Armor vs Health Vs Energy

So I recently saw a thread about armor vs health on heroes.

So I had a thought,

On your CHARACTER, what is your health/armor/energy balance and how effective do you find this to be?

What is your opinion on the better option? What health do you find as an ideal minimum? What is the lowest you'll have your energy cap on your main character for energy (e.g. 35 for a dervish, 70 for a monk, 30000 for an ele, etc. etc.) Same with your health.

What are the runes you put on your armor?

Discuss Armor vs. Health vs. Energy

On my (pve) monk in standard defensive set:
- 580 hp
- 60 + 8 + 10 vs x (shield) + 10 (insignia) +7 vs ele/phys (spear) = 95AL vs X when insignia condition is met.
- 25e

yeah..i like armor..

Max energy is not good, unless you're actually dependent on your max energy pool for something (enough energy to use a certain chain of skills, exhaustion effects). You're usually far better off with survivability mods.

Armor is better than HP for survivability.

Since I usually have an ST shelter rit or ER ele with me armor isn't that important. That takes care of the armor ignoring damage too which extra armor doesn't. Therefore I often use more major/superior runes on heroes and then get their hp back to ~550 with ins and runes.

Well, if you got ST anyways, there's no point in bringing up their health again... Shelter and Union actually get more effective the lesser health you have. So going by your logic, you'dd be better of with all +energy...

I'm not saying it's the way to go, but if your reasoning is: "I rely on ST and Union", increasing the health on your character is something that goes directly against that...

Just go with +armor, always. (And if you have multiple armor options, obviously take the one which nets most) The ONLY time you should run hp insignias is when you're going to spend a long time in an area with alot of degen/armor ignoring damage. The only time you should run energy, as Lemming pointed out, is when you run a "run, cast skills and get out" build, such as the W/N raptor farm. (Altough for that specific farm, you could also use armor and the asuran title)

And Ether Renewal.

I run +armour on all pieces most of the time, with +health when there're no good +armour insignia to use.

Assassin

All Health on armor with 5e on wep, do the math ;p

I have this on my gear 90% of the time.

Energy is easy as hell to manage, having the health as opposed to conditional armor is always best for me.

I run my warriors most of the time, and I've found a mix to be helpful. I always aim for a rune of major vigor + a couple runes of vitae for a health boost, and for insignias I like knight's insignia (reduces incoming damage) and at least one radiant insignia for just a couple extra points of energy. For a warrior, +2 energy is a 10% bump, which can be really helpful at times.

I find health boosts to be useful when aggroing balls of monsters because there's oftentimes a spike of incoming damage in the opening second of combat and surviving that is my first objective. I've been down in the region where I was only alive due to runes more times than I care to count at this point.

I'm starting to trend away from runes of vitae now that I have asura scan, however.

Having additional armor would be good anyway because it means that less damage packets will exceed the 10% maximum health limit thus the shelter spirit will last longer.

When using an ER Prot with infuse may be better investing in additional health because will result in a larger amount of healing.

For the most part, armour is better than health for staying alive. Most professions have decent armour insignia choices. Radiant runes are almost never worth it outside of a few select cases and even then, I don't think they're truly necessary. If you find yourself wanting more energy as a caster, even with what should be decent energy management, then buy a high energy set and learn how to weapon swap effectively.

There are times when there aren't any good insignias to use though:
A Barrage Ranger can't use Scout's and the rest are all vs single types - he could use Brawler's but then he has less armour when kiting.
An Elementalist not using enchantments can't really used Blessed (pretty rare though) - that said Blessed is still sort of viable because you should have prots flying around.
Similarly, a Monk not using Healer's Boon or Unyielding Aura may have difficulty choosing - as a Monk it's ill-advised to spam skills on recharge, negating the boost from Anchorite's - again Blessed is ok, especially if you have Prots.

All melee characters should be able to run Blessed since you should at least be running Strength of Honor (maybe not if you're in a PUG), Derv's obviously get Windwalker's and should always have enchantments and Warrior's can run Sentinel's because they already have lots of armour vs physical.

