Guild Wars 2

I’ve heard both sides of this debate from their supports from my guildies and people I talk to in game. Everyone passionately defends their side and makes a legitimate argument, to the point where honestly I’m not sure what to think. This is basically what it boils down to, from what I gathered:

The vitality (anti-toughness) argument
Mainly, condition damage. If you have 13k HP and maxed out armor it’s not going to stop condi damage to kill you within seconds. High vitality makes you more resistant to condi damage.

The toughness (anti-vitality) argument
What use is having 20k vitality when you will take ~3k damage per normal hits and massive burst damage from the larger attacks from bosses and players?

So the smart answer is of course why not have both? Except you really can’t, because if you try to get both you will not have much DPS to speak of. Even a condi build cannot go full toughness vitality condi damage (you can get p/v/condi, t/prec/condi, or p/prec/condi).

So in conclusion it seems that you can have a lot of either toughness or vitality, and some of the other in your trinkets or whatnot, and focus everything else on damage.

Where do people stand on this?

I think you should aim to have around 14-15k HP and always spec into shadow arts unless you are going for burst. If you are going for burst you don’t need vit or tough.

In WvW I run zerker jewlery, valk armor, and 30SA for my toughness boost.

Swinsk basically nailed it. You need enough HP to survive conditions long enough for you to either purge them or kill your target. Aside from that, when combined with heals, toughness way outperforms vitality for sustainability.

30SA
All valk armor with zerk everything else
runes of the wurm, thats me right there

I’m going 4 soldier gear, 2 knights gear, all slotted with beryl orb. The trinkets is where the fun is at. Wearing no triknets I got:
2437 attk
24% crit
56% crit damage
16,885 vitality
2232 armor

Based on those stats, anyone know if I’ll be ok if I go balls to the wall with zerker trinkets? I really wanna up my attk crit% and crit damage, I wanna get my attk as close to 3k as possible, my crit% as close to 40% as possible and crit damage as close to 95% as possible. Ideas?

Silver.4798:

The vitality (anti-toughness) argument
Mainly, condition damage. If you have 13k HP and maxed out armor it’s not going to stop condi damage to kill you within seconds. High vitality makes you more resistant to condi damage.

The toughness (anti-vitality) argument
What use is having 20k vitality when you will take ~3k damage per normal hits and massive burst damage from the larger attacks from bosses and players?

Where do people stand on this?

I actually value both of these arguments since they are true. However, vitality does nothing special other than giving us more health pool which is inferior to what SA have to offer — toughness + healing power.

Just by spec-ing SA alone, you can have enough “effective” health due to the increase in healing power. Also damaging condition is trivial since we can easily handle those, on the other hand, a large health pool will not be enough to absorb a big damage.

Acrobatics gives both vitality + endurance but those are active defenses that you have to be manually perform.

With that in mind, the choice becomes more clearer.

Are you a passive player or an active player?

Passive players prefers SA because with toughness, it’s one aspect that they don’t have to worry about and they can focus on what’s more important — that is taking down your target.

Active players prefers Acro because they have the dexterity to evade/dodge anything you can throw at them and with a big health pool, they can laugh at the condition damage.

I personally falls on neither camp since I don’t even allocate a single point in those traits. But when it comes to armor and weapon, I am in favor of toughness over vitality.

In a nut shell, it depends on the healing output of your spec. For example, my Thief is a S/P Venomous Aura build that runs x2 Runes of Blood & Omnomberry Pie for healing on crits. Then I also have constant heals through my Leeching Venom trait. Based on this, I favor Toughness since my healing output makes it more attractive. The flaws of the build focus around my need for multiple forms of condition removal, which prompted my use of Lyssa runes and a condition removal proc on my ranged / underwater weapons. I basically run Knight gear or the Ascended version of that gear which favors Precision as the primary stat.

Your average Thief is going to want Vitality. On my own character, I took 10 pts in Critical Strikes for the minor trait to gain 5% of my Precision as Health. This took my 11k Health to 12k Health. Unless your build is specifically designed to deal with 11k Health, you really need to stack up on Vitality as a means of survival.

The two compliment each well. The more health you have, the more effective toughness can be and vice versa. Generally though, for long fights toughness is more effective and if you plan on bursting people down vitality is more effective.

I think it depends more on play style with no clear answer. I would opt for a mix of the two in general though, although i would sacrifice say more vitality for toughness rather than more power. I use soldier for head, coat and legs with beserker for everything else and either ruby or scholar runes. I feel this gives me a nice balance, although i think our trait selection is different.

From a PvE perspective, I prefer vitality solely because high toughness attracts more attention from mobs. If it weren’t for the aggro thing I would probably go with a balanced mix of each, because toughness is better at making you last longer, but I don’t feel comfortable with base HP since even with toughness there are attacks that will one shot you without a good health pool.

There are basically two defensive numbers. The first is how much damage you can take in a short period of time without dying, and the second is how fast you can recover from non-lethal damage.

The first is your burst resistance, your effective health. This is how big a burst you can take before dying; it’s also the amount of time you have to react and escape or defend yourself. This is what Vitality is good for; the more Vitality you have, the larger your health pool, and the more time you have to react or take hits before you need to worry about escaping.

The second is your sustain, or health per second. It determines how well you can stay in fights, or how quickly you can re-engage after disengaging. This is what healing power is good for; it does not help you survive bursts, but it helps you recover from them to keep going.

In the short run, vitality dominates; in the long run, healing does. Toughness is essentially a hybrid of the two – it increases your effective health by reducing incoming damage, and increases your effective healing for the same reason.

As a general rule, you want to have enough vitality to survive and react to an incoming burst of damage; after that, toughness and healing power are preferable. For a thief, toughness is generally preferable to healing power because thieves themselves scale very poorly with healing power, while toughness amplifies healing from other sources as well.

You have to figure out for yourself how much health you’ll need to be able to take and escape bursts. After that, if you want to be more durable, toughness is your friend.

Vargs.6234:

From a PvE perspective, I prefer vitality solely because high toughness attracts more attention from mobs.

Ah, good point. I completely forgot about that.

I generally like to have at least 14k health as a Thief.

This often means something like Zerker gear, Zerker trinkets + Beryl Jewels and Practiced Tolerance trait with nothing in Acro. Allows 14k health with heavy burst builds (25/30/0/0/15 or 30/30/0/0/10) 15k is possible with the Zerker/Valk ascended gear.

Ideally something like that 14k health with 30 SA is helpful, the extra 300 Toughness and Healing power become more effective with additional health (In terms of the Effective health you have at full health) so 14k health becomes about 18k effective health (Versus direct damage) with a decent buffer against condition damage.

At the same time, if going into Acrobatics, picking up some Toughness gear will help increase the effective health gained by those points.

