Bug? Important notice about armor stacking (especially for PvP'ers)

The point was that, if your code to calculate and set the armor level is nowhere close to right, you're likely to also have trouble making code to calculate and report the armor level. It's even probably too much to hope that you're able to do it wrong the same way in both instances.

Usually the same code is reused for things like these.

I'm just thinking that if the AL was clearly displayed, all bugs would quickly become apparent. Is the AL display wrong? Is there a bugged skill? Doesn't matter, what matters is that the error would be staring everybody in the face all the time.

I think the main reason that these armor bugs stayed hidden for all this time is because almost nobody goes to actually check these things in the wild. It took some very dedicated players (and a stroke of luck, I suspect) and a few years to notice it.

Bump because this is an incredible problem.

Is there any word from Anet about this and if they're fixing this or not? Or are they gonna do the usual Anet approach of pretending we don't exist?

This problem may go deeper into the programming than you think. With a small live team working on fixing class balance such as the Ele I can wait a bit longer for this fix.

The problem is the lack of developers that can delve into the game engine, and other sorts of things like that. :/

Some things may or may not be left as is, as many games have remaining bugs left over even after years and years because the dev's can't go back and make patches, as they're hard at work on other projects. We can hope, but I wouldn't plan on it. As Swingline said, it might be deeper in the programming than is easily fixed.

Well, latest updates if you noticed were almost all bug fixes to problem found with the official anet forum. So if they didn't fix such kind of MASSIVE bug already is because -1 is nasty -2 not enough ppl to work at (connected to 1) -3 isn't that game-breaking like some think. Well, having a OS shield +10 vs fire giving actually 10 AR less than a insc one with 10 vs fire insc is bugging me, but we can only wait.

Could be possible that they're waiting to fix it when they'll a)tone down armor-ignoring dmg b)push up the ele. With all those skill changes around about dmg and armor, they could add in a fix for this.

I second killing the armor stacking cap. Besides being buggy, what purpose does it serve anymore?

The armor stacking cap is irrelevant to the present state of PvE balance. Additional armor gives diminishing returns, and parties are already traipsing around decked in a minimum of 160 armor. (And Anet has indicated that they have no plans to kill Imbagon builds at present.)

In PvP, the major sources of unremovable armor bonuses were already hit, and PvE/PvP skill splitting facilitates additional changes as needed.

+10 vs type, -2 enchanted/stanced: Unless you're soloing or have an imbagon and only one monk, it doesn't matter enough for PvE most of the time because if things are around that long to be making use of -2 damage you're screwed. It only matters when it's pressure like in pvp.

The only place I've seen people actually care enough is DoA.


Besides, for pvp monks that use 16/r7, 15/r7, or 14/r6 ... the -2 is likely less than the +6-7 armor. (Does anyone even have -2 enchanted or stanced and +10 vs type with r7?)

In short, don't waste your money on non-inscribables ; "greens" with +10 vs type don't work.

Side note: nerfing "Save Yourselves!" to old-school "Watch Yourself!" would be interesting: 4 adrenaline, 0 recharge, +24 armor. Maybe even +40 armor. But +100 is ridiculous: you can strip off all your real armor on a warrior and it'd be like having all 100 armor from your real armor.
Or Arenanet could be creative and do something akin to combining old "watch yourself!" with "Shields up!" : +24 armor to everything and +60 to projectiles. Something like old "Watch Yourself!" + old "Shields Up!" would give you +24 armor, an additional +24 armor against piercing damage and 50% chance to block incoming projectile attacks. It'd encourage people not to be stupid and stand there taking damage from 3-10 melee in hard mode.