This. Always get your armor as high as you can with insignias then run health runes. Running armor insignias is like always having a prot on yourself, it preemptively saves health + energy

You can straight away ignore the energy insignias/runes, because Maximum energy=/= Energy Management.

Toss-up between AL and HP, and well, since most people use ST rits or PS... I'd definitely go health. Unless you suck at luring and placing your prots.

Ideal HP to have: more than zero.

My main is an Ele
min HP: ~600 (survivor insig)
min AR: 60 normal + 8 shield = 68 natural
min Energy: between 70 and 85
I enjoy sitting in the back and blowing stuff up.

I am a warrior.

I run Sentinel's and a +5 armor pommel on my swords. I have +10armor vs most damage types out there. HP is only good for heavy degen areas and armor ignoring damages.

I generally run +armor insignia (when there's actually decent ones to use) with HP runes. I play Dervish and Rit the most, and they're both fully kitted out with Windwalker's and Shaman's, respectively.

Most of my characters (main general purpose build) and nearly all of my heroes, have the same basic Insignia/Rune setup. (There are exceptions, of course, for particular builds)
In PvE, for most occasions, the particular setup doesn't matter that much. So, rather than jerk around and since I, personally, favour Health over armor (because of degen) so the setup is:

Head - Survivor - Major of main build attribute (e.g. Marksmanship)
Chest - Radiant - Minor of primary attribute (e.g. Expertise)
Hands - Survivor - Minor of 3rd attribute if req, or Vitae, or Attunement
Legs - Radiant - Vitae or Attunement
Feet - Survivor (Bloodstained on MM) - Superior Vigor (character) or Major Vigor (Heroes)

This results, if I recall, in each character getting +25 health and +5 energy. I know it's not very "special" of a setup, but it works for me.

Do you often dip to 30 HP? If no, armour all the way. If yes, you are doing something wrong and should still go armour all the way.

The only place where i could see health being favourable to armor would be an AT match where you know the opposing team is going to be playing an armor-ignoring (or mostly armor ignoring) spike build.

situational

but armor is the best

health if your against unconditional damage / unconditional spike damage

energy, unlikely you will ever need it unless your build is a energy vampire

Armor is best. Health is only good vs degen + armor ignoring.

Energy you can get more if you swap with weapons.

HP minimum is ~450 for me if running superior death (MM) or 500 if not, 570 for monk with defense spear.

You can make some argument for +energy for some bars, such as mind blast or shock axe. But these are the exceptions. As stated before +armor or if there is no good insignia for +armor then +health.

This. I go armor mods ( which one depends on character/conditions likely to be met), since HP is only useful against armor-ignoring spikes. The 30 HP will rarely make the difference, and doesn't translate to regen, only a higher max (just like energy regen =/= energy management; if you're going to run out, just a matter of sooner rather than later). Armor makes you less likely to "run out" of health.

Also, you can carry +60/75 weapon/shield sets if you find yourself in that "zomg I'm about to die from degen" situations. Rarely will that extra 30 HP be the difference between life and death, unless as mentioned, it's an armor ignoring spike.

If you really want, try going HP on hands and feet, and +armor on head/legs/chest, and hope spike damage doesn't hit your hands.


In PvE, same deal, except armor ignoring spikes don't exist. Since monsters target low-hp players, I either run a sup rune to draw aggro from heroes if I want to tank, or higher HP build if I want to let heroes tank.

tl;dr: Armor > HP except in a few niche situations. Having suitable shield armor/HP swaps will usually take care of the difference anyway.

Radiant Insignia is great. You should keep buying them from rune traders

you get easier to heal up if you have less health

Geerally, all characters want to run the highest armor insignias possible, because +10 armor (or more) is better than any available health insignia. However for melee weapons, when SY is covering you, +30hp usually provides more benefit than a 5 armor mod. Casters.....are casters and tune their weapon set(s) to their specific needs.

