Guild Wars 2

My conclusion is that the armor defence is not relevant in this game. Actually I have more than 4000 armor defence with one of my warrior’s sets combined with 30 points in Defence. But, why do I want 4000 armor defense if 1 boss can kill me with 1 hit? why do I want 4000 armor defence if 1 thief, D/D ele, engineer, ranger, etc can kill me easy and doesn’t matter if I have 0 or 4000 armor defence?. The answer is for nothing. The only way to continue alive is evading and dodging at the correct moment.

In other MMOs if u have a big defence numbers, this give you a little bit of survivability. In this game the only trick to have more survivability is evading and dodging. And it is not relevant if u are heavy armor warrior with great defence numbers. Are we crazy?? Really?? XDD

Then, which is the problem with warriors compared with other classes? I have 5 characters more at lvl 80 full equip, and with less than half warrior armor defence, I have more survivability. Why?? because the other classes have more combat mobility, don’t need to be close to hit, cripple, immobilize or chill the target, have more ways to condition removal, constant regeneration skills, and more ways to out and back to the combat.

In my opinion these are the main warrior problems:
- Traits XI and XII in Strength, Arms and Discipline have not real benefits. Nobody uses 30 point to get any XI and XII in these 3 traits.
- Bad regeneration skills.
- The only viable elite skill is Signet of Rage.
- Nobody uses adrenaline. And there are only 3 arms in my opinion that have a great burst skill (Axe, Sword and Hammer), the other ones are slow or irrelevant (for example GS burst skill).
- Banners only work well in PVE.
- Nobody uses Kick and Stomp.
- Some utility skills are duplicated, you can obtain the same benefit that Signets with Shouts and Stances, which are more viable than Signets.
- Nobody uses Berseker Stance and “On my Mark!”.
- And we take 50% more damage with Frenzy compared with other classes with same skill.

How to improve and solve some of these warrior problems?:
- Change Stomp to 900 range skill. Then we improve our combat mobility combined with Bull’s Charge. And we have one reason to use trait XI in Strength.
- Provide one trait where you obtain regeneration per quantity and adrenaline strike gained. Then we have reasons to use trait XII in Strength, XI in Arms, use Berseker Stance, etc.
- Provide one trait that permits removal conditions using adrenaline. For example, 1 removal condition per bar adrenaline used, then we can removal max 3 conditions using this skill with full bar adrenaline. Then we have reasons to use traits XI and XII in Discipline.
- Provide one trait that gives Protection (3-5 s).
- Provide one trait which we don’t lose passive effects using Signets.

In my opinion these are the most important improvements that warrior needs, because the only way that warrior has to survivability are dodging and a great armor defence doesn’t matter in this game.

Of course I think that Anet need to eliminate 50% damage taken using Frenzy to compare this skill with other classes, or that Anet permits use utility skills with Rampage, but this is other story.

I love play with my warrior and I hope that Anet take into consideration the improvements that all warriors community are posting.

ze armors!! ze do nathing!

“But, why do I want 4000 armor defense if 1 boss can kill me with 1 hit?”
“The only way to continue alive is evading and dodging at the correct moment.”

Congratulations, you’re starting to understand Guild War’s PvE system. Higher armour rating will let you survive more non-lethal hits (trash mobs, certain boss attacks, etc) than normal. It will not let you survive the massive boss attacks designed to one-shot you, as they’re designed to one-shot you. That’s what dodge is for. That’s what Aegis is for (yes, other classes can give it to you). That’s what Endure Pain is for.

Warriors in PvE are phenomenal both for open-world and for dungeons, but they’re amazing when you gear for DPS. Your high natural hitpoints and heavy armour give you a defensive gear advantage over most classes to begin with, and in a group with the right composition Warriors can DPS all day long without too many issues in PvE, as Protection, Aegis and Blind will be handed by the other classes. Doesn’t mean you can turn your brain off.

Warriors are not tanks. If you want to stack defensive stats then look for the Guardian (the most tank-like class in the game) or Necromancer (a lot of DPS is reliant on condition damage).

Also, a few points:

Arms XI is used by full-on DPS builds for PvE (usually GS/Axe combo), as it allows you to burst on the Axe quicker. Same goes for Discipline XI and XII.

Nobody uses adrenaline, except when they use a weapon with a great burst skill. That would be Hammer in WvW and Axe in PvE.

On My Mark is used by Shout Warriors, as when specced correctly it also heals and removes a condition. Getting +10% damage on the target is just gravy.

