Guild Wars 2

I am not entirely sure what recent changes has been made to this Stat but it seems to have barely any help even at my maxed out build of 3851 toughness (with shield) I am getting melted by power attacks like bread and butter.

If anyone knows something I do not please let me know. I enjoyed the aspect of it.

As far as I know toughness is working fine and it’s quite useful against power builds. However, the game has been designed around damage mitigation such as blocks, dodges, evasion, invulnerability, blinks, and various buffs and debuffs (protection, weakness, blind etc.).
As to my knowledge it is impossible to get 3861 toughness in PvP I assume you mean armor.
You can see how dmg works in this link to the wiki: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Damage
As you can see the dmg is divided by your armor making toughness somewhat of a diminishing return stat.
That combined with the fact that most power build have DPS (against 2k armor) reaching 5-6k with spike dmg up to 15-20k dmg in just over a second makes face tanking impossible . I do agree that toughness is a little under powered but it still gives you enough of an edge, especially on the light armor classes, to be worth picking up for some builds. You can mitigate large amounts of damage with it but it will never be, nor should be, as efficient as a well timed dodge or block.

~Nicolas

(edit: accidentally posted an unfinished reply and minor spelling errors)

The actual powercreep made toughness not so useful. more toughness you have higher is your Power damage reduction, but you can’t reduce it enough to be able to survive to a burst only with your statistic. it was more useful back in the bunker meta, where the overall damage was lower and a damage reduction statistic granted something.
Actually an enemy can burst you down still if you have Protection active. And protection reduce the damage more than any toughness you can obtain.

increse that statistic will grant you some benefits, expecially if you’re able to obtain a so high statistic, but will not resolve your problems.
There’s no more a chance to be a bunker only with statistics, not in teh actual meta.

Is better try to collect all the defensive skills/traits you can in your bunker build than try to max your toughness.
Today you don’t survive with statistics, you survive with defensive skills.

That’s the reason why the warrior is one of the hardest class to kill still if play berserker. Endure Pain, Berserker Stance, Stability spam and Movement skills grant him all the defensive stuff needed to survive to everything.

The necromancer is the only class unable to obtain real defensive skills and is the easiest class to burst down, still with Life Force. You do faster bursting down 15-20k of extra HP than wait that the enemy waste all his defensive skills to burst him down.

Block/Total-Immunity/Partial-Immunity/Resistance/Stability/Movement. If you want to survive you need that kind of skills. more you have longer you survive.

Silv.9207:

The actual powercreep made toughness not so useful. more toughness you have higher is your Power damage reduction, but you can’t reduce it enough to be able to survive to a burst only with your statistic. it was more useful back in the bunker meta, where the overall damage was lower and a damage reduction statistic granted something.

This is so hilariously wrong. Toughness is divided off the power of the attack, and as such scales evenly as incoming damage changes.

As incoming DPS increases toughness actually becomes more and more valuable compared to non-scaling defenses like vitality. (the reason necros are considered squishy, is because necros have no scaling defenses)

Against any power class Toughness is the best defensive stat to be using, however you’ll still want to be dodging and blocking things.

Like they told you above, the game is designed around temporary invulnerabilities, call them blocks, dodges, reflects, what ever have you.
Its part of the reason the damage has always been so spiky, they have had such a hard time balancing and pvp in general flopped so kitten hard.
For the game to be better it should have been much more stat based.

Even if 3851 toughness that may offers 45% damage reduction , theres a abudance of Vulnerability (-25% armor) and highr Ferocity (+50% crit damage) + stacking Might (average 12 stacks) + some traits (Mug) or sigils/runes (leaching) that bypass armor

The only solution i can find is that to increase Knights and Dire Armor

Toughness is useless as well as damage mitigation. Several months ago I ran a experiment using my guardian. I wanted to aim for maximum toughness and passive mitigation so I used: Signet of judgment, Hunter’s Fortification, Retributive Armor, Scrapper Rune, Knight Amulet and modest protection up time. And guess what? A thief still killed me in a couple of seconds.

I honestly didn’t notice any reduction in damage. Damage is so high at this point that I don’t think any of that no longer matters.

