Wahoo everyone!
Backwards. Bursting doesn’t boost the base and only boosts the final.
Runes of Berserker boost base ( 131.5 + .155 x Condition Damage ) x 1.05
Bursting boosts final 131.5 + ( .155 x Condition Damage x 1.06 ).
And here I come, wrecking your math with a statement I made at the very beginning. <3
Rune of the Berserker is a modifier of 5% for outgoing condition damage. Therefore it rises the final condition damage by exactly 5%.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXhYp4xIjiYSigil of Bursting does only boost the base condition damage (including food, but not utility) and gets worse the more buffs you got.
(attachment)
Accordingly:
Bursting increases the base condi damage by 6%. The base with food is 1445. With bursting this goes up to 1532 (+ 87). Your final condi damage will rise from 2632 to 2719 (+ 87).
This affects each condition (per sec per stack) under realistic raid circumstances (qT buffs):
- Bleed from 250.56 to 257.83 (+2.90% dmg)
- Burn from 751.25 to 770.02 (+2.50% dmg)
- Poison from 266.57 to 273.84 (+2.73% dmg)
- Confu. sec from 142.21 to 146.45 (+2.98% dmg)
- Confu. Skill from 298.02 to 305.59 (+2.54% dmg)
Since only 80% of our damage is condi and 20% power, the total damage gets buffed by ~2-2.384%. Let simplify this and call it 2.3%. Bursting increases our total dps by 2.3%.
Full buffed condi Engi with 2632 condi damage and under realistic raid conditions, each Sigil of Earth proc will deal 2506 damage. On a realistic cooldown of 3s, this makes 835 DpS from Earth.
If 835 are 2.3%, then 100% are 36,319 DpS. If you are above that, then Bursting will be better than Earth. Good luck with that.
Greez
- Ziggy
You’re not wrong. You’re saying it backwards.
To understand let me convert like terms.
Base bleed = 22. 22 / .06 = 336.67 condition damage.
Berserker will increase that by 5%. (What you call “outgoing” but this is actually the base) and sigil of bursting doesn’t effect this at all.
The base of a condition is built into the condition target than into the player character which is why you’ll have a character sheet base at level 80 of zero (meaning no condition damage stat naturally).
Same with healing power and other dot effects.
I’ll chalk it up to semantics.
Heya!
That’s not really true – you could have auto attacked instead.
Siege Rounds doesn’t automaticly increase your dps by a two Orbital Strikes. You have to subtract the auto attacks you didn’t do aswell.
Let’s assume realistic raid buffs (qT standards):
Orbital Strike deals untraited 13,844 damage, traited 27,688 (2x). This with a cast time of 0.87s (quickness).
Your bomb aa deals 12,025 damage. With quickness, every 0.56s. In 0.87s you would deal 18,682 damage.27,688 – 18,682 = 9,006. The cooldown is 34.87s (cooldowns start after the cast) or 26.44s with Alacrity.
Traiting Orbital strike truly increases your DpS by only 258-341.
What about Shrapnel? 1148 Condi Damage, 2 stacks GotL, 25 stacks Vuln, (wich all is included in the OS calculation aswell) makes each Shrapnel proc deal 1,923 damage, or increases each bomb attack by 289. 289 divided by 0.56 = 532 DpS.
Traiting Shrapnel increases your DpS by 532 if you’d only do bomb auto attacks.
What else do you use that procs Shrapnel multiple times?
- Shrapnel Grenade (3 times)
- Poison Grenade (3 times)
- Freeze Grenade (3 times)
- Fire Bomb (4 times)
If we are talking about DpS only, Shrapnel will always be better unless you bash some trash (badumtss).
However I’d drop it immediately if you can make use of the combo fields since the DpS differences aren’t really noticable.
Greez!
- Ziggy
But his rotation only has 19 total explosions in it (opportunities). That’s all. I’m looking at his rotation in totality and of those explosions “7-10” are really just bomb aa’s. 3 per grenade salvo and 4 for firebomb would range 19-23 if I counted correctly.
As for damage lost during the strike I need to check on that. I think you actually can attack during that two second charge meaning that the “loss” is really the difference between the AA (varies) and the First Orbital Strike. The second is not effected by whatever you’re doing so it is actually free damage from my time just experimenting with it.