The armor cap hurts Dervishes/Paragons the most, as well as skills that give marginal armor gains.
All: Ebon Battle Standard of Courage / Great Dwarf Armor
D: Conviction/Vow of Piety + Avatar of Balthazar [E]/Avatar of Melandru [E]
P: "Stand Your Ground!"
Rt: Protective Was Kaolai , Resilient Weapon , Mighty Was Vorizun, Tranquil Was Tanasen [E]
Mo: Shield of Deflection [E] , Shield of Regeneration [E] , Convert Hexes
E: Ward Against Elements , Ward against Harm [E] , Obsidian Flesh [E] (especially if used with Armor of Earth / Kinetic Armor) , frigid armor, armor of frost (useless when there's Frigid armor) , armor of mist (maybe)
A: Critical Agility, Feigned Neutrality ("Save Yourselves!" is more armor than this...), Shadow Sanctuary
Me: Elemental Resistance, Physical Resistance, Illusionary Weaponry , Mantra of Signets
W: Defy Pain [E], "Watch Yourself!",
"Shields Up!", Dolyak Signet, Disciplined Stance (clearly not for PvE)
R: Dryder's Defenses

What's odd is "I am Unstoppable!" bypasses the cap, whereas Great Dwarf armor and Ebon Battle Standard of Courage do not.

I'm all for removing the armor stacking cap. Without this buggy junk, one actually _could_ figure out how much armor they're stacking which is useful.

So do Mantra of Signets and Illusionary Weaponry .

The armor cap is pointless. It is bugged and inconsistent. It confuses new players, because there is no message whatsoever about such an important "feature" in the game. Why don't they remove it immediately?

1) This needs to be fixed when possible.

2) This is utterly irrelevant to PvEr's running in teams with SY, who should be using -2 damage-ench and 30hp/45hp-ench mods anyway. Under SY, you want health not armor.


Groups affected: PvPers and PvE solo-farmers.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Talk:...acking_cap_bug

https://forum.guildwars.com/forum/fo...r-stacking-bug

Its clearly a bug as the wiki page states. Unfortunately Anet has not even given a statement to anyone about the bug. They probably have a solution in the works and it will com out with the ele update or something since the ele problem centers around armor.

I agree with LifeInfusion that SY needs a nerf. Compare SY to any other factions pve only skill and you will wonder wtf was anet thinking when they made it. 4 adrenaline and +40 armor would be a good.

As I said in my earlier post it may be deep within the programming.

This is due to when the armour boosts are added. Effective armour calculations are not straight forward.

• First core armour is summed (armour, insignias, inscription bonuses, base shield armour).
• Then bonus armour is summed and this is capped at either +25 or the maximum bonus and cannot lower armour below 60. This is where non inscription weapon bonuses are put in and most skill bonuses, Cracked Armour too.*
• Then the effect of Armour Penetration is calculated.
• Then extra bonuses and penalties are applied. I Am Unstoppable is added in at this stage and hence armour penetration and cracked armour have no effect on it. The effect from Mantra of Signets, Illusionary Weaponry, Healing Signet, Barbed Arrows, Shadowy Burden and the current Flux are also calculated at this point. There is no cap at this stage.

The wiki is a little more thorough: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Armor_calculation

Armour does not give diminishing returns; it just doesn't make sense to think of it that way.

For the most part this anomaly doesn't have much of an effect, but it's something that can easily catch you out and really should be adjusted. A clearer system would be ideal but there are strange things going on within Guild Wars; GW Mathematics isn't particularly regular.


Edit:
*I'm pretty sure the second stage is bugged; if you have a single armour boost that goes above the +25 cap then Cracked Armour has no effect. Or something...
Edit2: Oh, apparently it's +45 which is predictable I guess and was probably how the capping at the second stage was determined.

With regard to GW1, just scrap the armor cap.

With regard to GW2, scrap the entire idea of logarithmic armor. Yes, it was a good idea to get out of the RPG paradigm where you started the game with a 16AL leather armor and finished building your character with a 1600AL platemail, but GW's armor system really added as many problems as it solved.

How is the logarithmic curve for armor calculations not an example of diminishing returns?

Every 40 points of armour allows you to take twice as much damage This does not change until rounding errors become a significant factor (which just does not ever happen). In effect, +40 armour is like doubling your health bar (armour ignoring sources aside for the moment). It's only due to rounding that stacking armour has a limit (a limit never reached really reached in GW); the return on extra armour does not ever depend on your starting value. Stacking Health on the other hand, very rapidly diminishes in value.
It's for this reason that there is no cap on health stacking but one on most forms of armour stacking.