Stomp is incredibly useful in World PvE for giving you a breather during manic events or when you’ve pulled far too much.

Warrior Pv kitten ues basically boil down to being screwed over by movement-impairing effects and having no real role. Anti-bunker via “boon hate” (if it comes in) will go some way of solving that.

I’m not starting to understand the PVE system now. The question is: why do I want a great amount of armor if I have the same survivability with Berz armor?. And I’m totally agree that warriors are amazing in PVE as DPS, you only need to know when dodge. The problems come in sPvP and WvW when dodge is not enough and you haven’t more tools to survive and armor is irrelevant.

And I don’t want to be a Tank, I’m arguing more ways to survive than dodge like the other classes, mainly in sPvP where warrior is dead and WvW.

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3.0|1.1n.h15|c.1n.h15.d.1n.h1m|1c.7x.1c.7x.1c.7x.1c.7x.1c.7x.1c.7x|1n.64.1n.64.1n.64.1n.64.1n.64.8c.64|0.5.u46b.u28b.5|55.1|v.18.16.19.1i|e

About what my guardian runs since I gave up trying to have my guardian do crazy burst with 11k health.

Because it’s not for nothing. It means you can take more hits before blowing one of your dodges, more hits before needing to heal (and if you’ve got your healing skill traited to remove conditions, blowing it at the first sign of damage can be a waste), get hit by more AoE, etc. In the chaos of WvW, having that extra armour will mean the difference between life and death, especially if you’ve already had to use your dodges or have been crowd controlled.

Going full ’zerker in WvW is extremely risky, and the slightest mistake will get you killed, no question about it (talking from personal experience here). Roaming with a group looking for other roams is fine, but if you end up besieging or zerging then you will honestly miss all that defence.

Adding more options to dodge is nice and all, but I would rather our DPS didn’t flatline the moment we start going for more defensive gear. The class is designed to be able to take hits while dealing damage back (no not boss 1-shots), and adding evades don’t do this.

Ironically, there is a boon in the game that lets you do just this and it’s called Protection. And Warriors get kitten-all access to it, despite it being the most Warrior-appropriate defensive boon. Guardians should be avoiding damage (low HP) via their blocks, blinds, domes, etc. Warriors should be reducing damage via high HP and protection.

actualy with 2 rune of monk /2 rune of water, 30 points in defense / 30 in tactics
1 discipline you can have:
retailation for 8 seconds every 15 seconds
-perma regeneration from banners , even if you leave the area for few seconds , you apply every 3 seconds 5 of regeneration
Perma efect of signet of rage (furry /swiftness /might)
Regeneration :
230 from signet of healing , 120 adrenal heal /70 food – 420 /sec + perma regeneration (banners)
The only problem is low condition removal -mending /shout/signet of stamina , all provide poor condition removal, but overall i would pick signet of stamina.
On another side, warrior can be by far the most mobile clas in game, sword leap / greatsword -rush /whirlwind / bull charge, if you go for an mobility build.

I tested many different builds. In my opinion armor is irrelevant in PVE, you only need to know when dodge. And in WvW this is my build which I have a great damage and armor defense

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/warrior/?8.0|7.1i.h1j.e.1i.h1h|1.1i.h17|1n.7p.1n.7p.1n.7p.1n.7p.1n.7p.1n.7p|3v.0.2v.0.3v.0.2v.0.3v.0.2v.0|a2.0.u29b.a0.k5a|40.1|5y.6c.6i.6f.6m|e

But this great amount of armor only protects me maybe 1 hit, and doesn’t 5, 6 or 7 where can give me the time for next Heal or dodge. As you can see I use Superior Rune of Forge in my armor to gain Protection 13 s at 50% of Health. And when I use my Berz build, I obtain practically the same survivability than when I run with the above build. Then my conclusion is that great amount of armor or health aren’t enough to survive and the warrior needs more tools to reach the survivability of other classes. And I suggested 4 or 5 improvements that all warriors comunity are claiming.

Damage mitigation with respect to the armor value is not linear. Please refer to the wiki entry “damage”, specifically the formula.

It makes sense to invest in toughness when your armor value is low to medium. However, adding toughness when your armor value is already greater than 2700 makes very little difference in mitigating damage. Therefore, trait points are better spent elsewhere if your armor>2700.

Armor is very important. You’re simply playing the game wrong.
One-hitters are dodge-check, they are meant to ignore armor, they are meant to be dodged-or-die.
There is no amount of Armor that will magically delete the need to dodge in this game.

carabidus.6214:

Damage mitigation with respect to the armor value is not linear. Please refer to the wiki entry “damage”, specifically the formula.

