Insignias

Well after taking a break from Guild Wars I can back to relieve they introduced insignias. I am looking for a bit of advice to put what insigs on what armor for different classes. This is what I have:

1.) Monk - I have a 55 set that I put all energy insignias then I have a set of Wanderer's Armor and I don't know what insignias to put on that. The Wanderes Armor is for my healing/protection setup.

2.) Elementalist - I have 1 set of armor for him. I mostly do echo nuking or Mist farming....but mainly echo nuking.

3.) Necromancer - I have 55 armor and MM armor. I don't know what to put on either.

Now I know it might depend on what creatures I am fighting so I mainly farm in SF, or UW.

Also, do insignias stack? Like could I put health insignias on all pieces of armor?

yes and no... insignias only affect the armor piece that they are attached to. I personally would go with all health. unless there is a reason not to...like the MM armor ...should get one the reduces cast 25% on death magic spells..or something like that. check the wiki for more info

http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Insignia

some important notes at the very bottom..and on the discussion page

Blessed is a good choice for an Elementalist, as you should be using Attunements almost all the time. Extra energy is not important for a class with Energy Storage. Extra armor will do more than extra health for most situations, but the second choice would be Survivor.

Monk, I go Radiant on all my sets, definitely on a 55 set. If I were to switch, I'd use Blessed as I am almost always running Blessed Aura for Prot., or Healer's Boon for Heal. Again, Survivor is on my list of options, but at the bottom of the list.

Necromancer, go Radiant for the 55 set. If you have a set that you use for nothing but MM, use Minion Masters insignias with 1 Bloodstained insignia. Even though you may not use wells, or corpses on all builds, I leave 1 spot with Bloodstained all the time. For certain builds, I switch to the Tormentors, unless I know there will be Holy Damage from enemies. Survivor is never an option for a Necro, as the life sacrifice increases, and isn't worth it.

Ranger, I haven't messed with many options yet, but don't see a need for more armor. Because of this, I stick with Radiant on my Ranger. I do, however, have a set I use for Beast Master builds, with the Beastmaster insignias.

Warrior, Survivor and Stonefist are all I use, except for a set with Radiant for energy heavy builds.

Paragon, Centurion all the way.

Dervish, Windwalkers for sure, with Blessed a possibility if you aren't using 3 or more enchantments.

Assassin - hard one. I usually use Radiant to run higher energy cost attack combos. Nightstalkers is nice though, and Survivor is a possible as well. If you can make good use of the defense skills, go Radiant. Brawlers is also a good choice, as you should be attacking most of the time anyway.

Ritualist I use Radiant, as I don't find most caster classes needing the extra armor often in PvE. However, Mystics is a very good choice if you want some extra armor.

Mesmer is similar to Ritualist. Radiant most of the time, but Virtuosos if I want some more armor. Blessed can work for builds using things like IW or the Visages, and if you use a Signet build, which can be quite fun, Artificers is nice. I have a build using 6 signets, which gives me +18 armor with Artificers.

Some Insignias stack and some don't. Check the above wiki link for more info.

But anyway, the Survivor (health) and Radiant (energy) insignias do stack. If you put Survivors on each piece of armor you will get a total health bonus of +40 (+5, +15, +5, +10, +5). If you use all Radiants you would get a total of +8 energy.
I think the +1 energy for Radiants on some pieces is a waste, so I often go with Survivor on the head, hands, & feet and Radiant on the chest and legs for a total of +5 energy and +15 health.

I use blessed on my monk most of the time. Survivor can be used to offset the health cost of runes, if you want.

I almost always use Tormentor's on my necro, except when MMing - I use Minion Master's then. If there are enemies that do holy damage, radiant is good. If I'm going to exploit corpses for any reason, I bring bloodstained (on boots or gloves).



If you're using a long duration and/or short recharge item spell, Herald's insignia is very good.

I might use survivor's insignia, but I believe finding a way to get +10 armor most of the time is normally better.

Can you buy insignias?

Never mind, I read that you can from rune traders on the wiki.

