What's your opinions on these insignias for heroes? It's about time I fully outfitted my heroes, so I'd like some opinions.
Obviously for warriors and non-energy using classes, survivor is the way to go. My philosophy has always been though that while survivor may increase your health by 5-10%, radiant can increase your energy by a greater proportion, and that extra energy can turn into a lot more than 5-10% of a heroes HP in terms of healing or extra damage and thus shorter battles.
I've always favored proting over trying to build up a big health pool. Whats your opinion?
Radiant vs. Survivor
Infanta
AngelWJedi
for me it depends on what weapons they run. if the hero has a 30hp weap i tend to do more survivor or other health runes. if its more the 30hp either as a 60hp staff or 30hp on shield and other weapon then i do more energy.
Don Zardeone
Forget radiant in PvE and question the use of survivor
Warrior heroes: More energy means they can attack maybe 1-2 times more before running out of energy. At that point it stops giving any benefit. More energy on a warrior doesn't increase DPS
Survivor in PvE means a warrior will take 1 more hit before blowing up. Whereas more defense will lower the damage he takes and thus live longer and outperform any survivor boosts he may have gotten from armor.
I did a calculation a while back and it is cheaper, item-slot wise, to put defense on armor and any +hp on weapons and offhands.
+10 armor roughly equates to a 16% reduction in damage taken. So all my warriors run +defense on armor.
Radiant on casters, same thing. They'll fire off one more spell before running out. It just postpones the inevitable. If energy is what you need then more pips or more virtual energy pips is what you need.
I run full survivors and vitaes with +health on equipment to at least put my casters over 530hp or more. My warriors have slightly less thanks to a major rune or less +hp. This means my warriors have less hp and hopefully get hit more than casters.
I try to have a 25-50% energy boost from base on my casters. So a mesmer with 30e base gets up to 45e due to wand/offhand(+12 or +17) or staff with insightful or +5e^50(+10). I like to give them some breathing room with more expensive spells but I don't focus on pumping up their energy. I try to make them live longer by making them take less damage while still keeping damage as high as possible, keeping fights as short as possible and winning faster.
So for warriors and people I want to take more hits I have <530-550hp
Casters I try >530-550hp
Radiant I never use except for some PvP situations
Tis my opinion
Warrior heroes: More energy means they can attack maybe 1-2 times more before running out of energy. At that point it stops giving any benefit. More energy on a warrior doesn't increase DPS
Survivor in PvE means a warrior will take 1 more hit before blowing up. Whereas more defense will lower the damage he takes and thus live longer and outperform any survivor boosts he may have gotten from armor.
I did a calculation a while back and it is cheaper, item-slot wise, to put defense on armor and any +hp on weapons and offhands.
+10 armor roughly equates to a 16% reduction in damage taken. So all my warriors run +defense on armor.
Radiant on casters, same thing. They'll fire off one more spell before running out. It just postpones the inevitable. If energy is what you need then more pips or more virtual energy pips is what you need.
I run full survivors and vitaes with +health on equipment to at least put my casters over 530hp or more. My warriors have slightly less thanks to a major rune or less +hp. This means my warriors have less hp and hopefully get hit more than casters.
I try to have a 25-50% energy boost from base on my casters. So a mesmer with 30e base gets up to 45e due to wand/offhand(+12 or +17) or staff with insightful or +5e^50(+10). I like to give them some breathing room with more expensive spells but I don't focus on pumping up their energy. I try to make them live longer by making them take less damage while still keeping damage as high as possible, keeping fights as short as possible and winning faster.
So for warriors and people I want to take more hits I have <530-550hp
Casters I try >530-550hp
Radiant I never use except for some PvP situations
Tis my opinion
Taurean
For a build to be effective, you need energy management. That means you need to get energy returned from somewhere, hence you don't need extra energy. If you can't keep your energy recouperated, there's no need to add anything extra to begin with.
Extra life makes you more durable and harder to kill, so that is definitely worth much more.
Extra life makes you more durable and harder to kill, so that is definitely worth much more.
Zahr Dalsk
Survivor by far.
Simply adding more energy does not guarantee a return of energy; you might last a little longer than you would without it, but eventually you'll run out.
The smart thing to do is to take care of your energy in the first place, whether by energy management skills or simply intelligent pacing.
Simply adding more energy does not guarantee a return of energy; you might last a little longer than you would without it, but eventually you'll run out.
The smart thing to do is to take care of your energy in the first place, whether by energy management skills or simply intelligent pacing.
Infectious
You never, ever, ever, need energy for general PvE.
The only time I can think of that you will need a big energy pool is doing UWSC as the ER bonder.
:edit:
This also goes for PvP
If you have a radiant/attunment rune, you are bad.
The only time I can think of that you will need a big energy pool is doing UWSC as the ER bonder.
