70 replies to this topic

[BreadBuddy]

The discussion between Glass Cannon and Vit/Tough including builds really interested me and I was hoping we could get more about the subject between the two. The last thread got locked because it ended up becoming a senseless flame war with personal attacks and such.

Basically the argument is

Why build vit/tough when you can dodge and use your profession's utilities to ultimately avoid damage? Learn to dodge.

Building Vit/Tough will only help yourself thereby making yourself less of a help to your party because you aren't doing as much damage as possible.

Not everything can be dodged.

All it takes is one mistake for a glass cannon and he is wasted space for the party.

Currently there are two threads in the Mesmer section related to this but I'd like to know what would everyone think about this subject on all professions.

Some related threads

Spoiler

http://www.guildwars...mportant-stats/
http://www.guildwars...fractals-build/
http://www.guildwars...de-with-videos/

What do you think?

[dawdler]

You found two threads on it on the Mesmer forum?

... Its the daily discussion on the entire PvE forum

At the end of the day, its an impossible argument because it depends on the group. What's the point of having a toughness water-specced Elementalist that do crap dps when there are 4 very high toughness Warriors keeping mobs within a 5m area in front of him? Absolutely none. He has no place in the group. The Warriors dont need healing. They need dps and lots of it.

That's just one extreme example, but you can swing it any way you like with any combination of professions and builds. The only thing that is truly a waste for the party is a shitty player that cannot adapt. Can this be helped in pugs? No it cannot.

You could say that a balanced build is the "best", but then again you are usually missing on out on the unique characteristics of professions. Its not like you join a dungeon thinking "OMG I hope that theif is toughness specced because we really need a tank!" when you have 2 guardians and 2 warrior already in the group.

Edited by dawdler, 22 December 2012 - 11:51 AM.

[NotKMoose]

What above poster said, sometimes I go in full glass no problem, other times I know its not gonna work out and have to change up my build and playstyle.  Depends on your party, knowledge of the instance, and reaction time really.

[Expherious]

Adaptability in Pve/WvW I reckon. for PvP its always a toss up for me, I cant decide whether to do a Glass or Support. Glass Im useful because I take out other players quickly Support im good because I can hold  a point long enough to get help? Im not sure, Im a pretty independant person but  I cant find a good crossover build that allows me to do both effectively. Hmm I feel great helping other people but, when they dont come to my rescue I feel useless and like a waste of a team slot. So I swap depending on how lazy im feeling.,

[Nabuko Darayon]

To me the biggest question is WHY do you want to deal the most damage. Your drop rate from mobs isn't increased if you're the highest shooter. Mobs are placed like that so you can't bunch 20+ and survive but you gotta kill 1-5 mobs at a time (if you solo). Glass Cannon can work in a duo with Guardian/Ele (boons and or combo fields) but still so can a Knight work too. Glass only works in PvP in a surprise attack because people will ether dodge your attacks and kill you in seconds or they'll just run away if they're spec like bunkers.

So I don't actually see the point in going glass cannons. I do see going full berserk on mesmers because they would deal 0's with their attacks if they didn't (not including shatter or phantasms), I can see rangers going Bersserk because they have 1,500 bow range and in a group play that can always be in the back. I can see Warriors go Berserk because, well they're warriors (high hp, high armor, they don't need more toughness), I can see Berserk in Perma-stealth thieves, I can even see Berserk in Elementalist, but glass cannons only work if you're at the maximum range.

People think Glass Cannons are 1-shot victories, but what they don't know is that they've actually 1-shot their fellow glass cannon. I run Ele in PvP and in my fights I was never, not even 5shot by a glass cannon. Yes if I see that they're outdamaging me, I fall back. or wait for a teammate to come and join the fight. Because that's just that. Glass Cannons will win 1 vs 1, but 2+ vs 1 they're dead in a second. Since this game isn't designed for 1vs1 (yes you can come accros a loner and beat him by frontal attack or surprise attack) I don't see why anyone would go glass cannon. To me it's the most mindless build anyone could take. Doesn't need any thinking, any mental challenge to figure out what works with what, just add more power, power and kill other glass cannons.