So met gain should be equal to ( Orbital 1 – AA Potential ) + Orbital 2. Parenthesis for emphasis.
Also you can’t (shouldn’t) use partial attacks. In .87s you’d only get one bomb blast. This matters because it greatly effects how rotations are set up based on concurrent damage ( for instance starting orbital then dropping a bomb will yield much higher damage than dropping two bombs and skipping orbital because of “mathematical averaging” instead of real-time behavior ) and the like.
I’m so boring!?
(edited by DGraves.3720)
Heya,
Bursting only boosts your BASE condition damage, not the final condi damage. So it’s even worse.
Backwards. Bursting doesn’t boost the base and only boosts the final.
Runes of Berserker boost base ( 131.5 + .155 x Condition Damage ) x 1.05
Bursting boosts final 131.5 + ( .155 x Condition Damage x 1.06 ).
If you face a single target, use Geomancy and Earth, if you face multiple targets you should use Geomancy and Bursting, because Earth occasionaly will proc on adds and be a dps loss compared to Bursting.
If you ever see the opportunity to use Corruption, use that one instead!
Greez!
- ZiggyAt 2,500 condition damage bonus from Bursting is 150. 6% of that, bleed’s coefficient, is 9. It’s unlikely adding 9 to your Germany bleed for adds is a better move than using earth against the main considering 2,500 CD bleeds for 150 on its own.
It will always work out to a flat 6% due to design.
Both posts you’ve made have a lot of numbers but I have no idea where they’re coming from. I like math, but like saying bleed’s coefficient is 9… no, no it’s not, it’s .06 with a base of 22, so the formula is [condition damage *.06 + 22]. I have a feeling you know what you’re talking about but it’s impossible to follow when the numbers aren’t being defined and at face value look to come from nowhere.
Oh, no problem.
So let’s work with the sigil of bursting first.
So if we have equipment and all that which gives us 2,500 total condition damage then the sigil of bursting will add 6%. So 6% of 2,500 is 150.
Now we take the additional condition damage by itself ( that 150 ) and apply the bleed coefficient to get 6% of 150 or 9.
This is messy. The easiest way to do this is actually to just multiply .06 x (coefficient of condition) to get your answer. So for burning it would be .06 × .155 and for bleeding it’s .06 × .06 ( which, if you notice, is also .06^2, coincidence ) and then you have exactly what you will get from your sigil of bursting.
So .06 × .06 = .0036
2,500 × .0036 = 9
That is how much damage your bleeds would gain additionally from a sigil of bursting. I still wish it were cleaner. It’s a messy looking thing though it isn’t complicated, just messy.
The reason why we don’t take the 22 damage that is “free” is because base condition damage on a player character in the character panel with no equipment on and no traits is “0” so if you had that as the base sigil of bursting doesn’t do anything. It doesn’t effect that number is all.
Ok, yes, cool, got you now I think. Doesn’t really answer the “how much of a damage loss” question though, as we’re just looking at the damage addition of bursting per stack of individual conditions, not the effect on the build as a whole, which is obviously a royal pain in the hindquarters and why I was asking >.<
Thanks for explaining further, I enjoy the math stuff (to a point) but I was staring at your numbers and just drawing a blank, this explained it perfectly I think.
Edit: not boring at all, thanks again for the clarification. I’m a bit out of practice on the damage calculation stuff (and honestly never memorized it all like I did for games I used to play). So I didn’t recognize your numbers initially and just couldn’t follow.
Well the damage loss is so catastrophic it isn’t worth computing but to do so all you would do is take a stretch of time, say thirty seconds, and then choose a set of elements to apply. For instance, 30s timeline, 5s bleed on proc, 60% chance for bleed and 50% critical strike with one strike ever 1s with a 1s bleed, and 1,800 condition damage yeah?
So 30 full strikes. Half are critical hits so that is 15. 60% of the fifteen are eligible so that’s 9 strikes. 2 strikes overlap in timing with the ICD so that’s 7 total.
So now the bleeds themselves, 1800 × .06 + 22 = 130. 130 × 5s = 650. 650 × 7 applications = kitten (four-thousand five hundred and fifty, no idea why that is censored ) total damage from the sigil and then 3,900 from the 1s bleed of every attack making for 8,450 in that 30s.