Gearing fully for one stat is less efficient than using the opposite gear to what you’ve traited (Toughness if traited in Vitality, Vitality if traited in Toughness)

Then of course there’s the issue of Condition Cleansing and Aggro in dungeons to bring into account (If you have limited condition removal, getting more Vitality can be beneficial. Also if doing dungeons getting more Vitality over Toughness can be beneficial to staying alive)

Silver.4798:

I’m going 4 soldier gear, 2 knights gear, all slotted with beryl orb. The trinkets is where the fun is at. Wearing no triknets I got:
2437 attk
24% crit
56% crit damage
16,885 vitality
2232 armor

Based on those stats, anyone know if I’ll be ok if I go balls to the wall with zerker trinkets? I really wanna up my attk crit% and crit damage, I wanna get my attk as close to 3k as possible, my crit% as close to 40% as possible and crit damage as close to 95% as possible. Ideas?

I think we’ll need some more information to be able to give you a good answer. Are you focusing on PvE, WvW, or PvP? What is your build specs like? Do you have any pts into Acrobatics or Shadow Arts? What is weapon set do you use? How good are you at dodging?

As to toughness vs vit, get enough toughness so that you aren’t getting one shotted all the time (this will depend on your knowledge of the encounters, positioning, and dodging) and enough vit to allow you to clear conditions before they become a problem (this will depend on your build specs/equipment).

So these numbers will be different for every player, and that’s one of the reasons for the debate. What works for me and my build, probably won’t be as effective for you and your build. FWIW, I typically run more Berserker stat items and rubies than you are considering and do fine.

The only toughness + vitality boosts I have are in my main armor stats (Power/Toughness/Vitality) and +100 Toughness from SA and +200 Vitality from Acr, totaling 1240 Toughness and 1430 Vitality (including Practised Tolerance there). 2304 Armor and 17061 HP. Everything else is damage and damage only. It’s my sweet spot for PvE.

I’d just go for Toughness tbh really. When you’re going to compare both, Toughness does more for you in the long run since every hp you regain is harder and takes longer to outdamage it off of you.

If I were you though, I’d say neither. Since you’re a Thief, you’re really good at disengaging and engaging by nature, as well as avoiding damage. I’d go for full glass unless you’re cond, which is when you DO need the sustain, but imho I think cond for Thieves sucks anyways. But that’s just me. I just basically go full zerker, without ANY defensive stats except from trait points. 20 SA and 20 Acro should be enough to pretty much avoid the majority of the damage long enough for you to kill at least 1 enemy whilst still being glass and dishing out extreme damage. But eh that’s just my playstyle.

Ensign.2189:

As a general rule, you want to have enough vitality to survive and react to an incoming burst of damage; after that, toughness and healing power are preferable. For a thief, toughness is generally preferable to healing power because thieves themselves scale very poorly with healing power, while toughness amplifies healing from other sources as well.

Wouldn’t it be the other way around that toughness should be enough to survive a burst?

My healing skill cannot heal that much, thus it is important to mitigate the damage thru toughness so it will be easy from me to top my HP off.

Healing a large max HP often stumbles from the long healing CD. :/

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Ensign.2189:

As a general rule, you want to have enough vitality to survive and react to an incoming burst of damage; after that, toughness and healing power are preferable. For a thief, toughness is generally preferable to healing power because thieves themselves scale very poorly with healing power, while toughness amplifies healing from other sources as well.

Wouldn’t it be the other way around that toughness should be enough to survive a burst?

My healing skill cannot heal that much, thus it is important to mitigate the damage thru toughness so it will be easy from me to top my HP off.

Healing a large max HP often stumbles from the long healing CD. :/

Vitality offers more bang for your buck if you take relatively little damage. Taking burst damage offers a lot of front end damage, but compared to a fight that may last for several minutes, the damage you take is relatively small.

Lets say you can choose between 20% damage reduction through toughness or 5k hp through vitality, you need to take over 25k damage before toughness reduces the damage you take by 5k or more.

I feel toughness makes each hit point more valuable. Since there is no “Holy Trinity” in this game with dedicated healers to bring you back to full HP’s each one of those hit points are even more important.

tl:dr T>V but dont ignore V entirely.

Instead of debating it why not test it? Go to the heart of mist with another spreadsheet player and engage in combat. I’ve spent hours and hours with a fellow thief to see what load outs can take openings and what is fail.

Does not really matter what others think if you put in the time to test.

Alex.6940:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Ensign.2189:

As a general rule, you want to have enough vitality to survive and react to an incoming burst of damage; after that, toughness and healing power are preferable. For a thief, toughness is generally preferable to healing power because thieves themselves scale very poorly with healing power, while toughness amplifies healing from other sources as well.

Wouldn’t it be the other way around that toughness should be enough to survive a burst?

My healing skill cannot heal that much, thus it is important to mitigate the damage thru toughness so it will be easy from me to top my HP off.

Healing a large max HP often stumbles from the long healing CD. :/

Vitality offers more bang for your buck if you take relatively little damage. Taking burst damage offers a lot of front end damage, but compared to a fight that may last for several minutes, the damage you take is relatively small.

Lets say you can choose between 20% damage reduction through toughness or 5k hp through vitality, you need to take over 25k damage before toughness reduces the damage you take by 5k or more.

Your math is wrong.

19k incoming damage only deals 10 damage against 1980 armor (base level 80 Theif armor).
Link: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Damage

Toughness outperforms vitality overall. There isn’t really all that much debate here. Toughness also effectively increases your healing. As far as condition damage goes if you are good a cleansing then toughness is still the way to go.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Alex.6940:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Ensign.2189:

As a general rule, you want to have enough vitality to survive and react to an incoming burst of damage; after that, toughness and healing power are preferable. For a thief, toughness is generally preferable to healing power because thieves themselves scale very poorly with healing power, while toughness amplifies healing from other sources as well.

Wouldn’t it be the other way around that toughness should be enough to survive a burst?

My healing skill cannot heal that much, thus it is important to mitigate the damage thru toughness so it will be easy from me to top my HP off.

Healing a large max HP often stumbles from the long healing CD. :/

Vitality offers more bang for your buck if you take relatively little damage. Taking burst damage offers a lot of front end damage, but compared to a fight that may last for several minutes, the damage you take is relatively small.

Lets say you can choose between 20% damage reduction through toughness or 5k hp through vitality, you need to take over 25k damage before toughness reduces the damage you take by 5k or more.

Your math is wrong.

19k incoming damage only deals 10 damage against 1980 armor (base level 80 Theif armor).
Link: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Damage

I’m not entirely sure what you mean, but i assume you mean base damage/armor rating = damage done? When i say 20% damage reduction i simply mean 20% reduction relative to the damage you’d take without the additional toughness.

TheGuy.3568:

Toughness outperforms vitality overall. There isn’t really all that much debate here. Toughness also effectively increases your healing. As far as condition damage goes if you are good a cleansing then toughness is still the way to go.

