Curse

Wish Swiftdeath · Apr 15, 2009, 04:12 AM // 04:12

I play monk quite alot and usually i just run survivor insignias on my armor but i've been talking to quite a few people about it and i've noticed that there is a bit of a divide on this...

Personally i run survivors because more health on infuse -> Win

How about you?

Neo-LD · Apr 15, 2009, 04:38 AM // 04:38

When was the last time your infuse didn't bring someone to full health?

scruffy · Apr 15, 2009, 04:45 AM // 04:45

15 armor reduces a lot more than the 40 health you gain from survivor insignias, and it makes monks not have to spend as much energy healing because you don't take as much damage in the first place

basically i take extra armor on every character, if they have no good insignias i just go with the +10 vrs physical, unless i have a pretty clear idea of what i'm coming up against

on my monk i run full disciples and full vitae/vigor runes, i run a +5 spear and i always spec my shield so i get 16 armor from that too and i equip the shield i think will reduce the most damage against each team once i see what theyre running

so basically i get...

600 health
81 base armor
91 armor against damage of my shields spec
96 armor if conditioned
106 armor if conditioned and my shields spec kicks in
(if i get weakness on me i lose 8 armor though cuz i dont have req8 shields cuz im a cheapass, i suggest you get one)

Wish Swiftdeath · Apr 15, 2009, 04:48 AM // 04:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

When was the last time your infuse didn't bring someone to full health?

Sorry for the confusion, I'm worried about getting spiked out myself.

But yeah scruffy's post makes sense, just usually i bring a cripple reduction rune.

scruffy · Apr 15, 2009, 04:49 AM // 04:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

When was the last time your infuse didn't bring someone to full health?

hello deepwound + lingering curse warrior spikes

jaximus · Apr 15, 2009, 05:01 AM // 05:01

full disciples is what i run. i use a +5ar martial also. the lower health is easy made up for with the huge damage reduction you get. then that annoying poison pressure you get from rangers turns from being a nuisance into more of a helpful friend that you just need to keep in check. also with disciples if you get caught being a 'squishy' on your casting set, you arent so soft and handle a bit more damage. your health isnt significantly lower really, against bloodspike its just one extra spell. and really, when have you seen a spike without a condition? deep wound is in just about every spike so you gain from it a bit.

Dae GW · Apr 15, 2009, 06:12 AM // 06:12

Rebel Rising actually came up with the idea of the diciple insignia's.

http://www.rebelrising.net/forums/vi...php?f=38&t=583

I think the calculations are there.

Dae

newbie_of_doom · Apr 15, 2009, 06:38 AM // 06:38

Anyone who brings any other insignia than survivor on a monk in PvP is a complete retard and therefore should be ignored.

This includes rawr.

IMMORTAlMITCH · Apr 15, 2009, 06:47 AM // 06:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dae GW

Rebel Rising actually came up with the idea of the diciple insignia's.

http://www.rebelrising.net/forums/vi...php?f=38&t=583

I think the calculations are there.

Dae

No they didn't, vD ran it before rawr even existed and I very much doubt they were the first/only ones to run it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by newbie_of_doom

Anyone who brings any other insignia than survivor on a monk in PvP is a complete retard and therefore should be ignored.

This includes rawr.

You're an idiot.

dusanyu · Apr 15, 2009, 08:07 AM // 08:07

if your afraid of the Health Issue mix it up a bit and place disciples insignia's in the legs and Chest (Mathematically you are hit here the most) and place Survivors on the head, hands and feet seance you have the lowest Probability of being hit in those areas.

and i don't recall rawr ever stating that they were the first to run such insignia on there monks and just recommending them to players, and it took rawr's recommendation to make people stop and pay attention to the burning logic

lutz · Apr 15, 2009, 09:17 AM // 09:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dae GW

Rebel Rising actually came up with the idea of the diciple insignia's.

http://www.rebelrising.net/forums/vi...php?f=38&t=583

I think the calculations are there.

Dae

Tarlisin and Sephi were the first people to talk a lot about running Disciple's Insignias on forums, but I doubt they were the first guild to ever run armor stacking. It just wasn't that popular (people didn't work out the numbers) until now.

Gforce · Apr 15, 2009, 09:40 AM // 09:40

I think disciples is the better option.. I will tell you why.

The choice you have to make is one between 40 health and 15 (conditional) armor. 40 Health doesnt actually do anything, it lengthens the time you have to live at most. 40 Health is next to nothing in a lot of situations, its only one spell. 15 armor is obviously A LOT better then 40 health when the condition is met, but when the condition is not met, the advantage for health is still very small.

I will now compare survivors and disciplined insignia against certain builds, because the enemies build will affect if your armor actually gets triggered or not.

Against bloodspam: survivors has a minor advantage
-The damage is armor ignoring, but since bloodspam isnt even an actual spike the health doesnt matter much

Against hexes: no real winner
-Most damage is degen/armor ignoring, but even most hexbuilds have some sort of armor affected damage which can be affected by disciples depending on the build.

