What is better, health mod or armor mod?

I tried searching for this, but couldnt quite get my search terms right, sorry if it has been brought up before.
I heard that often times a +5 Armor mod will be better than a +30 Health mod. Is this true? Im looking to make a perfect fire staff for my N/Ele, and i was wondering what mods i should go for. I was thinking +5 Energy and +30 Health, but with such low armour to begin with, would i be better to get the armor mod instead of the health?

There are many threads on this - in the end it is preference.

Health mod to give you a little more protection against damage spikes (i.e. taking massive amounts of damage at once).

Armor mod to protect you in a longer battle.

I'm a believer in armor over health. The difference between a +5 armor weapon and a +30 health - as far as staying alive while solo farming - is striking. There may well be circumstances where having the health is better but I haven't run into them.

There are some who say - with logic - that this armor over health argument applies to all but warriors since they tend to have enough defense anyway. That may be true. But even as a warrior, I strongly prefer armor.

And here's the good news. It's much cheaper to buy the armor mod.

can you ever have enough armor?

the health can be chopped away but that extra armor helps keep that chopping less.

my opinion

Less damage per attack vs more health to absorb the damage.

Depends on you but I would lean towards health myself.

+30 health is better against armor ignoring damage like holy damage, shadow damage, health degeneration and (no-type) damage. I don't know about chaos, light and dark damage because armor seems to reduce their damage but they are not physical nor elemental damage.

+5 armor is better against physical (slashing, piercing, blunt) and elemental damage (fire, cold, lightning, earth) because it reduces their damage.

+5 armour = -2dmg from an attack(listed above by Zakarr) in my experience.

I run around with 200 AL on my warrior and I dont think its enough.

(AL is much better)

Damage reduction from extra +5 armor depends from your AL (Armor Level). Warriors get less benefit from +5 armor than for example monk or elementalist because they have higher AL in their armors.

This image shows how damage reduction works when increasing or decreasing AL:



http://www.guildwarsguru.com/content...ide-id1156.php

AL 60 (100%) means that you take exactly the damage what skill or weapon description says. That is one reason why for example low level monsters take more damage than skill says because they have lower than 60 AL.

To a first approximation:

10 points of AL = an 18%+ reduction in damage taken from sources that are affected by damage
60 points of health = a 12%- reduction in the fraction of your health taken away by any given amount of damage, from any source (assuming you start with one superior rune and a rune of major vigor).

I did that quickly in my head, so the figures may be off by 1% or so.

The only reason I ever use a + health is for running. Chances are better that you get spike damage when passing through a mob. IMO + health is better for this. I use +x damage mod for everything else.

BTW good link up there.