To test the sigil of bursting is much easier. We have 30s, 1s bleeds each second, 1,800 condition damage. So let’s solve for sigil of bursting:
1,800 * 1.06 = 1908 total condition damage.
1908 × .06 +22 = 136.48 × 30 seconds = 4094.4.
So 4094.4 / 8450 = .48 or 48% so you do 48% of the potential damage you could in the same 30s. The length of the bleed on each attack won’t matter, it doesn’t change anything, so I set it to 1 second and you need that bleed in order for this to work because otherwise there’s nothing for the sigil of bursting to express through.
But yeah, basically it’s a damage cut of at least 52%.
(edited by DGraves.3720)
Now a rant to all the casual whiners….
To the casuals who want to earn rewards and haven’t completed these masteries…well I dunno what to tell you to help you see the flaw in your logic if you don’t already get it. Did you grow up in a world where people who didn’t do the same work and put in the same effort as others get the same reward? Because that’s not the world I know. The bottom line is that a casual gamer is never going to get to reap the full benefits of what a hardcore gamer will, and you just gotta deal with that. What kind of terrible idea would it be to screw over all the people who work hard and long for those rewards if they just let any casual player have them? How in your right mind can you think that that is a good idea?
But you just standing in WvW gives you rewards. You can run in a circle and get rewards. You don’t even have to do anything. Same is true with PvP tracks. Screw the legendary backpack which is a total PoS and sort of ugly when I can just join a match, jump off a cliff, and finish my dailies in 6 minutes flat while also getting progress along an infinite track for doing nothing more than mindlessly pressing 1.
IS THIS THE WORLD YOU ENVISION?
The whole freaking point of a REWARD is that people who put in the effort get something special in return. Basically arguing “I don’t have the time to [blah blah blah] and its not my fault because [blah blah blah] so I should still be able to get [blah blah blah]” is just plain idiotic and represents what is wrong with today’s first-world nations. Get a freakin grip kitten . Anet has loads of ways now to reward you, whether its PvP, WvW, and PvE. PvEers get the best loot just by doing events. Some things are simply reserved for people who go the extra mile (the mile being full mastery) and you just gotta get over the fact that you can’t have what they have if you can’t or won’t do the work they did and do.
Preach! I mean so what I got thousands just leveling up mindlessly before the change, now I am a real girl by having to earn them through significantly more difficult content!
I feel so bad for new players. It’s like this in every MMO in existence; if you weren’t there on day one and they change something it will be so freakin’ murder for you. I don’t even know what to do with my shards and I am trying to wrap my head around people not having any. It’s so sad!
Another way to look at it is that choosing to be casual is a choice, and so is being hardcore. People who choose to be casual are not rewarded in GAME as well as the hardcores, but one could argue that casual players are rewarded better as far as things that matter to them in LIFE. Hardcore gamers often give up a lot of their real LIFE rewards for things that matter to them in a GAME. So make your choice and then to the responsible and adult thing, accept all the pros and cons that go along with that choice.
Whatever you DO, get OUT of this baby-bird mentality.
/endrant
But being a casual and being a hardcore has nothing to do with developer behavior.
The victim card is strong.
I like how this isn’t phrased as “I don’t like this decision” but rather “YOU ARE ACTIVELY PERSECUTING ME WITH MALICIOUS INTENT!”
This isn’t discriminatory action. Everyone that plays the game has perfectly equal opportunity. This is about you choosing not to use that opportunity because of personal preference.
The game is not discriminating against anyone. You are simply unwilling to engage with the same rules as everyone else and, like most players that have a problem with the game (all players ever) wish the rules were tweaked so as to support your individual preferences.
In the real world we say it like this:
“Sure, anyone can get a college education in Financial Analysis! It’s open to everyone. What? You want to be a lyricist? A freelance writer? Well, that is your choice, and may the welfare line save your soul.
”
But really, you can’t “play/live your way” and then suffer “equal opportunity” clauses at the same time. It’s funny though if you think about it.
(edited by DGraves.3720)
Heya,
Bursting only boosts your BASE condition damage, not the final condi damage. So it’s even worse.