:edit:
This also goes for PvP
If you have a radiant/attunment rune, you are bad.
Gabs88
High HP on team members you don't want to get attacked, low HP on those you want to get attacked.
S4br3t00th
Radiant has no use outside of some PvP builds, such as the shock/axe war where exhaustion can be a concern, or some assassin chains...
Survivor isn't always the way to go either...
Additional armor is where its at IMO:
dreadnough on wars, tormentor on necros, prodigy on mesmers, blessed on eles and dervs, centurion on paras, possibly ghostforge on rits...
survivor for the rest.
Unless you're against a majority of armor ignoring damage or degen, 10 more armor does far more than +40hp
Survivor isn't always the way to go either...
Additional armor is where its at IMO:
dreadnough on wars, tormentor on necros, prodigy on mesmers, blessed on eles and dervs, centurion on paras, possibly ghostforge on rits...
survivor for the rest.
Unless you're against a majority of armor ignoring damage or degen, 10 more armor does far more than +40hp
Sir Mad
Quote:
Originally Posted by Taurean
For a build to be effective, you need energy management. That means you need to get energy returned from somewhere, hence you don't need extra energy. If you can't keep your energy recouperated, there's no need to add anything extra to begin with.
It really depends on the build. I have two heroes who carry skills for e-management (including Blood Ritual) and energy is generally not a problem in my team. However, some heroes can and like to spam their skills, like my mesmer, and empty their mana pool before they can receive an energy buff. In that case, Radiant is the way to go, because it lets them cast a few more spells and last long enough to receive an e-regen.
I would also like to point out you all say that more energy is generally useless, because you're gonna run out of energy at some point, so you need e-management. That's definitely right. But the same can be said about health. At some point you're gonna run out of health, so you need health-management (healing). See where I'm coming from?
I would also like to point out you all say that more energy is generally useless, because you're gonna run out of energy at some point, so you need e-management. That's definitely right. But the same can be said about health. At some point you're gonna run out of health, so you need health-management (healing). See where I'm coming from?
Don Zardeone
I haven't played in 3-4 years and back then, a sup rune on your headpiece was the way to go for everything except pvp. Nowadays it seems sup runes are gone everywhere except maybe a few death magic builds. I'm just following the meta on this and it seems to require at least more than 530 hp. I think, I'm not sure though, that it is because of some bosses which can deal an overload of damage and spike you so the health buffer is needed in that case. I.e., when your ps doesn't get precast 
Just figured I'd throw this in
Just figured I'd throw this in
LifeInfusion
The only time I'd run either is when there's SY! spam. Radiant for ER eles running p-bond and nobody else. +10-15 Armor is better, it's a 15-23% reduction in phys/ele/wanding damage.
Of course if it's all degen /armor ignoring survivor might be better but PvE mesmers and necros still wand you.
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Armor_rating
Of course if it's all degen /armor ignoring survivor might be better but PvE mesmers and necros still wand you.
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Armor_rating
Tripolityx
These get my points.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gabs88
Quote:
Survivor works about the same in that it lets you take 1-2 more hits before you die from full health, which is why I like armor better as it always applies.
But about health... Guess what? When your health runs out it doesn't even matter how much energy you had stored... instead it takes 3-5 sec for your team mates to rez you or forces a monk to waste his elite.
If you're in a situation where one more cast would change anything, odds are your insignas dont matter in the first place.
Even though it doesn't apply to heroes, a high energy set (hell, even a +20 energy staff) puts radiant to shame.
EDIT: at below: agreed, if you do find it useful for your hero's build, of course using radiant shouldn't be totaly out of the picture. However you can never have enough health/armor no matter how much healing/prot you have. Best example are the margonite mobs: corrupt and mirror on target then boss' invoke... No, PS covered by SB isn't absolute invinciblity... And this is from experience :'(, Olias didn't have any insignas for the record.
Sir Mad
Well actually that's 2 more spells (in the particular case of my mesmer), if you add an attunement rune, but I get your point. However, you seem to forget heroes tend to use what they can, and don't like to stop using skill for saving their mana for a more useful skill.
Let me give you an example. if your hero has, let's say, 2 skills only, one costing 5e, and the other one costing 15e, once he's under 15e, he will spam the 5e skill, and never have enough mana again for the 15e skill. Now with a radiant armour, he will be able to use this 15e skill one more time, which is most of the time enough for a fight (considering the recharge time).
Also, yeah, I'd rather run out of mana than run out of health. But what if you do not need more health to survive? What if you have enough healing / prot so you can make it with only 485 hp?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying one should go for radiant insignias, no matter what. I'm just saying if radiant insignias can help you, go for it, that *may* be ok.
