Guild Wars 2

Hi all of you, so theres not realy a consense as tpp whioch amulet is better for condi necros: Carrion or Rabid. So now a brakdown for u with all the maths(for all of this i used a standard 06404 build with traveler runes):

1.: Defense:

Dmg calculation in guildwars uses this formula:

dmg=power*weapon dmg*skill modicifator/enemy armor

for the calculations i did i just summarized (pwer*weapon dmg*skill modifcator) cause it doesnt matter to us which element is how high to calculate our survivability. So we just enter our maximum hp as dmg and our armor and see how high all the dmg stuff needs to go in order to compare the too amuletts.

Rabid: 18732 hp 26976 ds 2683 armor

dmg modifiers needed for full hp:
50257956
For full DS:
76962528

Carrion: 25162hp 36234 ds 2040 armor

dmg modifiers needed for full hp:
51330480
For full DS:
80077140

So if we dont factor in heals carrion gives better survivability but once we factor in one heal (5276+728 per condition) we get:

no conditions:
Rabid: 64413464
Carrion: 62093520

So even with 0 conditions Rabid wins out here and only gets better the more heals are incoming.
Full DS +Full health with one heal:
Rabid: 141375992
Carrion:142170660
So nearly the same, as you remove more conditions or other heals are incoming Rabid becomes better though.
2.:Damage:
For this i took the average dmg of auto attacks by calculating teh dmg of 100 attacks and dividing by 100 afterwards(only direct dmg cause teh conditions are the same anyway).

Rabid:
158, 74
158,74
226,88

Carrion:
224,14
224,14
320,36

So Carrion wins here, but this doesnt include any procs yet.
Barbed Precision adds dmg on top. With Carrion you will get an average of 132 procs with this every 1000 attacks, adding 27852dmg during that time, an average of 28 per attack. With rabid you get 337 procs adding 71107 dmg, an average of 71 dmg per attack. making the new average dmg about:

Rabid:
229
229
298

Carrion:
252
252
348

So carrion still wins out on dmg, but not that much. If we factor in that Rabid widens our possible sigil choices (earth sigil one of the better choices on scepter is borderline useless with carrion) i guess it’s fair to say that rabid is a better choice in most situations.

Omg not this again -_-

Btw, you forgot the 50% damage reduction in DS.

Also, carrion>rabid :P

there is no 50% dmg reduction in ds, vital persistence has 0 effect on incoming dmg and only effects the natrual degeneration
I have to admit i forgot the extra toughness from the minor trait though, shouldnt change too much though.

There is, for all sources of damage, it has been like this since almost a year.

Also, since you’re assuming 4 in Death Magic you’d have to factor in Armored Shroud which benefits the build with a lower armor value more.

I just redid my testing just for you flow, tehre is no 50% dmg mitigation in DS, if it is supposed to be there it is bugged and doesnt apply properly.

I can’t find anything about a 50% reduction to damage anywhere either

Try something challenging, go Power…

Not good enough in high tier pvp. I found that out very quit once I got close to top in soloq. But either way you need someone to peel for you in pvp.

Blackmoa.3186:

I just redid my testing just for you flow, tehre is no 50% dmg mitigation in DS, if it is supposed to be there it is bugged and doesnt apply properly.

I don’t know how you tested, but here you go, just for you

First picture shows screenshots of falling damage. 6070 without Shroud, the difference between the 2nd and 3rd on my lf bar is exactly 3035.

Second picture shows a Chieftain Slash. Combat log says 1775. Difference in lf before and after: 887.

I also tested condition damage right after they patched the number to be displayed on the lf bar. It’s 50% for ALL sources of damage, unless damage flows over to your regular health pool in which case full damage is taken to the lf pool as well. (also tested a long time ago)

Ahh nice, but it would still be nice if they fixed it so we couldnt get double damaged when both our ds and health are low.

did redo the numbers for you flow, now also with the 170 extra toughness in DS

flow, so you saying that, example: zerker 23k hp 18k DS. killshot will hit me for 10k hp or 5k in DS ?

flow, so you saying that, example: zerker 23k hp 18k DS. killshot will hit me for 10k hp or 5k in DS ?

dmg log and all numbers on screen will still say 10k though, thats why i was confused about it.

Flumek.9043:

flow, so you saying that, example: zerker 23k hp 18k DS. killshot will hit me for 10k hp or 5k in DS ?

You can basically pretend that whatever number is displayed on your lf bar is actually double, unless you take more damage than (twice) the displayed number.