Aza.2105:

Toughness is useless as well as damage mitigation. Several months ago I ran a experiment using my guardian. I wanted to aim for maximum toughness and passive mitigation so I used: Signet of judgment, Hunter’s Fortification, Retributive Armor, Scrapper Rune, Knight Amulet and modest protection up time. And guess what? A thief still killed me in a couple of seconds.

I honestly didn’t notice any reduction in damage. Damage is so high at this point that I don’t think any of that no longer matters.

Guard is 1 class that prefers Vita over toughness because we have no health for damage reduction to even matter.

Ok, let me show you the math since there are so many arguments based on your own experiences .
Buffed glass canon thief build’s backstab (critical dmg) according to the formulas here: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Damage_calculation
2500 power after buffs; 200% critical dmg; 25% extra dmg from traits and such
1000(weapon) * 2500(power) * 2.4(skill mod) * 2(crit) * 1.25 (trait modifiers and vuln) = 15 000 000
A lot, right?
Well, that’s 15 mln damage against one armor enemy. Most players do wear armor. So we divide this value but the total armor. Let us see check the final dmg against some values of armor listed below. I’ll show just a few examples below since I don’t have a whole day:
Light armor:
No extra toughness: 1888. Final dmg: 7,945
Demolisher Amulet: 2448. Final dmg: 6,127
Knight Amulet: 3088. Final dmg: 4,858
Knight Amulet + rune + 200 from passives: 3463. Final dmg: 4,332
Now for the Heavy armor:
No extra toughness: 2167. Final dmg: 6,922
Demolisher Amulet: 2727. Final dmg: 5,501
Knight Amulet: 3367. Final dmg: 4,kitten
Knight Amulet + rune + 200 from passives: 3742. Final dmg: 4,009
Crazy warrior stuff: (aprox) 4500. Final dmg: 3,333
Shiled grants you only 59 armor so we’ll just ignore that

Note that these values can still get reduced by protection and various passives. Weakness can also nearly half enemy’s DPS and is especially potent against builds reliant on crit.

As you can see heavy investment in toughness isn’t necessarily very worthwhile as it is basically a diminishing return statistic. However, getting Demolisher amulet and possibly some extra toughness from passives/rune can reduce incoming dmg by 20-30% (23% for just a demolisher amulet on light armor). It’s roughly the same as having 25k life instead of 20k except the healing is more beneficial.
Yes, toughness is a little underpowered. Is it totally worth picking for some classes like necromancers? Totally!

edit: some spelling mistakes and such

edit2: so, regarding vitality: it is sadly nearly always better as you’re trading actual 5.6k life for effective ~4.2k life. While the healing is more effective so are the conditions. It is still better than vitality for some necro builds and is a good stat to supplement vitality for defense.
The only solution I can see that wouldn’t need rewriting all the formulas is lowering base armor/toughness and decreasing all dmg in game accordingly. Anet is never gonna do it thou so we’re left with simply picking vitality.

Ncolas.7968:

Is it totally worth picking for some classes like necromancers? Totally!

Thanks. I am telling this to people for months now. On necro demolisher is superior to marauder when fighting power builds.

20K HP + 25% dmg. reduction is easier to heal up (=better sustain) than
25K HP + 0% dmg. reduction.

Of course there has to be a significant health pool first (which thieves, eles and guards don’t have) to not get one shot. You can’t heal up if you die in one hit – obviously.

Crinn.7864:

Silv.9207:

The actual powercreep made toughness not so useful. more toughness you have higher is your Power damage reduction, but you can’t reduce it enough to be able to survive to a burst only with your statistic. it was more useful back in the bunker meta, where the overall damage was lower and a damage reduction statistic granted something.

This is so hilariously wrong. Toughness is divided off the power of the attack, and as such scales evenly as incoming damage changes.

As incoming DPS increases toughness actually becomes more and more valuable compared to non-scaling defenses like vitality. (the reason necros are considered squishy, is because necros have no scaling defenses)

Against any power class Toughness is the best defensive stat to be using, however you’ll still want to be dodging and blocking things.

This is so hilariously wrong.

That it scales evenly is irrelevant, it still becomes less effective if damage powercreeps because at the same toughness you will take more damage even though it gets reduced at the same ratio.

zinkz.7045:

This is so hilariously wrong.

That it scales evenly is irrelevant, it still becomes less effective if damage powercreeps because at the same toughness you will take more damage even though it gets reduced at the same ratio.