It makes sense to invest in toughness when your armor value is low to medium. However, adding toughness when your armor value is already greater than 2700 makes very little difference in mitigating damage. Therefore, trait points are better spent elsewhere if your armor>2700.

Then my conclusion is correct, If there is 1 point where invest in toughness isn’t relevant, we need more ways to obtain survivability. The other classes have the same amount of armor with more survivability tools (protection, blind, aegis, great regen….) and not depending on dodge.

In my opinion I’m playing well, I never die in PVE and a few times in WvW. I’m only saying that warriors have disadvantages to survive compared with other classes.

warrior got other survaivability tools also
they got greatsword mobility, they got hammer CC ( an weapon with 3 CC skills)
Fear me , STOMP, endure pain (pasive+active)
to be honest i got way more survaivability on my warrior then on my guardian, in WvWvW

Toughness scales down a LOT after 2700, the best way to survive this game is to get “Protection” and 2700ish Toughness.

Also the Guardians Signet can add another 15% Damage Reduction AFTER all damage is taken.

The run-down is, without “protection” you simply cannot bunker, Warriors have no sustain options nore healing.

Your entire premise is a fallacy. For every OHKO move in this game there are 5 other attacks you have to face that are not OHKO. Dodge the OHKO move and your toughness lets you take more of the other attacks. Simple stuff.

And in general, Warriors don’t require any sort of buff or fix in PvE or WvW. For every “useless” skill or trait Warriors have, every other class has more.

Warriors are kings of PvE and good in WvW. They’re terrible in sPvP, which is the only real problem with the class.

could someone tell me if I should reduce my 2804 armor to 2700? Is it wort it? Could do it by getting two armor pieces: shoulders and pants. Would be easy so that shouldn’t be counted.

Eliyahu.1467:

Your entire premise is a fallacy. For every OHKO move in this game there are 5 other attacks you have to face that are not OHKO. Dodge the OHKO move and your toughness lets you take more of the other attacks. Simple stuff.

And in general, Warriors don’t require any sort of buff or fix in PvE or WvW. For every “useless” skill or trait Warriors have, every other class has more.

Warriors are kings of PvE and good in WvW. They’re terrible in sPvP, which is the only real problem with the class.

I gonna repeat, IN MY OPINION a great amount of armor isn’t relevant. No matter if you play PVE, WvW or sPvP. I never said that warrior class is bad, I remember that I said that I love play as warrior, is my main char with 1000 h played. And YES, warriors are the kings in PVE, sorry, BERZERKER warriors (100b, dodge, Whirlwind, dodge, Axe, dodge, 100b, ….) are the kings in PVE. and YES, warriors are good in WvW, we change to only good. And finally the warriors are the worst in sPvP.

Warrior definition by Anet:
“Warriors are masters of martial skills. They rely on speed, strength, toughness and heavy armor to survive. They’re versatile in combat and benefit from offensive and defensive abilities. Warriors inspire allies and demoralize enemies. As a soldier profession, warriors wear heavy armor”.

The definition says “toughness and heavy armor to survive”. No comment. This is my opinion different than yours, but be happy no angry because 1 person express his opinion.

The damage equation is your opponents (Attack x skill damage) divided by your defense rating. This can be rearranged to (Opponent’s Att divided by Your Def) x opponent’s skill dmg.

Your opponents att over your def is basically a multiplier.

3300 att divided by 2200 def is a 1.5 multiplier. You will be giving them 50% more dmg.

3300 att divided by 4000 def is a 0.825 multiplier. You will reduce their dmg by 17.5%

TLDR: Armor does not keep you eternally safe. It just mitigates bonehead mistakes. Damage should always out do Defense.

Do what I did, switch classes and let someone else suffer the grief. I got so tired for taking the blunt for the team all the time with little to show for it. I switched classes and all of a sudden I’m a pro.

Detcelfer.9736:

Do what I did, switch classes and let someone else suffer the grief. I got so tired for taking the blunt for the team all the time with little to show for it. I switched classes and all of a sudden I’m a pro.

Warriors are always tanky, but they have no tanky traits… its stupid LOL

I’ll have to disagree about one point the OP made. Longbow burst skill is wonderful.