So if you take a 10k hit to a 5k+ lf pool you will just lose 5k life force.
If you take 10k to a 4999 lf pool you will lose that plus an additional 5001 of regular hp.

flow.6043:

So if you take a 10k hit to a 5k+ lf pool you will just lose 5k life force.
If you take 10k to a 4999 lf pool you will lose that plus an additional 5001 of regular hp.

Thats pretty weird. Shouldnt it be 4999 LF lost and 2 HP? Sounds like another bug.

Well yeah, of course it’s a bug.

These are the patch notes of July 23rd 2013:

• Damage taken while in death shroud will now overflow to the necromancer’s health pool if the damage taken is greater than the remaining life force.
• Fixed a bug that caused the necromancer to take increased damage from direct attacks while in death shroud.

Remember? It was the patch that made it no longer possible to jump from any hight and mitigate all of the falling damage.
Anyway, right after the patch went live people noticed that we’ve become a lot tankier in DS. They tested and arrived at the conclusion that you have about 120% of your regular hp in life force without any points in Soul Reaping.
Devs denied it, but 2 months later we could confirm our suspicion: the devs rightfully assumed it was 60% because the number said so, but it was really 120% because of the damage reduction. And the only evidence of a damage reduction rather than a wrongly displayed number is the overflow damage.

Where does that leave us? Well, it’s been almost a year now. I’m sure the devs are aware of this issue. But considering how long it took them to iron out the remnants of what used to be our downed mechanics, actually finding out what caused all the problems (I suspect the double damage taken in downed state issues were somehow interacting with this as well) – including a later patch which revealed that not all of our lf was shown on the lf bar in the first place (Oct 15th 2013) – then finally arriving at the current yet still imperfect state of our Death Shroud… I have a feeling that they just don’t want to mess with it any more than they need to.

Also, I think our lf regen combined with the damage reduction is in a pretty decent place right now. So ideally I’d like to see the damage reduction gone and the lf bar number adjusted to be 120%, rather than having our primary damage mitigation nerfed by 50% to match the current numbers.

flow.6043:

I have a feeling that they just don’t want to mess with it any more than they need to.

Also, I think our lf regen combined with the damage reduction is in a pretty decent place right now. So ideally I’d like to see the damage reduction gone and the lf bar number adjusted to be 120%, rather than having our primary damage mitigation nerfed by 50% to match the current numbers.

the downside of this: other classes will start to whine about us having 120% LF.

You would think implementing a second/third healthbar into the game without kittening up almost everything about it shouldnt be that difficult…

RashanDale.3609:

the downside of this: other classes will start to whine about us having 120% LF.

Since it wouldn’t be an actual buff they’d just need to phrase it something like “…has been fixed to be displayed correctly”. Make it look like a tooltip improvment (which it would actually be) and no non-necro would be the wiser.

flow.6043:

Well yeah, of course it’s a bug.

Anyway, right after the patch went live people noticed that we’ve become a lot tankier in DS. They tested and arrived at the conclusion that you have about 120% of your regular hp in life force without any points in Soul Reaping.
Devs denied it, but 2 months later we could confirm our suspicion: the devs rightfully assumed it was 60% because the number said so, but it was really 120% because of the damage reduction. And the only evidence of a damage reduction rather than a wrongly displayed number is the overflow damage.

How on earth can this possibly be a thing? And how on earth am I only just hearing about it a year after? I remember I was one of the people who noticed we were tankier in DS, but not twice as much! Has anyone tested in an empty hotjoin server using steady weapons to confirm? And does the bug persist no matter how much your base HP is? And how are the devs still not on top of this?

NeXeD.3042:

Ahh nice, but it would still be nice if they fixed it so we couldnt get double damaged when both our ds and health are low.

Is THIS a thing too? I did notice that ever since the feature patch I would sometimes get knocked out of DS and straight to downed even though I had a few thousand HP of regular health left… Is that what you’re talking about?

RashanDale.3609:

You would think implementing a second/third healthbar into the game without kittening up almost everything about it shouldnt be that difficult…

You would think they’d know that giving one profession two healthbars would be a nightmare to balance in the first place, but there you go…

flow.6043:

Since it wouldn’t be an actual buff they’d just need to phrase it something like “…has been fixed to be displayed correctly”. Make it look like a tooltip improvment (which it would actually be) and no non-necro would be the wiser.

