+3 energy vs +30 armor

Except rate of health recovery is nonexistent as players do not rely on regen.

Most of the time it all depends what I find on the way adventuring I am cheap

+ energy mods are useless until you are at 0 energy.
+ health mods are useless until you are at 0 health.
+ armor mods are effectively 'health management', helping you all the time.

The difference? You can control your energy pretty well, or at least you should be able to. Not to mention with good swapping you have +47 energy on a weapon swap. Your health on the other hand is at the whims of the enemy. Having that small + health buffer is often the difference between life and death vs. a spike. Against pressure however, it is best to have + armor mods on, then switch to + health on when in danger of death, thereby getting the best out of both mods.

This is partially true. More accurately, instead of saying survivor's doesn't change your rate of health recovery, you should say it doesn't save you health. Armor effectively heals you, because you take less damage in the first place. In PvE, this is completely true, because there you aren't entering the area expecting to get that low on health in the first place. But in PvP the difference between the half second you gain from +60 health is more then enough time to get a life saving heal.

pve = radiants
pvp = survivors

i usually wear teh +al equip on my chest, and sometimes legs
depending on my class/insignias available

spells (non-projectile) always target chest
mostly everything else is like...
~45% chance to hit chest?
~30% chance to hit legs?
~8% chance for other pieces?

i cant remember teh exact numbers,
can someone confirm the exact numbers?

Energy regens in combat, health does not. Therefore, max health is infinately more important than max energy. Especially when you take into account (as others have said) your health is always at the mercy of your enemy, and your energy rarely is.

i've always used Radiant on my chest and legs for my P/Me.

he needs the extra 5 energy with the builds i've always used.

imo, most armor insignias are worthless since they only affect the piece of armor they are on now, and i've never had a situation where a character i play has full survivors and was left with < 40 HP. if you are getting that low, your dead anyway... (my necro with full radiant has come out of battles in UW with 11 HP before though... and without the extra 8 energy i wouldn't have gotten off the killing spell...)

to each their own. one school of though isn't correct and the other invalid... its what works best for that individual.

You shouldn't be needing just 5 more energy on the two classes in the game who's primary attributes are effectively infinite energy machines. Besides, you realize on your necro you could have just swapped to a high energy set and gotten 30 more energy, and at the same time had greater armor or health right?

In your case, yes +energy is correct, but only because your builds are bad ones that can't effectively manage energy in the first place.

i'm going to assume that u dun pve?

surviving in pve relies more on ur skills (spells/chants, etc...not 1337 skillz)

and since skills usuallly require u to use energy,
having more energy is a good idea

the fact is, if ur not protted...ur gonna be takin excess of +200dps
thats constant dps...not a 600dmg spike in 3s...

in pvp...u get hit wit a 600dmg spike...then they have cooldown
so +25hp will save u in pvp...

Ya, Snaek, but Radiants don't change the fact that if your build is running out of energy you need more energy management, or just need to use your build effectively.

perhaps...perhaps not...
but in either case, if u look at teh situation
u'll see that its still more beneficial than survivors

its also due to the fact that ppl want to effieciently complete areas as fast as possible
perhaps radiants dun help u kill things faster....
but survivors surely dun help at all wit this

even if really really did need more survivablity....+al is better...y?

cuz who ai chooses to attack works like this:
1st check = closest proximity
2nd check = lowest al
3rd check = lowest hp

Having 5 more energy doesn't save you in high level PvE, having passive protection saves you in high level PvE. And 200 DPS? Not against anything less then a boss. You also seem to forget that a simple weapon swap is +30 energy compared to your pitiful radiants.

And dun maek u're postss liek dis.

To start with something similar as you, I'm going to assume you don't play PvE very well.

Aside from few farming/gimick builds there is no good reason to use radiant insignias. Ever. Like stated a few times above, high energy pool does not equal energy management. If you that desperately need some energy to cast a spell, switch to high-energy set for a while. If you are still having problems then its time to revisit your build(personal and/or team) or play-style/skill.

I've gone through PvE long enough to know Survivor's > Radiants.
The key is: If you need Radiants, your build either sucks or needs more energy management.
Things such as Expertise, GoLE and Soul Reaping should be enough for that.
Heck, GoLE is strong enough by itself.

all survivor is nice... but redundant imo. my monk most of the time is at 620 hp. head+hands+feet = hp
chest+legs= armor bonus.