Backwards. Bursting doesn’t boost the base and only boosts the final.
Runes of Berserker boost base ( 131.5 + .155 x Condition Damage ) x 1.05
Bursting boosts final 131.5 + ( .155 x Condition Damage x 1.06 ).
If you face a single target, use Geomancy and Earth, if you face multiple targets you should use Geomancy and Bursting, because Earth occasionaly will proc on adds and be a dps loss compared to Bursting.
If you ever see the opportunity to use Corruption, use that one instead!
Greez!
- ZiggyAt 2,500 condition damage bonus from Bursting is 150. 6% of that, bleed’s coefficient, is 9. It’s unlikely adding 9 to your Germany bleed for adds is a better move than using earth against the main considering 2,500 CD bleeds for 150 on its own.
It will always work out to a flat 6% due to design.
Both posts you’ve made have a lot of numbers but I have no idea where they’re coming from. I like math, but like saying bleed’s coefficient is 9… no, no it’s not, it’s .06 with a base of 22, so the formula is [condition damage *.06 + 22]. I have a feeling you know what you’re talking about but it’s impossible to follow when the numbers aren’t being defined and at face value look to come from nowhere.
Oh, no problem.
So let’s work with the sigil of bursting first.
So if we have equipment and all that which gives us 2,500 total condition damage then the sigil of bursting will add 6%. So 6% of 2,500 is 150.
Now we take the additional condition damage by itself ( that 150 ) and apply the bleed coefficient to get 6% of 150 or 9.
This is messy. The easiest way to do this is actually to just multiply .06 x (coefficient of condition) to get your answer. So for burning it would be .06 × .155 and for bleeding it’s .06 × .06 ( which, if you notice, is also .06^2, coincidence ) and then you have exactly what you will get from your sigil of bursting.
So .06 × .06 = .0036
2,500 × .0036 = 9
That is how much damage your bleeds would gain additionally from a sigil of bursting. I still wish it were cleaner. It’s a messy looking thing though it isn’t complicated, just messy.
The reason why we don’t take the 22 damage that is “free” is because base condition damage on a player character in the character panel with no equipment on and no traits is “0” so if you had that as the base sigil of bursting doesn’t do anything. It doesn’t effect that number is all.
“Six percent of six percent of a number equals 22.”
Let me explain the 6,111 while I’m at it.
So we know that the “free” damage of bleed is 22. We also know that the base character sheet condition damage is 0 without equipment or skills to boost it. What this means is that we can solve for 22 using the coefficients of both sigil of bursting and bleed in order to find the point where sigil or bursting equals a free bleed at zero condition damage (or adds 22 total damage to your bleeds).
The value of 22 / .06 / .06 or 22 / .0036 is that the 6,111 specifically relates to how much effective condition damage you would need for it to be better than one additional bleed from any other source. It would be worth more than a bleed. Same is true for any other condition, for instance, burning:
131.5 / .155 / .06 = 14,139 so at that amount of condition damage your burning from sigil of bursting would do 131.5 extra damage. Obviously that is impossible but it’s good for knowing how effective something is. So if there a sigil that allowed you to get burning on a critical strike it’s value is much greater than a sigil of bursting.
Blah blah I’m so boring.
(edited by DGraves.3720)
Heya!
Shrapnel increases your dps by more than Siege Rounds ever will. You’ll have over 1k condi damage as a full zerker Engi in raids. Siege Rounds only allows you to use Orbital as a minor dps increase over auto attacks.
If you want the utility from Siege Rounds tough, just go for it.
Greez!
- Ziggy
=“Sequence”]Tool Belt skills 2,3 and 5>Hammer 2→ Hammer 4> Hammer 5> Grenades 2>Grenades 4> Grenades 5>
Bombs skill 1 about 7-10 times> Elixir Gun 4 ( let it blast back)>
Hammer 3 to get back in to fight> Start sequence over.
Even at 100% critical chance Shrapnel only gets 19 chances at most per cycle to activate in this sequence. Siege Rounds is predictable and jives better with the power layout plus it’s a toolbelt skill so it’s CD is only 34s I believe. It’s a strong AoE. Most standard sequences have greater odds iirc since it is the number of explosions that dictates the value of Shrapnel.
