Curse

RedNova88 · May 08, 2010, 07:29 AM // 07:29

In the end I think it's a tossup. You're better off just carrying two sets. Health is great but without armor you die just as fast. Armor is great as well, but without health and other forms of mitigation you're toast, whether it be from degen or life stealing.

Del · May 08, 2010, 07:30 AM // 07:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by RedNova88

In the end I think it's a tossup. You're better off just carrying two sets. Health is great but without armor you die just as fast. Armor is great as well, but without health and other forms of mitigation you're toast, whether it be from degen or life stealing.

sure, but 20/20 on a sword is lulz

FoxBat · May 08, 2010, 02:38 PM // 14:38

+5 defense is not that much of a help when you have 116 armor. The effectiveness of additional armor decreases the more you already have. When you are looking at 600 damage (typical life total), 121 armor only reduces that damage by an extra ~20 vs 116. That means it gives you less protection against spikes than 30 HP. Unless you are farming or something, extra spike protection for your healers to react is all you want, and +5 does not deliver for already heavily armored warriors.

Lux Aeterna · May 09, 2010, 12:17 AM // 00:17

Definitely use +5 armor mods, I've been switching all my weapon sets over to them with good results. More armor makes you take less damage, making you much easier for your monks to prot and heal without wasting energy - there are a lot of good threads around it here and on QQ.

If you're nearly dead and degenning or hexed too much, switch to your 30/30 spear set and kite.

Also if you switch to +5 armor, you can sell all your +30s off at a profit.

Chthon · May 09, 2010, 01:33 AM // 01:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by shwick

I was thinking defense, but I see everyone selling fortitude in the sell forums, it's much more common.

Do people normally put the fortitude pommel on their swords or defense for god mode?

What people normally do is of no consequence. People are idiots.

To answer your question, +5AL is generally superior.

The two times you might want +30hp instead are (1) when you know that the zone you are facing is loaded with armor-ignoring damage and degen, or (2) when you've got high enough DP that you're in constant danger of getting spiked out.

Quote:

Originally Posted by GWfan#1

I remember a person made an intricate study on water magic snares and how effective they are, maybe we could get him to study this!

In it's simplest form, this is an easy calculation that's been done over and over. Simply calculate the amount of raw damage that the monsters will need to deal to kill you in both cases with this formula:
RawDmgToKillYou = MaxHP/(2^((Foe'sBaseline - Armor)/40))

The only variable that might not be obvious to you is baseline. Baseline is 3*LvL for spells, wands, and staves and 5*Mastery - 3*Max(0, (Mastery - (2 + RoundDown(Level/2)))

If you wanted to get a bit fancier, you'd do a census of the mobs you faced to figure out the proportion of damage types they dealt. That would give you this equation:

RawDmgToKillYou = MaxHP/(ArmorIgnoring% + (Blunt%*2^((Foe'sBaseline - ArmorVersusBlunt)/40))+(Piercing%*2^((Foe'sBaseline - ArmorVersusPiercing)/40))+(Slashing%*2^((Foe'sBaseline - ArmorVersusSlashing)/40))+(Fire%*2^((Foe'sBaseline - ArmorVersusFire)/40))+(Cold%*2^((Foe'sBaseline - ArmorVersusCold)/40))+(Earth%*2^((Foe'sBaseline - ArmorVersusEarth)/40))+(Lightning%*2^((Foe'sBaseline - ArmorVersusLightning)/40))+(ChaosORArmorRespectingHolyORArmorRespectingS hadowORArmorRespectingUntyped%*2^((Foe'sBaseline - Armor)/40)))

Bear in mind that the percentages are taken on the pre-armor raw damage.

SirNukes · May 09, 2010, 06:24 AM // 06:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoxBat

When you are looking at 600 damage (typical life total), 121 armor only reduces that damage by an extra ~20 vs 116. That means it gives you less protection against spikes than 30 HP.

Well, in that case the 600 damage would become 208 or 227, so you wouldn't come near making use of a fortitude mod; assuming the damage was great enough to threaten killing you, you'd be getting closer to 50 extra hp off an armor mod.

The other problem with this logic is that it assumes nearly instant monster spikes that do roughly a lifebar worth of damage. In play, monster spikes are sloppy and slow (outside of bosses); if your monks are paying attention they will land some healing on you while you are getting pounded on, upping the damage it takes monsters to kill you into the quadruple digits and further favoring armor mods. For a similar reason, armor is generally better when your monks' energy bars are getting pressured down since party members end up taking well in excess of their max life worth of damage during the fight.

Though for a warrior, monsters will normally ignore you and you might get more use out of swordsmanship.

syphonus · May 09, 2010, 07:48 PM // 19:48

I use fort mods to make my HP nice, even numbers.

FoxBat · May 13, 2010, 07:52 PM // 19:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by SirNukes

Well, in that case the 600 damage would become 208 or 227, so you wouldn't come near making use of a fortitude mod; assuming the damage was great enough to threaten killing you, you'd be getting closer to 50 extra hp off an armor mod.

600 life worth of damage to a 116 armor, base damage is more around 1300 in that case.

H/H you should generally be using infinite energy n/rts or e/mos where pressure is not much of an issue, barring mass AoE or degen, while intelligent player heroes should be hitting you with enough prot. If your backline is all healer boon monks you've got problems that a sword pommel isn't going to solve.

Seriously guys this isn't "personal preference" beyond the truth that anything works in PvE. In a GvG world were people have finally moved away from survivor armors, +30 HP is still the standard on warriors for good reason. There's a world of difference between trading 35 HP for 10+ armor and 30 HP for 5.

SirNukes · May 14, 2010, 05:48 AM // 05:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by FoxBat

600 life worth of damage to a 116 armor, base damage is more around 1300 in that case.

H/H you should generally be using infinite energy n/rts or e/mos where pressure is not much of an issue,.

1300 sounds about right, and the defense mod gets to act on all that damage where fortitude is just a basic 30 hp if you almost die. Really, the way damage mechanics work in this game, you can just say the threatening amount of damage is 600 after normal armor but before the 5 defense mod in question and the result will work for all professions (that the defense mod protects against 600*(1-2^(-5/40)) = 50 post-other-armor damage). The actual effect of high base armor is that it raises the armor ignoring damage to armor respecting damage ratio, making fortitude the favorable mod in more low-life situations, but the ratio starts out so low for most areas that the optimal pommel choice won't change.

As for n/rt or e/mo heroes, they are a waste of a hero slot for most hm pve where some thoughtful decisions like defense mods and blood ritual support allow the hench monks to do fine. That's my experience, anyway.