That said I love glass cannons because they're free wins for my team

Edited by Nabuko Darayon, 22 December 2012 - 12:37 PM.

[Eon Lilu]

I used to play a very offensive guardian with a little support, that was what i used for dungeons, solo pve, fractals etc...

Now I know how to avoid damage, keep my energy up so I have infinite dodge etc so offensive guardian works perfect when I use it and I managed to do very well with it. Especially with guildies and I still have a small amount of support to help the group.

I got so sick of pugs though bringing glass cannons and having to keep reviving them that I just switch my whole build to heavy support guardian with more tankyness.

I still have good damage but now I have enough boons up and heals to take our party against 6 elder dragons at once and I just leave everyone else to do the damage while I make them into invincible god mode and give them loads of might  / damage and support buffs/heals.

The argument about everyone should be glass cannon with a tiny amount of support is true with a heavily organised group who know what there doing and how to stay alive, problem is unless your in a hardcore guild it doesn't work and your chance of completing the instance is 50/50...I don't want to waste hours of my time because of others...

So thats why I go heavy support with some damage and tank now in groups, I take all the damage and give god mode support buffs, pretty much guarenteed to complete it.

If im with my friends or a hardcore group then I go glass cannon. I am actually liking the support role though. Is more fun. PVE solo though, always glass cannon magic find because the content is so easy a monkey could do it.

Edited by Eon Lilu, 22 December 2012 - 03:08 PM.

[matsif]

as this is the PvE forum, PvP and WvW should be left out of the equation, as what works for there might be entirely different than what works in PvE.

that stated, it's a question of player ability to position and dodge.  Some players just never develop that reaction speed or ability to remember what the 1 hit kill boss attack looks like, and the tankier stats are necessary.  It's also a double edged sword as stated because if you are a glass cannon, you are going to get killed much faster than the rest of your team.  So if you can't dodge effectively you are dead weight to the team rather being beneficial for your huge damage.  And to be honest I rarely if ever see people with that skill set in a pug.

There is nothing wrong with wanting toughness or vit in your build.  Support is required because as a glass cannon, you maybe have 1 or 2 skills to help if you make 1 mistake, and you provide nothing to help your party except damage and whatever control your weapon skills offer you.  I'd much rather have 5 players with relatively good tou/vit stats that do ok damage than 1 high support character doing little damage and 4 glass cannons that die in 2 hits if they draw aggro.  Maybe the first group finishes the event 5 or 10 minutes slower than the first, but if a few mistakes are made the second group now has to waste time reviving or running back from waypoints.  On average the times turn out the same because unless I'm running a full guild group, I've never seen someone able to not make that mistake and get themselves killed.

[Wifflebottom]

It works. I did fractals lvl 20 yesterday with 2 glass cannon mesmers a glass cannon ele and 2 glass warriors. As a mesmer avoiding damage is easy so you don't need tough+vit and eles can just stay ranged and warriors have enough armor and health that they don't really need tough+vit. You time dodges and get ranged when necessary. Between myself and the ele we constantly kept a minimum of 10 stacks of might every fight. Long story short: ya don't need toughness and vitality if you're good.

[Nonlinear]

yes.  use the soldiers/clerics/etc. in pvp.

People keep tossing out this thing about having to rez glass cannons all the time, the assumption that only glass cannons go into down state or go into down state more than others is absurd.  Bad players go into down state more than not bad players.

My main is a level 80 ele and I survive as GC just fine.  I don't die in PvE because AI is predictable and stupid.  Boons, stamina/dodge, a properly timed Mist Form or missile reflect or even a good 2 second strafe.  There are so many ways to mitigate mass damage.

And one of the main reason why you would want to kill stuff faster?  How about having to use fewer elite skill CDs?

[Rumstein]

Basically, I pack a little bit of vit and toughness so that IF/WHEN I get hit, I can ideally survive it.

But aside from that, my gear is a mix of berserkers and soldiers (RIght now its 2 zerk, 2 soldier, 2 knights, but I'm swapping a knights for a berserker, along with berserker trinkets), and my build (ele) is water/arcane support/auramancer.

