Help Me: Weapon Upgrades and Insignias. Armor or Health?

wolf1095

wolf1095

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Nov 2010

Finding It Really Easy [FIRE]

A/

Hi,

I am upgrading my armor with insignias and weapons with weapon upgrades. I need help. What is a better "investment" for these upgrades. Insignias and weapon upgrades that increase health, or those that increase armor? Or should I do a mix of both?

I am an Assassin if that helps you determine.

Thank You,
Wolf1095

Marty Silverblade

Marty Silverblade

Administrator

Join Date: Jun 2006

Armor, generally. Blessed is a solid choice if you can guarantee you'll be enchanted (which you should be as an Assassin). Given the price of vigor runes these days, you might want to use a minor vigor and a +health dagger mod instead though. That'll leave you with 540 base health and 105AL (assuming Critical Agility... I think people still use it).

Xenomortis

Xenomortis

Tea Powered

Join Date: May 2008

UK

N/

Weapon Suffix Upgrades - Health
Insignias - Armour

"of Fortitude" mods provide a fair amount of health while "of Defense" mods only provide a small amount of armour. Defense mods are viable though if your max health is high and you don't swap sets very often.

Insignias tend to provide a higher armour boost and full Survivor's only net's +40 health; the armour to health trade-off is better.

Maver1ck87

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Mar 2010

NeMo

W/

Quote:
Originally Posted by Xenomortis View Post
Weapon Suffix Upgrades - Health
Insignias - Armour

"of Fortitude" mods provide a fair amount of health while "of Defense" mods only provide a small amount of armour. Defense mods are viable though if your max health is high and you don't swap sets very often.

Insignias tend to provide a higher armour boost and full Survivor's only net's +40 health; the armour to health trade-off is better.
Not true btw....

weapons provide either +30hp or +5AR (unconditional) or +7AR (conditional)

thats a ratio of 6:1 (hp:AR) unconditional and about 4:1 (HP:AR conditional)

on Armour u get +40hp total from ur survivor runes, and armour provides +10 AR (Conditional) TOTAL (remember that damage only hits all individual peices so u dont get +50AR for having 5x +10AR mods)

thats a ratio of 4:1 (HP:AR conditional)

Both provide approximately the same benefit!

Dont have time to explain the full reason why AR > HP but it is (i posted it a while back) trust me!!!

Run +AR on weapons and armour!

Gl

Xenomortis

Xenomortis

Tea Powered

Join Date: May 2008

UK

N/

Quote:
Originally Posted by Maver1ck87 View Post
thats a ratio of 4:1 (HP:AR conditional)
This depends on your insignias. Blessed is fairly reliable and is non-specifc; Shelter and Warding mods only affect Physical and Elemental damage respectively. Anchorite's and Prodigy's are pretty damn reliable for meeting +10 armour and stuff like Tormentor's are total no-brainers.
For an Assassin; Blessed is in effect, an unconditional +10 armour.

Quaker

Quaker

Hell's Protector

Join Date: Aug 2005

Canada

Brothers Disgruntled

In the long run, the differences are small enough to be ignored (PvE). In general though, I usually go for Health rather than armor because armor does not help you against the various forms of degen.
It may also depend upon whether you're talking PvP or PvE. It may also depend upon the build you are using and it's purpose, and the particular situation. If, for example, you are doing something where you can expect a lot of melee damage, then armor may be your best bet. But the general result in PvE is a combination of physical, elemental, and/or degen damage, so, overall, I go for health.

Premium Unleaded

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Aug 2005

You can be spiked for over 9000 points of damage, and a large proportion of damage in pve will be affected by armour, whereas you can only lose 20hp/second max through degen.

Kunder

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Nov 2010

The difference between +health and +armor is the difference between an ele with 100 energy and no energy management and a necromancer with soul reaping. One of these is more useful than the other.