In wvwvw on my warrior i find psihical damage classes inofensive (thieves /other warriors /guardians ) on 3300 defence and 25000 hp , with retailation (+ boon duration)
So i really belive that some mobility skills +stability + high defence are more then enough vs any psihical damage, and i belive warrior can tank psihical damage way better then guardian.

However staff mesmers or condition necros are an pain , they apply conditions too fast , for my poor condition removal.
Edit on Pve armor matter, but you have to combine it with mobility , for example high lvl fractals, you die in 2 seconds if you play berseker, but if you go on regeneration build with high armor, you barely get downed 1-2 times.

As for defensive traits, i find banner regeneration /spiked armor /furious reaction awsome , even if warriors could have more defensive traits

I think the problem is that the difference between light armor and heavy armor is… basically non-existent. Heavy armor needs to be stronger lol

Also, Guardians don’t really face tank bosses either so… 0-0

does armor really not scale linearly or is it another case of l2math? remember… when you have 90% damage reduction and you get 1% more.. you actually got 10% more survivability, not 1%.

CookMETEnder.7582:

I think the problem is that the difference between light armor and heavy armor is… basically non-existent. Heavy armor needs to be stronger lol

Also, Guardians don’t really face tank bosses either so… 0-0

No one does really. Some bosses can be face tanked (a bit) but being tanky is more about eating the little hits and dodging the big hits. The thing about tanky play is that you aren’t supposed to sit there and take DPS all the time.

Rune of Lyssa can be amazing with Signet of Rage for some tankier builds for warrior.

TheGuy.3568:

Rune of Lyssa can be amazing with Signet of Rage for some tankier builds for warrior.

Signet of Rage is mainly a DPS skill, but this is the only elite skill that works. Rampage is the TANK skill, the problem is that doesn’t work and nobody uses it.

Couldn’t warriors effectively keep a melee target doing less than 10% damage to them if they used a mace and ran high armor?

How do you calculate armor + weakness debuff? Is it additive or multiplicative?

Damage done = (weapon damage) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) / (target’s Armor)

So for example we’ll take a Greatsword guardian that has 3000 power and hits us with "Strike" (auto attack) and correct me if I am wrong down here.

Damage done = 1100 * 3000 * 0.8 / 3000
= 1100 * 0.8
= 880

So if my math is correct my auto attack should hit for 880 damage outside any other boon factors or conditions I am suffering.

If we used the same attack on someone with 2200 armor (GC Thief, they usually have less) then we’ll see....

Damage done = 1100 * 3000 * 0.8 / 2200
= 1200 damage

It’s rather shocking that an 800 armor difference will only increase your damage by 320, if my math is solid. That’s what, 36% damage increase for a difference of 800 armor?

Ref: Wiki for damage formula and https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Guardian-Skill-Coefficients-List-Partial for Guardian damage coefficients.

The difference between 2700 and the max armor (which is not 4000 btw) is something like 20% I believe. At least that’s what I remember from punching stuff into buildcraft some time ago.

If you would like to make a long story short unless the wiki’s wrong, damage is:
power * weapon damage * skill coefficient / armor

Lets break this kitten down barney style, just for fun.

Lets just assume for a second we’re using a skill coefficient of one, 2k power and 1k weapon damage as it just makes this easier to follow (and prevents me from having to break out the calculator)

2,000 * 1,000 / 2400 = ~833
2,000 * 1,000 / 2,700 = ~741
2,000 * 1,000 / 3,000 = ~667
2,000 * 1,000 / 3,300 = ~606
2,000 * 1,000 / 4,000 = 500 (Last time I checked 4k armor isn’t even possible)

A warriors base HP is 18,387 (I’m just looking on buildcraft now). So we go HP/Damage to find out how many hits we can take and…

2.1k: 20
2.4k: 23
2.7k: 25
3k: 28
3.3k: 31
4k: 37

Unless I’m mistaken about the damage formula, it seems like the returns aren’t so diminishing. Didn’t intend to do all this, but well, procrastination has a funny way of making me do stuff…

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/warrior/?8.0|7.1n.h1j.e.1n.h1h|1.1n.h17|1n.7p.1n.7p.1n.7p.1n.7p.1n.7p.1n.7p|3v.0.2v.0.3v.0.2v.0.1i.0.2v.0|a2.0.u29b.a0.k5a|40.1|5y.6f.6c.6i.6m|e

This is the max armor that actually I obtained with 1 of my builds, only need 1 cavalier more to increase it. And u can increase more using Banner of Defense. I didn’t try to obatin this amount of armor with other class, but I think that it’s only possible with warrior and in my opinion taking into account the Anet warrior definition, we have more survivability with great amount of armor, but the reality is totally different. As many of you mentioned there are skills that are more important to survive and where I find that warriors are in disadvantage with other classes that can reach “the efective armor” and they have also these skills (constantly Protection, best regens skills, blinds, aegis, stealth, best condition removal, more ways to evade and back to combat, etc etc etc)

Jonwar.9205:

The difference between 2700 and the max armor (which is not 4000 btw) is something like 20% I believe. At least that’s what I remember from punching stuff into buildcraft some time ago.