Not necessarily. I used this example in other thread but lets assume you have 2000 armor and 10k hp for the sake of simplicity. You can choose between 500 toughness for a 20% reduction in damage or 500 vitality for 5k more hp.

If you take vitality you get hit by an attack dealing 13k damage. You have 15k hp however so you survive. If you take toughness you take (13k*2000)/2500 = 10400 damage. As you only have 10k hp you die. Taking vitality here would mean you survive with 2k hp to spare.

The higher your armor rating, the less useful toughness becomes relative to vitality as well.

In my oppinin 15000 hp is enough for an balanced build
However i feel like i need over 2600 armor
At the moment i use an very defensive build -17000 hp /2700 armor / 400 healing power, since i run a lot in zerg vs zerg.
At 2700 armor/17000 hp i can run in line with warriors and guardians betwen 60-70 enemy’s. However with this investment in defence my burst is mediocre.
Also an personal opinion is thoug > Vit , specialy if you got sword main hand or remove condition in stealth

stone cold.8609:

I think we’ll need some more information to be able to give you a good answer. Are you focusing on PvE, WvW, or PvP? What is your build specs like? Do you have any pts into Acrobatics or Shadow Arts? What is weapon set do you use? How good are you at dodging?

So originally I specced the “standard” 10/30/30/0/0 (I’m calling this standard because a lot of burst thieves that I speak to has some variation of this). I run S/D and shortbow, and mostly I do dungeons although sometimes I indulge in wvw. The one thing about this build that really irritates me is my lack of dodging. I got built in dodge in FS and I could disengage with the SS from IS, that helps a lot. But I’m still missing my dodges…

While running S/D I found that I rarely have any need to steal (IS/SS are excellent gap closers, among other things), and the only time I really stealth is when I’m in trouble (my autoattack does more damage than tactical strike, dazing bosses in dungeons really doesn’t help me much). So right now I’m playing around with the traits to find my “comfort zone” and inc efficiency for my play style.

So I got rid of mug entirely (my attack went down by 100 points, that’s not too bad) and took 10 off of SA so my current trait allocation is 0/30/20/20/0. The problem HERE is that I’m missing the heal on stealth, but outside of that I’m enjoying my might on dodge, swiftness on dodge, and my quick recovery which sometimes I slot out for assasin’s reward if needed.

Current gear, 4 soldier slotted with beryl, 2 knights (gloves and leggings) slotted with beryl, zerker sword, dagger, shortbow (and I stock a zerker pistol and dagger just in case in my inventory). No decisions made on trinkets as of yet, I was waiting to hear back from you guys before making that call

Alex.6940:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Alex.6940:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Ensign.2189:

As a general rule, you want to have enough vitality to survive and react to an incoming burst of damage; after that, toughness and healing power are preferable. For a thief, toughness is generally preferable to healing power because thieves themselves scale very poorly with healing power, while toughness amplifies healing from other sources as well.

Wouldn’t it be the other way around that toughness should be enough to survive a burst?

My healing skill cannot heal that much, thus it is important to mitigate the damage thru toughness so it will be easy from me to top my HP off.

Healing a large max HP often stumbles from the long healing CD. :/

Vitality offers more bang for your buck if you take relatively little damage. Taking burst damage offers a lot of front end damage, but compared to a fight that may last for several minutes, the damage you take is relatively small.

Lets say you can choose between 20% damage reduction through toughness or 5k hp through vitality, you need to take over 25k damage before toughness reduces the damage you take by 5k or more.

Your math is wrong.

19k incoming damage only deals 10 damage against 1980 armor (base level 80 Theif armor).
Link: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Damage

I’m not entirely sure what you mean, but i assume you mean base damage/armor rating = damage done? When i say 20% damage reduction i simply mean 20% reduction relative to the damage you’d take without the additional toughness.

The point is. If my armor reduces a 25K damage by 20%, it is even better against damage lower than 25k. You got it backwards. The lower the damage, the better my armor.

If my armor can prevent 5K of 25K (20%), then I can prevent 5K(100%) damage against 5K damage.

This is the reason why we are scaled down when we side kick.

If you look at the link I posted, the damage is directly divided by your armor. It’s not by percentage like you think it is.

If you go for full bursts then honestly the best way is to go all Valkyrie armor and cavalier’s trinkets. Hidden Killer will get you your crits. You can also mix your trinkets with berserker’s as well if you choose to opt in the Shadow Arts trait line.

Best of both worlds baby.

Rafahil.2857:

If you go for full bursts then honestly the best way is to go all Valkyrie armor and cavalier’s trinkets. Hidden Killer will get you your crits. You can also mix your trinkets with berserker’s as well if you choose to opt in the Shadow Arts trait line.

Best of both worlds baby.

Full bursts would be 100% Zerker.

Personally, I’ve found that 6 valk armour pieces with divinity runes and all zerk trinkets with x/30/30/x/x works perfectly fine. You have a decent amount of toughness, 16k HP, and 100% crit dmg unbuffed.

For anyone looking to experiment, this calculator is perfect for PvE: http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/

Vitality: good against burst.

Toughness: good if your vitality is already inherently high. (From PVT armor or, say, if you’re a warrior or necro)

That’s that.

Thanks for the link to buildcraft Incurafy!

I’m not entirely sure how accurate this is, and I don’t have all the equiptment I listed here (particularly not the trinkets) but if this is accurate my build looks like this:

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/thief/?7.0|c.1g.h17.8.1g.h1|5.1g.h1|1c.a1.1c.a1.1c.a1.1p.a1.1p.a1.1c.a1|4s.d1e.1n.67.1n.67.1n.67.1n.67.1i.67|0.u36b.k46.k29.0|0.0|57.5b.5h.5c.5v|e

SO! Looks like just about 15000 vitality, and 2600 armor. At least it sounds consistant based on what I hear you guys said in this thread, I tried to add in everyone’s input with my own little flair!

I am not sure where the hell 57% crit is coming from, I have most of the equipment minus the trinkets and I am currently at 27%… if that is the case I actually can scale back on the zerker jewels and stick in some valkyrie or knight’s jewels instead!

What do you guys think, sexy build? Can be sexier? Meh?

Silver.4798:

I am not sure where the hell 57% crit is coming from, I have most of the equipment minus the trinkets and I am currently at 27%… if that is the case I actually can scale back on the zerker jewels and stick in some valkyrie or knight’s jewels instead!

The build calculator adds the 7% chance from Side Strike trait and the 5% chance from the Keen Observer trait to the total % crit chance.

Meaning if you’re constantly flanking the target and above 90% health then you’ll have the additional 13% chance it shows, if not then you’ll lose out on it (Have to weigh potential crit chance vs what you’re most likely to attain when selecting an amount of precision)

As far as the actual build goes, it look alright. Nice damage should be done (Decent crit chance + Crit damage) with some good defence (2600 Armour and 16.7k health) with some consumables you should be able to be very strong.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Alex.6940:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Alex.6940:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Ensign.2189:

As a general rule, you want to have enough vitality to survive and react to an incoming burst of damage; after that, toughness and healing power are preferable. For a thief, toughness is generally preferable to healing power because thieves themselves scale very poorly with healing power, while toughness amplifies healing from other sources as well.