The thing is, I rarely get hit. In dungeons, you should pretty much be able to go full glass cannon because everything is predictable and hits like a wet noodle. In fractals, things can get a little more dicey, but not by much (agony resistance stops it).

If you are confident in your dodging and mechanics knowledge, full glass cannon is great. The faster things die, the less you have to worry. But if you either don't have fast endurance regen (vigor), or have some lag, you should compensate with a bit of toughness/vitality/healing power.

On that note, If you are playing from Australia like me, you probably have a little delay, and so its a safety net to have a bit of extra toughness/vit.

[GuanglaiKangyi]

Nabuko Darayon, on 22 December 2012 - 12:35 PM, said:

To me the biggest question is WHY do you want to deal the most damage. Your drop rate from mobs isn't increased if you're the highest shooter. Mobs are placed like that so you can't bunch 20+ and survive but you gotta kill 1-5 mobs at a time (if you solo). Glass Cannon can work in a duo with Guardian/Ele (boons and or combo fields) but still so can a Knight work too. Glass only works in PvP in a surprise attack because people will ether dodge your attacks and kill you in seconds or they'll just run away if they're spec like bunkers.

You can leech with pretty much any build.  You could be a longbow heal shout warrior (lol) in cleric gear (lol) contributing nearly negative DPS and still get the same drops as the other members of your party who are actually doing things.  That said:

1) The most people contributing, the better.  You have a better chance of passing hard fights and you get though the easy ones faster.  That's a win for you because you get more loot in less time.

2) Most people actually are leeches, or just plain bad.  Get a pug and odds are at least 3, and likely all 4, of the other players will be useless.  That means that if you go into the dungeon with soldier's gear intending to leech off the other members, and they go in intending to leech off you, then lol.  Good luck.

3) More defensive stats doesn't even make it any easier.  You likely think it's easier because you are in defensive gear contributing nothing while 1-2 DPS-specced players carry the rest of the party.  I've been in low-DPS parties.  It's terrible.  Even the easiest bosses wipe you out because no one can do any damage to actually kill them and it's not like your healing gets any better in soldier gear.  You might be able to last 2x longer but that doesn't mean anything when it take 10-20x longer to kill anything.  Also, if the boss spawns adds on a timer, enjoy having thirty of them on you.

[Vecuu]

GuanglaiKangyi, on 24 December 2012 - 12:02 AM, said:

/snip

3) More defensive stats doesn't even make it any easier.  You likely think it's easier because you are in defensive gear contributing nothing while 1-2 DPS-specced players carry the rest of the party.  I've been in low-DPS parties.  It's terrible.  Even the easiest bosses wipe you out because no one can do any damage to actually kill them and it's not like your healing gets any better in soldier gear.  You might be able to last 2x longer but that doesn't mean anything when it take 10-20x longer to kill anything.  Also, if the boss spawns adds on a timer, enjoy having thirty of them on you.

I don't agree with this.  I have run a number of dungeons with guildies in which four of the party members were in either Cleric's or Soldier's gear, and there were zero problems with add control.  Proper focus-fire goes a long way.

The rate at which your damage drops as you build more defensive stats is slower than the rate at which your survivability increases as you build defensive stats.  This is because, for the bulk of builds, Power is the source of most damage, and Soldier's gear sacrifices zero power.

A brief aside, people forget that when a person gets downed, it's not only their DPS which stops: it's whoever else stops DPSing to rally them.

At the end of the day, I'd rather have a good player in Berserker's gear than a bad player in Soldier's gear, and I'd rather have a good player in Soldier's gear than a bad player in Berserker's gear.

[Nabuko Darayon]

GuanglaiKangyi, on 24 December 2012 - 12:02 AM, said:

You can leech with pretty much any build.  You could be a longbow heal shout warrior (lol) in cleric gear (lol) contributing nearly negative DPS and still get the same drops as the other members of your party who are actually doing things.  That said:

1) The most people contributing, the better.  You have a better chance of passing hard fights and you get though the easy ones faster.  That's a win for you because you get more loot in less time.