As if people care about facts. Just look at all the CONDI-OP-whiners in the balance forum. they would see the new numbers and start crying.

RashanDale.3609:

As if people care about facts. Just look at all the CONDI-OP-whiners in the balance forum. they would see the new numbers and start crying.

There are always people complaining about everything. Luckily balancing isn’t done because of whiners on the forum.

manveruppd.7601:

Has anyone tested in an empty hotjoin server using steady weapons to confirm? And does the bug persist no matter how much your base HP is?

I’m not sure what “steady weapons” would change when testing this, or a hotjoin server for that matter.
So far I’ve tested this in sPvP, PvE and WvW. It’s always the same.
And the amount of hp is of course irrelevant since life force is percentage based.

manveruppd.7601:

NeXeD.3042:

Ahh nice, but it would still be nice if they fixed it so we couldnt get double damaged when both our ds and health are low.

Is THIS a thing too?

I’ve never personally experienced this. And so far I’ve only heard people talk about it, but not seen any actual evidence of it. For all I know people might just take a big hit and “feel” they’ve gone down unusually fast.

Then again, I have a theory that not every character is affected by patches in the same way:
Remember, there was the patch that only fixed downed hp for characters created after date X.
Or rather recently there was a patch that fixed Reaper’s Mark to no longer have a shorter cast time when traited with Greater Marks. I didn’t even know this bug existed up until then because my mark worked correctly before. But this patch actually had the opposite effect on my necro: now my Reaper’s Mark has a shorter cast time! (I even reported this in the bug section, but no change so far)
Or: you know how Reaper’s Mark has a different cast animation from the other marks? Yeah… mine doesn’t. It’s the exact same animation as all the other marks, except that it’s now twice as fast.

So perhaps the insta-gib damage when in shroud does indeed happen to some people, but personally I could never observe this bug myself.

flow.6043:

I’m not sure what “steady weapons” would change when testing this, or a hotjoin server for that matter.

Well they always output the exact same damage vs the same target, so it would be pretty obvious. Assuming you take screenshots of your LF bar before and after each hit so we can see exactly how much LF was deducted (and assuming we also account for degen of course.

And the amount of hp is of course irrelevant since life force is percentage based.

Well, life force gain from skills and loss from degen is percentage based, but incoming damage isn’t, it’ll be in HP.

Then again, I have a theory that not every character is affected by patches in the same way:

That’s actually a fascinating theory, with frightening connotations about the codebase of the game…

Or: you know how Reaper’s Mark has a different cast animation from the other marks? Yeah… mine doesn’t. It’s the exact same animation as all the other marks, except that it’s now twice as fast.

For me 4 and 5 have a different animation to 2 and 3.

manveruppd.7601:

flow.6043:

I’m not sure what “steady weapons” would change when testing this, or a hotjoin server for that matter.

Well they always output the exact same damage vs the same target, so it would be pretty obvious. Assuming you take screenshots of your LF bar before and after each hit so we can see exactly how much LF was deducted (and assuming we also account for degen of course.

Like I said, I’ve done exactly that as you can see in the screenshots here and in the other thread I’ve linked above.

manveruppd.7601:

And the amount of hp is of course irrelevant since life force is percentage based.

Well, life force gain from skills and loss from degen is percentage based, but incoming damage isn’t, it’ll be in HP.

Your original question was regarding whether or not the base hp was affecting the damage reduction in DS. It doesn’t.

manveruppd.7601:

Or: you know how Reaper’s Mark has a different cast animation from the other marks? Yeah… mine doesn’t. It’s the exact same animation as all the other marks, except that it’s now twice as fast.

For me 4 and 5 have a different animation to 2 and 3.

Haha, that one is new to me.

@flow, it’s not really and insta gib and it’s not happening when life force and hp are extremely high. It’s like falling or taking one of those one kitten boss hits if the damage is greater than both your ds and your hp it will down you but it doesn’t combine the two. So if I’ve got 3k hp left and 2kds left and someone hits me for an attack that does 3k instead of bringing me out of ds and having 2k health it just insta downs you.

As far as I can remember it’s been like this since they took away our ability to absorb killshots and fall damage.

flow.6043:

Your original question was regarding whether or not the base hp was affecting the damage reduction in DS. It doesn’t.

Not really, as I didn’t know there was such a thing as damage reduction in DS, so my question cannot possibly have been that specific! :p I just asked “is this a thing?”