650 hp with sword+shield is nice... but 30 hp vs. 10 armor from bless or 10 vs phy. is prob a better idea.

and im not going to talk about +energy ones' if you use radiant armor in pvp u prob fail. even on my shock i use survivor+ Sentinel's on chest and legs.i rather stay alive and be at 0 energy and exhaustion then being DEAD with 10 energy on my bar. for pve... well its pve, anything can just work cant it?

passive protection? u mean stuff like sy godmode?
or stuff like +30hp from survivor insignias?
sy godmode can be run more efficiently with higher base energy
and +30hp wont save u at all if ur unprotted...

and ummm...go to uw and see how long it takes an aatxe to kill u unprotted

the key is: if you need survivors, ur build either sucks or ur backline/midline fail at keeping ppl alive (for pve)


honestly....u really shouldnt be dying in pve...
and u really shouldnt be needing survivors

u dun really need radiants either....
but in most cases, will allow u do things much more efficiently

if ur focus is on staying alive and jus winning at pve...
and not how fast and efficiently can i complete pve...
then ur a casual pve'r and it really doesnt make a diff wut u bring

Because you're really going to go against Aatxe's unprotted?
Oshi-- Ursanway doesn't use Prots...yet they still clear UW HM!!



Errr?
What are you going to use in your argument next, health management?
Switching to a high energy set isn't hard, nor is it expensive.

i was proving a point to the person i replied to that monsters r capable of 200dps...

and ursanway relies on:
+20al (30% dmg reduction from all source that dun ignore armour)
weakness (66% dmg reduction from attacks)
constant kd's
and +200hp defeats teh purpose of prot

besides....ursanway really doesnt count

and switchin to a high energy set means u'll need cooldown time to recover
and in pve u want to try to minimize if not eliminate cooldown time

Maybe if you stop typing like a complete retard people would be able to make some sense of what you are saying.

oh wait

mayb you stopp typin lik dhis case u r a retad omgz like wai no!

Dunno what kind of pve you do, but oddly enough you have plenty of cooldown time. Since when is pve a constant fight against a mob?

I thought this was PvE?
If it's PvE, PvE skills should be counted.

Weakness is always integrated into my builds aswell.

oh, im sowrie...
i thought this was teh internet and not english class

but anyways...if u didnt understand it teh first time i said it
i'll say it again, jus for u:

pve = radiants
pvp = survivors

and pve is a constant fight when u want to complete it in 1/2hr instead of 1hr

well ursan doesnt have any energy skills
so its pointless to bring radiants...

u mite as well call ursanway a gimmick build...
and gimmick builds can have a tendancy to stray from standard equips

More energy = more Ursan.

And yeah, at your "This is not an English class, this is the internet" comment:
It makes it easier to read so we don't have to get a master translator to do all the work.
Plus abusing the English language is against the rules from what I hear.

By having to rely on radiant insignias, you're simply making yourself less effective. As it was said before, it is better to have good energy management than a higher energy pool. If you don't have to rely on radiant insignias, you can take advantage of much better ones.

And whoever it was before who said "good healing is better than survivor insignias," you have a better chance of surviving a spike with 600-something health than with 480.

I'm so sick of seeing those eles who ping "My Energy is 1 of 110. BR ME!!!!" <_<

hmm funny cause my paragon beat NF before the PvE only skills came out H/H the whole way, and only had to redo one mission for masters cause my time wasn't fast enough. when starting a fight i needed extra energy to cast everything, once battle was going my energy was fine. but yeah, keep saying how bad my builds are when they work for me just fine.

why would i want to swap away from my stonereaper staff with my necro unless i was casting br? the staff gives me +15 e already, so a high energy set isn't really going to bump me up all that much, where having +8e on my armor is there all the time. 40 hp wouldn't have saved me from the next hit anyway, nor would any armor mods...

plus, every time i try to buy a +15/-1 inscript for a focus, the person selling won't get rid of it for less than 20k... a bit pricey for a situational use item for me. (already have the wand for high energy set, but swapping to it is the same as my staff already...)

just because you don't use certain insigs, skills, builds, or whatever doesn't mean they don't have a use, or that other people shouldn't use them.

perhaps some people should lose their egos about how "leet" they are in a video game...

/Bonus up a staff, and switch to it for using your shouts.
It isn't hard you know.

Paragons don't ever need Radiant; they have Leadership. Centurion's is good. Radiant givess you a max of +8 energy, but any max staff with no mods gives you +10. After modding, that staff can give +15, +20^50% HP, or even +30^50% HP with -1 regen.

A dual +15, -1 wand/focus set has +47(15+15+12) energy; that is 24(47-15-8=24) more than you have available now, and you can put something better on your Necro's armor.

Collectors. Weapon Crafters.