2) Most people actually are leeches, or just plain bad.  Get a pug and odds are at least 3, and likely all 4, of the other players will be useless.  That means that if you go into the dungeon with soldier's gear intending to leech off the other members, and they go in intending to leech off you, then lol.  Good luck.

3) More defensive stats doesn't even make it any easier.  You likely think it's easier because you are in defensive gear contributing nothing while 1-2 DPS-specced players carry the rest of the party.  I've been in low-DPS parties.  It's terrible.  Even the easiest bosses wipe you out because no one can do any damage to actually kill them and it's not like your healing gets any better in soldier gear.  You might be able to last 2x longer but that doesn't mean anything when it take 10-20x longer to kill anything.  Also, if the boss spawns adds on a timer, enjoy having thirty of them on you.

We were talking here about glass cannons. Regarding my elementalist I switch two sets. I have Valkyrie Armor with Emerald Jewels (Knights) and full Cleric's for support. What annoys me are glass cannons that always die in a second against a boss (yes maybe 3-5 seconds depending on their utility) and then I have to go full support to heal them to at least have them survive long enough to do their damage before they die again -.-.
Part when you say people leech in parties is just pointless to me. People tag in Karma events which is a normal thing. If you were talking about leeching in a dungeon party that's just dumb.Luckily I never had those nor do I think that there are people who leech in a dungeon run. I can tell you this because if I'm not going d/d I'm usually at the back casting MS and stuff and I can clearly see that everyone is attacking. So this is the first time I've heard someone mentioning leeching in a party.

Also regarding Soldier's gear, that's clear bullshit for me. I can't see why would anyone decide to go full Solder's because yes, you do lose a lot of dps. Knight's/Valkyrie's at least give you small Berzerk with good toughness which makes you have a lot more vitality and toughness while doing decent numbers on foes.

Only one who should go soldier's is someone who can survive till they see the boss dead. No point in going Soldier's if you can survive 3 more seconds with it. But that's not the topic, the topic is about glass cannons and in my opinion how they suck.

Edited by Nabuko Darayon, 24 December 2012 - 06:37 PM.

[Heart Collector]

I used to be a glass cannon like you, but then I took a lag spike to the knee

Outdated and terrible internet jokes aside, lag combined with that anoying split second ability delay is a problem with glass cannon builds - I often find myself taking hits I've seemingly evaded due to my crappy connection.

Also I personally prefer having more balance in my characters. I'm currently spending the majority of my game time with my RL buddy (both lvl 80 thieves), he's going full glass cannon crit build - and I'm gravitating more and more to a more defensive condition build. If only for some variety

[Nonlinear]

Good glass cannons don't die.  Bads die.  Bads don't ever change up their skills or traits while out of combat to suit the encounter.  Doesn't matter what gear and traits they use, they are just bad.

[Nalano]

GuanglaiKangyi, on 24 December 2012 - 12:02 AM, said:

2) Most people actually are leeches, or just plain bad.  Get a pug and odds are at least 3, and likely all 4, of the other players will be useless.  That means that if you go into the dungeon with soldier's gear intending to leech off the other members, and they go in intending to leech off you, then lol.  Good luck.

I like GC builds because a good GC group can finish an instance in no time at all. Defensive builds can do it safely, but then take twice as long.

But there's no cure for stupid, and there have definitely been PuGs who were objectively worse than an open slot. A lot of these instances can be 4- and 3-manned, and probably should.

[Sheepski]

In my humble opinion; I've built most of my characters as GC- meaning that weapons, accessories and traits are built for damage (whether crit or condition depending on the profession) and then armour I have more defense there to keep me alive longer (usually Knight's so have plenty of attack there too), and I usually have 1 utility slot which is more of an "oh crap" moment saver. So I guess on balance it's 85% attack and 15% defense.

[lmaonade]

The answer is simple, if you can handle being glass cannon then go for it, but if you can't and need more defensive stats to be able to complete content effectively, then do that.

I said it in the other thread and I will say it again here, fully glass cannon builds work but are not always something good to emulate, if you're good enough to utilize it fully, then cool, if not, build some defense to not embarrass yourself in dungeons

Nabuko Darayon, on 22 December 2012 - 12:35 PM, said:

snip

you're in the PvE forums, so your point is moot.

