Shroud: Toughness Vs. VIT
With shroud because of how it was coded before we could see its value it causes a 50% reduction in all damage and i believe this to be after toughness. This included falling damage in case you didnt know.
If you would take 1000 damage shroud would cut it to 500, if you would take 800 because of toughness shroud would make you take 400. If cold shoulder would drop it to 900 then shroud would take you then to 450 etc etc you get the idea. I.e they are multiplicative and thus have diminishing returns. Think the most you can get is around 90%+ damage reduction overall with a few skills, boons and runes. Its why necros feel inherently so tanky.
Overall I believe vitality to be more useful than toughness when it come to shroud because the stat double dips for us. More base hp and more shroud. Shroud is always % based so the more you have the more you recover per % point. Also because conditions are also cut, apparently , it becomes even more useful to have more raw LF since they dont get mitigated by armour.
Thanks for the input! I appreciate getting more technical knowledge about shroud!
This isn’t really so much a question of “what type of damage are you taking” but more a question of “how much healing are you getting”. Tilting the spread of damage in one direction means you need to change your utilities, not your stats- If you are taking too much condition damage, take more condition-sending skills or Consume Conditions, if you are taking too much power damage, take more bunker skills.
The more healing from external sources you are getting, the more Toughness is valuable and Vitality is less so.
The more you are depending on Death Shroud to bunker, and on skills which generate Life Force, the more valuable Vitality becomes as Life Force generating skills become pseudo-healing skills.
That said, current meta- for PvP, at least- emphasizes heavy Life Force generation via skills. This makes Vitality king in most situations.
(edited by Sarrs.4831)
Id say more vitality. More vitality means more life force, and a higher max life force means all the skills and mechanics that increase your life force (which are all % based) will pump more life force.
Think of it like this, some classes have passive regeneration and other healing abilities that heal them for 300-700, but a single 5 targed necro staff can pump 20% of its life force every second.
20% of the usual 13/14k max life force = about 2700 life force. Imagine other professions being able to heal them self for 2700 health every second?
Id say more vitality. More vitality means more life force, and a higher max life force means all the skills and mechanics that increase your life force (which are all % based) will pump more life force.
Think of it like this, some classes have passive regeneration and other healing abilities that heal them for 300-700, but a single 5 targed necro staff can pump 20% of its life force every second.
20% of the usual 13/14k max life force = about 2700 life force. Imagine other professions being able to heal them self for 2700 health every second?
I didn’t know the staff trait worked that way! I thought it was just X% life force when a mark triggered at all.
On a related note, life force also depletes naturally based on percent too correct? So in that respect shroud wouldn’t last longer regardless of whether or not you built for vitality or toughness (just talking about stats, we’ll leave out Vital Persistence atm).
Id say more vitality. More vitality means more life force, and a higher max life force means all the skills and mechanics that increase your life force (which are all % based) will pump more life force.
Think of it like this, some classes have passive regeneration and other healing abilities that heal them for 300-700, but a single 5 targed necro staff can pump 20% of its life force every second.
20% of the usual 13/14k max life force = about 2700 life force. Imagine other professions being able to heal them self for 2700 health every second?
I didn’t know the staff trait worked that way! I thought it was just X% life force when a mark triggered at all.
On a related note, life force also depletes naturally based on percent too correct? So in that respect shroud wouldn’t last longer regardless of whether or not you built for vitality or toughness (just talking about stats, we’ll leave out Vital Persistence atm).
He is referring to the auto with that 20% since its 4% and has a 5 target hit cap. The staff trait will give you 3% when a mark is triggered regardless of how many targets. It gets more LF because of CV+BB.
Shroud itself lasts the exact same amount of time because of how its % based. This is only if you take 0 damage at all. When you take damage the amount you take becomes a relative % of total LF. For example 3k hit to a 15k lf pool is 20% of you LF gone, being hit for 3k of a 21k LF pool is 14% of you LF lost, hence you can stay in shroud longer since the % drain is always static.
It coincidentally make LF gaining skills more effective since again they are all % based so your “damage shield” becomes larger. If I can gain 10% lf and mitigate 3.2k damage its better than gaining 10% LF and mitigating 2.3k damage.
(edited by Sigmoid.7082)
Vitality is better but remember to only add enough defensive stat’s to prevent being downed too fast because defensive stat’s trade offense.
(edited by Anchoku.8142)
Shroud only halves DIRECT damage – it does NOT halve condition damage. In addition the damage is only halved when there is Life Force left after the damage taken. That means if the hit consumes all your Life Force (and kicks you out of shroud) the damage is not halved.
The answer if vitality or toughness is better is the same as for every other class. Toughness is better against power builds and vitality is better against condition builds. Simple as that.
