Curse

Ensign · Jun 19, 2007, 08:13 PM // 20:13

"Which do you prefer?" is a personal choice, based on reasons that you may or may not understand, and concepts that may or may not relate to anything the other person cares about.

"Which is better?" is not a personal choice. It's a question of mathematical effectiveness with a clear answer - armor - 95% of the time. Against the damage you take in PvE, +armor gives you *more* of a buffer than +health against damage from the reduction, on top of the benefits of reducing damage. As long as your team is working, +armor is unquestionably the better mod.

*The* reason to take +health in PvE is because it becomes great once you've picked up a bunch of DP. Once your max health drops below ~400 you're going to want to think about extra health over armor, or taking off the superior depending on your situation. The DP reason is why I suggest health to new players, because I'm sure that newer and/or weaker players are very familiar with having a lot of DP.

Jetdoc · Jun 19, 2007, 08:20 PM // 20:20

As Ensign (and others) has said, generally armor is the better choice.

However, the best of all worlds is to have a defense modifier and (if you are disciplined enough) a "switch off weapon" to provide the +30 health when you need it.

Unfortunately, most of us (including myself) aren't disciplined enough to switch off in the heat of a PvE battle. That and most of my "switch off" weapons are reserved for slaying modifiers, and I don't like to carry a stable of weapons around.

So mathematically, defense is better. Factoring in the human equation, fortitude is better.

Ensign · Jun 19, 2007, 09:38 PM // 21:38

When I used to carry around a full arsenal, I'd use +armor weapons for the most part and swapped into +health stuff once DP got bad. I've cut down on the amount of gear I've been carrying drastically since then. Now I'm partial to +health in the spots where it matters (staff head, sword pommel), with some appropriate +armor bonus on my armor. Then the armor swaps when DP is picked up, not the weapon. It's a bit easier to manage overall, and doesn't require me to be funny with my weapon swaps.

Dr Strangelove · Jun 19, 2007, 10:01 PM // 22:01

It's also worth noting that +armor has significantly greater value on a squishy little caster. A 106 AL warrior feels very little difference when increasing to 111 AL, about a 4% decrease in damage. However, that 5 AL goes a lot further on a squishy caster, who gets around a 9% damage reduction from that 5 AL.

Personally, I stack up armor mods on my casters, and carry around a +60 health set for when I need it. For my forsaken warrior who sees play about once in a never, I've gpt a bunch of health mods.

I'd do the armor swap thing, but I'm partial to playing guild wars super princess dress up, so that gets very expensive very quickly. However, it's worth noting that a full set of health mods on armor gives 40 health, while a full set on weapons gives 60 health. With armor, you generally get +10 AL on both your armor and weapon mods, making it a slightly better decision to put +armor on the armor and +health on the weapon.

Voltar · Jun 20, 2007, 04:16 AM // 04:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bryant Again

Some people like cake. I prefer pie.

no way. pie sucks, nub

(my favorite cake is cheesecake which is really more like a pie than a cake i guess)
i like both but only really use armor if it's part of a build with other al increase. al5 really doesn't affect damage enough to stress it (you'll pretty much get pummeled the same @ 65 al as 60) however fort is good against all damage. i especially use fort weapons when i'm using a sup and maj run in that armor set.

i also wouldn't necessarily go for fort in a build that uses any sac life skills.

i think i put an al5 on a weapon i had that was +15 / al-10 once because it made me feel like i was getting away with something.

VitisVinifera · Jun 20, 2007, 06:14 AM // 06:14

wow, great discussion. I'm really learning here.....I just went with fortitude and didn't give it much thought, but reading all this, I'll probably start working on +5 armor mods for my golds I'm currently modding, and sell my old 'perf mod' golds

Seef II · Jun 20, 2007, 06:26 AM // 06:26

Optimally, armor on the "tanks," who should take all the damage, and health on the squishies, who don't. That's what I run, and I used to run armor on my casters, but PvP-readying them meant going health. At ~600 you aren't targetted by the AI much at all for some reason.

The characters that I don't pull into PvP a whole lot - armor all the way (W and D).

Longasc · Jun 20, 2007, 07:40 AM // 07:40

Maybe GWEN has some green 15^50 +5 AL Warrior weapons.

The good about the +HP craze is that it costs almost nothing to get a +5 of Defense Upgrade.

The bad is that nobody bothers to sell one at all, usually...^^

Amy Awien · Jun 20, 2007, 08:59 AM // 08:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dr Strangelove

A 106 AL warrior feels very little difference when increasing to 111 AL, about a 4% decrease in damage. However, that 5 AL goes a lot further on a squishy caster, who gets around a 9% damage reduction from that 5 AL.

This is not correct, +40AL halves the damage and 5AL reduces damage by ~9% (1/2^(5/40))and it doesn't matter if this is from 60 to 65 AL or from 100 to 105

arcanemacabre · Jun 20, 2007, 09:04 AM // 09:04

I still wonder why there isn't +5 armor for shields/off-hands to replace +30hp. I would think it's balanced and would make a good alternative. *shrug*

Quaker · Jun 20, 2007, 01:48 PM // 13:48

I prefer +HP myself (for PvE). I mainly want to survive long enough to kill a mob, save the 'squishies', and then get healed. Conditions (bleeding, poison, degen hexes, disease, etc.) reduce your health at a rate that doesn't depend upon your armor level (as far as I know). The more HP you have the longer you are able to survive conditions, which often times are the major source of 'damage'. I generally have enough armor to survive physical and elemental damage. When playing in Hard Mode, I use only minor Runes to get maximum HP (works so far, I'm an Elonian Vanquisher, using only Heroes and Henchies; except in 2 areas.)

Patrick Smit · Jun 20, 2007, 02:53 PM // 14:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

"Which do you prefer?" is a personal choice, based on reasons that you may or may not understand, and concepts that may or may not relate to anything the other person cares about.

"Which is better?" is not a personal choice. It's a question of mathematical effectiveness with a clear answer - armor - 95% of the time. Against the damage you take in PvE, +armor gives you *more* of a buffer than +health against damage from the reduction, on top of the benefits of reducing damage. As long as your team is working, +armor is unquestionably the better mod.

*The* reason to take +health in PvE is because it becomes great once you've picked up a bunch of DP. Once your max health drops below ~400 you're going to want to think about extra health over armor, or taking off the superior depending on your situation. The DP reason is why I suggest health to new players, because I'm sure that newer and/or weaker players are very familiar with having a lot of DP.

Mathematicalluy spoken u are 100% right if AI doesnt know how much health u have, But the trick is that the AI seems to know what your health is, therefor it becomes more difficult to calculate what is better or not. So I run 610 health plus shield, I hardly ever get targetted. I don't know what the exact rules are, and how AI rules how AL and health are being used to decide who to attack.

You could test this by running in with two similar characters and see who gets targetted first. Not an easy to control experiment, but the only way to find out what is the best choice. Once u know the "rules" u could opt to let the ones with high armore have little health, while the squishies get high health.