Is + Armor or + HP better for HM

Arianna Swiftwing

Pre-Searing Cadet

Join Date: Dec 2005

I am sure this was probably answered a while ago, I did look but was unable to find anything solid.
My main question is simply what is better + Armor for damage mitigation or + HP, this goes for both my character (a warrior) and heroes. I am debating what I should use. I do have several sets of armor so if + armor is better I can switch them out depending on the need.

The other question I have and since I haven't played GW steady for a bit is, a defensive set for heroes, is that just a spear and shield or wand and shield? and if i follow correctly even though the req. for the shield isn't met you get 8 AL from it.
Thanks!

afya

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Mar 2006

Mo/Me

both are very good but when you say +armor, which do you mean? +armor is more dependable on your build/play style/area u play, as it requires certain conditions.
Blessed suits dervish & sin pretty well, especially in PVE
The others are more conditional. Plus you're a war that already has high armor, I would recommend survivor for a 24/7 armor set.

I don't give my heroes def set. Actually I just give w/e crap that's leftover, but I don't think 24/7 shield set is good for them. But yea, if you don't meet the req, u get 8AL.
Also these days u have so much defense alone from skills. Shield set on hero is over done imo.

Arianna Swiftwing

Pre-Searing Cadet

Join Date: Dec 2005

Good info, for the + armor, less focused on situation + armor and more focused on + armor for a condition that can be met all around an example would be Sentinel's Insignia, +20 AL vs Elemental 13 str req. I plan on vanquishing all areas at some point, and doing at least normal mode, end game areas.
I'll probably try a defense set and see how it works and if not I'll get 20/20 items for my heroes. Thanks for the info

drkn

drkn

Forge Runner

Join Date: Jan 2009

Wroc??aw, Poland

Midnight Mayhem

Me/

Go +hp for PvE. It makes you less vulnerable to life steal and degen as well, which are pretty common in monster builds.

KZaske

KZaske

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Jun 2006

Boise Idaho

Druids Of Old (DOO)

R/Mo

There was a post years ago (before Factions even came out) that addressed this very question. They found that a +5 to armor is better than a plus to +30 health. A +30 to health is about equivalant to a +4.7 to health, as there is no +4.7 go with the +5 to armor.

drkn

drkn

Forge Runner

Join Date: Jan 2009

Wroc??aw, Poland

Midnight Mayhem

Me/

That research only concerned armour-dependant damage. However, armour-ignoring damage, degeneration and life steal are all a-plentiful in the PvE. HP > armour for PvE, armour > HP for PvP.

Iuris

Iuris

Forge Runner

Join Date: Nov 2006

Crazy ducks from the Forest

W/

Personally, I'd say go for armor.

Nowadays, health degen is practically ignored - a measly 20 HP/sec at worst. The problem part are the huge spikes of damage - and there, armor can decrease the damage taken significantly more.

E N I G M A

E N I G M A

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Jul 2009

[?????????]

R/

I prefer armor over health because the way I see it, a full survivor set only offers +40 health, which is like protection for one hit in hard mode, which isn't much. Plus armor on the other hand is like a permanent Shielding Hands on you. Sure, arguments can be made about armor ignoring damage and degen, but I always find my mes heroes can do a pretty good job of shutting them down.

As for hero weapons, it's better to just go with a 40/40 set or even a staff.

enter_the_zone

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Nov 2007

R/

Given that you're a warrior, Save Yourselves is the answer to the armor question... so go with HP.

Mintha Syl

Mintha Syl

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Apr 2010

The way I see it:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Iuris View Post
Personally, I'd say go for armor.

Nowadays, health degen is practically ignored - a measly 20 HP/sec at worst. The problem part are the huge spikes of damage - and there, armor can decrease the damage taken significantly more.
Quote:
Originally Posted by E N I G M A View Post
I prefer armor over health because the way I see it, a full survivor set only offers +40 health, which is like protection for one hit in hard mode, which isn't much. Plus armor on the other hand is like a permanent Shielding Hands on you.
I don't think 30/40 hp can do much difference even with armor ignoring damage, on the other hand even only +5 armor (not to talk about +20) can totally save your life against armor dependant damage.

Chthon

Grotto Attendant

Join Date: Apr 2007

In general, +armor mods are better than +hp mods.

To give a little more detail:
The best computable proxy for survivability I've been able to come up with is "before-armor damage it takes to kill you," or BADITTKY (or BADKITTY if you're dyslexic). The idea is to ask: In the absence of any healing or damage mitigation, how much raw damage must the monsters produce to take your lifebar from full to zero?