Let me give you an example. if your hero has, let's say, 2 skills only, one costing 5e, and the other one costing 15e, once he's under 15e, he will spam the 5e skill, and never have enough mana again for the 15e skill. Now with a radiant armour, he will be able to use this 15e skill one more time, which is most of the time enough for a fight (considering the recharge time).
Also, yeah, I'd rather run out of mana than run out of health. But what if you do not need more health to survive? What if you have enough healing / prot so you can make it with only 485 hp?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying one should go for radiant insignias, no matter what. I'm just saying if radiant insignias can help you, go for it, that *may* be ok.
Captain Bulldozer
Generally speaking, I'd rate it like this:
armor > health > energy
Sometimes the armor options via runes and insignias kinda sucks for the profession or build, so in that case I'd go with health. Energy, if you need more at all, is easy enough to get from your weapon set. Why just running a staff, a char can easily get +20 energy and +30 health if they want. Radiants and Attunements do have some niche uses, but mostly on farming builds. A paragon might like to use a radiant or two, but only because of the massive cost of Aggressive Refrain. Also, a derv can benefit from a radiant here and there, since derv armor already has native health buffs. This was more true before the update however, and a zealous scythe usually covered it anyway.
armor > health > energy
Sometimes the armor options via runes and insignias kinda sucks for the profession or build, so in that case I'd go with health. Energy, if you need more at all, is easy enough to get from your weapon set. Why just running a staff, a char can easily get +20 energy and +30 health if they want. Radiants and Attunements do have some niche uses, but mostly on farming builds. A paragon might like to use a radiant or two, but only because of the massive cost of Aggressive Refrain. Also, a derv can benefit from a radiant here and there, since derv armor already has native health buffs. This was more true before the update however, and a zealous scythe usually covered it anyway.
Xsiriss
I only bother with survivor, and even then only on the chest and legs. That and +60hp weapon sets means you can afford a major rune and still be around 600hp. On the other insignia slots you can put things like bloodstained, extra armour ones or if you really want radiants to get and extra 3 max energy (frankly +10 armour's more useful).
Infanta
good points raised here
FoxBat
Only time I would consider radiant (+attunement) is if you are trying to pump 25e spells on a necro. Then the energy overhead for soul reaping can become relevant.
Don Zardeone
Paradon with DP and no extra energy can't cast agressive refrain until DP is lost. I may throw an attunement rune on my pees, or stop dying.
bhavv
I have radiants and 112 energy on my elly
For heroes though, I'll take armor boosts first, and survivor insignias second.
For heroes though, I'll take armor boosts first, and survivor insignias second.
S4br3t00th
Kaida the Heartless
Didn't read much of the rest of the thread, but your Runes and Insignias should be balanced between +Health (usually via Runes) and +Armor (usually via Insignias).
Showtime
All my heros on my mains have sup vigors and use max weapons since they were cheap to outfit earlier. I try balance it out so there is'nt a glaring target with less HP. Casters generally use staffs.
Survivors on anyone I don't want targeted or to bring up HP to rest of groups.
Para bip runs centurions but will be trying survivors for the drop. (Damn, those runes are 2100 now lol.)
Torm on my necs, but you're done if you run into heavy holy damage. Then survivors obviously.
My mm heros run survivor or mm insigs.
Blessed on healers/prot.
I like anchorites on my smiters/roj monks.
Radiant only on my main/rangers since they hardly get targeted. Also I will spam skills til I'm out of mana to finish groups faster. Hardly happens. Things tend to die quickly. Vs cold etc is great in some builds.
Now what about vitae or attunement?
I usually have 1 or 2 slots left and prefer Vitae's though seems like a waste of space either way lol.
Survivors on anyone I don't want targeted or to bring up HP to rest of groups.
Para bip runs centurions but will be trying survivors for the drop. (Damn, those runes are 2100 now lol.)
Torm on my necs, but you're done if you run into heavy holy damage. Then survivors obviously.
My mm heros run survivor or mm insigs.
Blessed on healers/prot.
I like anchorites on my smiters/roj monks.
Radiant only on my main/rangers since they hardly get targeted. Also I will spam skills til I'm out of mana to finish groups faster. Hardly happens. Things tend to die quickly. Vs cold etc is great in some builds.
Now what about vitae or attunement?
I usually have 1 or 2 slots left and prefer Vitae's though seems like a waste of space either way lol.
GranDeWun
Higher max energy is relevant for necromancers, otherwise armor is the best choice. With a 7 hero team, chances are you are always under an enchantment...just sayin'.
Dzjudz
I never use Radiant on heroes, ever. Armor insignia if there are appropriate ones (i.e. Centurion for para, Prodigy for mesmer), otherwise Survivor (necros usually).
Never use attunement either, always vitae.
Never use attunement either, always vitae.
Kunder
+max health and +max energy are useless unless you plan on dieing or running out of energy otherwise.
