Another insignia's post

i know runes and insignias questions come up again and again, but i can't seem to find a straight answer through my searches. I'm an elementalist doing mainly pve, and i'm trying to figure out what i should use.

my thoughts are along full survivors or full blessed. the survivors seems to be better up until the damage reaches about 250, after which the damage reduction from the amor on the blessed would be better. but in most pve (at least most normal mode), it doesn't seem like that high of damage happens that often. am i right? I do plan on hard mode at some point, so what are my best options?

Survivor and Blessed are the best two options for PvE (imo). I'd go with Blessed (assuming you can ensure you're always enchanted, which isn't hard), since unless you get down to that last 45 health survivor isn't helping, whereas blessed is reducing damage no matter what your health is at that time.

Blessed is probably the best for PvE especially since you're an elle, maintaining enchantments are second nature for elles. .
TBH, it's very important to have at least some sort of insignia present (i usually use survivor because i migrate my characters to PvP) but you shouldn't fret so much.

As said above, the +45HP from survivors will work only one time in the course of an entire battle, whereas the +10AR is always there, no matter what happens to you.

Your calculations (250 damage as break-even point) are quite correct, but the question now is if, in the course of an entire battle, the total damage you will receive will be higher or lesser than this number. I think that, unless you are in some low-level area, the total damage (not armor-ignoring!) received will be quite often higher than 250.

Assuming that a level 20 warrior hits you with 25 damage per hit, after 10 hits Blessed insignias start to work better than survivors.

If you want to play in HM or in elité areas instead, well, the choice is quite simple..


Someone will tell you that survivor's are better because they work also against armor-ignoring damage, but this is IMHO a weak argument.

In fact, the math is always the same: survivor's will reduce the damage (armor-ignoring and not) received always by 45 (i assume that having more health equals to losing less health). If you can be sure that the health loss reduction granted by blessed insignias (even if they work only with damage that doesn't ignore armor) is higher than 45, then blessed work better.

For example, you can be fighting against a mob with 100 armor-ignoring necros and mesmers, and only one warrior. But, if that warrior hits you more than 10 times (25 damage per hit), than blessed will reduce the health loss more than 45 HP.


Hope i didn't messed up with english too much there

Survivor's is basically used for PvP mainly because a spike now has to be able to do 600 or more damage to kill.
You can argue that maybe extra 10 armour would be more beneficial but you also have to consider degeneration builds that you may come across. Having more health (even though it's only 45hp) will still help offset degen more than if you have 45 health less.

But Swahnee puts up a good argument ^^

Lol! - What the hell kind of weird logic is that. You talk as if you never get health back - +45 from survivors is there all the time. Anytime your health gets regen or healed, you have 45 more health than without survivors.
Having more health helps protect you from both direct damage and degen. Yes, you have less armor, so you get a bigger hit from a foe, but then again, you have more health to survive the hit(s) with. You also have a better chance of staying alive long enough for the Healers to heal you.
And, of course, if you run into something that strips your enchants, Blessed won't do dick all for you - it's not "always there no matter what happens".

You can be healed also when you have more armor..healing is there in both cases.

Let's make an example. Let 250 damage be the break-even point between +10AR and +45HP. Let A be a character with blessed, and say 505HP max. Let B be a character with survivors, and 550HP max (45 more than the former).

After taking 250 damage (not armor-ignoring), player A and player B are both left with 300HP (because we supposed that with 250 damage the effects of +HP and +AR are the same..since it's not armor ignoring, player A takes less than 250, because it has +10AR).

Now, if a monk heals both of them to their maximum health, we are at the starting point, as if nothing happened.

But player A has to be healed for 205 HP, and player B has to be healed for 250 HP, so +10AR is working better, is absorbing more damage..

If you want to compare two different effects, you have to exclude every other effect which works in the same way in both cases.

Having more health protects you from either direct damage or degen. If you have +45HP and you are hit by a physical attack for 45 damage, and by a (for example) life stealing skill for 45 health stealed, your +45HP works only one time: you will lose 70HP... you can choose whether the bonus has worked with the direct damage or with the life stealing, but this is meaningless.

I think that the example in my previous post was quite clear: in the end if you have +10AR you will lose less health..+10AR works only with physical and elemental damage, but if it can prevent more damage than the health bonus (even if this works with any kind of health loss) it works better.