If we presumed even a true lucky streak of 25% that’s only 4 activations on average per cycle. At just 1,000 condition damage over the native 12s duration that’s 984 damage total per bleed cycle totaling a whole 3,936 after all was said and done per cycle. I think even one Orbital Strike critically hitting will top that. If we presumed two cycles per Orbital Strike CD that’s still only 7,872 damage overall.
I just hopped on and went to a PvP golem because i was in the PvP arena on my engi and set up just to use Orbital Strike, I averaged 3.55k in PvP Zerker w/ Scholar. In PvE obviously it’s going to be significantly greater and we’re not including things like might and vulnerability or additional damage through group effects so I’m not seeing how, even after giving the benefit of the doubt and a significant increase to the real occurrence rate, there’s going to be more damage.
But that’s just based on this rotation.
Heya,
Bursting only boosts your BASE condition damage, not the final condi damage. So it’s even worse.
Backwards. Bursting doesn’t boost the base and only boosts the final.
Runes of Berserker boost base ( 131.5 + .155 x Condition Damage ) x 1.05
Bursting boosts final 131.5 + ( .155 x Condition Damage x 1.06 ).
If you face a single target, use Geomancy and Earth, if you face multiple targets you should use Geomancy and Bursting, because Earth occasionaly will proc on adds and be a dps loss compared to Bursting.
If you ever see the opportunity to use Corruption, use that one instead!
Greez!
- Ziggy
At 2,500 condition damage bonus from Bursting is 150. 6% of that, bleed’s coefficient, is 9. It’s unlikely adding 9 to your Germany bleed for adds is a better move than using earth against the main considering 2,500 CD bleeds for 150 on its own.
It will always work out to a flat 6% due to design.
This is a simple guide on Toughness, what it is, how it works, and why it’s not a bad stat split into two parts:
1. The Math of Toughness
2. The Nature of Toughness
It’s segmented so that those who don’t speak math don’t have to read it and those who run zerker because it turns them on don’t have to look at the latter portion. I’m making this because I finally decided to truly investigate all the rumors about toughness and found it to be a very useful stat even in PvE.
The Math Of Toughness
So, first let’s get this out of the way; toughness is linear. Now that you’ve quit reading I’ll go ahead and explain why anyway alongside what I call the Proportion Error and we’ll talk a little about fractions and how they work too. There’s also some logarithms in there.
Linear You Say?
Yeah.
Proof?
Yeah. Let’s start with a simple one about the nature of doubling numbers and what I call The Proportion Error. To do this first I’m going to use simple addition and subtraction but I want you to take note of the wording. Very important.
10 added to 10 equals 20.
10 doubled equals 20.
Boring stuff, right? The ratio is 2:1 for both, simple. Now let’s do it twice with the both the product and the sum of the previous.
10 added to 20 equals 30.
20 doubled equals 40.
So what’s the issue, simple math, right? The ratio changed. 20 doubled is still 2:1, or proportionately accurate while 20 + 10 is obviously not 2:1 and is in fact 1.5 or 3:2. Leaving that alone for a second The Proportion Error creates “false” diminishing returns even here adding but the reality is that when we add what we’re really measuring isn’t the turn over turn (30/20) but the turn over base (30/10).
And this matters because?
Power isn’t exponential. Let me explain with three fractions, 1/2, 2/2 & 3/2. Now the first thing we see is that I’ve just added 1 to the numerator, and (X+1) is totally linear, so there’s nothing to be looked at, but that’s the incorrect way to read this (surprise) because when talking about effectiveness 1/2 is half as effective as 2/2 but 3/2 isn’t doubly effective. “Duh”, but it’s not as simple as “duh”. This is the same ratio error from before, the effectiveness of the numerator dropped by 50% just by adding 1 without changing the denominator!
Isn’t that diminishing returns? No. No it is not. As you continue on your merry way you will find that doubling your effectiveness requires more and more though, for instance 2/2 -> 4/2 is two steps but 4/2 -> 8/2 is four steps. What this means is that your effectiveness can be (and is) an exponential graph for a linear equation. 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64 … these numbers look familiar?
They’re the powers of two. But we know better, we know that even if we measure effectiveness in exponential format it’s still a linear equation.