The math “more vitality = more Life Force generation = more sustain” doesn’t make sense when fighting power builds as you also lose more Life Force when hit by an attack compared to having some toughness.
Demolisher Amulet gives you superior sustain against power based attacks.
Marauder Amulet gives you superior sustain against condition based attacks.
Just try it out.
I prefer Demolisher due to the necromancer’s high base lifepool and its ability to tank conditions in shroud. The class has also the tools to deal pretty well with condition bursts via Staff 4, Plague Signet or Consume Conditions while having poor defenses against power bursts.
Last but not least: A high health pool is harder to heal up again. Running toughness is an indirect buff to your healing capabilities.
(edited by KrHome.1920)
Shroud only halves DIRECT damage – it does NOT halve condition damage.
This is wrong. Go into the mist lobby with base hp, you will have exactly 15245 with SR which means with VP you lose exactly 305 LF every second. Cast BiP, it will cause you to lose 80HP/s but when you enter shroud you will only lose 345 LF a second hence it is cutting condi damage in half. Cast CB and the poison hits out for 34 damage but you lose 322 LF a second..etc etc. I literally just tested this and its one of the reasons vit can be seen as more valuable than toughness.
Shroud halves ALL incoming damage including fall damage unless the damage taken would be greater than the LF you have. This stems back to when it didnt have a value on it and people assumed it was 120% of your hp.
Fall damage is odd. If you walk of the buff in coleseum you take fall damage and enter combat. If you are in shroud you don’t. Leads me to believe If shroud would reduce the fall damage below it’s lowest % you won’t take it.
The only difficult one to test is :
The answer if vitality or toughness is better is the same as for every other class. Toughness is better against power builds and vitality is better against condition builds. Simple as that.
The math “more vitality = more Life Force generation = more sustain” doesn’t make sense when fighting power builds as you also lose more Life Force when hit by an attack compared to having some toughness.
because its hard to see if damage reductions apply after increase modifiers.
Tested on the engineer in the mists and found a few things:
- For a scholar class 560 toughness is relative to a 23% reduction in damage.
- Damage reductions are multiplicative ( this one i already knew ) e.g Rise (33%), Protection (33%) and cold shoulder (10%) total about a 60% reduction in damage. This is applied after armours reduction. This would then be halved by weakness if it applied and halved again if you are in shroud with enough LF. This included her critical hits.
Since the reductions always drag the number closer to 0 the relative % difference becomes smaller between toughness and no toughness. Its why being supported as a necro is fairly huge. Shroud and empowered protection from tempest via hardy conduit gives you a 50/70(85)% damage reduction alone to condi/direct(weakened hit) unless its that hit/tick that knocks you from shroud.
Its just were do increases fit? Is the increase calculated before hand i.e the outgoing hit is amplified but then overall reduced? Is it all worked in together multiplicativly. i.e a 10% increase and a 10% decrease result in 99% damage being done. Is there some difference between outgoing and incoming damage? i.e all multipliers that apply to the character are applied for out going damage , things like 10% weapon damage/x% increased damage if you have a boon etc etc, but then specific things to your target are done after like 50% hp traits or vulnerability…..
Though personally I am inclined to believe the first one
(edited by Sigmoid.7082)
This is wrong. Go into the mist lobby with base hp, you will have exactly 15245 with SR which means with VP you lose exactly 305 LF every second. Cast BiP, it will cause you to lose 80HP/s but when you enter shroud you will only lose 345 LF a second hence it is cutting condi damage in half. Cast CB and the poison hits out for 34 damage but you lose 322 LF a second..etc etc. I literally just tested this and its one of the reasons vit can be seen as more valuable than toughness.
The damage reduction doesnt show in the damage log though. So maybe there is where the confusion comes from.
Shroud and empowered protection from tempest via hardy conduit gives you a 50/70(85)% damage reduction alone to condi/direct(weakened hit) unless its that hit/tick that knocks you from shroud.
I am pretty sure hardy conduit protection effectiveness increase only works on the ele himself (e.g when the ele as the protection buff on him no matter who gave it him, he gets the stronger dr but protection given out by him only gives the standard 33% dr). So i am not sure why you would even mention it.
Though i admit the current tooltip may be missleading… the tooltip of the original trait earth proxy was more clear (see http://dulfy.net/2015/08/10/gw2-tempest-elementalist-elite-specialization/), before it was merged with hardy conduit.
Its just were do increases fit? Is the increase calculated before hand i.e the outgoing hit is amplified but then overall reduced?
Offensive modifiers should apply first since they originate from the attacker and not the thing being hit.
I don’t have proof of that, but that’s how it’s worked in every RPG I’ve ever heard of.
Also toughness will still always be better than vit against power builds because it will still net better overall mitigation. It also proves mitigation out of shroud which vitality does not do.