As for your other post, glass cannon builds do not suck in PvE, they maximize damage per second, the ONLY statistic/figure that directly influences completion of content, if a dedicated dungeon party can live without vit and toughness, then there is absolutely 0 point in getting those stats, it's only when you need to make up for shortcomings in how you play that you get vitality/toughness/healing power.

Nalano, on 24 December 2012 - 06:30 PM, said:

I like GC builds because a good GC group can finish an instance in no time at all. Defensive builds can do it safely, but then take twice as long.

But there's no cure for stupid, and there have definitely been PuGs who were objectively worse than an open slot. A lot of these instances can be 4- and 3-manned, and probably should.

+1 because I hate PuGs. Every time I invite 2 or more random people to run a dungeon they turn out to be the most horrible players I've ever seen and exactly like you described them (worse than an open slot), then I stop inviting PuGs at all for a while, and every time I test my luck and play with some again they never fail to disappoint. The only dungeon I even PuG anymore is AC, since I can quasi-solo it with a bunker ele (takes forever and a half to do it though)

Edited by lmaonade, 25 December 2012 - 10:35 AM.

[Sekani]

The way I see it, glass cannon is the way to go if you have enough skill and experience to dodge every attack in your sleep. They're almost a necessity in higher-level Fractals.

However, no one starts off as an expert. The ideal for most people would be to mix in some level of toughness and vitality (mostly toughness) so you're not face-down on the floor constantly. Skip healing power though, that's kind of a waste. Knights and Valkyrie sets are a good place to start.

[chullster]

Sekani, on 03 January 2013 - 02:56 PM, said:

The way I see it, glass cannon is the way to go if you have enough skill and experience to dodge every attack in your sleep. They're almost a necessity in higher-level Fractals.

However, no one starts off as an expert. The ideal for most people would be to mix in some level of toughness and vitality (mostly toughness) so you're not face-down on the floor constantly. Skip healing power though, that's kind of a waste. Knights and Valkyrie sets are a good place to start.

This is about right. I started thinking a blend of zerk and knights was a good combo, and slowly as I play more the dungeons and fractals and get more experienced, the more damage I want to deal. Also after you get in a high damage team, you want that kind of team every run as they're usually so quick.

Now I run path 1 CoF like a madmen so I can replace all the knights armour I have with full berserker for free. 2 characters done so far and they are now my most fun characters to play.

Edited by chullster, 03 January 2013 - 03:06 PM.

[Heart Collector]

Personally I prefer more balanced-to-defensive builds in the game. Even on my Thief I'm going for a more defensive, attrition oriented build, I enjoy running mobs in circles as they slowly and painfully die - and make rude faces at them to add insult to injury Though that mostly occured because my buddy (also a Thief) is a full glass cannon and I wanted to create a kind of more balanced dynamic (which I ended up enjoying).

Even in WoW I preferred being the guy who protects his teammates, hence tanking was my favorite role. In GW2 I also like support since it's not restricted to heal-botting.

Interestingly enough, I prefer speccing for pure damage in single player games.

[Calebrus]

Heart Collector, on 03 January 2013 - 03:55 PM, said:

Personally I prefer more balanced-to-defensive builds in the game.

This is how I feel as well.  I prefer balanced builds.  Actually, in other games I have almost always exclusively built hybrid characters.
The whole "DPS is King" mentality was never for me.
It's great that you can beat up X mob in Y seconds.  But what else do you bring to the table?  The fact that practically everyone plays with a Glass Cannon mentality only means that anyone that doesn't truly shines.  But I'm not talking about P/V/T vs GC here, I'm talking about hybrid specs, so I guess I'm getting a bit off topic in a way.

Edited by Calebrus, 03 January 2013 - 06:17 PM.

[GuanglaiKangyi]

Heart Collector, on 03 January 2013 - 03:55 PM, said:

Personally I prefer more balanced-to-defensive builds in the game. Even on my Thief I'm going for a more defensive, attrition oriented build, I enjoy running mobs in circles as they slowly and painfully die - and make rude faces at them to add insult to injury Though that mostly occured because my buddy (also a Thief) is a full glass cannon and I wanted to create a kind of more balanced dynamic (which I ended up enjoying).