Wouldn’t it be the other way around that toughness should be enough to survive a burst?

My healing skill cannot heal that much, thus it is important to mitigate the damage thru toughness so it will be easy from me to top my HP off.

Healing a large max HP often stumbles from the long healing CD. :/

Vitality offers more bang for your buck if you take relatively little damage. Taking burst damage offers a lot of front end damage, but compared to a fight that may last for several minutes, the damage you take is relatively small.

Lets say you can choose between 20% damage reduction through toughness or 5k hp through vitality, you need to take over 25k damage before toughness reduces the damage you take by 5k or more.

Your math is wrong.

19k incoming damage only deals 10 damage against 1980 armor (base level 80 Theif armor).
Link: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Damage

I’m not entirely sure what you mean, but i assume you mean base damage/armor rating = damage done? When i say 20% damage reduction i simply mean 20% reduction relative to the damage you’d take without the additional toughness.

The point is. If my armor reduces a 25K damage by 20%, it is even better against damage lower than 25k. You got it backwards. The lower the damage, the better my armor.

If my armor can prevent 5K of 25K (20%), then I can prevent 5K(100%) damage against 5K damage.

This is the reason why we are scaled down when we side kick.

If you look at the link I posted, the damage is directly divided by your armor. It’s not by percentage like you think it is.

I still don’t think you understand what i’m trying to say.

Let me use an example. So Damage done = (weapon damage) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) / (target’s Armor).

I’ll just refer to (weapon damage) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) as ‘base damage’. So, if we rearrange, base damage = damage done * target’s armour.

If you have 2k armour and you take 13k damage then the base damage is 13000*2000 = 26000000. Now lets assume you get hit again by the same guy with the same base damage but you have 2500 armour. As damage done = base damage/ armour, you take 26000000/2500 = 10400 damage.

Therefore 10400/13000 * 100 = 80%. So having 2500 toughness means you take 20% less damage compared to having 2000 toughness. i.e. you see a 20% reduction in damage with the extra toughness compared to not having the extra toughness.

So if you take 5k damage when you have 2000 armor, you would have taken only 4k with 2500 toughness, saving you 1k hp. If you take 25k damage with 2000 armor, you would only have taken 20k damage with 2500 toughness, saving you 5k hp.

Alex.6940:

TheGuy.3568:

Toughness outperforms vitality overall. There isn’t really all that much debate here. Toughness also effectively increases your healing. As far as condition damage goes if you are good a cleansing then toughness is still the way to go.

Not necessarily. I used this example in other thread but lets assume you have 2000 armor and 10k hp for the sake of simplicity. You can choose between 500 toughness for a 20% reduction in damage or 500 vitality for 5k more hp.

If you take vitality you get hit by an attack dealing 13k damage. You have 15k hp however so you survive. If you take toughness you take (13k*2000)/2500 = 10400 damage. As you only have 10k hp you die. Taking vitality here would mean you survive with 2k hp to spare.

The higher your armor rating, the less useful toughness becomes relative to vitality as well.

Sigh, you really have to read what other people right. Did I say toughness is absolutely better than vitality?

Its true as your armor scales up the effectiveness drops per point up until the 2700-3000 where it starts to horizontal. However, if some one ask you which stat is better (like the op asked) the answer is toughness. The fact is toughness no matter your hp mitigates the same amount. HP really requires replenishing to continue to mitigate damage. Now there is no reason for a player to go pure toughness or vitality but there is also no real reason to carry either depending on your build. The one thing we do know is that the best mitigation in the game is simply avoiding damage (something thief is good at).

Now before we argue over which stat you should use remember the OP ask which is better and its not like this is the first time this question has been asked. So in the long run we can have these responding post about who’s right and who’s wrong but who really gives a kitten? This has been asked time and time again fact is toughness scales better to a point and past that point you would be better off defensively with more vitality.

That being said when it comes to healing and raw mitigation toughness simply does a better job of defending you.

Please remember no matter how much you get hit and what the value of the hit is toughness reduces the damage as a coefficient. HP is a raw number that tells you how much damage you can take. Every time you take a hit vitality’s effectiveness as a defensive stat drops. Unless you can continually fill the pool vitality is the lesser of the 2 but is not to be ignored.

Get it? Toughness helps you keep water in the pool after a splash, healing power helps fill up the pool back up, and vitality increases the size of the pool.

As far as condition damage goes fact is it is better to avoid and cleanse it than to assume having High HP will mitigate it. Look at the warrior forums to understand as I don’t feel like writing another paragraph on it.

To the OP you will need both if you plan to play defensively where you soak damage (not a good idea on a thief), but either way toughness does perform better when you add in all factors. If we are talking about optimizing number 15-16k hp and 2700 armor would be about as high as I would go with a defensive build. Remember every point you place defensively is a point you didn’t place offensively. It is all about balance.

My stats sit on 16k hp and 2.5k armor with full-out glass cannon traits.
Quite tanky and still gib people.

TheGuy.3568:

Sigh, you really have to read what other people right. Did I say toughness is absolutely better than vitality?

Its true as your armor scales up the effectiveness drops per point up until the 2700-3000 where it starts to horizontal. However, if some one ask you which stat is better (like the op asked) the answer is toughness. The fact is toughness no matter your hp mitigates the same amount. HP really requires replenishing to continue to mitigate damage. Now there is no reason for a player to go pure toughness or vitality but there is also no real reason to carry either depending on your build. The one thing we do know is that the best mitigation in the game is simply avoiding damage (something thief is good at).

Now before we argue over which stat you should use remember the OP ask which is better and its not like this is the first time this question has been asked. So in the long run we can have these responding post about who’s right and who’s wrong but who really gives a kitten? This has been asked time and time again fact is toughness scales better to a point and past that point you would be better off defensively with more vitality.

That being said when it comes to healing and raw mitigation toughness simply does a better job of defending you.

Please remember no matter how much you get hit and what the value of the hit is toughness reduces the damage as a coefficient. HP is a raw number that tells you how much damage you can take. Every time you take a hit HP’s effectiveness as a defensive stat drops. Unless you can continually fill the pool hp is the lesser of the 2.

As far as condition damage goes fact is it is better to avoid and cleanse it than to assume having High HP will mitigate it. Look at the warrior forums to understand as I don’t feel like writing another paragraph on it.

To the OP you will need both if you plan to play defensively where you soak damage (not a good idea on a thief), but either way toughness does perform better when you add in all factors. If we are talking about optimizing number 15-16k hp and 2700 armor would be about as high as i would go with a defensive build. Remember every point you place defensively is a point you didn’t place offensively. It is all about balance.