The two factors involved in determining which is better are: The percentage of armor-ignoring damage, and weather or not SY is protecting you.

(NOTE the +/- signs)

Under Surv+SY, 30hp weapons exceed 5al weapons starting at 13% ignoring
Under Bles+SY, 30hp weapons exceed 5al weapons starting at 10% ignoring

Under Surv-SY, 30hp weapons exceed 5al weapons starting at 46% ignoring
Under Bles-SY, 30hp weapons exceed 5al weapons starting at 37% ignoring

Under SY, Survivor exceeds Blessed at 24% ignoring

Blessed + 5al weapon is probably optimal for single player H/H

Correct conclusion but slightly over-reductionist.

Specifically, the numbers only apply in terms of armor-ignoring spike damage. Reason? If the damage is non-spike, you have time to get a heal in between. If your 500 HP character gets healed for 150 HP before dieing, your effective health still only increases from 650->680, which is worth less than 500->530. Just for this, in situations in which you are being pressured +AL is almost always going to be better even under SY. A properly built team, of course, is always going going to be relying on prot to save them from spikes in PvE, not +30 health, so anti pressure is your biggest concern in most areas.

Also, the fact that having to heal less -> more time and energy saved on your healers means that even in situations where +AL could conceivably be slightly weaker it actually isn't. For most situations +15 AL is going to be the equivalent of making all healing spells heal about 20-30% more effective health. Which equates to an energy savings on every healing spell cast of 17-25%. To top it off it, it cuts off 17-25% of the time needed to spend healing, both cast and aftercast, which is absolutely vital given all of the popular builds that combine healing and other functions onto the same bar. This effectively turns +AL into +damage if a character that would otherwise spend time healing is instead spending it making stuff die. And if we want to carry this logic even further, making thing die faster is always the best protection from taking damage in PvE. +HP does exactly zero of all of this, of course.

Furthermore, the special case of UA characters. I don't run them, but if you do then +HP becomes even less useful since the only reason to run +HP is the slim chance that you will have 25 HP left after a spike. What happens if a character is spiked and a UA is in the party? The character is instantly back up again, out of danger, and almost zero time is lost. The only time the +HP could even begin to be useful is if multiple people are dieing in the same fights, and if thats happening then I'm afraid the battle is a lost cause anyways.

I was considering the situation from the viewpoint of maximizing the amount of damage dealt by enemies upon ones character without healing. So it's very similar, yes, to an armor-ignoring spike except without requiring it to be quick.

Nevertheless, when SY is protecting you, the +30hp weapon mod provides more benefit (and therefore more time for a healer to react) than +5 AL even if only 10-13% (or more) of the damage is armor-ignoring.

This means that, under SY, even if heals are being applied, a +30hp weapon mod is superior. (even if up to 87-90% of the damage is armor-sensitive.)

I H/H alot and I let my heros heal me. Energy management is easier and better than having a large pool of energy in 95% of situations. So Health takes priority over energy. I like to to keep 500 or more health on myself and heros so they have enough time to react to degen and spikes.Once I get around 500 health my next concern is Armor.

Basically my priority is 500 or greater health-> Armor-> Energy.

I dont deny the power of high armor, but I also carry prots and SY! alot.

I love elegance of +Armor -> +Healing -> +Damage -> +Prot

With think kind of thought, +Armor is pretty godly buff because it equals to energy management.

I mostly run survivor with a few energy runes here and there. I stay with stock armor because +30 armor won't help that much. Because enemies I face die faster than my health goes down usually, and if they don't well then my health is going down +400-600 more than I have and +30 armor saves maybe 10 damage. Which isn't going to do much to save me from dying, it's inevitable. Granted, the health runes don't do much for me either, I just haven't changed them to something else..because nothing is going to do much for me the way I play so it doesn't really matter which runes I have on.

Oh and I play Warrior.

You underestimate to effect of armour. going from 60 armour to 100 armour will reduce damage by a whopping 50%. This obviously doesn't apply to the armour ignoring variety of damage.