Even in WoW I preferred being the guy who protects his teammates, hence tanking was my favorite role. In GW2 I also like support since it's not restricted to heal-botting.

Interestingly enough, I prefer speccing for pure damage in single player games.

The biggest problem with running a defensive thief is that you're unfortunately just turning yourself into a squishier guardian or warrior.  A full glass cannon thief actually doesn't do THAT much more damage than a full glass cannon warrior or guardian, and you're not stacking offensive buffs nearly as well.  Comparatively, if you spec more defensively to the point where your DPS is equal, you still won't be as tanky as they are.  As such. from a strict numbers perspective, to be viable in a dungeon you need to get as much DPS as possible, or you might as well take a guardian or warrior.

[ProfGast]

Obviously, the better you are, the more you can mitigate damage using active means, and you can increase your damage output proportionally in response.

From a mathematical perspective however, I find berserker's armor a little bit wasteful.  While Critical damage is king for increasing damage output, Precision is the stat with the highest amount of diminishing returns.  Each 21 points of precision adds 1% critical chance, which when you factor berserkers armor is about a 10% increase in crit chance.  This is half the crit chance from simply having the fury buff on (20%).

  Added to that, berserker's armor only adds a total of +16% crit damage, at a loss of 224 points in a stat trading off at a cost of about 14 stat points per 1% critical damage.  Berserker's trinkets(5pcs, not counting back) on the other hand give approximately 32% crit damage (counting jewels) at the cost of 315 points in a stat trading off at about 10 stat points per critical damage.

Assuming all Exotic gear, and Full divinity runes, you only get about a 14% total damage increase using all Berserker's over someone using Soldier armor and Berserker's trinkets.  This is at the cost of 2240 HP and 224 Toughness.  If that hundred or so damage per hit is worthwhile to you compared to the survivability gain, then by all means go for it.  I personally prefer that little bit of extra buffer for when latency, animation, or tiredness come into play.

[Heart Collector]

GuanglaiKangyi, on 03 January 2013 - 06:29 PM, said:

The biggest problem with running a defensive thief is that you're unfortunately just turning yourself into a squishier guardian or warrior.  A full glass cannon thief actually doesn't do THAT much more damage than a full glass cannon warrior or guardian, and you're not stacking offensive buffs nearly as well.  Comparatively, if you spec more defensively to the point where your DPS is equal, you still won't be as tanky as they are.  As such. from a strict numbers perspective, to be viable in a dungeon you need to get as much DPS as possible, or you might as well take a guardian or warrior.

I don't do dungeons so I don't care I find the more balanced build fun, hence I play it. And besides, my build is defensive but I'm not completely ignoring my offensive stats on gear. And in the open world where I exclusively play, it works well for me - maybe the skirmishing style of play I have suits me, I dunno. If I decide to do dungeons at some point I'll adjust.

Calebrus, on 03 January 2013 - 06:17 PM, said:

This is how I feel as well.  I prefer balanced builds.  Actually, in other games I have almost always exclusively built hybrid characters.
The whole "DPS is King" mentality was never for me.
It's great that you can beat up X mob in Y seconds.  But what else do you bring to the table?  The fact that practically everyone plays with a Glass Cannon mentality only means that anyone that doesn't truly shines.  But I'm not talking about P/V/T vs GC here, I'm talking about hybrid specs, so I guess I'm getting a bit off topic in a way.

I like hybrid play too. WoW was most fun for me in mid level TBC - before getting Mangle - when my feral druid was still a hybrid essentially. And I did quite well on him in dungeons

Edited by Heart Collector, 03 January 2013 - 08:16 PM.

[Ojikes]

I rather have fun plaing then going pure GC or pure defensve support.. as such i have a great time on my cond thief atm.

And i dont really have much problem dodging etc etc.. imo fun is more important then anything.

[CepaCepa]

ProfGast, on 03 January 2013 - 06:32 PM, said:

Obviously, the better you are, the more you can mitigate damage using active means, and you can increase your damage output proportionally in response.