You said ‘Toughness outperforms vitality overall. There isn’t really all that much debate here’, which sounds like you’re saying toughness>vitality all the time, which isn’t true and is misleading imo. There are situations where more toughness will mean you can survive a fight and there are situations where more vitality will mean you can survive a fight.

There isn’t a simple answer here and people should be aware of how both these attributes work to make an informed decision about which to choose.

Silver.4798:

Thanks for the link to buildcraft Incurafy!

I’m not entirely sure how accurate this is, and I don’t have all the equiptment I listed here (particularly not the trinkets) but if this is accurate my build looks like this:

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/thief/?7.0|c.1g.h17.8.1g.h1|5.1g.h1|1c.a1.1c.a1.1c.a1.1p.a1.1p.a1.1c.a1|4s.d1e.1n.67.1n.67.1n.67.1n.67.1i.67|0.u36b.k46.k29.0|0.0|57.5b.5h.5c.5v|e

SO! Looks like just about 15000 vitality, and 2600 armor. At least it sounds consistant based on what I hear you guys said in this thread, I tried to add in everyone’s input with my own little flair!

I am not sure where the hell 57% crit is coming from, I have most of the equipment minus the trinkets and I am currently at 27%… if that is the case I actually can scale back on the zerker jewels and stick in some valkyrie or knight’s jewels instead!

What do you guys think, sexy build? Can be sexier? Meh?

can be
your build is : 0/30/20/20/0 -
change it to 0/30/25/15 ,and you get 8 stacks of might in shadow refuge, that’s 270 extra attack? 8 % ?
Also chance shortbow sigil to killstack (perception or bloodlust)

Silver.4798:

stone cold.8609:

I think we’ll need some more information to be able to give you a good answer. Are you focusing on PvE, WvW, or PvP? What is your build specs like? Do you have any pts into Acrobatics or Shadow Arts? What is weapon set do you use? How good are you at dodging?

So originally I specced the “standard” 10/30/30/0/0 (I’m calling this standard because a lot of burst thieves that I speak to has some variation of this). I run S/D and shortbow, and mostly I do dungeons although sometimes I indulge in wvw. The one thing about this build that really irritates me is my lack of dodging. I got built in dodge in FS and I could disengage with the SS from IS, that helps a lot. But I’m still missing my dodges…

While running S/D I found that I rarely have any need to steal (IS/SS are excellent gap closers, among other things), and the only time I really stealth is when I’m in trouble (my autoattack does more damage than tactical strike, dazing bosses in dungeons really doesn’t help me much). So right now I’m playing around with the traits to find my “comfort zone” and inc efficiency for my play style.

So I got rid of mug entirely (my attack went down by 100 points, that’s not too bad) and took 10 off of SA so my current trait allocation is 0/30/20/20/0. The problem HERE is that I’m missing the heal on stealth, but outside of that I’m enjoying my might on dodge, swiftness on dodge, and my quick recovery which sometimes I slot out for assasin’s reward if needed.

Current gear, 4 soldier slotted with beryl, 2 knights (gloves and leggings) slotted with beryl, zerker sword, dagger, shortbow (and I stock a zerker pistol and dagger just in case in my inventory). No decisions made on trinkets as of yet, I was waiting to hear back from you guys before making that call

Thanks for providing the additional information – very helpful! I was also going to suggest using the GW2buildcraft calculator as this will give you numbers that are close to what will be seen in PvE in my experience.

You are running a build that I leveled my thief up to 80 on and dungeoned on, so I know it well – 0/30/20/20/0 with SD/SB. It’s a good solid balance between damage and survivability spec. Are you rotating between dagger skill 5 and sword skill 1 to chain stealth and daze (This was my go to attack combo for this set)? Since the reveal nerf, this timing of this has been messed up making it much less fluid than before.

As was suggested, you could also go with a 0/30/25/15/0 if you wanted to trade some initiative regen for might on stealth. I also ran this spec for a while also and found it to be equally effective, as the typical SD spec doesn’t require much initiative to run. You give up some SB cluster bomb spam ablility for near permanent 2-4 stacks of might while attacking with SD (provided you are rotating skills 1 and 5 often).

To answer your original question, I think you will be fine going all Berserker for your trinkets/jewelry. You have a good base of survivablity in your current gear, so getting some more bite in your attacks using Berserker trinkets makes sense.

Silver.4798:

Thanks for the link to buildcraft Incurafy!

I’m not entirely sure how accurate this is, and I don’t have all the equiptment I listed here (particularly not the trinkets) but if this is accurate my build looks like this:

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/thief/?7.0|c.1g.h17.8.1g.h1|5.1g.h1|1c.a1.1c.a1.1c.a1.1p.a1.1p.a1.1c.a1|4s.d1e.1n.67.1n.67.1n.67.1n.67.1i.67|0.u36b.k46.k29.0|0.0|57.5b.5h.5c.5v|e

SO! Looks like just about 15000 vitality, and 2600 armor. At least it sounds consistant based on what I hear you guys said in this thread, I tried to add in everyone’s input with my own little flair!

I am not sure where the hell 57% crit is coming from, I have most of the equipment minus the trinkets and I am currently at 27%… if that is the case I actually can scale back on the zerker jewels and stick in some valkyrie or knight’s jewels instead!

What do you guys think, sexy build? Can be sexier? Meh?

Your build looks very solid. It seems balanced a little on the tanky/sturdy (for a Thief) side of things, which is not a bad place to start. There are always places where people might have personal preferences for other things, but I don’t see any major problems given what you want to do with the build.

Orbs/jewels are relatively inexpensive and easy to switch, so just try it both ways for yourself to see what works best for you.

Thanks for the input guys! I went ahead and got the trinkets, loving my thief right now!

My personal opinion on this debate is this. Lets suppose that vitality IS the better stat over toughness, even if that is the case our class isn’t built to exploit this in my opinion. Here’s why:

The thief is one of three classes with the lowest base HP pool to begin with (guards and I think ele’s are the other 2, not sure about ele). Since every point you spend in vitality is +10 to your health pool, this means that even if we go balls to the wall speccing vitality, the thief will still be inferior in HP in comparison to classes like warriors and necros since they start off with higher base HP. The most vitality I personally was able to achieve was close to 19k with the thief and I sincerely doubt we can pump the thief’s HP higher than the 20k ballpark, if we are willing to sacrifice all sorts of DPS and crit.

Contrast: warriors and necros, they only need to allocate a few of their resources to vitality and they are sitting at 23k vitality with ease, with plenty of pts left over to invest somewhere else.

In addition, I’m not quite sure if this was designed or by accident but our healing doesn’t scale well at all, + we don’t have a constant source of heal outside of stealth (and I feel that the heal on stealth is also terribly slow). We can’t burst heal like guards and eles can, for example. So even if we have a large health pool, the means of regenerating said health is sub-optimal.