So the way I understand it is: the rumour is that there’s a 50% damage reduction, while you, by contrast, are saying that there’s no damage reduction, we just have twice as much life force HP as the UI claims we do, so when you take a hit for X damage, the amount of life force HP lost is in fact X/2, half what the combat log states. Right?

manveruppd.7601:

flow.6043:

Your original question was regarding whether or not the base hp was affecting the damage reduction in DS. It doesn’t.

Not really, as I didn’t know there was such a thing as damage reduction in DS, so my question cannot possibly have been that specific! :p I just asked “is this a thing?”

I was refering to this one:

And does the bug persist no matter how much your base HP is?

manveruppd.7601:

So the way I understand it is: the rumour is that there’s a 50% damage reduction, while you, by contrast, are saying that there’s no damage reduction, we just have twice as much life force HP as the UI claims we do, so when you take a hit for X damage, the amount of life force HP lost is in fact X/2, half what the combat log states. Right?

Not quite.
There’s no rumour. The damage reduction exists, it was tested right after the patch for the displayed lf number went live.
However, not everyone knows about it because the only way to confirm is checking your lf pool before and after you take damage. The numbers on screen and in the combat log tell a different story.

In regards to whether you take -50% damage or it’s actually just half the number of what should be displayed:
The devs said our lf pool was 60% of our regular hp. Plus, the overflow damage matches the displayed number of your remaining lf pool.
So you might as well say: the devs were never right about the lf pool, the number should be twice as high, and overflow damage doubles damage taken to life force.
The result is the same, but it appears more likely that there’s a damage reduction in DS instead.

flow.6043:

I was refering to this one:

And does the bug persist no matter how much your base HP is?

Oh yeah, good point, forgot I asked that So I assume you tested with both carrion and rabid gear and you take half damage regardless?

Not quite.
There’s no rumour. The damage reduction exists, it was tested right after the patch for the displayed lf number went live.
However, not everyone knows about it because the only way to confirm is checking your lf pool before and after you take damage. The numbers on screen and in the combat log tell a different story.

In regards to whether you take -50% damage or it’s actually just half the number of what should be displayed:
The devs said our lf pool was 60% of our regular hp. Plus, the overflow damage matches the displayed number of your remaining lf pool.
So you might as well say: the devs were never right about the lf pool, the number should be twice as high, and overflow damage doubles damage taken to life force.
The result is the same, but it appears more likely that there’s a damage reduction in DS instead.

OK, the question of whether it’s actually a x2 LF pool or a 50% damage reduction is an interesting one. It should be testable with falling damage, as that hits you for a proportion of your total HP rather than a fixed amount. So we need to choose a drop that’s just large enough to kill you: if you’re still in DS at the bottom, it’s damage reduction, if you’ve been knocked out then it’s x2 LF pool. I’ll try to log in and test it tonight or tomorrow night. Your own falling test is inconclusive, as you seem to take 25% damage to your health bar when you fall from not inside DS, but slightly LESS than 25% of your LF pool when you fall in DS. So I’m guessing you didn’t fall from/to the exact same spot, as you should’ve taken about 300ish more damage in DS.

So what about the overflow bug that NeXeD was talking about? As I understand it, if the received damage is enough to knock you out of DS, then you suffer damage equivalent to your entire remaining LF pool, plus the original damage again to your HP?

This stuff is utterly gamechanging! If I’d known about them I’d never jump into DS to soak up a backstab if I have only a little LF left (as I end up suffering the whole damage to my HP and putting DS on recharge for no reason). And if you really get twice as much LF (or 50% damage reduction, doesn’t make a difference except for falling damage ), then OF COURSE carrion>rabid, especially with the new Death adept minor trait! I actually switched over to rabid after the patch due to the burstier meta (so many thieves with fire+air sigils…), but if this stuff is true I’m switching back in a heartbeat!

PS. Oh, and another thing! How does putting points in SR affect this stuff?

i would agrue it also depends on what on crit effects you have and depending on your overall build the one is better then the other but no one that is better in all cases.

The bug I’m talking about only happens if it’s enough to kill you as far as I can tell otherwise it works normally I think.

What do you mean “if it’s enough to kill you”? As in, you have 2k life force + 2k HP, and you take a 5k hit? If that’s the case then surely it’s meant to go through death shroud and down you, right? I’m unclear as to what the bug is, what situations it occurs in, and what was supposed to happen instead.

manveruppd.7601:

So I assume you tested with both carrion and rabid gear and you take half damage regardless?
…
How does putting points in SR affect this stuff?

