Guild Wars 2

Hey folks,

Question:
Based on the passive effect, and ONLY the passive; at what point in healing power would slotting the Signet of the Wild be preferable to slotting the Signet of Stone?

300? less? more?

And before someone says it, let me say it first, “Well that depends on whether you need more vitality or more toughness.” — of course … but the question is in general, so simply assume that you feel you need a little bit of both, but can choose only one.

Thanks

It’ll be a function of the starting toughness of the pet, and how much DPS you’re asking the pet to absorb.

I’ll be assuming L80, btw.

Signet of Stone, grants 180 Toughness.
For Felines, they have base Toughness of 1374, so this means Kitty can absorb 13.1% more DPS than w/o the Signet. (that’s 180/1374). Honey Bear, with 2061 base, absorbs 8.7% more.

Signet of the Wild gives the pet 125+0.25*Healing per second.

The ‘break even’ point is when:
Incoming_DPS * BaseAR / (BaseAR+180) == 125 + 0.25 * Healing

The Incoming DPS above which Signet of Stone would make more sense is:
Incoming_DPS = (125 + 0.25 * Healing) * (BaseAR+180) / BaseAR

For Kitty, with 300 Healing, this is:
(125 + 0.25 * 300) * (1374 + 180) / 1374 == 226.2 Incoming DPS.

Or more simply, for Cats, Signet of Stone is better if he’s taking more than:
141 + 0.28275 * Healing DPS.

Note: in these calculations, DPS is assumed to be a steady amount, when in reality it flucuates a lot. Picking a suitable time horizon to average the damage over is up to you. Absorbing a 2000hp hit in one second matters less if it’s the only hit you take in 30s.

Oh, if you were wanting it for you, not the pet, then the breakeven point is:
Incoming_DPS = (62 + 0.06 * Healing) * (BaseAR+180) / BaseAR
where BaseAR is what the Armor stat in your hero panel says.

If you have under 1400 toughness, go for Signet of Stone. If you have 1500+ toughness, go for Signet of the Wild.

Edit: Echoing what Tierce said; it also depends on what you are up against. Signet of Stone is rather useless against the end boss in Volcanic Fractal, as that fight is pretty much all about preventing condition damage. Therefor Signet of the Wild becomes the preferred option here, even if you have under 1400 toughness.

I don’t know if there is a point where Signet of the Wild trumps Signet of Stone based on healing power, but in my experience, 200-300 healing is plenty for most content, and 400-ish is good for condition-heavy encounters.

I go by type of content to determine which signet to carry. From a PvE perspective, Wild is better in condition heavy but otherwise relatively easy encounters, such as all of CoF, TA’s Nightmare Vines room, the Spider Queen encounter in AC, and legendary imbued shaman in Volcanic Fractal. For everything else, if I could only have one, I would prefer Stone.

From a basic perspective, adding 100 armor to your current armor rating (adding toughness has a 1:1 ratio to armor) reduces incoming damage by about 3.4% (this is basic and doesn’t factor in diminishing returns, but that doesn’t matter much unless you are min/maxing).

As a fraction, that’s 34/1000. Signet of the wilds base heal is 62 health per second (hps) at level 80. With poison, it is only ~43.

This means that if you are looking for a direct damage reduction, Signet of Stone is reducing all incoming damage by ~4%, while signet of the wild is taking incoming DPS and subtracting the heal from it. Meaning that with higher damage amounts, especially with multiple hits that occur within a 1 second timeframe, Signet of Stone is better. However, the lower DPS, the more significant signet of the wild is.

As others mentioned, depends on your toughness more than anything.

In my experience Signet of Stone is almost always better if you’re not a bunker.

rodadams.5963:

Signet of Stone, grants 180 Toughness.
For Felines, they have base Toughness of 1374, so this means Kitty can absorb 13.1% more DPS than w/o the Signet. (that’s 180/1374). Honey Bear, with 2061 base, absorbs 8.7% more.

This assumes that the damage reduction from toughness is a linear function, which it is not.

Waffler.1257:

rodadams.5963:

Signet of Stone, grants 180 Toughness.
For Felines, they have base Toughness of 1374, so this means Kitty can absorb 13.1% more DPS than w/o the Signet. (that’s 180/1374). Honey Bear, with 2061 base, absorbs 8.7% more.

This assumes that the damage reduction from toughness is a linear function, which it is not.

Erm, no, I’m pretty sure that’s how it works, and I didn’t describe a linear function.
I clearly state the %reduction from the +180 toughness varies with the starting toughness.

Signet of the wild no question it scales pretty well with healing power too on pethealing so for a BM it’s already quite strong only on what you have from traits.

jcbroe.4329:

From a basic perspective, adding 100 armor to your current armor rating (adding toughness has a 1:1 ratio to armor) reduces incoming damage by about 3.4% (this is basic and doesn’t factor in diminishing returns, but that doesn’t matter much unless you are min/maxing).

As a fraction, that’s 34/1000. Signet of the wilds base heal is 62 health per second (hps) at level 80. With poison, it is only ~43.

This means that if you are looking for a direct damage reduction, Signet of Stone is reducing all incoming damage by ~4%, while signet of the wild is taking incoming DPS and subtracting the heal from it. Meaning that with higher damage amounts, especially with multiple hits that occur within a 1 second timeframe, Signet of Stone is better. However, the lower DPS, the more significant signet of the wild is.

If you’re taking condition damage signet of stone does nothing while signet of the wild works to mitigate both types of incoming damage though that’s another thing to remember personally the main reason I have it is to keep my pet from melting to conditions since I’m using empathic bond not for the heal it gives me that’s just a bonus.

Veritas.6071:

In order to reduce incoming damage by 50% of what you WERE taking, you have to double your armor.

So:
For Felines, they have base Toughness of 1374, so this means Kitty can absorb 13.1% more DPS than w/o the Signet. (that’s 180/1374). Honey Bear, with 2061 base, absorbs 8.7% more.

Although ^^^ his initial math is correct, he is assuming doubling your armor = 100% reduction.

The real reduction values:

Cat 13.1%/2 = 6.55% of what he WAS taking. So if the cat was taking 1000, he now mitigates an extra ~65.

The bear = 8.7%/2 = 4.35% of what he WAS taking. So if the bear was taking 1000, he now mitigates an extra ~43.

Short answer: Toughness is a diminishing return stat. The more you have, the less effective the next point is. Take Signet of the Wild.

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/60838-math-damage-reduction-toughness-and-vitality/

Actually, my stats were “how much more DPS you can withstand”, not “what is your damage reduction”, which is what you see to be referring to.
Doubling your toughness (100%) would let you take double the damage (100%).

So I was looking to compare how much more DPS you could take w/ the armor boost vs the Healing boost.

However, the point about conditions is very valid. My analysis only considered Direct Damage.

My solution to this problem was to take both, and pump my healing up a bunch. Kitty can face take many Group Event Champions, and can generally out survive any Warrior/Guardian, except against OHKO mechanics, where the human can dodge.
This allows stupid pet tricks like sending Kitty into a Vet, then run behind and Commune with the Skill Pt behind him. When you finsih getting the skill, go loot the Vet’s corpse.

(I also tend to be more durable than Warriors and Guardians, even up in melee).

Ah, yes. I see what you were saying now. My fault.