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(edited by Crinn.7864)
Offensive modifiers should apply first since they originate from the attacker and not the thing being hit.
Actually all variables should be multiplicative and therefore it shouldnt matter thanks to the commutative properties of multiplication.
But then again i dont know the exact formula Anet is using for the modifiers but i would imagine they are all simply extra factors (e.g 10% extra damage is 1.1 etc.)
Anything that modifies damage is applied after the damage would be dealt. Everything is multiplicative except for stacking Ferocity bonuses.
(Weapon damage * power * skill coefficient / opposing armor) * Ferocity modifier * (modifier1 * modifier 2 * modifier 3…)
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/ES-Suggestion-The-Deadeye-FORMAL/
@Muchacho
They really need to sort the ambiguous wording on some traits "protection you apply has increased effectiveness "..Ah well its still a total reduction of 67% when shrouded with prot.
@Crinn
The OP wants to make his shroud more durable. In shroud the relative difference between armour and no armour becomes smaller, smaller still with protection and smaller still again each time damage gets cut. The % difference is the same but the numerical difference gets smaller and so does the total additional % damage reduced from the original. Shroud will also cut condition damage in half.
@Crinn
The OP wants to make his shroud more durable. In shroud the relative difference between armour and no armour becomes smaller, smaller still with protection and smaller still again each time damage gets cut. The % difference is the same but the numerical difference gets smaller and so does the total additional % damage reduced from the original. Shroud will also cut condition damage in half.
I’m well aware of how multiplicative percent work. But just because the DR on shroud reduces the toughness value, that value is still there.
Vitality does not provide mitigation period, and the increase to shroud HP is not as exciting as people think. Moreover not having toughness leaves you vulnerable to getting deleted by power builds when out of shroud.
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Vitality does not provide mitigation period, and the increase to shroud HP is not as exciting as people think. Moreover not having toughness leaves you vulnerable to getting deleted by power builds when out of shroud.
We’ve been over this topic since 2012… but ok:
First of all, when you argue that toughness mitigates direct damage, you also have to accept that extra hp “mitigates” armor-ignoring damage like conditions or leeching.
Secondly, amulets with just one minor defensive stat (560 vitality or toughness), for example marauder and demolisher will give you about the same effective hp against direct damage.
The choice for most classes comes down to: healing effectiveness vs a condition damage buffer. (it’s PvP, you will almost always be taking some condition damage)
Necros, however, have basically no healing of their own and life force regeneration is percentage based. Also, when you factor in the damage reduction in Shroud, any extra point of hp will increase your lf pool by 1.38 life force, or even 1.587 life force with Soul Reaping.
Bottom line: vitality is generally a more valuable stat for necros.
First of all, when you argue that toughness mitigates direct damage, you also have to accept that extra hp “mitigates” armor-ignoring damage like conditions or leeching.
That is a criminal misuse of the word “mitigation”
Vitality stacking still means that you are taking the full damage value. That value has to be accounted for with healing or else you will die. All Vit does is delay the inevitable.
Secondly, amulets with just one minor defensive stat (560 vitality or toughness), for example marauder and demolisher will give you about the same effective hp against direct damage.
EHP is a terrible measurement because it does not account for healing. Mitigation becomes more valuable with healing access, up to the critical point where the incoming damage is reduced below the incoming healing value at which point you can no longer die.
The choice for most classes comes down to: healing effectiveness vs a condition damage buffer. (it’s PvP, you will almost always be taking some condition damage)
That condition damage is hilariously low. Before s5 when we had actual post match damage breakdowns, I made a point of always looking at the power/condi breakdown.
Do you know how often condi equaled or outstripped power damage taken?
NEVER
Not once in all my time did I see a match where condi damage was anywhere near my power damage taken. Even when I was trolling around with a Knight’s Rousing Resilience Warrior I still took more power damage than condi.
Moreover Condi damage is a non-issue for necro, We have some of the best condi management in the game. But at the same time we have the worst power damage management in the game. Which makes toughness that much more valuable.
Also look at the meta, Chrono is the only remaining condi build. (although necros seem to be split 50/50 between the new axe BB build and various condi builds) There just isn’t much condi damage in the meta.
Condi is simply a non-factor.
And if you look outside of sPvP its not much different. Mobs rarely if ever deal condi damage. (This argument is moot in raids because of how threat is handled.) WvW probably has the highest condi damage ratio, but even then I doubt it outstrips power damage.
Necros, however, have basically no healing of their own and life force regeneration is percentage based. Also, when you factor in the damage reduction in Shroud, any extra point of hp will increase your lf pool by 1.38 life force, or even 1.587 life force with Soul Reaping.