Yes, and it also prevents more damage because that’s how division works. You can also argue that vitality became less effective due to a power creep. Toughness, math wise and against power builds, is basically worse vitality that allows you to heal faster.

I cannot see how your statement wouldn’t apply to vitality as well if you understand how damage calculation works.

If you have any doubts see the math in one of the replies above.

(and no, powercreep actually makes things like toughness and vitality more relevant, they both increase your effective HP and prevent you from being “instakilled”, vitality just does it better for every class except necro)

~Nicolas

Ncolas.7968:

zinkz.7045:

This is so hilariously wrong.

That it scales evenly is irrelevant, it still becomes less effective if damage powercreeps because at the same toughness you will take more damage even though it gets reduced at the same ratio.

Yes, and it also prevents more damage because that’s how division works. You can also argue that vitality became less effective due to a power creep. Toughness, math wise and against power builds, is basically worse vitality that allows you to heal faster.

I cannot see how your statement wouldn’t apply to vitality as well if you understand how damage calculation works.

If you have any doubts see the math in one of the replies above.

Well the main doubt would be why are you banging about vitality as if I made some comment about it…

Ncolas.7968:

(and no, powercreep actually makes things like toughness and vitality more relevant, they both increase your effective HP and prevent you from being “instakilled”, vitality just does it better for every class except necro)

Wrong, when the thing that powercreeps is damage, then evades, blocks, blinds, aegis, invurns, etc become more relevant, because they become even stronger relatively to things like toughness and vit which lose effectiveness against increased damage.

I fail to see your point zinkz ;/. Like what message are you trying to convey? That toughness is now bad? It has always been worse than vitality… That vitality is worse than it used to be? Perhaps, at least you can survive the spike dmg with it. That blocks and evades are the only way to go? Yeah, ofc they are, they have always been… It’s just that you need a way to survive nukes after you’ve used all your defenses.

I guess I’ve posted some useful info earlier and there is no point adding anything. I feel like smb is desperately trying to prove me wrong for the sake of it despite pretty much repeating what I said in my first post (except for the powercreep stuff)

stats are fine lol if you use them right. dodge bursts + out sustain your opponent + land your bursts and yes toughness will trump burst builds.

they are effectively ’’useless’’ heart of thorns increased the presence of damage modifiers and for a long time u had sigils like fire+air. to compensate protection+passive damage migitation in traits etc.

sustain is now a stat in which armour+protection/damage migitation need both be suffient

this isn’t pre heart of thorns where having an high armour of 2800 that was considerd high and a bit of of protection or some added passive defence would make u a tank god.

u need both to be present. if not u better hope u get some nice heals or passive sustain like adrenal health.

zinkz.7045:

Crinn.7864:

Silv.9207:

The actual powercreep made toughness not so useful. more toughness you have higher is your Power damage reduction, but you can’t reduce it enough to be able to survive to a burst only with your statistic. it was more useful back in the bunker meta, where the overall damage was lower and a damage reduction statistic granted something.

This is so hilariously wrong. Toughness is divided off the power of the attack, and as such scales evenly as incoming damage changes.

As incoming DPS increases toughness actually becomes more and more valuable compared to non-scaling defenses like vitality. (the reason necros are considered squishy, is because necros have no scaling defenses)

Against any power class Toughness is the best defensive stat to be using, however you’ll still want to be dodging and blocking things.

This is so hilariously wrong.

That it scales evenly is irrelevant, it still becomes less effective if damage powercreeps because at the same toughness you will take more damage even though it gets reduced at the same ratio.

Toughness scale based on the enemy damage where vitality don’t, for that is better (depending on the situation because against condition Vitality is still better).
The problem is that the insane amount of damage modifier, vulnerability spam and huge burst granted by HoT elite specs made the Power damage so high that even with the best toughness of this game your survavibility will not increase by enough to grant you to survive.

Before HoT I used on my necro a super tanky build and I had 3800 armor. that toughness granted me enough damage reduction to survive to everything.
Actually evena so high toughness will not save you. Will help, but will not change the end of a fight.

The actual insane amount of damage (that isn’t bad, I like that meta) make statistics grant only a little advantage against Power damage. That made Vitality better because grant “defence” against both power and condition damage.

Actually, if you want to survive you need to spam heals and condi clean all the time as eles do or have block/dodge/evade/immunity and movement skills.