If you would like to make a long story short unless the wiki’s wrong, damage is:
power * weapon damage * skill coefficient / armor

Lets break this kitten down barney style, just for fun.

Lets just assume for a second we’re using a skill coefficient of one, 2k power and 1k weapon damage as it just makes this easier to follow (and prevents me from having to break out the calculator)

2,000 * 1,000 / 2400 = ~833
2,000 * 1,000 / 2,700 = ~741
2,000 * 1,000 / 3,000 = ~667
2,000 * 1,000 / 3,300 = ~606
2,000 * 1,000 / 4,000 = 500 (Last time I checked 4k armor isn’t even possible)

A warriors base HP is 18,387 (I’m just looking on buildcraft now). So we go HP/Damage to find out how many hits we can take and…

2.1k: 20
2.4k: 23
2.7k: 25
3k: 28
3.3k: 31
4k: 37

Unless I’m mistaken about the damage formula, it seems like the returns aren’t so diminishing. Didn’t intend to do all this, but well, procrastination has a funny way of making me do stuff…

Let’s investigate your example further. Assumptions: a skill coefficient of 1, 2k power and 1k weapon damage, 18387 base health.

Please see the attached graph.

x-axis: armor
y-axis: proportion of health taken as a result of the hit

You are correct in that the number of hits you can sustain increases in a linear fashion as you increase armor. But, there exists diminishing returns when you consider the proportion of health taken per hit (not a linear relationship). A small investment in toughness when your armor is low is profitable. However, even a very large investment in toughness to go from an armor of 2700 to 3000 shows negligible improvement.

Whenever I see a thief being 1-shoted by some aoe, I thank my armor. Surely, you can’t be a real tank in GW2 (unless you’re some AH guardian with focus), but damage mitigation gives a noticeable survival boost nevertheless.

It is much better to go 2700 Armor and then get things like “Protection” and “Damage Reduction.” things the warrior does NOT have…

Nice post
us warriors get it pretty rough, bad combat mobility and 1 heal without using trait “shouts heal” which is pointless anyway.

I think this is funny. OP, have you ever heard of min/maxing and diminishing returns on the effectiveness of stats the likes of which could be far better allocated?

Mayan.7164:

TheGuy.3568:

Rune of Lyssa can be amazing with Signet of Rage for some tankier builds for warrior.

Signet of Rage is mainly a DPS skill, but this is the only elite skill that works. Rampage is the TANK skill, the problem is that doesn’t work and nobody uses it.

What I mean is its a full condition wipe when used with lyssa and provides aegis, stability, protection and regeneration for a short time. At 48 seconds with cd trait the only better one in the game is basilisk venom.

Daecollo, please reroll or stop complaining. It’s sad I see your QQ’s on the guardian forums as well.

Diablo - Warriors do lack mobility because their mobility isn’t spread out across all weapons. Only on Sword’s lunge, GS has rush and Whirlwind, Hammer’s burst and axe’s burst and shield bash (300) and horn. The nice thing is you have access to a lot of CC so it helps warriors maintain range once in.

Not to mention all the traits that can be used to break movement impairing effects.

carabidus.6214:

Jonwar.9205:

The difference between 2700 and the max armor (which is not 4000 btw) is something like 20% I believe. At least that’s what I remember from punching stuff into buildcraft some time ago.

If you would like to make a long story short unless the wiki’s wrong, damage is:
power * weapon damage * skill coefficient / armor

Lets break this kitten down barney style, just for fun.