Which is perfectly fine argument for 1v1. But in practice it’s rare to not have some external source of healing. If you are duo’ing with a support you’d be stupid to not run toughness.
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First of all, when you argue that toughness mitigates direct damage, you also have to accept that extra hp “mitigates” armor-ignoring damage like conditions or leeching.
That is a criminal misuse of the word “mitigation”
Which is why i put it in quotes. I was just sticking to the analogy.
EHP is a terrible measurement because it does not account for healing. Mitigation becomes more valuable with healing access, up to the critical point where the incoming damage is reduced below the incoming healing value at which point you can no longer die.
…
You’re just repeating what I already said. And apparently you didn’t get the point.
EHP for those 2 amulets without healing is the same.
Once you heal the ehp with toughness takes the lead.
Unless you take armor ignoring damage, of course.
Yes, direct damage is more common, but that doesn’t change that fact that you will take other sources of damage as well. Saying it’s a non-factor is completely ignorant. And no, you don’t need a mesmer or condi-whatever-build on the other team for that.
Also, again, life force and Shroud completely ignore all of the advantages you get with healing effectiveness because lf regen is always percentage based. Plus, it’s way more easily generated than regular hp, even when you get supported by allies.
Shroud deals with lots of smaller hits better than it does single big ones due to how it will check if it would overflow first.
It is also one of about..3? Sources of condition damage mitigation in the game along with corruptors fervor and adaptive armour.
Its why Vit is the answer to the OPs question.
(edited by Sigmoid.7082)
I prefer toughness because Necromancer has abysmal HP replenishment. Increasing my HP pool does not have the same impact as say an elementalist or warrior or druid who can replenish their health pool so easily.
Base health for necro is so high anyways, I’d rather reduce the incoming burst.
The biggest counter classes to necro are power builds anyways.
I mean, you’ll still get crapped on by thieves and warriors, but at least it will give you more time to stall in case someone can join the fight with you and +1 the opponent or you can make it to the castle gate.
Either way you cut it, necro is an awful roaming class. It has no disengage or HP replenishment, so you just get worn down by classes with disengages and HP replenishment who can reset on you.
Or in the case of warriors they just demolish you through the CC.
Necro is a class to be babysat by the zerg or group. Ironic, really. When that incompetent Chapman was still working for the company and he was the initial necro designer, he claimed that necro would be the last caster to go down in a fight as they were very hard to put down.
In wvw, for roaming/solo play, I find an about even mix of vitality/toughness to be optimal. Most fights start at full life force but your healing is pretty abysmal.
In wvw, for roaming/solo play, I find an about even mix of vitality/toughness to be optimal. Most fights start at full life force but your healing is pretty abysmal.
Not surprising since a mix of both gives you the most ehp but in pvp mixing stats isnt possible.
Yes, direct damage is more common, but that doesn’t change that fact that you will take other sources of damage as well. Saying it’s a non-factor is completely ignorant. And no, you don’t need a mesmer or condi-whatever-build on the other team for that.
Necros can easily handle condi without needing to resort to vit stacking. We have more than enough tools to do so. We don’t have the tools to deal with power damage.
Also, again, life force and Shroud completely ignore all of the advantages you get with healing effectiveness because lf regen is always percentage based. Plus, it’s way more easily generated than regular hp, even when you get supported by allies.
Increasing the mitigation of shroud increases the value of shroud even if the HP value is lower. The EHP gain may not be nearly as much as vit point for point, but the value is there. Meanwhile toughness is extremely valuable to us when we are outside of shroud while vitality is less so.
Moreover for theorycrafting purposes LF can be equated to healing, it’s just healing a buffer rather than direct. If you have more mitigation you don’t need as much LF gain to sustain yourself.
Shroud deals with lots of smaller hits better than it does single big ones due to how it will check if it would overflow first.
The size of hits is irrelevant. Shroud has a fixed EHP value the size of hits does not affect how much damage your shroud will take.
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(edited by Crinn.7864)
Something everyone seems to be missing here: when you are dealing with percentage max HP gains or losses (Life Force pool/decay), Toughness and Vitality are equally effective. Yes the flat number will be lower with more TGH over VIT, but that health will be more effective. You do not get any extra benefit from shroud by having extra flat HP.
Now, as far as op’s Q: It really comes down to Power vs Condi damage and which you struggle with more. Personally I run a heavy Condi xFer/Boon Corrupt build, meaning I’m frequently Condi free or close to. I do this by taking Plague Sending, Plague Signet, Consume Conditions, and Staff for the 4th weapon skill. Intelligent timing of those skills has proven more than enough to keep Condi Damage Taken fairly low for me, but it does take some adjustment.
My recommendation would be take Vitality until you’re comfortable with Condi removal, then swap over to Toughness as over the course of most fights this will net you a higher effective health pool.