Toughness on the other hand is do-able. We don’t wear heavy armor so it’s not up to par with warriors or guards, but its not light armor either. Also, thieves are very good at avoiding getting hit, especially if you have some acro points invested, provided you have the necessary skill to dodge everything (and I’ll admit outright that I’m nowhere near skilled enough yet to be able to dodge everything).

In short, I think that good mobility + good dodging + some damage mitigation is probably the most optimal defense (and I use S/D so I have a bit more condi cleansing than most other thieves). These are things we can invest in and not lose too much dps.. Ergo, im in camp toughness.

Alex.6940:

TheGuy.3568:

Sigh, you really have to read what other people right. Did I say toughness is absolutely better than vitality?

Its true as your armor scales up the effectiveness drops per point up until the 2700-3000 where it starts to horizontal. However, if some one ask you which stat is better (like the op asked) the answer is toughness. The fact is toughness no matter your hp mitigates the same amount. HP really requires replenishing to continue to mitigate damage. Now there is no reason for a player to go pure toughness or vitality but there is also no real reason to carry either depending on your build. The one thing we do know is that the best mitigation in the game is simply avoiding damage (something thief is good at).

Now before we argue over which stat you should use remember the OP ask which is better and its not like this is the first time this question has been asked. So in the long run we can have these responding post about who’s right and who’s wrong but who really gives a kitten? This has been asked time and time again fact is toughness scales better to a point and past that point you would be better off defensively with more vitality.

That being said when it comes to healing and raw mitigation toughness simply does a better job of defending you.

Please remember no matter how much you get hit and what the value of the hit is toughness reduces the damage as a coefficient. HP is a raw number that tells you how much damage you can take. Every time you take a hit HP’s effectiveness as a defensive stat drops. Unless you can continually fill the pool hp is the lesser of the 2.

As far as condition damage goes fact is it is better to avoid and cleanse it than to assume having High HP will mitigate it. Look at the warrior forums to understand as I don’t feel like writing another paragraph on it.

To the OP you will need both if you plan to play defensively where you soak damage (not a good idea on a thief), but either way toughness does perform better when you add in all factors. If we are talking about optimizing number 15-16k hp and 2700 armor would be about as high as i would go with a defensive build. Remember every point you place defensively is a point you didn’t place offensively. It is all about balance.

You said ‘Toughness outperforms vitality overall. There isn’t really all that much debate here’, which sounds like you’re saying toughness>vitality all the time, which isn’t true and is misleading imo. There are situations where more toughness will mean you can survive a fight and there are situations where more vitality will mean you can survive a fight.

There isn’t a simple answer here and people should be aware of how both these attributes work to make an informed decision about which to choose.

Its not my kittening problem if you have issues with the English language.

“o·ver·all (vr-ôl)
adj.
1. From one end to the other: the overall length of the house.
2. Including everything; comprehensive: the overall costs of medical care.
3. Regarded as a whole; general: My overall impression was favorable.
adv.
(vr-ôl) On the whole; generally: enjoyed the performance overall.”

I used it as an adverb. Learn English.

Also stop using opinion to counter facts. Plenty of players have put in huge amounts of time and effort to calculate the figures for us all. Players like you who want to argue fact with opinion need to stop. Toughness outperforms vitality as a defensive stat. You want to go into hypothetical scenarios and other bullkitten where it assure that vitality is the better stat that’s fine. If you play the kittening game it leans toward toughness but you still need vitality or neither if you are good at dodging.

Its not so much debate and discussion and kittening math.

Let me simplify it since it seems you are hell bent on debate.

Which stat is better Toughness or Vitality?

Toughness, it is better a mitigating damage overall.

Can you stack only toughness for a defensive spec?

No, you need vitality also.

Do you have to have vitality and toughness in a build?

No.

So what is the best defensive stat?

Vigor.

Next time take your time reading what I write carefully before you respond.

TheGuy.3568:

Its not my kittening problem if you have issues with the English language.

“o·ver·all (vr-ôl)
adj.
1. From one end to the other: the overall length of the house.
2. Including everything; comprehensive: the overall costs of medical care.
3. Regarded as a whole; general: My overall impression was favorable.
adv.
(vr-ôl) On the whole; generally: enjoyed the performance overall.”

I used it as an adverb. Learn English.

Also stop using opinion to counter facts. Plenty of players have put in huge amounts of time and effort to calculate the figures for us all. Players like you who want to argue fact with opinion need to stop. Toughness outperforms vitality as a defensive stat. You want to go into hypothetical scenarios and other bullkitten where it assure that vitality is the better stat that’s fine. If you play the kittening game it leans toward toughness but you still need vitality or neither if you are good at dodging.

Its not so much debate and discussion and kittening math.

Let me simplify it since it seems you are hell bent on debate.

Which stat is better Toughness or Vitality?

Toughness, it is better a mitigating damage overall.

Can you stack only toughness for a defensive spec?

No, you need vitality also.

Do you have to have vitality and toughness in a build?

No.

So what is the best defensive stat?

Vigor.

Next time take your time reading what I write carefully before you respond.

Are you being obtuse on purpose or are you simply missing the point? I’m not sure why you’re getting so upset over this but the patronizing tone isn’t helping nor does it make you correct.

There are situations where vitality is superior to toughness and situations where toughness is superior to vitality. I’m not saying that vitality or toughness is better; i’m simply trying to say that the most effective attribute is determined by the circumstances.

But if you remain intent on proving that toughness is better ‘overall’, please give a comprehensive explanation with specific examples to prove this point and I will gladly admit i’m wrong if you’re correct.

TheGuy.3568:

stuff

I think you’re used to playing some other class than a thief. Toughness won’t do you any good as a thief because you need an inherently high vitality to be able to get the best of both worlds. Toughness is ignored by condition damage and if you’re facing a condition opponent you’ll find that you’re dead in 3 ticks, since most condition builds come close to hitting 4k condition damage per tick. Vitality is great against conditions because, well, you have more health. 4k hitting for 12k in 3 ticks survives a lot less than 4k hitting for 20k in 5 ticks. You have a significant amount of time to react compared to if you went with a toughness spec, like rabid gear. Vitality on a thief also has the greatest leeway before the returns for having it diminish. If you have 20k health and 916 toughness from full carrion gear you’ll take 10k from a 10k warrior eviscerate burst, ending up with 50% of your health. If you run full rabid gear and have 12k health with 1600 armor and a 10k eviscerate warrior bursts you, you’ll take 8k damage, reducing you to 33% of your health. You do the math. For thieves, vitality is the way to go. Toughness only has the greatest leeway of diminished returns when you have inherently high vitality, such as a warrior or a necro. Vitality works the opposite way. If you have inherently low vitality you’ll of course benefit from having more, whereas toughness is entirely situational in that matter. You argue that the O kitten tating opinion where you have “fact”, but I see no evidence or research behind your claims. I’ve done the math. I know what’s best for each class.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Vargs.6234:

From a PvE perspective, I prefer vitality solely because high toughness attracts more attention from mobs.