Lets just assume for a second we’re using a skill coefficient of one, 2k power and 1k weapon damage as it just makes this easier to follow (and prevents me from having to break out the calculator)

2,000 * 1,000 / 2400 = ~833
2,000 * 1,000 / 2,700 = ~741
2,000 * 1,000 / 3,000 = ~667
2,000 * 1,000 / 3,300 = ~606
2,000 * 1,000 / 4,000 = 500 (Last time I checked 4k armor isn’t even possible)

A warriors base HP is 18,387 (I’m just looking on buildcraft now). So we go HP/Damage to find out how many hits we can take and…

2.1k: 20
2.4k: 23
2.7k: 25
3k: 28
3.3k: 31
4k: 37

Unless I’m mistaken about the damage formula, it seems like the returns aren’t so diminishing. Didn’t intend to do all this, but well, procrastination has a funny way of making me do stuff…

Let’s investigate your example further. Assumptions: a skill coefficient of 1, 2k power and 1k weapon damage, 18387 base health.

Please see the attached graph.

x-axis: armor
y-axis: proportion of health taken as a result of the hit

You are correct in that the number of hits you can sustain increases in a linear fashion as you increase armor. But, there exists diminishing returns when you consider the proportion of health taken per hit (not a linear relationship). A small investment in toughness when your armor is low is profitable. However, even a very large investment in toughness to go from an armor of 2700 to 3000 shows negligible improvement.

So Carabidus – is there a confirmed sweet spot? Do we know what the best proportional min/max is out there?

Jonwar.9205:

The difference between 2700 and the max armor (which is not 4000 btw) is something like 20% I believe. At least that’s what I remember from punching stuff into buildcraft some time ago.

If you would like to make a long story short unless the wiki’s wrong, damage is:
power * weapon damage * skill coefficient / armor

Lets break this kitten down barney style, just for fun.

Lets just assume for a second we’re using a skill coefficient of one, 2k power and 1k weapon damage as it just makes this easier to follow (and prevents me from having to break out the calculator)

2,000 * 1,000 / 2400 = ~833
2,000 * 1,000 / 2,700 = ~741
2,000 * 1,000 / 3,000 = ~667
2,000 * 1,000 / 3,300 = ~606
2,000 * 1,000 / 4,000 = 500 (Last time I checked 4k armor isn’t even possible)

A warriors base HP is 18,387 (I’m just looking on buildcraft now). So we go HP/Damage to find out how many hits we can take and…

2.1k: 20
2.4k: 23
2.7k: 25
3k: 28
3.3k: 31
4k: 37

Unless I’m mistaken about the damage formula, it seems like the returns aren’t so diminishing. Didn’t intend to do all this, but well, procrastination has a funny way of making me do stuff…

Check the healing and regeneration at those armors
healing signet, mango pie and adrenal heal, resulting an 220 +70+120 hp /second = 410 hp /second regeneration.
Example 1: 3300 armor
Without any dodges, invulnerability skills
you get attacked at 2 attacks /second ratio… 3.300 armor will survive 31 hits -15.5 seconds and will regen 6200 hp , so we add 5.5 more seconds survaivability and 2 more regenerated. 3300 armor survive 23 seconds
compared with 2700 armor
Example 2: 2700 armor
you get attacked at 2 attacks /second ratio… 2700 armor will survive 25 hits – 12.5 seconds and will regen 4920 hp , so we add 3.5 seconds and 1 more regenerated -17 seconds.
With Regenearation /heals/ dodges… etc and high armor you can tank damage from an single player forever

Unless you’re a hardcore player and a professional player… this does not matter for you.
Just say that 2700 is a sweet spot for toughness and play one with WvWvW. If you want more, add more.

Theory crafting is great and all, but at the end of the day, as a long time player of the MMORPG genre, I can advise you that min/max is often a waste of time for the casual / non-professional player.

I agree with you to a degree Cook, and that’s pretty much how I decided how many stats I assigned where, through trial and error. The question at hand is less about min/maxing and more about whether or not armor becomes a waste of time after a certain point. It is good, I think, to understand how stuff works to prevent the spread of misinformation (as you talked about in your own thread I believe).

Plus nobodies really getting upset here, and theory crafting is fun while I’m at work :P.

Let’s investigate your example further. Assumptions: a skill coefficient of 1, 2k power and 1k weapon damage, 18387 base health.
Please see the attached graph.
x-axis: armor
y-axis: proportion of health taken as a result of the hit
You are correct in that the number of hits you can sustain increases in a linear fashion as you increase armor. But, there exists diminishing returns when you consider the proportion of health taken per hit (not a linear relationship). A small investment in toughness when your armor is low is profitable. However, even a very large investment in toughness to go from an armor of 2700 to 3000 shows negligible improvement.

I don’t need a picture, I understand what you’re trying to get across, and this is all pretty simple math. Yes, the amount of health you save per armor point is less as you go up. This doesn’t really pertain to survivability though, the bottom line is you are increasing you life span by a fairly linear amount by adding more armor. The problem is you’re only taking the first part of the equation into consideration.