Again, the damage taken out of your lf pool is only half of what the actual damage numbers on screen say.
It’s always 50% unless damage overflows to your regular hp.

manveruppd.7601:

Your own falling test is inconclusive, as you seem to take 25% damage to your health bar when you fall from not inside DS, but slightly LESS than 25% of your LF pool when you fall in DS. So I’m guessing you didn’t fall from/to the exact same spot, as you should’ve taken about 300ish more damage in DS.

You’re mixing up when to use percentages and when to look at the actual numbers.
In my screenshot I jump from and land in the very same spot. One time I take 6070 damage, the other time my lf is reduced by 3035.
50%!

manveruppd.7601:

OK, the question of whether it’s actually a x2 LF pool or a 50% damage reduction is an interesting one.

Like I said, imo it’s rather evident we’re dealing with a damage reduction instead of a tooltip error.
And it wouldn’t make a difference anyway if it wasn’t for the differently behaving overflow damage.

manveruppd.7601:

This stuff is utterly gamechanging! If I’d known about them I’d never jump into DS to soak up a backstab if I have only a little LF left (as I end up suffering the whole damage to my HP and putting DS on recharge for no reason).

No, you can still mitigate part of the damage with life force, just less than if you take the hit to your lf only.

Muchacho.2390:

i would agrue it also depends on what on crit effects you have and depending on your overall build the one is better then the other but no one that is better in all cases.

Good guy Muchacho, trying to bring the discussion back to the actual topic. ^^

Also, you are right.
Statements like…

it’s fair to say that rabid is a better choice in most situations

…are meaningless because one amulet can only be a better choice if the build allows it to be. Same applies to this:

If we factor in that Rabid widens our possible sigil choices (earth sigil one of the better choices on scepter is borderline useless with carrion)

Either you use sigils of earth or you don’t. In the end there’s no wider range on any build, 4 sigils, that’s all every necro gets. Low crit chance? Well don’t use on-crit sigils, simple as that.

manveruppd.7601:

And if you really get twice as much LF then OF COURSE carrion>rabid, especially with the new Death adept minor trait!

First of all, yes, vitality gives you more EHP than toughness.
However, the real advantage is that life force regeneration is always percentage based. So unlike with toughness you don’t have to worry about healing effectivness.
The more life force you can generate the better off you’ll be with carrion instead of rabid. And most of our defense comes from mitigating damage with life force either way. Regular healing is pathetic compared to the amount of hitpoints we can generate with life force. Well… actually our regular healing is pathetic, period. But that’s a different issue.

It’s not unclear I’ve already stated it the way you just stated it to say my way of saying it is unclear =).

Recap. You have 3k hp and 2k lf attack hits you for 3k. Instead of you going to 2k hp you get insta downed.

Still unclear as to how the overflow “bug” actually works (ie. what happens, why it’s a bug, what was supposed to happen)

Well to add to the discussion, with conditionbuilds i offen feel i lack decent lf generation even with soulmarks. And taking Reaper’s Precision helps (even if the trait is rather weak in may opinion) and that trait doesnt work with carrion. And since the nerf of weakining shroud i also feel i can get away with taking it, so here is a additional argument for rabid but then again this also depends on your overall build.

Oh my kittening god. Do you read english? What I said isn’t that hard to understand troll.

I dont think he is a troll, just confused :P

If you take a hit higher than your current lf pool, you lose your lf and take the damage again to your hp. But the hit must be higher than your hp pool

Did I understand it right ? If yes, say i have 5k lf and 5k hp, and i get a 6k backstab, im downed ?

Yes. /fifteencharacters

NeXeD.3042:

It’s not unclear I’ve already stated it the way you just stated it to say my way of saying it is unclear =).

Recap. You have 3k hp and 2k lf attack hits you for 3k. Instead of you going to 2k hp you get insta downed.

Actually I wasn’t trolling, I just missed this post. I might’ve been writing my last one while you posted it. This pretty much explains it though, thanks.

Pelopidas.2140:

Did I understand it right ? If yes, say i have 5k lf and 5k hp, and i get a 6k backstab, im downed ?

Did anyone actually ever test this?
Because I just did with a thief and I couldn’t confirm any of it.
We tested this about 5 times: I always had about 3.5k hp and 2k lf. Then I took a ~5.2k backstab, it never downed me when it shouldn’t.

Maybe I’m wrong, maybe it’s not all the time, but I’ve been downed from ds.