Against any other pressure build (lol): disciples
-Disciples will continually reduce damage and thus save your monks energy.

Any sort of spike: Disciplined is MUCH better
Why? Because there will usually be a deep wound, but even more important, there will usually be a cracked armor.
You have a high chance to survive if you are in your shield set (with the right mod) and no cracked armor is applied, regardless of having +40 health or not having it. When cracked armor is used, a monk with disciples will still have this high chance to survive while the monk with survivors just lost it. The deepwound comes on top of this and pushes the advantage even more to the side of disciples.

That said, I should now change my monks armor because for some stupid reason I do use survivors..

Killed u man · Apr 15, 2009, 03:02 PM // 15:02

First, there is no better or worse. When you're running armor insignia's, and you're facing a Hexway or Bspike, as little as the extra 50 health from HP insignia's will help you, they will, whereas your armor's wont...

So that's a first one for the health insignia's. They are the most overal insignia. You simply can't go wrong with taking survivor's, as they are usefull in EVERY situation. MIDLY usefull is a better term.

Now, WHY would you want to take armor then? To reduce the Damage Over Time (DoT, DPS) from the enemy team.

Imagine this: in the 15 minutes of the match, you would have gotten hit with about 2000 damage of spells in all kinds of damage.

With your HP insignia's, you would have to heal up the FULL 2000 damage of the spells.
With your armor insignia's, this 2000 damage would have gotten reduced to 1900 damage, or maybe even 1800. The point is that you WILL need to heal up less. So even an insignia with 1 extra armor will be better than HP insignia's in the long run...

"Well Oh Mighty Borat, Why won't we ALL run armor insignia's then?"

The anwser is simple: Spikes.

Bottom line is this: Armor is more usefull then HP in the long run, but teams don't play anymore to outpressure other teams in the long run, they play to spike. Ever since Evisc became meta, so did spikes. As much as these american emo-fags like to fool themselves into believing they are running balanced, they are merely running a camouflaged form of rainbowspike.
With a Warrior supplying the DW, and the rest of the team buffing that spike.

If you calculate it, 10 extra armor, or even 15 extra armor, will only save you 20, 30 or MAYBE even 40 damage on the 600 health you have. (Full HP bar)
On top of that, ANY + Damage on a skill (Power Attack, Keen Arrow) is armor ignoring, aswell as an "armor ignoring" deep wound doing 100 damage.

In other words, armor insignia's aren't going to reduce that much damage on a spike. Not a as much as HP insignia's will give you HP, anyways. And is that reason why HP insignia's are preferred.

Bear in mind tough, there is some exceptions:

If you can GUARANTEE staying alive against spikes, as in [Vital Weapon], [Disciplined Stance], ... THEN you should run armor insignia's, for the above mentioned reason. (The fact that ANY armor will result in having to prot less)

The problem is, tough, can you GUARANTEE staying alive against spikes? You can't... That's the point of spike builds, they ARE more effective, and they usually have the tools to bypass your walls of defence.

All this still goes besides the fact that Hexways, or armor ignoring spike teams (Ob flame comes to mind, aswell as bspam) will still result in a 100% win for the survivor insignia's.

So unless you running a build with [Vital Weapon], multiple copies of [Ward Against Melee] and [Aegis], aswell as a couple of [Blinding Surge]'s, stick with Health Insignias...

*Small note: there also is hundreds of tiny factors that come to mind, which I didn't mention in my main post, as there simple are too many situation to describe.
TO throw out a few:

Spirit Bond: A skill doing 60 damage will trigger SB = good. With Armor insignia's, it'll drop to 59 damage (for example

), and it will go under SB, and hence it can't be protted no more = bad...
Prot Spirit: HP insignia's make this skill less effective, as you have a higher total Health, BUT armor insignia's are quite useless to, as the damage gets reduced to 10% anyways. So which one to take!?
...

FoxBat · Apr 15, 2009, 04:40 PM // 16:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Killed u man

If you calculate it, 10 extra armor, or even 15 extra armor, will only save you 20, 30 or MAYBE even 40 damage on the 600 health you have. (Full HP bar)

Going to use Omegaspike entry on wiki, which is pretty close to the current GvG meta "spike" build. Using this for critical/average damage calcs. Going to use a Mo/W in shield set, but assuming that they get their armor cracked by shell shock, so first numbers are against armor 60. We'll just look at armor-respecting damage.

A/P (assuming both crit): 48+48 = 96
Turret (assuming 1st always crit): 59+37+37 = 133
Shock (assuming KD) 47+47+38 = 132
MoI 70+68+58 = 196

Total= 557

Now lets add +11 armor for disciples (16+15=31, - 20 cracked = 11 armor). The +11 armor modifier here
557 * .8265 = 460
557-460 = 97 damage mitigated

So even if you get infused to full mid-spike, this is still slightly better than survivors.