The equation is going to look like this:
H/(R*(2^((B-A)/40)) + (1 - R)), where
  • H is your max hp;
  • R is the decimal representation of the percentage of the monsters' raw damage that is armor-respecting;
  • B is the monsters' "baseline," where baseline for casters is 3*level and baseline for physicals is mastery*5 - greater_of{0, 3*(mastery - (2+round_down{lvl/2})}; and
  • A is your armor.

Example:
I am a lvl20 elementalist with max armor, dual 20/20 weapons, a sup vigor rune, a sup fire rune, a minor ES rune, two vitae runes, and a build that includes at least one always-maintained enchantment. The monsters that I care about right now are lvl 26 casters that do 70% armor-respecting damage. Am I better off with Survivor insignias or Blessed insignias?

If I go with Survivor, my BADITTKY would be:
515/(0.7*(2^((78-60)/40)) + (1 - 0.7)) ~= 410

If I go with Blessed, my BADITTKY would be:
475/(0.7*(2^((78-70)/40)) + (1 - 0.7)) ~= 430

So Blessed, in this example, would keep me standing a bit longer -- probably about 2 wand hits or one spell.

End of Example

If you play with different inputs to this equation, you'll see that:
  • 1. Obviously, the percentage of damage that is armor-respecting makes a huge difference on whether health or armor is better.
  • 2. The benefits of extra armor or extra health each scale with how much of the other you already have.
  • 3. Monster baseline makes no difference at all, so you can just set it at 60 for all comparisons. Edit: Monster baseline makes no difference so long as the percentage of armor-respecting damage is invariate. It does matter if you want to make comparisons across different percentages of armor-respecting damage. So, it's best to calculate the correct baseline to avoid making a mistake.

There are things to think about that aren't accounted for by the BADITTKY model. Some of the most notable:
  • Getting healed. Extra armor multiplies the benefits of healing because every time a hitpoint gets refilled, the monsters have to do extra work to empty it out again. Extra health doesn't have a multiplier like this.
  • The armor-ignoring wtfpwn. Even in situations where armor does more for your BADITTKY overall, you still die if you don't have enough max health to survive, say, E-Surge spikes. This would be a reason to run more health.
  • Skills that care about comparative health -- anything with "Victory" or "Envy" in the names, for starters. If you want to use (or stymy) these skills, you may want to manipulate your max hp up or down.
  • Skills that sacrifice health. You want to manipulate your max hp down.
  • Aggro concerns. As far as I can tell, monsters look at both hp and armor when picking targets, so I don't believe picking health over armor or vice versa makes you a tastier or less tasty target.
  • Armor-stacking bugs. It's been reported that armor bonuses from non-inscription, non-insignia, non-shield-base sources get counted against the armor bonus cap when they shouldn't be. (This mostly affects "old school" shields with "armor vs X" mods.)
  • SY! If you're always teamed with people who maintain SY, you have little need for even more armor.

Quaker

Quaker

Hell's Protector

Join Date: Aug 2005

Canada

Brothers Disgruntled

More armor = less damage = less health loss. But you have less health to start with.

More health = more damage = more health loss. But you have more health to lose.

It can be argued that it's easier for the healers to keep up with the smaller health loss, but then again, the lower health makes it more important that they do.

It can also be argued that more health helps you survive degen longer, but maybe it doesn't.

Bottom line - it's a toss up - use whichever floats your boat.

And ignore most arguments that involve damage formulas. They very seldom reflect actual in-game results.

Dar Drakor

Dar Drakor

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Aug 2008

Ancient Dragon Disciples [ADD]

N/A

Honestly for most areas (fitting your criteria about just looking to do vanqs and NM missions) it doesn't matter much in the big picture to be worried about it.

I do HM and vanqs all the time and all my heros have some sort of +30 health mod on their weps...and I'm doing just fine. Death, on the occassions it comes (usually because of carelessness...or dozing off), would matter little whether it was +30 health or +5 armor most of the times. If +5 armor might allow me to last a second or two longer...who cares.

No need IMO to be nitpicking here...go with either.

Honestly, every (caster) hero i have follow the same "model" in terms of armor and equipment:

RUNES

major rune in attribute that dominates skill bar (-35 health)
minor rune of vigor (+30 health)
minor rune in primary attribute of 1st class (divine favor, soul reaping, fast casting, etc)
rune of attunement
either another rune of attunement (usually) or another minor rune of a 3rd attribute

INSIGNIAS

for monks - wanderer
for necs (mm) - minion master (with one bloodlaced on hands)
for necs (none mm) - bonelace
for mes - virtuoso
for ele - usually pyromancer
for rit (spirit centric) - shamans

WEPS

all staves with insight head (+5e), +30 wrap, hale and hearty insc (+5e ^50) for the pumped attribute or the primary attribute.

