with the Virtue, access to a lot of defensive boons (regen, protection, vigor, etc), have access to Aegis and to protective skill (Wall of Reflection, Sanctuary, etc)
- Elementalist (Low Hp, Low Armor) : They have huge access to defensive boons, the best mobility and the best defensive utility skills (mist form, arcane shield, etc)
- Necromancer (High Hp, Low Armor) : They have two bar of HP with Dearth Shroud
- Thief (Low Hp, Medium Armor) : If they are in trouble they can just disengage in stealth and get the hell out of there.
- Mesmer (Medium Hp, Low Armor) : They are illusion production machine, each time something hit their illusion it doesn’t hit them. They have access to distortion (their own personal invulnerability).

Also higher total defense (armor+toughness) rating means that you will get targeted more often than less defense.