HP vs. AL

This question seems to be asked frequently, and each answer is usually based on opinion. After much thought, AL is better than HP. That is to say that using insignias that increase armor are better than using survivor's insignias. That of course is not to say that extra HP is useless.

Example: Level 20 Assassin - Frontline

Full Nightstalker's Insignias
+1 rune of choice
Highest Vigor
3 Vitae

You still get the HP, but with added armor. Here is why AL is better than HP. AL reduces damage taken in the same way that having high HP takes an enemy a longer period of time to kill you. But, when having low HP, when you get healed, you still heal for the same amount. With the above listed runes and insignias, without factoring in weapons, you would have 85AL while attacking, and a maximum of 560HP (if using a superior vigor) as opposed to the extra 40 you would get for full survivor (which isn't much). If you get hit for say 100 damage with 70AL and 600HP, you would take 84 damage after damage calculation, bringing you down to 516. If you take the same amount of damage with 85AL and 560HP, you would take 64 damage after damage calculation, bringing you down to 496, lower than that of the other. But if each were to take that same amount of damage multiple times...

600 - 84 = 516 | 560 - 64 = 496
516 - 84 = 432 | 496 - 64 = 432 (After 2 attacks, they are both left with the same amount of health)
432 - 84 = 348 | 432 - 64 = 368
348 - 84 = 264 | 368 - 64 = 304
264 - 84 = 180 | 304 - 64 = 240
180 - 84 = 096 | 240 - 64 = 176
096 - 84 = 012 | 176 - 64 = 112
012 - 84 = 000 | 112 - 64 = 048

It may only be by 1 attack, but the one with survivor's insignias would die first without healing. But even in the event that they were both healed for say 150HP, the survivor's insignias sin would be healed for 25%, while the nightstalker's insignias sin would be healed for 27%. Not much difference, but it seems that the sin with a higher AL would both survive longer and heal for more. Now this is only one case, and the data given may be somewhat biased from other situations, but generally speaking the case is usually the same.

Now I've shown my thoughts, what are some of your thoughts?

PS: I still usually use Survivor's Insignias simply because they are available to all professions and can be used globally across all characters, heroes, etc.

Damage calculation data: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Damage_calculation

You haven't proven that AL > HP.

You've proven that Nightstalker Insignia are better than Survivor Insignia at certain levels of base health and armor.

There's no need to discuss this, Armor is always > HP. Especially in PvE.
That 35 health you get from full survivor is lost in 1 hit.

http://www.teamquitter.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=14392

Better explained in this thread, prob somewhere on guru too, but CBA to find it.

AR > HP, except against armor-ignoring spikes.

QQ forums proved this years ago.

well you have to factor cracked armor (not really a problem in pve), degen, armor ignoring damage (most skill damage from wars, dervs, sins, paras, mez, necro, smites, ranger and pretty much anything that isn't an ele).

but yes, i think +armor is better for general pve. especially when those lvl 30 HM ele's hit for 300+ dmg with fireball.

Brief and straight to the point. I'm afraid I'd have to agree with this.

As I said, there are many other scenarios that I haven't touch on, but generally speaking, AL is better than HP. If someone would like to go through each scenario by all means, but I don't think it's necessary, nor do I have the time.

No need - the proof is in playing the game.

/nod

Good calculations.

I know that as far as modding a Weapon, the base increase for a perfect Fortitude vs. a perfect Defense mod (+30hp vs. +5AL) is +6.25%.

Base HP @ lvl 20 = 480
+30hp = +6.25% above max

each point of armor reduces damage by 1.25% (since +40AL = 50% armor-sensitive dmg reduction), so +5AL = +6.25% reduction above max

If you are facing loads of armor-ignoring damage, the HP boost is going to help more, if you are facing loads of armor-sensitive damage, the AL boost is going to help more. Since I don't get spammed with lots of armor-ignoring damage (Bloodspike, FGJ!+DSlash, never-ending Assassin chains) in PvE, the +AL works better.

There are 2 things to consider here. Most of this if not all of it is discussed in great detail in many threads

1. Spikes - Do you have enough HP to withstand a spike. With all the armor you can have if they can spike you down in one shot it doesn't matter.

2. Pressure - More armor = reduced pressure (with exception of degen amd armor ignoring damage)

So the thing is AL isn't always better then HP and vice versa. You have to balance the two, so you have the highest armor level you can have while maintaining enough HP to survive spikes

And this is why I compare the two only by simply separating the survivor insignias from an armor increasing one. Regardless of how you look at it, 40HP is not a lot of health to worry about about, armor ignoring damage or not. at -10 degen, that takes 2 seconds to lose, or 1 hit from an enemy. Of course you want to maximize the amount of health you can, but in most cases, armor is simply more important. Spiking is non-comparative because it still factors in AL vs. HP unless you are being hit by armor ignoring damage, which again 40HP is not a lot to lose.

No.
60 AL gives a damage multiplier of 1
+20 AL gives a damage multiplier of 1 / sqrt(2) - well, close enough.
+40 AL gives a damage multiplier of (1 / sqrt(2))^2 = 0.5

Effectively, if your armour rating is increased by 20, the damage you would have taken is multiplied 0.707 (1/sqrt2).

We can take this further and say that if your AL is increased by 10, then damage is multiplied by 1/sqrt(2)^0.5 - that is, 2^(-0.25).

If it's increased by 5, then it's 2^(-0.125) which is 0.917. This is actually an approximately 8% reduction in damage.
Hence, +5AL = 8% damage reduction from armour-sensitive sources.


Note: Using the above calculations, you can deduce that:

Damage Multiplier = 2^(-Extra AL/40) when you start from a base AL of 60.
Trivially, +1AL gives a damage reduction of 1.7%

It's generally known (at least in the gvg community) that armor > HP in the majority of situations, but it's still nice to see some numbers to back it up. Nice job. ^_^

Read this:

Armor rating table.

According to your math, you would get 0 dmg with +80 armor (and would you gain health with 81 or higher armor? How does Save Yourselves work?) .

Every +40 armor the dmg is halved. So +40 armor is 50% dmg, +80 armor is 25% dmg, +120 armor is 12.5% dmg. It's not linear. +5 armor is 91.7% dmg, or an 8.3% dmg reduction.

Come one guys, you can't seriously be discussing this for PvE?

Any benefit in any context is good. If everyone in your team can die less, engagements where the monks are pushed to the brink will turn in your favor.

If I'm H/Hing a hard dungeon in HM and I can't afford large stocks of consumables and am not a physical, then suddenly it becomes much more relevant.

Although to be fair, which insignia you use isn't too important.

Yeah well , you can "fake" survivor with a weap HP set but in many situations you cant "fake" a +10 or +15armor without lowering your own HP.
Like someone said before ( and me many times on Campfire ) , those 35hp are gone in the first hit , AL is still there on all hits of non armor ignoring damage ( wich if there are tons of it , +35 or 40hp isnt going to be helpful either ).

+HP can be nice if you have death penalty, but that's just one situation.