8 replies to this topic

[Istaro]

Do we have any idea of the numerical effect of a given amount of toughness on damage taken?  Like the +40 armor = 50% damage reduction equation from GW1?

In particular, I'm wondering whether we have any idea of which gives a greater increase in survivability (effective health): +798 toughness or +798 vitality.  Well, of course it depends on where your toughness and vitality start out, but let's say, for a profession whose relative armor level (low/medium/high) is the same as its relative health level (low/medium/high), like warrior or elementalist.

So far, a given amount of vitality seems to me to be more important than a given amount of toughness, but maybe that's an illusion due to the fact that increased vitality has a more visible effect than increased toughness (i.e. the number on the big red sphere).

[Cellbuster]

I have no math to back up my claim, but I've found more use out of investing in vitality.  I'm not sure if this makes any sense, but since vitality is the only survivability stat that affects how efficiently you replenish health, I think they made it more of a bullet sponge than the healing and toughness stat. I also feel like I can handle conditions better with maximizing my health count.

[MasterDinadan]

My own experimenting and the observations of others suggest that armor works as a divisor in the damage formula.
It's basically like (Power * Weapon Damage * Ability Coefficient / Target Armor).
In other words, you would have to double your armor to half the damage you are taking.

Based on this, you can compute an "effective health" as the product of health and armor. However, armor is slightly favored if your incoming healing exceeds incoming condition damage. If incoming condition damage exceeds damage, then health is better (as condition damage and healing both ignore armor)

Edited by MasterDinadan, 12 June 2012 - 04:05 AM.

[Istaro]

MasterDinadan, on 12 June 2012 - 04:03 AM, said:

My own experimenting and the observations of others suggest that armor works as a divisor in the damage formula.
It's basically like (Power * Weapon Damage * Ability Coefficient / Target Armor).
In other words, you would have to double your armor to half the damage you are taking.

Ah, thanks!  So if only we knew the base defense of each armor class, we could calculate the percentage increase in effective health produced by a given increase in toughness, and with that, the relative worth of vitality and toughness for each profession.

What I have right now is that in sPvP, a 798-vitality amulet increases health by 74%, 53%, and 43%, for the low-health, medium-health, and high-health professions, respectively, while a 798-toughness amulet increases effective health against non-condition damage by (798/(916+D)) * 100%, where D is base defense.  I could have sworn I saw a post giving the base defense of each armor class somewhere, but I can't find it now.

Edit: just found some numbers (937 for light armor, 1084 for medium armor, and 1231 for heavy armor), albeit in a really old thread.  If they're still accurate, then 798 vitality and toughness produce the following percentage increases in effective health against non-condition damage for the different professions:

Elementalist: +74% from vitality, +43% from toughness
Mesmer: +53% from vitality, +43% from toughness
Necromancer: +43% from vitality, +43% from toughness
Thief: +74% from vitality, +40% from toughness
Ranger/Engineer: +53% from vitality, +40% from toughness
Guardian: +74% from vitality, +37% from toughness
Warrior: +43% from vitality, +37% from toughness

Dang, that's lame, I was hoping it'd be closer.  A given amount of vitality and toughness are of equal value to an otherwise unmodified necromancer, but for all other professions vitality is better.

Edited by Istaro, 12 June 2012 - 08:46 AM.

[Tevesh]

Fact is that toughness makes all healing effects better while vitality makes them worse. It is natural that in 'vacuum' vitality is more efficient because in a real survivability scenario incoming heals can make a big difference, and this is where toughness shines.
You could also argue that 'in a vacuum' condition based damage is stronger, so the condition defense stat is similiarly stronger than toughness used mostly against direct damage.

[MasterDinadan]

As Tevash mentioned, effective healing and effective health vs conditions are important considerations.
If I take the percentages you listed and zero out all the numbers for vitality, that's the effective healing gains (looking better for toughness now).
If I take the percentages for toughness though, and zero those out, that's the effective health vs conditions gained.

So the value will be shifted by the amount of healing and condition removal brought by your team, as well as how prominent condition damage is which will likely vary as different builds gain popularity.

[Ksielvin]

Istaro, on 12 June 2012 - 08:36 AM, said:

Edit: just found some numbers (937 for light armor, 1084 for medium armor, and 1231 for heavy armor), albeit in a really old thread.  If they're still accurate, then 798 vitality and toughness produce the following percentage increases in effective health against non-condition damage for the different professions:

Elementalist: +74% from vitality, +43% from toughness
Mesmer: +53% from vitality, +43% from toughness
Necromancer: +43% from vitality, +43% from toughness
Thief: +74% from vitality, +40% from toughness
Ranger/Engineer: +53% from vitality, +40% from toughness
Guardian: +74% from vitality, +37% from toughness
Warrior: +43% from vitality, +37% from toughness

Dang, that's lame, I was hoping it'd be closer.  A given amount of vitality and toughness are of equal value to an otherwise unmodified necromancer, but for all other professions vitality is better.

You will just about always get your selfheal off in a fight. This amount should be included on top of your max health while calculating the effect of toughness. Frequently you will get it off multiple times in a prolonged large battle. You might also have other smaller heals and/or receive aoe heals or regeneration boon from allies. I've seen people report being very happy with high toughness builds across all the professions I've cared to read about...

I don't know if your math works out 100% right but I can definitely confirm from my testing in the Heart of the Mists that doubling one's Power from the base value doubled skill damage (both the tooltip and actual damage, which were only sort of related due to tooltips not including everything).

Edited by pekkar, 13 June 2012 - 05:34 PM.

[MasterDinadan]

pekkar, on 13 June 2012 - 05:30 PM, said:

I don't know if your math works out 100% right but I can definitely confirm from my testing in the Heart of the Mists that doubling one's Power from the base value doubled skill damage (both the tooltip and actual damage, which were only sort of related due to tooltips not including everything).

The tooltip actually does not reflect your weapon damage at all (nor the target armor) but I was able to verify experimentally that actual damage scaled proportionately with power and inversely proportional to target armor.

[Istaro]

Ksielvin, on 13 June 2012 - 05:30 PM, said:

You will just about always get your selfheal off in a fight. This amount should be included on top of your max health while calculating the effect of toughness.

Hey, good point.  And that makes me happy because it happens that my current pet build is a malice/precision one, and I was feeling bummed that while there's a malice/precision/toughness amulet, there's no malice/precision/vitality one.  I'd still rather have the latter for various reasons but it's not quite as bad as I thought.