Jonwar.9205:

I don’t need a picture, I understand what you’re trying to get across, and this is all pretty simple math. Yes, the amount of health you save per armor point is less as you go up. This doesn’t really pertain to survivability though, the bottom line is you are increasing you life span by a fairly linear amount by adding more armor. The problem is you’re only taking the first part of the equation into consideration.

Please mathematically define “survivability” and the term “life span”? I and several others in this thread have spoken in terms of quantifiable parameters (damage, health, etc.). I am unaware of any GW2 formulae for “survivability” or “life span”.

The essence of my thesis is this: once the value for armor gets above a certain point, the investment in toughness becomes too great for it to be worthwhile insofar as damage reduction. I believe I have clearly shown this by example.

ArtemisEntreri.4138:

So Carabidus – is there a confirmed sweet spot? Do we know what the best proportional min/max is out there?

This is an intriguing question. Again, the assumptions are: a skill coefficient of 1, 2k power and 1k weapon damage, 18387 base health.

The function that generated my second graph is:

[damage formula]/[health] with armor as the independent variable.

For this example, the point of diminishing returns falls at around 6% health taken per hit and an armor value of 1800. I arrived at these values by taking the average value of the function [damage/health] with respect to x (armor). where x = [920, 3000]. I had to pull out my old calculus text to remember the integral formula for that one!

However, this does not imply that investing in toughness beyond 1800 is not worthwhile. It becomes a judgement call based on the question “at what point does diminishing returns exact too high a cost when adding toughness?”. To me, the “sweet spot” is an armor of 2700. Using the aforementioned assumptions (skill coefficient of 1, 2k power and 1k weapon damage, 18387 base health):

% of health taken per hit with an armor value of 2700 = ~4.0%
% of health taken per hit with an armor value of 3000 = ~3.6%

So, it takes a significant investment of 300 toughness to gain only 0.4% reduction. In my opinion, 2700 is where I would stop. This value seems to be the “brick wall”, so to speak.

It would be interesting to see some additional analyses using other hypothetical assumptions for the damage formula. I predict the results would be very similar.

I love threads like these! It seems the warrior forums have more posts like this compared to thief forums at least on guru the theory crafting with math included is lovely. When gearing my thief or looking at runes etc I would look at warrior threads alot before I had one just because it had so much information.

Just wanted to throw that in there please continue

carabidus.6214:

Please mathematically define “survivability” and the term “life span”? I and several others in this thread have spoken in terms of quantifiable parameters (damage, health, etc.). I am unaware of any GW2 formulae for “survivability” or “life span”.
The essence of my thesis is this: once the value for armor gets above a certain point, the investment in toughness becomes too great for it to be worthwhile insofar as damage reduction. I believe I have clearly shown this by example.

Apologies, I have a tendency to assume people already know what’s going on in my head. Survivability wasn’t meant to be mathematical. Life span referring to how many ‘small hits’ you can take before you die, or more realistically how many seconds you can last before having to do something. This is where the term survivability comes in for me as taking more of these small hits means you’re alive for longer, in essence giving you more time for CD’s/Endurance regeneration/your own reaction time.

Short version: Life span = Amount of time you can take a steady amount of damage.

However, this does not imply that investing in toughness beyond 1800 is not worthwhile. It becomes a judgement call based on the question “at what point does diminishing returns exact too high a cost when adding toughness?”. To me, the “sweet spot” is an armor of 2700. Using the aforementioned assumptions (skill coefficient of 1, 2k power and 1k weapon damage, 18387 base health):
% of health taken per hit with an armor value of 2700 = ~4.0%
% of health taken per hit with an armor value of 3000 = ~3.6%

or you could look at it as taking ~10% less damage per hit by adding 300 toughness.

Semantics, is it still semantics with numbers? Oh well. I don’t think we really reach a “brick wall” at any point. I think we reach a point where armor begins to interfere with what we want to do. I personally ended up with something like 2880/3070 (different weapon set stats) armor on my own WvW build (not including that silly extra armor when health is above 90% trait which I believe adds 100). Works for me, and I do feel the difference between when I switch to my ‘defensive’ set and my offensive one.

You lose from a thief? They tickle me…. and drop that armor to a normal number like 3300 and get around 30k health. This will increase your ‘effective’ health by a lot. Armor scales good with health and health scales good with armor, you got to balance those.