Leadership doesn't do anything unless you have party members that are being affected by your shouts. in 4 person areas, and certain other situations, that doesn't happen (like using shouts that don't affect the whole party).

i also generally don't want to use my shouts until the bad guys have closed to melee range, or are otherwise about to begin their attacks, which generally means that i'm already throwing spears before i use the shouts. swapping weapons at that point makes no sense.

no collector makes a +15/-1e 20% HSR curses focus that i could find. so once again, putting it together by buying / salvaging the parts is the only way for this optimal set that i rarely, if ever, really need.

my whole point to this is that all items in the game have a use, and just because you don't use them doesn't mean that other people shouldn't either. The whole "i'm right and you are wrong for believing X" attitude that i've seen in this thread is utter crap. one build, philosophy, play style, and anything else you want to come up with isn't going to be superior to everything someone else does. To each their own, and if that person has fun playing with a build / weapon set / rune setup different than yours doesn't make it a bad build / lazy player / imperfect setup situation. Having fun is why we are supposed to be playing this game anyway, not as some way to pump up your own chest.

if you can only agree on disagreement, drop the subject and move along.

Well you're not excactly soloing with Paragons.
And they have the most stupid energy management in the game, apart from Soul Reaping which applies to PvE.

And you're only weaponswapping for things like "TNTF!" out of battle if you're running an Imbagon, and even then you should be mashing the button assigned to "SY!" while in battle.

For normal Paragon builds with Anthem of Flame, 30 energy is more than enough to fuel it, unless you're running below 8 Leadership, which is bad.

For Motigon, just weaponswitch mid-battle and soon after you won't need to because Shouts will increase your energy.

And as Mister B pointed out, even a +10E Staff should suffice.

The fact of the matter is that both mods have their uses.

I've always run Radiants on my PvE ranger, because while I'm quite capable of effectively managing energy this gives me the ability to run a couple of heavy, energy-intensive spike skills on my bar for when I need them. There's a lot of truth to saying that you can boost your energy with weapons, but some classes (Rangers, Sins, Warrs) can't easily utilize these bonuses because having 20 extra energy is useless if you're not holding the right type of weapon. I know it's already been said, but given the same skill bar and same player, and assuming you're not using an "infinite-energy" type build, a character with 35 energy will last longer energy-wise than a character with 30 energy, regardless of what kind of energy management he's using. In PvE in particular, this gives characters more versatility, and having 5 extra energy to power a strong spike is often a lot more useful than having 25 extra health since fights are generally short and you can recharge in between them.

On the other hand, Survivor insignias are great insurance against my least favorite two conditions - DP and untimely death. While it's true that they don't provide you with health management, in a game that relies heavily on healer classes to provide most of a team's healing, +25 health is far more useful than +5 energy when it's the difference between one hit and two hits killing you or surviving vs being killed by degen. I've many times survived a run-in with enemies by single-digit amounts of health, and when this happens on characters I use Survivor insignias on, I'm glad I had them.

The fact of the matter is that both insignias have their uses, and to say either is better in all situations is simply foolish. I've seen lots of "Radiants aren't used in GvG, thus they suck" posts, but people seem to forget that GvG is only a single aspect of the game. GvGs between two good teams often become pressure games or hinge on whether the team with the spike can finish it before being killed, and in this case extra health is incredibly useful. In Arenas, when you need to be able to hit hard and fast to eliminate the enemy team before time runs out, extra energy can allow you to push through the last spell or two you need to win, while extra health can let you survive those last couple of spells. In PvE, where damage is rarely a constant factor and you can almost always heal between battles, extra energy often allows you to run more diverse builds, or allow you to bring an extra skill in that empty slot on your bar that you might otherwise not be able to afford, energy-wise.

Both insignias, as well as +armor and others, have legitimate uses and should not be discounted. Only a fool refuses to consider all his options.

Ranger's don't and shouldn't need energy management beyond Expertise, in which case Prepared Shot comes into detail.

Warrior's...just switch to a Zealous Weapon, or don't run bad skills (Most of the Warrior energy skills, things costing 10 energy shouldn't be on your Warrior's bar.

'Sins have Critical Strikes. Need more energy use the skill Critical Strike.

Does Not Exist. Both the 15/-1 and the 20% HSR are inscriptions, so you can't make one either.

You can get these on a wand or a staff, however. And there ARE crafter/collector/greens available with this combo.

This is always the fallback for someone who lost the argument. You came in defending Radiants, and ended up saying "I can run what I want!" Not a valid response to the thread, in which many people are explaining why Survivors are better than Radiants.

Extra maximum energy is almost never necessary, and it certainly isn't energy management.

Armor bonuses can come from skills, which often give better bonuses anyway.

Therefore, extra HP is the only insignia with any real benefit. And the true benefit is not really the extra HP, it's that it gives the monk extra time to push red bars up.

You'll notice that you've effectively just proved my point. As I said, I have no problem managing energy on my Ranger, but for example, one combo I like to run is "You Move Like A Dwarf!" + "Finish Him!", a total of 20 energy that's not affected by Expertise. You mention skills or equipment setups that are commonly used to manage energy, and I agree that these are useful staples. However, that's why I said that having more energy gives you the ability to incorporate more variety into your build.
Energy management is always an issue, but having a few extra points of energy makes it a little easier to work around in your build. For example, both my best chest running build and my solo Great Destroyer build utilize Radiant insignias, whereas the extra Survivor health would be mostly useless. I'm not saying that if you have a build that can't handle energy problems you should just throw Radiants at it, but rather that a build can rely to some degree on the extra energy from the aforementioned insignias and still be good.