Ah, good point. I completely forgot about that.

It is not a “fact” however; high armor characters don’t have an innate “taunt” mechanic at all. I am frequently in groups where I have the most armor, and enemy aggro persistently follows someone else. It just so happens that we tend to remember when aggro went for us, and somehow, somewhere along the way, people started to blame Toughness levels for this.

I have yet to see a developer mention that the more Toughness you have, the more agro you get-if anyone can prove me wrong, please feel free to do so. IME, I can’t see any evidence for enemy aggro 100% pursuing high armor characters. I am not denying they could have said so, but it’s probably a mix of scenarios, and several randomly chosen factors other than having the highest armor in the mob’s vicinity.

In short, there’s no negatives about Toughness (certainly not “being more attractive to mobs”), save for all the stats you could have devoted for something else instead.

Star Ace.5207:

It is not a “fact” however; high armor characters don’t have an innate “taunt” mechanic at all. I am frequently in groups where I have the most armor, and enemy aggro persistently follows someone else.

Aggro is not 100% dependant on Toughness/Armour, there are other factors involved such as: Distance between you and the target and Damage dealt to the target. These mean that if you go balls to the wall for stacking toughness, the Zerker Warrior could still pull aggro off you due to doing way more damage than you.

It just so happens that we tend to remember when aggro went for us, and somehow, somewhere along the way, people started to blame Toughness levels for this.

This ignores the numerous threads that were made a while back when lots of Necromancers said they had issues with constantly being attacked during combat and tests were then done and concluded with the result that Toughness did increase the likelyhood of getting aggro (A lot of the Necro’s were using Rabid gear, in tests where they swapped to Carrion gear they got aggro much less)

Taril.8619:

Star Ace.5207:

It is not a “fact” however; high armor characters don’t have an innate “taunt” mechanic at all. I am frequently in groups where I have the most armor, and enemy aggro persistently follows someone else.

Aggro is not 100% dependant on Toughness/Armour, there are other factors involved such as: Distance between you and the target and Damage dealt to the target. These mean that if you go balls to the wall for stacking toughness, the Zerker Warrior could still pull aggro off you due to doing way more damage than you.

It just so happens that we tend to remember when aggro went for us, and somehow, somewhere along the way, people started to blame Toughness levels for this.

This ignores the numerous threads that were made a while back when lots of Necromancers said they had issues with constantly being attacked during combat and tests were then done and concluded with the result that Toughness did increase the likelyhood of getting aggro (A lot of the Necro’s were using Rabid gear, in tests where they swapped to Carrion gear they got aggro much less)

Thus point proven, it’s no taunt mechanic, so Toughness shouldn’t be avoided due to the way aggro works. As far as my experience goes, I have drawn enemy aggro as a high armor character, as well as have been totally ignored, so if I was to neglect Toughness at all, it would be because I need the stats elsewhere-not because I become an “aggro magnet”, which isn’t true (not discounting all those Rabid gear Necromancer’s experiences, but I can’t discount my own either, since I have been playing since headstart as many of them probably did as well.)

I just usually see it used as an anti-toughness, pro-offensive stats argument, and it really isn’t my playing experience. It’s not wrong to go full Berserker’s, but you shouldn’t use the “toughness is bad for you: you’ll draw aggro!” as an excuse. If it works for ya, it works, so make no apologies for your playstyle. Toughness isn’t bad for you, unless you are using an amount that takes away too many stats that you would personally enjoy being used differently-but that’s up to the player and his/her build to decide.

(As far as those Necromancers went, was it proven that it was the toughness that drew the enemy aggro, or the higher precision? I know it sounds ridiculous-it doesn’t make sense-but Rabid’s does have higher Precision than Carrion’s, and they probably didn’t emphasize the fact, focusing on the more obvious higher Toughness factor.)

Note that I am not saying that Toughness doesn’t play a role in aggro, but rather than the role it plays is so minor-more, random-that I wouldn’t personally recommend neglecting Toughness JUST so you never draw enemy aggro-you WILL get aggro, and WILL get hit in due time, so you better be prepared to dodge/cloak/evade/self-heal/etc. even if you have no Toughness bonus points.

Star Ace.5207:

(As far as those Necromancers went, was it proven that it was the toughness that drew the enemy aggro, or the higher precision? I know it sounds ridiculous-it doesn’t make sense-but Rabid’s does have higher Precision than Carrion’s, and they probably didn’t emphasize the fact, focusing on the more obvious higher Toughness factor.)

There was quite a bit of testing of purely Toughness based aggro, via body pulling and such combined with things like pulling aggro without actually attacking anything (Which was the main source of frustration, since they’d often get aggro via doing very little and instantly get aggro after being revived and not having chance to do anything)

I think that one of the ways they tested purely the toughness was also via putting points into the Toughness tree (A thing Necro’s like to do to improve their Staff) and putting them elsewhere.

Also, I don’t think people are saying “Toughness is bad for you ‘cause you’ll get aggro” rather “Toughness vs Vitality can go in favour of Vitality as it won’t contribute towards getting aggro” which is true. If you’re spending points/gear for defence, you need to take into account that if you use exactly the same points defensively (I.E. Have the same offence) you’ll be more at risk of getting aggro if you went for Toughness than if you went for Vitality.

This doesn’t mean you’ll pull aggro all the time with toughness, it just means you’re more likely to in a given situation.

Alex.6940:

I still don’t think you understand what i’m trying to say.

Let me use an example. So Damage done = (weapon damage) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) / (target’s Armor).

I’ll just refer to (weapon damage) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) as ‘base damage’. So, if we rearrange, base damage = damage done * target’s armour.

If you have 2k armour and you take 13k damage then the base damage is 13000*2000 = 26000000. Now lets assume you get hit again by the same guy with the same base damage but you have 2500 armour. As damage done = base damage/ armour, you take 26000000/2500 = 10400 damage.

Therefore 10400/13000 * 100 = 80%. So having 2500 toughness means you take 20% less damage compared to having 2000 toughness. i.e. you see a 20% reduction in damage with the extra toughness compared to not having the extra toughness.

I see your problem. You are mixed up. You think Armor = Toughness, when Armor = Defense + Toughness.

You think that you need 2000 Toughness to mitigate 20% damage when in fact you only need 20 Toughness because Thieves have a base Defense of 1980.

Your calculation may be correct, but your base numbers are all wrong.

So if you take 5k damage when you have 2000 armor, you would have taken only 4k with 2500 toughness, saving you 1k hp. If you take 25k damage with 2000 armor, you would only have taken 20k damage with 2500 toughness, saving you 5k hp.