Can I put a rune and insignia on 1 piece of armor? Does the new runes that they introduced overwrite the old ones like + 3 to whatever?

Any piece of armor can have 1 rune. Most armor can also have 1 insignia (collector armor can not have insignias applied). If you put a new rune or insignia on a piece of armor, it will override the old one. The rune and the insignia will work together (so if you have a superior vigor and a survivor insignia on the same piece of armor, you will receive both HP bonuses). The new runes use the same rune slot as the original runes, so if you have a scar pattern of superior soul reaping and you apply a rune of clarity, you will end up with a scar pattern of clarity, and your superior soul reaping is gone.

I wold advise a combination of survivor's and radiant
If you are just echo nuking, just delete this character.
If you decide you want to play an elementalist, get Prismatic.
radiant on the 55 as armor boosts wont do anything and health is bad.
mostly survivors on the MM stuf.
mostly, yes. a few of the odd ones (like stonefist) do not.

It's been a long time since I've played my Necro, but I can say that I tried using MM runes on my Necro hero MMs and they died a lot faster that way than when using Survivors. Linking your armor to the number of minions you have is, at best, chancy, whereas the health bonus from Survivor is always there, and helps against degen/poison/bleeding.
Also, it's better to make new minions (and/or use Jagged Bones) rather than using BotM to keep the ones you have alive. And, when you do use BotM (after the battle, usually) you simply offset any health loss with Heal Area, so the increase in sacrifice is not a problem.

But, to each there own.... :P

One thing I don't understand is why people say the health sacrifice gets higher with higher health. Yes, the number gets higher but it's still the same % of your max health. So either way, you're sacrificing the same proportion of your health.

Am I missing something with that thinking?

If you have 500 health, and you use a skill that sacrifices 10%, you lose 50 health. If you add Survivor Insignias, and boost your health to 540, you now sacrifice 54 health. Big deal, right, just 4 more health lost. Now, consider if your self heal gives you 50 health back. You can easily heal yourself back to max, or even wait for a second sacrifice. With 10 minions, an MM sacrifices 25% health though. So at 500, that is a loss of 125 health. At 540, you lose 135 health. Its a matter of how easily the lost health can be restored. If it takes 2 casts of the healing spell, then it isn't helping much.

I do NOT suggest having LOW health for an MM. But I do not think increasing the health will benefit you, as it means the healing needs to be greater. I use hero MMs all the time, except in areas with little to no corpses. I rarely have the MM die until almost everyone else is dead, or unless all the minions were killed. Build I use almost never changes.

16 Death Magic (Superior Death Magic rune)
10 Soul Reaping (Major Soul Reaping rune)
10 Healing Prayers
4 Blood Magic (Minor Blood Magic rune) - think its 4, whatever is left over

[skill]Animate Shambling Horror[/skill][skill]Animate Vampiric Horror[/skill][skill]Animate Bone Horror[/skill][skill]Jagged Bones[/skill][skill]Death Nova[/skill][skill]Blood of the Master[/skill][skill]Heal Area[/skill][skill]Dark Bond[/skill]

I don't have to babysit, but I do occassionally have to flag when Livia wants to recast Death Nova and Jagged Bones on them all instead of catching up for the next fight.

Here's a big point to keep in mind - most spells that heal do so for a set amount. Health sacrifice, OTOH, is a certain % of your health. As such, a self heal that perfectly compensated for a health sacrifice at one point may no longer fully heal you.

This is one of the foundations of the 55HP monk builds - using that skill that prevents you from losing any more than 10% of your hp from any 1 damage source means you can only ever lose 5.5HP, which is an easy amount to heal back. Combine that w/ hp regen skills which recover a fixed amount of hp/s, regardless of your total hp, and it makes for a nigh unkillable character.

As a general note, I usually don't trust heroes w/ health sacrifice skills - they seem to over use them...

Ah, I knew there was something I was missing (such as how easy the sacrifice can be healed away). Thanks a lot MagmaRed and Biostem.