And let me guess…
Congratulations, you’re right, the same is absolutely true if you change the denominator. Division is a linear graph that can be (and often is) graphed in logarithmic compression. 1/2 has half the effectiveness of 1/4 which is half of 1/8 and so forth and so on and you’ll see the same powers of 2 play out both ways. Now this is important because if it wasn’t true we’d have major problems.
You can write all logarithms as exponents which means that you can write any division problem as a multiplication problem and you can swap the numerator and denominator to get the natural reciprocals. 4/1 for instance is the reciprocal to 1/4.
… And?
Oh you… This means that it doesn’t matter where you put your numbers in a linear equation. Top or bottom, front or back, the answer will eventually come out to the same proportionately. You can put toughness on the top or bottom but so long as one element is linear the other will be too, for instance with 3 power and 1 toughness both statements are true:
“I will do triple damage.”, “I can only block one third of this attack!”
Statement one is actually coming from the aggressor, the one with 3 power. (written: 3/1)
Statement two is coming from the defender, the one with 1 toughness. (written: 1/3)
The exist in harmony, isn’t that nice?
Okay, okay, but where does the error in thinking come from?
How we speak.
Meaning?
First we swap between static values and effectiveness. “If I add 1 to power on top then it’s a line!” is measuring static value, not effectiveness, which we saw when we looked at 1/2, 2/2 & 3/2. 3/2 is not as effective a move from 2/2 as 1/2 was. We however stare at the +1 (base) and the slope of .5 instead of talking about the percentages.
Which means we…
Absolutely! We do the direct opposite when talking about toughness. We talk about the percentages and effectiveness and ignore the base often making the mistake of constantly changing it. You see, when comparing 1/2 to 2/2 and 3/2 we’re comparing it to the base of 1 but if we compared it to it’s previous iteration (remember the 20+10? this is where that comes back) we get that illusion of diminishing returns. If we look at turn over turn it all works out in the end perfectly too.
1+1 = 2 which is 1 doubled.
2+1 = 3 which is a .66 increase.
3+1 = 4 which is a .75 increase.
4+1= 5 which is a .8 increase.
Or:
1/2
2/3
3/4
4/5
and if you subtract them in order from greatest to least you’re going to get what looks like … diminishing returns.
Also note you get their reciprocals when taking them at base:
1/2 is still .5
1/3 is .33
1/4 is .25
1/5 is .2
Basically they “confirm” one another.
But the big thing here is to note that we constantly change the denominator and do not work from the same base which is (hue hue) what we do when we talk about power. You want to triple your damage? Then triple your power! Plus one for everyone! But if you took it turn over turn … that never pans out (and I mean never by the way, ever).
So what are diminishing returns?
Diminishing returns in economics is the notion that when one unit of labor is added to a system eventually that system no longer benefits from that unit of labor and eventually it becomes overlabored. Now this differs greatly from GW2 in many ways as there is only one stat (precision) that has real diminishing returns in it because diminishing returns, unlike logarithmic compression, will always have a down-turn in relation to production presuming no hard cap.
For those who don’t know what this means it actually means that eventually having too much toughness will cause you to take more damage. This never happens. There has to be some form of loss or real opportunity cost involved in order to show diminishing returns, for instance, if there were diminishing returns in toughness it would be against vitality, not power, because the “unit of production” would be Defense. It has to be in the same classification to work.
In basic terms if you can double it consistently then it’s a line. 2X and X/2 are the same line as well. Don’t fall for the hype bro! Compress and Prosper!
Anything else?
If you are going to post a graph of x/y+1 and say “’nuff said” you need to look in the upper left hand corner. If there’s an exponential curve in that corner (there is) when you decide to say “TOUGHNESS AIN’T LINEAR” just remember that the tiny curve up there is whispering “…then neither is power…”
The Nature Of Toughness
So I chose to use this stuff, or at least am thinking about it, but honestly what is it?
First let’s go over the types of Stats, as there are only three, primary, secondary and supportive.
Primary stats are Power and Vitality. The reason they are primary stats is because while they are effected by other stats they themselves do not effect other stats. They are raw and untamed!