Thought experiment:
If I have 100 health and am taking 50 armour sensitive damage every second, then I will live for two seconds.
If I add 100 health I will live for four seconds; it takes four triggers to kill me, twice as many and I live twice as long.
Similarly, if I add 40 armour, I will live for four seconds.
If I add 200 health to my initial 100, I live for 6 seconds. Whereas if I add 80 armour to my initial starting value, I live for 8 seconds; twice as long. If I add another 40 armour, I live for 16 seconds. Sure the amount of raw damage that's removed looks low, but the reduced amount is always proportional to the initial amount.

Between the presence of armor-ignoring sources of damage/life loss, and the additional effects that promote survivability (max health, % damage reduction to all sources, % of max health damage capping, static damage reduction, %block rate, etc.), the concept of "time to death from armor respecting damage" is largely irrelevant.

The absolute damage taken itself remains diminishing, and for actual play considerations, the diminishing returns of increased armor is significant. Thus, even if no armor stacking cap existed, players would generally look towards other defensive effects after attaining partywide +100 armor from Save Yourselves.

Or change it so its name is actually meaningful. 9-10 adrenaline, 5-8s reuse, shorter duration, +15% movement speed & +80 armor but only when you're moving. You get the idea. Save yourselves!

Exactly. At some point one must decide that they have that base covered. Armor-Ignoring damage is significant and cannot be ignored in-game. Beyond 170 AL it's better to spend some effort to cover the Armor-Ignoring aspects and this can only be done with +health mods. It's particularly clear on weapon mods where the choice is +5AL or +30HP. The extra health on the weapon greatly outweighs the benefit from +5AL when you're already at 170ish AL.

The "Time To Death" parameter, is less important than the "Time To Get Healed" parameter. So, sure, versus Armor-Sensitive damage, armor buys you more time than health, but.... that health mods buys you time also, albeit a lesser amount. Since all one really needs to do is buy enough time for the healers to cast, the question, in practical gameplay, is:

How much armor does one need before the extra "Time To Get Healed" from +health mods become sufficient.

That's the point where you pile on +health mods to extend the "Time To Get Healed" from Armor-Ignoring sources. That threshold is around 170AL. If you can do this from Base-Armor + Save Yourself ALONE, then go Survivor and full +health mods everywhere possible. If you CAN'T, (or if SY isn't in-play,) then choose your Insignias (NOT weapon mods) based on +armor.

NOTE: None of this changes the fact that the current armor stacking mechanism may be broken.

Players under SY should never die. Ever. Therefore, +Health becomes useless (actually worse than useless since it slightly decreases the effect of prot spirit against armor ignoring damage, but thats splitting hairs) and +armor becomes of very marginal usefulness (saves a small bit of healing power over time).

What does matter is what happens for the 1% of time SY isn't running because your physical got blinded/hexed/snared and you lose the +armor, or the 100% of the time there are no player physicals in the party. In that case +armor from weapons becomes much better than +health for almost all instances.


SY becoming the original WY would much improve balance (+20 armor for 10s, 4A requirement IIRC). Its still an amazing deal, back in the prophecies days I used to run it even on casters and it was uber pro. +30ish armor for 5-10s @ 4A would probably be a better compromise to reduce the amount of QQ bad players would make.

Of course, ST rits and ER eles need to take a corresponding hit since they are as effective or more so (though less versatile).

You obviously dont do very many SCs then because I have way more shields on my assassin than on any pvp char. UW/FOW/Dungeons have lots of specific dmg shields you switch between during runs. DOA only requires 1 shields b/c everything is demons.

Also this bug really bites because I have lots of drake kabobs and they dont do anything even if you have no armor. NOTHING AT ALL NO MATTER WHAT. Fix this crap anet my +10 -2ench shields collection depends on it.