+armor lowers damage, which simultaneously prevents you from dying while causing you to need less healing. If everyone wears blessed insignia's its essentially a +19% to the healer's energy EFFICIENCY. +armor is better defense than +health while being energy MANAGEMENT at the same time, which is the best thing you can add to your armor. The effect scales up even better the more armor you have. Guess what happens when most of your casters are sitting at +20 armor just because of armor + weapon bonuses? Yay, my stupid Healing Burst monk hero who can't manage spells for crap is now 41% more efficient. Isn't that just awesome? Its almost like a free Healer's Boon that also affects DF. What does extra health and energy do for you? A big flat 0%.
TL;DR, unless you have a REALLY good RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing reason to run something else (if you need to ask whether your reason is good, its probably bad), run whatever gets the largest dependable +armor for your build.
+armor lowers damage, which simultaneously prevents you from dying while causing you to need less healing. If everyone wears blessed insignia's its essentially a +19% to the healer's energy EFFICIENCY. +armor is better defense than +health while being energy MANAGEMENT at the same time, which is the best thing you can add to your armor. The effect scales up even better the more armor you have. Guess what happens when most of your casters are sitting at +20 armor just because of armor + weapon bonuses? Yay, my stupid Healing Burst monk hero who can't manage spells for crap is now 41% more efficient. Isn't that just awesome? Its almost like a free Healer's Boon that also affects DF. What does extra health and energy do for you? A big flat 0%.
TL;DR, unless you have a REALLY good RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing reason to run something else (if you need to ask whether your reason is good, its probably bad), run whatever gets the largest dependable +armor for your build.
distilledwill
Just gonna throw my hat into the ring - Survivor/Armour all the way. The consensus of the community is that energy management > larger energy pool.
With + energy and less health your heroes (in a sustained battle) will run down their energy supply and then die.
With + health/+armour and energy management skills your heroes (in a sustained battle) will maintain a decent energy pool and have the health to back it up.
I have to admit that I usually run Survivor on my heroes except in the following cases:
Paragon: + Armour under a shout
Dervish: + Armour under an enchantment
Necro: 1 Bloodstained for faster minion making
With + energy and less health your heroes (in a sustained battle) will run down their energy supply and then die.
With + health/+armour and energy management skills your heroes (in a sustained battle) will maintain a decent energy pool and have the health to back it up.
I have to admit that I usually run Survivor on my heroes except in the following cases:
Paragon: + Armour under a shout
Dervish: + Armour under an enchantment
Necro: 1 Bloodstained for faster minion making
Amy Awien
Quote:
Originally Posted by distilledwill
Quote:
|
Necro: 1 Bloodstained for faster minion making
Especially necro's, who have no control over the moment their energy gets a refill, benefit from a larger energy pool.
Why?
frankly, it doesn't matter. People obviously have very strong opinions, but for 90% of pve areas, it really doesn't matter.
Elite areas might be another story, but no one has posted their all hero team elite area builds yet.
Wenspire
For HM PvE, radiant on all except your tank. Because no matter how much life/armor you have as a sqishy, it will usually come down to around 10 hits before you are dead because of having protective spirit or shelter being in play.
Don Zardeone
distilledwill
Quote:
Originally Posted by Amy Awien
|
If your energy is being filled to the max by that energy management skill, then it doesn't matter a whole lot if you waste 5 or so energy in doing it, the result is the same: your energy is maximum - I'd rather take the trade off of higher health.
|
Especially necro's, who have no control over the moment their energy gets a refill, benefit from a larger energy pool.
Its true that the necros energy can sometimes be difficult to predict, but its well documented that soul reaping is one of the best energy management tools out there. This, coupled with other energy giving skills (Signet of Lost Souls, Foul Feast) makes the necro one of the heroes with the most energy to play with. Thats why everyone uses them for EVERYTHING. Thats why they can endlessly spam rit heals and discord. Taking energy runes/insignias on them would be a waste (see the above paragraph).
House Silvermoon
radiant and survivors sux, armor wins guild wars. i kno its 2k11 and game is dead but srsly if there is one thing everyone should kno its this.
Plutoman
Match it to the build, class, and purpose.
Those that should be attacked having lower health, sometimes significantly lower to compensate for the increased aggro of casters. Casters that need to have significantly higher health to avoid being attacked need survivor runes (ie, healers). Casters that run in the middle, will vary. Some need a larger energy pool so the energy management is 100% efficient (if you have a mesmer regaining 21 energy in one go, is at 20 energy, and maxes at 35, you are losing the value on skills). Some don't need extra energy. I'll balance runes with the builds intended for a hero, the purpose they play, and the class they're using. General answer? It depends. Just sayin', armor doesn't win the game. Planning does. Armor is the best choice for conserving health though, when you've considered all factors. |