The big caveat- the cracked armor here cuts through most insignia setups. Disciples makes a lot of sense on Mo/Ws because you still get +11 after cracked, but on a Mo/E you're only going to have +3 armor, which negates 28 of that damage. Not useless, but less valuable than survivor.

The story is much worse for other midliner insignias vs cracked armor. If you don't have shield specced (most non-monk midliners don't), then +15 will only get you the +3 armor, and anything under +15 is no effect. That includes only a prodigy insignia under the most ridiculously ideal conditions, or artificers if you have a whopping 5 signets. Yeah if you have shield inscription vs the right damage type it will help, but against today's rainbow spikes, that will only negate one person's damage. All those heralds, stalwart etc insignias...near useless. And god help even disciple monks if you get spiked outside your shield set.

There are still many builds (like Linger-pressure) where the insigs are useful, and it's still relevant for the physical classes, but for casters most are clearly inferior against crack armor spikes. Unless you maybe can get that removed mid-spike, but I figure a prot monk is usually too busy spirit bonding you.

Byron · Apr 15, 2009, 05:09 PM // 17:09

A lot of theory crafting and number crunching going on. I think most good monks rely on shields to mitigate damage through armor - +10 vs x on a shield set is pretty sexy.

Stance monks, as I see it, should go with survivor's. They already have a built in answer to being spiked. Aegis monks could go with disciples, if they are expecting pure adrenal spike builds. nH pressure with aegis monks (if anyone does that) would probably do well with disciples, as this would then greatly reduce their vulnerability to spikes in a build with few soft targets.

Lets not forget that bonus damage, such as that from power attack, is armor ignoring. Just as well, that warrior spiking you may have judge's insight.

kedde · Apr 15, 2009, 05:32 PM // 17:32

I'll still always run survivors on ladder or otherwise unless I'm completely certain there will be a lot of armor affected damage, a lot of conditions or the like.

I like being prepared against the broadest spectrum of dangers I can possibly be.

MaaKotka · Apr 15, 2009, 06:27 PM // 18:27

If I calculated right 15 armor is around 23% less damage from damage which isn't armor ignoring and it is around 170 damage where 15 armor lowers damage by 40 and when survivors and disciples comes even. If spike consists of more damage that gets reduced by armor disciples is better. I may be wrong, but that is what I got by calculating.

Reverend Dr · Apr 15, 2009, 07:06 PM // 19:06

Really against omega spike it doesn't matter what insignia you run, if you don't get prot, a strong heal, or disruption on their spike you are going to die.

I've been toying around with running +armor on chest (or chest + legs) and I haven't found all that great of a difference either way. You can't really go wrong with survivors and before you start to fool with armor insignias on a monk, get really good at defensive weapon set swapping. The right +armor weapon sets are going to get you a lot further than armor insignias alone.

jaximus · Apr 16, 2009, 01:57 AM // 01:57

there has been some good arguments in both directions, but disciples is a stronger insignia. armor is an passive prot. this way you spend less energy to keep yourself up. also you should run a +5ar martial wep. this gives you(with disciples) +20 armor while conditioned. all of this is negated though with cracked armor, but you gain full benefit of your shield still. a full survivor class gains no benefit from their shield with cracked armor on you(unless you meet the req). the argument for survivors in cases of bloodspike, 40hp is not much, one spell worth. as for omega/rainbow spikes, again 40hp is not a lot and with the +armor, each packet of damage is reduced, therefore requiring more to get the kill. by requiring more, the spike is slower which increases the chances of it being stopped.

when is survivor > disciples? death penalty. you need a certain amount of cushion hp to be able to be saved from a spike in most cases. you have this with disciples before you accumulate dp, but as the deaths stack up you lose a lot of the cushion. the extra 40 hp matters when you have dp. the tradeoff is, disciples keeps you from getting dp better than survivors does.

as for the spirit bond argument, less armor makes it trigger more, but why rely on a monk skill that the enemy team knows it needs to shut down. if your prot is knocked, you are taking extra damage for what reason? the point is disciples slows the damage enough to the point where a simple rof and rc/pnh to clean up the contitions can stop it in conjunction with a patient and a woh.

Div · Apr 16, 2009, 06:54 AM // 06:54

It really depends. If you're expecting to face a pure spike (lol goth balance), then the armor won't do as much good as health. If you're running a split where you expect maybe a death on the monks to fuel additional NPCs killed or heavy DP on some of their guys, then survivor could be useful because the lower your health, the less armor helps you.

Otherwise, if you're going with an 8v8 build that revolves around having a lot of defense and not taking much pressure so you can stay on shield set all the time, then +armor really helps. It's the same argument that emanagement is more important than total energy for sustainability. More armor (health management) is better than total health if you're going for the best anti-pressure.