Regarding the argument of time, you say that if you have more health, foes have to cause more damage to you, so they need more time to kill you (supposing that their DPS is the same), and this is right.
But, if you have more armor, foes make less damage per hit (they have less DPS), so they need more time to kill you too, but this works only with physical and elemental damage.

The question is: what's greater? The time bonus obtained with more health, or the time bonus obtained with more armor? This is exactly the question i was trying to answer to.

You're perfectly right but i was making a general comparison between having more health and having more armor, i used blessed as an example, meaning "+10AR". Obviously one can find hundreds of cases in which something won't work..but i still think that in the average case +10AR works better (this would be probably too difficult to calculate, so it's down to one's opinion).


N.B.: I'm not an english native, so i apologize if i mess up with grammar in these long posts.

I'd say that blessed is better, since you've calculated it is so. Anyways, you have to take into account enemy AI - they attack the one with lowest health (I know there are other variables too, but it is still a part of who the hostile NPCs will attack). Therefore might it be good to have more health as the enemies will more likely attack the one they are supposed to attack (the tank).

There is also prismatic. If you are running a dual combonation build such as air/water and have lvl 9 in each, prismatic is better because it can't be stripped away.

Yes, this is also something else to consider

However, in PvE pretty much everything works, you can do whatever you want with both blessed and survivors.

Calculations are just something to have a good time with, if you like math and such, and to feed argumentations (at least, this is my point of view), but you won't see any huge difference between the two styles inside the game.

The important thing is that you don't use Radiant in general PvE

Where are you guys getting +45 for Survivor's from? It's 15(chest) +10(legs) +5(head) +5(hands) +5(feet) = 40 total.

Anyway I suppose it's moot since Blessed is the better option anyway, arguably for PvP too since +10AL will save more than 40 health over the course of a game, which means less healing required and less energy wasted through healing. Healing usually goes further with an extra 10AL, unless you're being 100% blasted with armour-ignoring spells and degen hexes or whatever.

Of course, if you need to raise your health for some reason while wearing Blessed, you can always use a +60 staff or +30/+30 weapon/offhand combo.

As a general rule, I'd go Blessed.

You might also be able to take advantage of a "-2 physical damage while enchanted" shield as the damage saved quickly adds up. Even better if you're dabbling in Earth and are using Weakness. Actually that might go well even for a fire E/D packing Armor of Sanctity. Just a thought!

Oops! You're right...my memory fooled me

I still prefer Survivor's over Blessed. Enchantments can be shattered, leaving you with sub-standard armor.

Depending on the area, enchantments can be shattered/stripped a lot. In those areas I've often altered my build to avoid enchantments entirely (using glyphs and the like).

Actually, the majority of my characters/heroes use Survivors on the Head, Hands, & Feet (for +15 health) and Radiants on the Chest and Legs (for +5 energy).

As to the rest of your discussion about Blessed vs Survivors, I still think your logic is full of holes, but it's not worth the time to argue about it. I'll just sum up my opinion as this:

Blessed - only works while enchanted. Only reduces damage from physical and elemental damage - no effect on armor ignoring damage (such as Holy or Dark) or degen from conditions or hexes. Reduces damage, but you have less health (vs Survivors), so it balances out.

Survivors - more health means better ability to survive damage and/or degen long enough to win fight and/or get healed. (PvE)

Bottom line to OP - try them both and see which one works best for you.

pve and pvp have different playing mechanics. +armour is more beneficial in pve. in pvp, teams intentionally try to stack their armour-ignoring damage on spikes to bypass defenses. in pve, most "spikes" come from physical and/or elemental damage. for two reasons: 1) ai is not that smart and their builds were poorly made, and 2) their physical/elemental damage is greatly boosted thanks to monster/attribute levels.

I've got to side with nkuvu and Quaker. Enchants on an ele aside from e-management are basically defensive/healing/protting, whether cast by the ele (e.g., Armor of Earth or Aura of Restoration) or cast on the ele (e.g., Protective Spirit). When those get stripped, that is when you most need your armor to get you through. However, that is exactly when you also lose the benefit of Blessed insignia. They don't add much when your enchants are up, and add nothing when your enchants are down.