You need to work on your consistency when trying to communicate your points, because mixing up armor and toughness leads to so much misunderstandings.

By the way, in your example, whether you value vitality more than toughness, you’d still be dead since Thieves do not have that much HP.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

You think that you need 2000 Toughness to mitigate 20% damage when in fact you only need 20 Toughness because Thieves have a base Defense of 1980.

The baseline for incoming damage calculations tends to use 1836 armour base, as it’s the base of what Light Armour classes will have. At level 80, every light armour class will have a base of 1836, every medium armour class will have a base of 1980 and every heavy armour class will have a base of 2127.

So using 1836 as a base point for calculating damage reduction and 1980 as a base for the class for working out gaining a % reduction gained from stats you can work out:

Base damage reduction from medium armour = 7.27%
To gain 20% damage reduction (27.27% damage reduction total) you’d need ~544 Toughness (Total of 1460 Toughness or 2524 Armour)

So to use that in a basic scenario:

10805 health + 544 Toughness = 14854 Effective Health
10805 health + 544 Vitality = 17519 Effective Health (Due to inherent damage reduction from medium armour)
10805 health + 272 Toughness + 272 Vitality = 16589 Effective health

Going the whole hog and getting 1400 of each stat would end up with:
10805 health + 1400 Toughness = 19892 Effective Health (45.68% damage reduction)
10805 health + 1400 Vitality = 26750 Effective Health (Due to inherent damage reduction from Medium Armour)
10805 health + 700 Toughness + 700 Vitality = 25990 Effective Health

So for a pure “Effective health” standpoint, Thieves with their small health pool and inherent damage reduction from medium armour (Relative to Light armour) pure Vitality comes out as superior.

But this doesn’t account for things such as Conditions, nor ability to heal up the health pool it’s purely a “How long can I live against being punched in the face”

Taril.8619:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

You think that you need 2000 Toughness to mitigate 20% damage when in fact you only need 20 Toughness because Thieves have a base Defense of 1980.

The baseline for incoming damage calculations tends to use 1836 armour base, as it’s the base of what Light Armour classes will have. At level 80, every light armour class will have a base of 1836, every medium armour class will have a base of 1980 and every heavy armour class will have a base of 2127.

So using 1836 as a base point for calculating damage reduction and 1980 as a base for the class for working out gaining a % reduction gained from stats you can work out:

Base damage reduction from medium armour = 7.27%
To gain 20% damage reduction (27.27% damage reduction total) you’d need ~544 Toughness (Total of 1460 Toughness or 2524 Armour)

So to use that in a basic scenario:

10805 health + 544 Toughness = 14854 Effective Health
10805 health + 544 Vitality = 17519 Effective Health (Due to inherent damage reduction from medium armour)
10805 health + 272 Toughness + 272 Vitality = 16589 Effective health

Going the whole hog and getting 1400 of each stat would end up with:
10805 health + 1400 Toughness = 19892 Effective Health (45.68% damage reduction)
10805 health + 1400 Vitality = 26750 Effective Health (Due to inherent damage reduction from Medium Armour)
10805 health + 700 Toughness + 700 Vitality = 25990 Effective Health

So for a pure “Effective health” standpoint, Thieves with their small health pool and inherent damage reduction from medium armour (Relative to Light armour) pure Vitality comes out as superior.

But this doesn’t account for things such as Conditions, nor ability to heal up the health pool it’s purely a “How long can I live against being punched in the face”

I understand the calculation, he just got me all confused with his mixed terminologies.

That calculation still doesn’t explain why we are scaled down when side kicking, because if it is true that the damage reduction is percentage based, then there’s no need to be scaled down since 20% is 20% right?

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Alex.6940:

I still don’t think you understand what i’m trying to say.

Let me use an example. So Damage done = (weapon damage) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) / (target’s Armor).

I’ll just refer to (weapon damage) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) as ‘base damage’. So, if we rearrange, base damage = damage done * target’s armour.

If you have 2k armour and you take 13k damage then the base damage is 13000*2000 = 26000000. Now lets assume you get hit again by the same guy with the same base damage but you have 2500 armour. As damage done = base damage/ armour, you take 26000000/2500 = 10400 damage.

Therefore 10400/13000 * 100 = 80%. So having 2500 toughness means you take 20% less damage compared to having 2000 toughness. i.e. you see a 20% reduction in damage with the extra toughness compared to not having the extra toughness.

I see your problem. You are mixed up. You think Armor = Toughness, when Armor = Defense + Toughness.

You think that you need 2000 Toughness to mitigate 20% damage when in fact you only need 20 Toughness because Thieves have a base Defense of 1980.

Your calculation may be correct, but your base numbers are all wrong.

So if you take 5k damage when you have 2000 armor, you would have taken only 4k with 2500 toughness, saving you 1k hp. If you take 25k damage with 2000 armor, you would only have taken 20k damage with 2500 toughness, saving you 5k hp.

You need to work on your consistency when trying to communicate your points, because mixing up armor and toughness leads to so much misunderstandings.

By the way, in your example, whether you value vitality more than toughness, you’d still be dead since Thieves do not have that much HP.

Yes, you’re quite right that i tend to use armor and toughness interchangeably, but my overall points are all still correct and my examples are sound. I’m still not sure you understand what i mean though lol. If you assume defence = 0 then toughness and armour are effectively the same thing and what i’ve written will be accurate if that helps.

When i say 500 additional toughness will reduce the damage you take by 20%, i’m speaking about it relative to having 2000 armor. So if you get hit for 10k damage with 2000 armor you only take 8k damage with 2500 armor i.e. 20% less damage.

I’ll explain my example again (and make an effort to use armour and toughness correctly lol) Lets assume you have 10k hp and 2000 armour. A thief attacks you and hits you for 13k damage, instantly killing you as you only have 10k hp. Lets look at this situation again, but this time we can choose between an extra 500 vitality or 500 toughness.

If you have 500 extra toughness, you now have 2500 armour. Therefore you get hit for (13000*2000)/2500 = 10400 damage instead. As you only have 10k hp you still die however.

If you have 500 extra vitality you now have 15k hp. You get hit again for 13k damage but you have 15k hp, so you survive with 2k hp left. In this situation, vitality is the more effective defence.

In general i think vitality is more useful in dealing with short duration fights or burst damage. Toughness will eventually beat vitality as fights go on and you heal through damage, but as most thieves generally try to burst people down, and the fights don’t last very long, I would generally advise taking more vitality over toughness.

Of course your build, play style and the situation at hand can mean that more toughness is more effective.

For a Thief, Vitality is generally much better. Not only because Vitality does, for any character, provide point-for-point more straight defense than Toughness, but more importantly because the Thief has so very little base health.
But, if you go heavy Shadow Arts, the combinations of prolific self healing and condition removal will actually make Toughness the better choice, once you get enough Vitality for at least a few thousand extra health to prevent getting spiked down too easily.