+5 AR or +30?

which do you think is more efficient?

well it depends

if your a caster and your staying out of the line of fire then i would say health

oh im a warrior, so i spose that means +5 armor?

Not necessarily you could run up vs degen which the +30 would be better (for an extra 2 seconds to live lol).

ok well elt me reprase my last post....it all depends on what you like and what you think is better

In PvP health is preferred.
In PvE if you don't have many monks, or their e-management is not so good, then AL can be better.
Either way, it's best to min/max if you are going for one or the other. Stack your upgrades! They mean very little on their own.

ahhh yah, well i put brawlers on with glads on chest and pants so ill go armor. thx guys!

Depends largely what kind of damage you're going to face - reducing damage is better than having health (since it reduces the total pressure on your team), but in many cases there is armor-ignoring damage (some casters, attack skills) that makes it less beneficial to have +armor.

i always use +30 hp and i never you +5 armor

+5 armor is generally better the less armor you have to start with. On a caster with 60AL, +5 armor is worth 8.3% damage reduction. On a warrior with 96 base AL, +5 AL is worth around 4.5% damage reduction. The more armor you have, the less it does.

By contrast, +30 health has the same effect for everyone, roughly a 6% increase in longevity for a character with 500 health. It's also effective vs. DP and armor-ignoring stuff, which is nice.

Moral of the story, if you're a squishy, +5 AL is probably better. If you're a big tough warrior, +30 health is probably better.

Or, you can use some magic... called swaps.

Have +HP on default, since it will save you much more realibly against suprise spikes.

When you become center of mobs attention, switch to +armor.

However, +AL from skills is much more easy to get /and much more thatn just +5 armor.../ so you can have just +HP and leave rest on wammo with WYS. Also, imho, it is much more eficitent to leave on high hp and just have monk cast on you... SoA under focused fire is much better and makes your armor irilevant.

Morale of story: important prot/damage sources bypass armor. some even benefit from lesser armor /reversal, spirit bond .../

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btw, armor benefit is not declining, same about of armor gives you same aditional benefit regardless of existing armor.

caster given +40 armor will receive half damage they would take without it, just like warrior buffed by aditional +40 armor. in both cases damage is reduced by 1/2

I would recommend getting a weapon of each, and practicing weapon swapping. However, if you must choose, it varies on what you expect to face. +30 health is superior if you are expecting heavy spikes or armor-ignoring damage (including degen). +5 armor is superior if you are expecting pressure.

Not exactly - half damage on a 60AL (caster) from a 40 armor boost is going to be twice the damage reduction of a +40 armor boost on an 100AL (warrior), given that the warrior is already recieving 1/2 the damage as the caster base.

In other words, for every 40 points of physcal damage a caster takes, a warrior would take 20 from the same source. So 20 (40/2 - +40AL to caster) is a greater reduction than 10 (20/2 - +40AL to warrior). As such, armor bonus' DO give diminishing returns.
+40AL = 50% damage
+80AL = 25% damage
+120AL = 12.5% damage
+160AL = 6.25% damage
+200AL = 3.125% damage. You see the pattern?

My smite monk uses the rinblade (req3, +5 AR vs Charr) with a +5 ar mod. Ad 16 in smite, 12 in tactics, an exalted eagis and some norn skills and you melee Hells percipice with your eyes closed.

How does +5AL vs. Charr help against titans?

In PvE, the general answer is that +health is better when you're DPed and +armor is better when you are not. If you can afford to bring both mods, definitely do and switch between them; if you cannot, I would suggest sticking with +health, as you need it that much more when suffering from DP.

Nothing. I added that just to be complete. The rinblade is great because it does the most damage for a req of 3 swordsmanship. I love swinging the cheap thing with lots of smite enchantments and 12 points in tactics to boot.

Sometimes armor is useless, HP is always useful.

- Did you consider that with higher damage reduction to begin with, additional increase will be even more beneficial? In extreme example getting your 98% damage reduction to 99% effectively halves the damage you receive over 98% reduction.

A lot of skills are more effective with higher health, eg: infuse health, flesh of my flesh, chilling victory... etc..
If you are using such skills then you take +30
If you are sacrificing health as a necro, then you would consider a weapon swap to a weapon with less hp.
In PvP higher Hp is generally desired to counter spikes, since some spikes will ignore armour. However higher armour does relieve pressure against damage heavy pressure builds.

It really depends on what you expect to come across, and your build, maybe you could consider bringing both weapon cores just in case?

30 hp always
no arguement