For every point of armour, damage is multiplied by a factor of 2^(-1/40).
So that +30 armour would have multiplied all armour sensitive damage (which is a lot of the damage you take) by ~0.595. In effect, with an extra 30 armour you would only be taking about 60% of the damage you would normally be taking.
That is significantly better than having more health.

Yeah that's true. But I can only have +5 more armor (all around) coming in from a pommel. In nearly every case where I'm playing, I'm only being attacked by 1 or 2 things because I cba to flag my heroes and usually just run into the fray. So that +30 health circumvents the 3 extra damage I am taking, not forever of course, but they're usually dead before that 3 extra damage gets past 30.

I'm not saying armor is a bad thing, and I agree with what you guys are saying. Armor always benefits more than health. But the way I play (solo with heroes, lazily without much thought, I pretty much just c space my way through) the benefits aren't appealing enough. I much rather see my health at 565 than 505 with +15 armor against any X thing.

I always cap 600hp ATLEAST on all my charasters, when on a shield set. Only my monk has not full survivor.

600 health is a lot. That's 120 over the default.
If you only aimed for 500, you could replace that 100 with other mods; I would bet that, on Shield Set, you could get a total of +15-20 armour over your base in exchange for +100 health and a 23% decrease in damage is better than a 20% increase in health.

In pve I usually sit on a defensive (armor) set rather than a 40/40 or otherwise.

My necro, for example, has full tormentor's and spear/shield with a +5 grip. That is 83 armor and 580 health.

QFT!

Armor > Health > Energy

The only time +30 health matters is if you go below 30 health. However, +Armor triggers on EVERY non-armor ignoring hit. People underestimate even a 10% damage reduction. It adds up to A LOT over time. If you need to run in first to take aggro, damage reduction and mitigation is far better most of the time (pre-prot, shutdown, etc...).

If you find yourself going below 30 health often, you are probably doing something wrong and should reconsider you/your team's setup.

Except for select builds, having +5 or +7 energy is useless. It equate to being able to get off one extra 5 energy spell or attack skill, since your energy REGENERATION is still the same.

Edit: This is for PVE, where spikes are pretty much non-existent.

Everyone, of course, needs (and has) some armor and some health and some energy. In PvE the whole subject seems to be rather trivial, except for some particular (mostly HM) areas. As far as Health vs Armor goes, these are some of what I consider to be relevant points.

- first of all, we're only talking about mods to equipment. Every class has a certain "base" armor and health. Anything added on top of that needs to be looked upon as a "buff".
- for PvE, in practical terms, the difference in effect between +armor and +health Insignias is negligible at best. So, we're not even talking about anything significant.
- any significant amount of +armor or +health is usually accomplished using spells/skills such as "I Am Unstoppable", which are chosen depending upon the build, the quest, the foes, etc.
- other types of armor buffs, other than +5 (or +16 for shields), are usually tied to some sort of conditional, like "while enchanted" or vs some particular damage type. You can always have various pieces with various buffs to swap as needed, but, again, in PvE the difference is not worth the trouble or you're doing something wrong - taking too long to kill stuff, bad healers, bad build, etc.
- in the case of weapons buffs, it's always a trade off of one thing vs another, such as +5 armor or +30 health or +20% enchants or attribute+1, etc. I find that the choices are more dependant upon personal preferences than whether or not any of them make any real difference. Which is why, in my original post, I said I lean towards Health rather than armour. But, you can see that my Insignia setup only adds a measly +15 health and +5 energy and no armour at all.

As far as energy is concerned, you need to have enough energy to do the things you need to do before any energy regen starts happening. +Energy buffs increase the size of your energy pool, but don't affect how fast it recharges. So, for example, as I said in some other thread, a Necro needs to have a large enough energy pool to do the things it wants/needs to do before Soul Reaping kicks in, but on the other hand, it doesn't need too big a pool either.

Armor over all. U can regen up and energy back