Secondary stats are Ferocity and Healing Power. The reason they are secondary stats is specifically because they indirectly augment the primary stats. They are useless if the primary stats are too low or in the case of health, depleted.
Supportive stats are Precision and Toughness. The reason they are supportive is because they are the glue, they by themselves are actually pretty neat but they’re not made to work alone. You could think of them as the matchmakers, ferocity and power are nothing without precision, you can have all the ferocity in the world but with a 4% critical hit rate it’s worthless and Fury helps make that a bit easier but it’s often temporary. The same is true of toughness, Protection is a huge boost to it but it’s temporary and what toughness does is while it works on its own its best used with healing power and vitality since toughness only improves both.
Yeah, yeah…
Well that brings us to our first point. Toughness improves your healing power and vitality. The big thing here is that this is not reciprocated at all; vitality doesn’t help with toughness or healing power, it just increases the health pool, and healing power by itself can sort of buffer vitality but in this game the coefficients keep it in check and from really allowing that full heal every five seconds.
So about that healing power?
Because this isn’t the math section I’ll leave it out. But basically what toughness does is it reduces the damage you take making every point you heal worth that much more. It eases the burden of healing you which can help eek out those last seconds until you can use your main heal again if you’re in a sortie you’re uh … not exactly “winning”. This is closer to the relationship between Ferocity and Power, without adequate toughness your natural heals won’t be able to keep up (presuming you’re not a warrior… >_>)
And vitality?
Just about the same thing. Your vitality improves as your toughness improves (which is why you’ll never have a point where 1 point in Vit is worth more as a “distinctive truth”) sort of like precision improves power. There’s no magic point in which you have the best ratio or anything and you can definitely gauge that however you want but that is what it does. I will tell you that toughness is not a substitute for vitality even when talking about direct damage so don’t try to use it for one; you want both if you’re going to play defensive because again much like precision it’s so much better when paired up.
So Nomads?
What? No! Don’t use Nomad’s. But do feel free if you’re power to mix maybe Valk. with Knights if you’re on the defensive so you get that vitality and toughness as well as the precision and ferocity. If there were a Precision Major, Toughness/Power minor armor I would suggest that one too. Not many options in this vein really but with conditions you can and should just run Dire if it’s your real source of damage unless you need condition duration but even then a balance between those two should sort you out.
Anything else?
Yeah, actually. Your toughness behaves differently in PvE than PvP. What I mean by this is that it has more value in PvP than PvE and there’s a reason. That reason is that enemies in PvE attack about once every 2-3 seconds normally so they have to hit that hard to keep players on their toes. The sheer magnitude of the strike might be daunting while other players have the same stat caps and balance choices to make as you do making them less deadly.
I am not saying you can’t tank champions, you can, and handily might I add with little effort, but just adding this as a note for those who may not know or may not have thought about it. And one more thing:
Don’t think of toughness as “Taking One More Hit!”
Bad idea. That isn’t how this game is played. If you are not synergizing your toughness with vitality or healing power (or both) don’t take it. It is a supportive stat and it is not designed to save you by itself. You’ll be just as dead as the zerker kid and with less to show for it if you’re not thinking synergistically.
Bonus
You said Precision had diminishing returns…
Oh ho! I got busted. Yes. It’s an S-curve graph with diminishing returns.
I demand an explanation!
Another thread maybe.
I expect none of you to read this. I also am happy I wrote it since now I can move on to other mathematical mysteries of the game like trying to figure out why no one takes sigil of cruelty and why sigil of bloodlust is so expensive…
I take the build to Southsun Cove and solo veteran karka.
I’ve found it to be a really good litmus test if I’m playing something viable. If I die: faulty build. If I have less than half health: still needs work. If I have more than half health: solid build. If I’m at near full or full health: I’m a Charr demi-god.
~EW
I will try this.
Please give it a go and let me know what you think.
For me I find they demonstrate most traits in one beasty that you’ll find spread amongst most creatures in the game. They’ve got high armor, high health, do burst damage and high condi damage, as well as require moving around to effectively face them…. yet they’re not impossible to solo like some champs in the game. They’re uncommonly tough for veterans, I find.
~EW
I like this limitus test. It is hard enough to be difficult without being overwhelming and lets me see the flaws in my strategies more clearly.