Great Destroyer doesn't require Radiant Insignias.
Everytime I run it I use Glyph of Renewal -> Pain Inverter -> Savage Shot.
Then I hit PI and Savage again, voila. Easier in HM though.

And yeah, how is extra health mostly useless?
Extra energy is more useless becasue you can incorperate energy management attributes and/or skills on your bar.

Hmm…seems like the price of Radiants is going to drop even further. This is good news for me because I like ’em!

Choice of insignias really depends on individual play style. What do you think is fun?

For me, I think it is fun to push lots of buttons and spam a lot. Therefore, I tend to like fast recharging skills and lots n lots of energy.

I don’t tend to die often because I am an experienced player, I always take a good self-heal and my energy management is good so I can keep on spamming my self-heal after I have run away. Plus, I usually know the GWs territory fairly well and this makes a lot of difference – probably the most difference (I know where to run away to).

For example, just so I could help one of my newbie friends (who played a ranger), I took a level 2 storage unit (this one happened to be a warrior) all the way through newbie island to Kaineng Center wearing only the freebie/non-insignia armor, with Taya as the hench healer. In the end, the storage unit ended up being a survivor, which was completely unnecessary. I believe that the main reason for this is that I know Shing Jea Island very, very well.

For my friend, I did suggest survivor insignias (when she went to buy armor on the mainland) simply because she is new and it does help to have extra hp if you haven’t learned to kite yet and haven’t found your play style yet, and also because she doesn’t know the map very well.

Really, knowing the lay of the land, being able to maneuver well, and having found your individual play style is more important than the insignias that you put into your armor.

Everyone here is obviously speaking from their own experience based on their own particular style of play, but play styles are diverse. For example, I don’t do the +15, -1 focus, but my hubby loves them and he is good too. But I can’t play like him. Not a hope!

To the OP: I’d start by taking everyone’s opinion into account and then begin by following who you think is a closest match to you and work it out from there. Over time, you will find what you like and don’t like. Everyone is right about their choices if they found that the insignias they use really work for them. There is no sense arguing about it.

Almost all true, except for the part about armor. An armor boost is an armor boost is an armor boost. It is equally effective no matter what other boosts you are getting.

Mhmm, which is great when you're doing it with a team. As I said, I use them to solo it. And extra health is useless in the builds I mentioned, not in general. Finally, you have to remember that you only have a limited number of skills and attribute points. While you can swap out Radiants for Survivors and carry extra e-management, depending on the build you can also swap out the Survivors for Radiants and have extra skills and/or attributes available to you. Since I don't need more health in some builds, I prefer to have extra energy and bring, say, one less e-management skill and one more skill that serves some more useful purpose.

+energy IS NOT ENERGY MANAGEMENT! It lets you dip further into energy reserves, but you will bottom out eventually. Think of +energy as a credit card. You have the same amount of energy as before you got it, you just are allowed to dip deeper into the negative, but eventually you will have to pay it back. And for the 100th time, weapon swapping is ftw if you need energy.

It really depends on your class and the skills you use and what not

If you're under SY, then Survivor's is the way to go. The extra armor from insignias (or even from weapons) is insignificant, but the extra HP helps...along with a Fortitude mod and Minor runes only.

If you're not under SY, there is a valid case to be made for +armor insignias, depending on the situation.

I'm well aware that energy is not energy management. But no, that's not how it works. It's as though you had savings and a job. The job pays x dollars per day (your energy management), and your savings are some set amount (your starting amount of energy). Hopefully you can cover most of your expenses with your income, but you may need to dip into your savings. The more savings you have, the more you can dip into them without running out. In short, you don't need to always have full energy. All you really need is to not run out before the fight is over, and this is where Radiants come into play. If my build, taking into account E management, uses 1 energy per second, having 38 energy rather than 30 gives me an extra 8 seconds that I can keep using my build. And in point of fact, most good builds can do much better than that for E-management.
What us pro-Radiant people are saying is that if you have a bit of extra energy, you can survive without as much E-management. Another way to look at it is this: If I use 50 energy in a given fight and I start with 30, I need enough E-management to regain 20 energy during the fight. If I start with 38, I only need to get back 12.
As I said more than once already, not only is extra energy useful in PvE because you can recharge between fights (thus more energy to work with right from the start) but not all builds can work around weapon-swapping. If I'm running a bow build on my Ranger, there's not much I can do with the +20 energy I can get from a swapped-out weapon set, since it's not a bow.