Jonwar.9205

or you could look at it as taking ~10% less damage per hit by adding 300 toughness.

True. You are taking ~10% less damage when you go from armor of 2700 to 3000. But look at the prodigious investment in toughness (300!) you paid to reduce damage by 10%. On the other hand, take someone with an armor of only 1000 and they invest 300 points into toughness. They are reducing their damage by a further ~23%, which is more than a double the return on their investment with the same amount of capital.

So it really comes down to a question of how high of a price are you willing to pay for damage reduction, because it gets rather expensive the higher you go. If damage reduction was the ONLY goal of this game, then no price would be too high. Of course, we all know that is not the case. This game requires us to make a myriad of decisions that are not always quantitative in nature. We take into account the qualitative aspects as well, like the inherent strengths/weaknesses of a particular profession in addition to our own personal playstyle.

Let us not forget about player age, too! Younger players with cat-like reflexes can dodge one-shot hits from dungeon bosses all day. For them, glass cannon builds with low armor values are very desirable. However, someone who is not so quick may REALLY need that extra 10% damage reduction and are more than willing to pay the price!

Jonwar.9205

Semantics, is it still semantics with numbers?.

I see your point. We are playing GW2 for enjoyment and as a pleasant diversion from the oftentimes onerous nature of “real life”. But some of us math nerds (like me) do enjoy the analytical side, too.

Semantics was not meant to have a negative connotation, I was more pointing out that I myself was beginning to go around in circles. I very much enjoy the number crunching even if it only forms the rough ideas from which I build off of.

I personally am mostly a WvW player… I used to enjoy the sPvP aspect as well, but it’s grown rather stale to me. WvW involves a lot of AoE and incidental damage (and healing for that matter), so even a small % change makes quite a difference.

It is of course a matter of prices to be paid, and I suppose my point through all my longwinded statements is that there is no real ‘magic number’ to be had. Power much like toughness will also experience diminishing returns here if I’m not mistaken. Then there’s precision/crit damage which are flat increases but start behind power in effectiveness and generally require an investment in both stats.

carabidus.6214:

ArtemisEntreri.4138:

So Carabidus – is there a confirmed sweet spot? Do we know what the best proportional min/max is out there?

This is an intriguing question. Again, the assumptions are: a skill coefficient of 1, 2k power and 1k weapon damage, 18387 base health.

The function that generated my second graph is:

[damage formula]/[health] with armor as the independent variable.

For this example, the point of diminishing returns falls at around 6% health taken per hit and an armor value of 1800. I arrived at these values by taking the average value of the function [damage/health] with respect to x (armor). where x = [920, 3000]. I had to pull out my old calculus text to remember the integral formula for that one!

However, this does not imply that investing in toughness beyond 1800 is not worthwhile. It becomes a judgement call based on the question “at what point does diminishing returns exact too high a cost when adding toughness?”. To me, the “sweet spot” is an armor of 2700. Using the aforementioned assumptions (skill coefficient of 1, 2k power and 1k weapon damage, 18387 base health):

% of health taken per hit with an armor value of 2700 = ~4.0%
% of health taken per hit with an armor value of 3000 = ~3.6%

So, it takes a significant investment of 300 toughness to gain only 0.4% reduction. In my opinion, 2700 is where I would stop. This value seems to be the “brick wall”, so to speak.

It would be interesting to see some additional analyses using other hypothetical assumptions for the damage formula. I predict the results would be very similar.

Just wanted to drop in and say thanks for the Armor analysis. I am running Knights Armor, mostly for WvW and some PvE. One thing to note is that in WvW most of the time I am running with a Superior Sharping Stone and are 3k armor. Before I change some of my armor pieces does the extra power I get make up for the damage lost?

Thanks!

boondocksaint.6529:

Just wanted to drop in and say thanks for the Armor analysis. I am running Knights Armor, mostly for WvW and some PvE. One thing to note is that in WvW most of the time I am running with a Superior Sharping Stone and are 3k armor. Before I change some of my armor pieces does the extra power I get make up for the damage lost?

Thanks!

Knight’s is great for Wv3: copious protection with some punch from power and precision. I think an armor of 3000 is highly desirable for Wv3, especially since you’re getting all of your toughness from the Knight’s gear. You have lots of trait points to devote to, say, mobility or other areas essential for Wv3.

For PvE, 2700 is as high as I would go. But again, that really depends on your playstyle.

Vitality>Armor Defense, and what’s more the more armor defense you have the more you get targeted over others as well.