HERO SKILLS/CLASSES

For most areas and missions (HM or NM, doesn't matter) some mix of the following 8 (depending on what I'm playing myself)

3 Necs - 1 as minion bomber, 1 as SS, 1 as healer
2 Rits - 1 as SoS, 1 as SoGM
2 Mes - 1 as Panic, 1 as Psychic Instability/Ineptititude
1 Monk - LoD with Dwanna's Sorrow

In corpse light areas swap out the mm for an ele with SF or another monk with RoJ.

Haven't had a problem realy most anywhere in HM.

Yes, OBVIOUSLY, this isn't ideal for every area but don't need to be ideal. If we were talking UW or FoW or DoA then obviously probably need more time specific but otherwise, no biggy

Arianna Swiftwing

Pre-Searing Cadet

Join Date: Dec 2005

I'm thinking of sticking with + health. I am not sure if there are diminishing returns on armor and to what extent it works. If in any case SY will give +100 armor and with the + HP it seems like a balance to reduce both damage and not get spiked down.

I don't know all the math behind it but I also think it matters which piece you put the + armor on for example Survivor +15 health or an armor boots of lets say +5.
Is the armor boost only applied to that piece of armor?
You would need to get hit on the chest piece as the chest has a higher hit chance,it would be more likely but still situational.

Ultimately I think both arguments are valid but a mixture of them is good. I have noticed that since I geared up my heroes their survivability jumped up. It has been a while since I have gotten involved with the numbers and I may be wrong but for now I think it's up to play style until someone can put the numbers down.
Thanks for the responses gave me good feedback.

*missed 1 of the posts with the math oops but 2 wand hits isn't much of a difference and it only takes in equation pure armor or pure survivor good stuff though.

Star_Jewel

Star_Jewel

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Mar 2010

Denizen of Tyria since Feb. 2009

Quote:
Originally Posted by Arianna Swiftwing View Post
Is the armor boost only applied to that piece of armor?
Yes.

It all comes down to personal preference (as evidenced by the responses in this thread). I'll sometimes compromise and put +armor on the chest and legs (since they get hit the most) with Survivors on the rest. Otherwise, it just comes down to what I have. The heroes on my various characters have different set-ups, but survivability is roughly the same. Do what pleases you.

Chthon

Grotto Attendant

Join Date: Apr 2007

Quote:
Originally Posted by Star_Jewel View Post
It all comes down to personal preference (as evidenced by the responses in this thread).
The fact that opinions differ does not necessarily mean that a matter "comes down to personal preference"; it can just as easily mean that some people are wrong. By way of example, if you say 2+2=4 and I say 2+2=5, that does not make 2+2=? a matter of personal preference; rather, it makes me an idiot.

Quote:
I'll sometimes compromise and put +armor on the chest and legs (since they get hit the most) with Survivors on the rest.
That is almost never the rational thing to do. The hit ratios and the size of the hp bonuses for survivors are proportional. Whichever is the better choice for the chest is also the better choice for the legs, and vice versa.

The only situation where splitting the difference would be the wisest choice would be if armor was plainly better, but you needed a little more hp to survive armor-ignoring spikes. (And, even then, I'd look at trading 5AL for 30hp on a weapon mod before trading 10AL on 5/8 of your hit areas for 25hp from survivor insignias.)

Quote:
Do what pleases you.
Indeed, people always do anyway.

Star_Jewel

Star_Jewel

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Mar 2010

Denizen of Tyria since Feb. 2009

Quote:
Originally Posted by Chthon View Post
The fact that opinions differ does not necessarily mean that a matter "comes down to personal preference";
In this case, it kind of does. We've seen this topic come up a lot, and no consensus has ever been reached about what one "should always use". If all damage in every part of the game was armor-respecting, it would be an easy consensus to reach, but it's not.

And I'm in no way promoting my slap-dash way of modding my heroes' armor -- I'm just making the point that, among my various not-agonized-over setups, my party survivability is just fine. In a full team with good skills, the extra damage mitigation or extra hit points are a non issue.

Quaker

Quaker

Hell's Protector

Join Date: Aug 2005

Canada

Brothers Disgruntled

Quote:
Originally Posted by Star_Jewel View Post
In a full team with good skills, the extra damage mitigation or extra hit points are a non issue.
QFT. This is the best summary of the situation.
I find that generally speaking, even in HM, if you have a good (not necessarily the best) team with good (not necessarily the best) skills, the minor differences in health or armor level don't make a whole lot of difference. After all, it's not as if we are discussing no armor and all health versus all armor and no health. We are only talking a few points one way or another.