Curse

iToasterHD · Jul 01, 2010, 12:49 PM // 12:49

Is there a general consensus as to what runes and insignias are best for a warrior?

About all I am certain of is that Superior Vigor is definite.

But what about Superior Absorption?

A while ago it was Survivor Insignia. Then it changed and people were saying armor is better than health.

Is that still true? If so, which?

Knights - Received physical damage -3

Sentinel's - Armor +20 vs. elemental damage (Current favorite, determined by price at Rune Trader)

Sentry's - Armor +10 (while in a stance)

My goal is to survive. As a warrior, I don't really like that I attack stuff and if that doesn't work I'm screwed. I want to have faith in my armor.
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I know when I played ranger, armor against the elements really helped. Which explains why Sentinel's is so popular, but is that really true? Has that changed?

snowman relic · Jul 01, 2010, 01:08 PM // 13:08

armor is better because look at it this way

War-800 health (example)

War 600 health +extra armor

if an ele were to spike a 800 heath war especilaly a boss it would take maby 5-6 hits (in HM im doing this)

if an ele were to spike a 600 health war with extra armor it cut down damage from say 100 dmg a hit to 70 damage a hit

Maver1ck87 · Jul 01, 2010, 02:18 PM // 14:18

There have been so many posts about this, or a similar topic maybe more general than just warrior armour but whatever. Yeah, Toaster is kinda right with what he said, but its much more complicated than that.

Im gonna say this to start with, if u PvE, occasionally doing HM but mostly NM then the difference is tiny if u have decent hero builds there is no point worrying, and any armour set will do. When i PvE on my war i just take whatever i was wearing and go in with that.

The big difference is for PvP and MAYBE high end PvE so i will mostly look at these 2 situations.

PvP: Im going to use 2 examples i have used before... Obs flame spike and GvG. Imaging u are facing obsidian flame spike. If u chose +hp (survivor) taking ur health to lets say 660 on shield set, then u are less likely to die than if u took sentinels for example as obs flame ignores armour. Therefore +hp is better in this situation.
Next is GvG. In GvG if u are a warrior and u get linebacked by a warrior doing elemental dmg (conjure cripslash) for example. If u have survivor runes u take X dmg which is a proportion of ur health per hit. If u have sentinels insignias, then u take LESS dmg per hit, but each hit will be a similar proportion of ur health to X as u have less maximum health. Seemingly there is little difference, however..... monks have a) a limited energy supply and their skills heal for a fixed amount. Lets say patient spirit heals for 100 (easy numbers). When being hit by the cripslash war u will take LESS dmg if using sentinels compared to survivor runes despite being a similar proportion of ur maximum health. Therefore it will require less casts of patient spirit to bring u back to full health which requires less energy on the monks part.

Problem with armour.... u take + vs elemental, they use physical and visa versa

+hp hurts ur monks

High end PvP.... have several sets... definitely have a sentinels set = ftw in some dungeons/areas. and also have other sets depending how hard area is and what dmg u face.

Gd luck

Gypsie Ettin · Jul 01, 2010, 05:13 PM // 17:13

Maverick summed it up pretty good, but it all comes down to preference. I have played Warrior for 4 years now and my main armor is still imbued with 4 Survivor Insignias apart from the obligatory Stonefist Insignia.

Just try it out and see what you prefer.

Good luck.

Desert Rose · Jul 01, 2010, 05:43 PM // 17:43

The broad rule is: Get as much armor as possible, get +health everywhere where you can't put +armor (i.e. Shield Handle).
The reason is because +10 armor reduces the damage you take by ~16%, or in other words increases your effective health by ~19%; if you have 480 health that's already +91 health. If you don't have a high death penalty or a great part of the damage you take is armor ignoring you will survive longer with +armor than with +health.

Sentry's (+10 armor while in a stance) is a very good allround choice for PvE (and maybe PvP as well). If you have 13+ points in strength Sentinel's (+20 armor vs. elemental damage while strength 13+) are the best choice.
A superior absorption rune is better in PvE and lower PvP than vitae rune; only when you face very good human opponents who switch nearly everytime to an elementar weapon when they attack you the vitae rune is better.
A clarity rune (-20% blind and weakness) and in PvP also a restoration rune (-20% crippled) will be very helpful to have.

Knights aren't good because they only protect against physical damage (and the warrior is already resistant against it) and you need to receive 18 or less damage per hit so that Knights is better than +10 armor; if you already take such low amounts of damage you don't need to worry about your durability anyways.

Quote:

Originally Posted by iToasterHD

My goal is to survive. As a warrior, I don't really like that I attack stuff and if that doesn't work I'm screwed. I want to have faith in my armor.

Even if you have the perfect armor, your main job as a warrior will still be to attack and kill stuff.

edit:
As a warrior you will hardly notice the difference between +armor and +health yourself, but your monks (or backliners) will notice the difference.

Chthon · Jul 02, 2010, 02:39 AM // 02:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by iToasterHD

Is there a general consensus as to what runes and insignias are best for a warrior?

No.

The answer to this question comes down to the proportion of various damage types among the total incoming damage you're facing. Quite obviously, you would want Survivor if you were facing nothing but armor-ignoring damage and degen; you would want Sentinels if you were facing nothing but elemental damage; you would want Knights if you were facing nothing but physical damage, particularly if it's numerous small packets; etc. Unfortunately, you usually face a mix of damage types, and it's very, very hard to form a clear impression what what proportions they are in. On top of that, there's a huge risk of psychological bias to overestimate damage that comes in big packets (even if it's less DPS than other damage source that does small packets) and damage that's associated with an annoying secondary effect (like cripple or KD), and to underestimate (physical) damage from sources that we already have high armor against (since we notice post-armor damage and rarely think about what it would have been pre-armor).

My impression is that a global +AL insignia like Sentry's is probably your best bet in most PvE situations. I'd follow that by Knights on the grounds that I believe physical damage is the largest type when you look at raw damage. Follow that with Sentinels. Survivor is last place.

About the one thing that everyone can agree on though: Stonefist is good.