Bug? Important notice about armor stacking (especially for PvP'ers)

After finding out that the Forgotten Shield didn't properly decrease damage I took during farming, I posted it here a little over a year ago. I also posted it on the bug report page of the wiki but got no reply and thought not much more of it.

Now, however, with the recent introduction of the official guild wars support forum, I figured I might as well repost it there.

After some suspicion and help from a couple of friendly Germans from guildwiki.de we actually uncovered a much larger issue:

All weapon armor bonuses that are not inscriptions are treated as skill armor boosts, and therefore capped at +25 armor if used in conjunction with armor boosting skills.

What this means is that when you use a shield that has an inherent mod that gives you +10 armor vs fire and you stand in a Ward against Elements (+24 armor vs elemental damage), you only get +25 armor vs fire, not +34. If you use a skill that gives you +25 or more armor by itself, then the weapon mod doesn't do anything at all!

The only armor boosts from weapons not included in the 25 armor cap are base armor from shields and armor bonuses from inscriptions (real inscriptions, not inherent mods that can be replicated with inscriptions).

Yes, even regular armor mods like 'of Defense' and 'of Shelter' are included in the armor stacking cap of 25 with skill armor boosts.

Keep this in mind the next time you buy oldschool shields with armor mods to use in PvP (like Echovalds etc)!!

6 years .

You can see how it's important in PvP with skills like Resilient Weapon which give +24 armor. Any non-inscription armor bonus would only provide 1 additional armor...

So does this effect modern greens as well? Like endgame EoTN shields?

Obviously we haven't tested all weapons in the game, but all tests seem to indicate the only exception are real inscriptions. But please feel free to test. If you find your weapon works correctly, please post your methods and calculations so we can confirm. Thanks.

Edit: of course, eotn shields come with inscription slots, so they should work correctly. And eotn endgame green shields (droknar's shields) don't have inherent armor mods so they aren't affected.

Armor cap was implemented in 2007. Stacking bonuses on the PvE side probably went unnoticed because things like IAU completely ignore it, ele wards are unusual and SY! will always take priority anyways.

So does that mean that if I use Stand your ground (+24 armor) and I wear centurion's insignias, the insignias will only give me +1 extra armor?

If so, that is complete and utter crap.

Since the armor limit is capped at 25, do skills that lower armor affect this cap? For example, if I am under the effects of aggressive refrain (thus lowering my armor from 80 to 60), will stand your ground raise my armor back up to 84 and then the centurions insignias up to 94 armor?

Insignia bonuses function correctly according to their tests.

=(
Did u by chance check if the Derv Mysticism armor bonus stack above this?
just wondering

Hmmm. I though the limitations only applied to skills...

We really could use some more info, or at least a re-confirmation from the above. After all, armor comes from:
-armor
-insignia
-shield
-shield mod
-weapon mod
-consumables
-skills
-(anything I missed)

So far, I was under the impression that consumables were supposed to stack up too... I may well have wasted some in this case.

Who says its a bug? Sounds more like a feature to me. I mean, how fun would PvP be if people were able to be more or less completly immune to all damage?

so having condition insignias (+15 armor whenever suffering from a condition) and a full armor bonus from a shield (+16 armor) along with a +10 vs different damage type and s +7 vs physical/ele damage on a weapon dont amount for more than +25 armor in total either?

From what I understand from the link the op provided:

Shields: Inherent, non inscribable bonuses to armor are not stacking. Inscriptions and base armor of the shield are. so inscribable shields are fine.

Weapon Mods: Not stacking and are added in with 25 armor bonus.

Armor Inscriptions: Didnt see any posts about armor inscriptions like disciples insignia you mentioned being tested.


EDIT: Missed a post:

Originally posted by Redeemer on the support forums:

"At least the ghost forge insignia were working. If even the insignia weren’t working, it would have been absolutely ridiculous. The only things that do not count as skills are:

* Shield base armor (and similar things on pre-order items)
* Inscriptions
* Armor
* Insignia

Well, I will talk to aRTy if the tests with the pre-searing crafter sword were under the effects of the Vanguard effect."

so it would seem armor insignias are working correctly and are not counted as skills.

^urania:Add in the count armor given for skills/attributes(myst.) for have a complete list....and is still capped at 25 (seems).

Wondering if this will be adressed (mostly for pvp) or cause went ingnored for years is just how game works.

P.S: thus means that in the majority of cases in pvp switching to shield set, expecially low req ones, even with +10 vs dmg mod will give +1 armor overall?
Kinda disappointing for everyone who switched weapon/shield set all the time in pvp for last years....

If the shield is inscribable you get the full +10 bonus, if it is inherent you do not.

Ah, thanks for pointing that out clearly.
But this still means......that all those VERY valuable oldschool shield with inerenth +10 armor....are affected?

Some people won't like this.

test it out urselves before believing them imo, its so easy to test(scrimmage) and use like lighting orb or w/e.

Pretty sure this is what you're all talking about.

Sorry guys I went to bed right after posting this thread, so I'll answer some questions now.

Yeah, seeing the high-end market in oldschool items with armor mods, that should drop a bit I think. Unless you're just going for collector items, using the items actually places you at a disadvantage. See the q7 Jug for sale at the moment for example (sorry leet noobified, just posting an example).

No. It seems armor is calculated from the following sources:
- Base armor (what you're wearing)
- Insignia
- Mysticism (if applicable)
- Shield base armor
- Inscriptions
- All the rest (non-inscription weapon mods and skills)

The last category, 'all the rest' suffers from the 25 armor cap.

Now I don't think we have tested consumables that give armor bonuses yet (e.g. War Supplies and Armor of Salvation). You can't use consumables in a scrimmage though, so I have to think where we can properly test those.

Like above, it seems we still need to test consumables. The other sources of armor have been tested.

It's a bug either way, because inscriptions work outside the cap, while inherent mods, even those that can be replicated with inscriptions, are capped. So either inscriptions are bugged and should be capped, or the rest is bugged and should not be capped.

Yes we tested in scrimmage, all with sound calculations, thanks. But additional testing is always welcome!

Yes, just tested it and seems ur correct(but i wanted to test it myself to make sure it wasn't just a conspirancy.
About the +5al sets: u still should use them anyway as its not like u get resilient 100% of the match, so u'll still mitigate a lot of accumelative dmg with just wearing those def mods on ur weaps.

I really doubt it will affect prices at all, remember when people charged a lot more for weapons with 10/10 sundering? The vast majority of the players out there don't know/care what is truly more effective.