From a mathematical perspective however, I find berserker's armor a little bit wasteful.  While Critical damage is king for increasing damage output, Precision is the stat with the highest amount of diminishing returns.  Each 21 points of precision adds 1% critical chance, which when you factor berserkers armor is about a 10% increase in crit chance.  This is half the crit chance from simply having the fury buff on (20%).

  Added to that, berserker's armor only adds a total of +16% crit damage, at a loss of 224 points in a stat trading off at a cost of about 14 stat points per 1% critical damage.  Berserker's trinkets(5pcs, not counting back) on the other hand give approximately 32% crit damage (counting jewels) at the cost of 315 points in a stat trading off at about 10 stat points per critical damage.

Assuming all Exotic gear, and Full divinity runes, you only get about a 14% total damage increase using all Berserker's over someone using Soldier armor and Berserker's trinkets.  This is at the cost of 2240 HP and 224 Toughness.  If that hundred or so damage per hit is worthwhile to you compared to the survivability gain, then by all means go for it.  I personally prefer that little bit of extra buffer for when latency, animation, or tiredness come into play.

2240 HP and 224 toughness is next to nothing when you've traited full offensive. Especially in harder content. The only exception I see there is perhaps elementalist/thief/guardian, where bringing health to something like 14-15K helps. But that health can be gained through traits too as water/acrobatics/honor are all very very good trait lines anyways. In high level fractals that 2240 hp and 224 toughness really doesn't even save you from a regular mob, or if you lived, you'd live anyways without them. And in explorable dungeons, there is no reason to die even as a glass cannon, unless you don't have any survival traits at not, not even vigor/endurance trait, AND have no condition removal whatsoever, AND have no stunbreaker/immunity/block in your utility skills.

You say that the 14% dmg increase isn't worth it, but ultimately any survival stat that does not make a noticeable difference is worth even less in my opinion. If you're not being hit at all, obviously toughness and vitality is useless. And if you're being hit, my general experience is that traits/boons/skills/awareness matter a LOT more than 2K health, especially for harder contents where 1 hit kills you regardless of your specc or stats. Using gears alone and not touching traits, you really need like 1K more toughness and 4-5K more health to see a visible difference, and that is only true for easy to moderate trash pulls (hard trash will still insta-gib you, and bosses will still one shot you if you don't dodge) and that amount of stats would simply put your damage to shame.

An exception maybe warrior, since you start out with almost twice the health of an elementalist and quite a bit more armor. A warrior with toughness and vitality packed on him may actually live through some hits, but you simply can't hope for that on something like elementalist or thief without giving up a LOT of damage. I don't mean to generalize here, like in the warrior case some professions, depending on the trait, may want that 2K health to push himself over to the next threshold. But for glass cannon speccs, I'd like to think that the keyword is "avoidance", and 2K health really don't help them much when everything else is focused on damage, damage, and damage.

[Cannot See Me]

This is way to general of a discussion, it will help to identify which circumstances you are in to best determine what suits best.

That said, it is always true that high damage is never a waste. Don't get me wrong, surviving a fight is always the uttermost important part in a fight, way more than what amount damage you can do, but high survival is definitely a waste if you can manage a full health and healing on cooldown most of the time. When you are optimizing your build, and when you are thinking survival, you should never just think solely on vit/tough. You and your group's healing ability should be the defining factor of how much vit/toughness you need, and it also defines weather vitality or toughness is better for you. If the group has strong heal, you can affort to let your health fluctuate and that benifits from a larger health pool. If that's not the case, if in a fight you feel you cannot replenish your health fast enough, then adding vitality in this case generally won't help much, toughness could be better. At the end of the day, optimizing is all about managing your resource consumption, if you have healing on cd, if you have full health pool 100% of the time, then your resources are wasted.

I myself play a warrior and a thief, and I am a advocate of damage mitigation via toughness and skill/traits. Like CepaCepa mentioned, your vitality might need a threshold in most cases, but after that, my personal opinion is they are quite useless if not special situation calls for it, for example you are kiting mobs for whatever reason. Dogde, blind, block and condition removal (even swiftness) should always be your first resort for survivability, period.

In general, I would say the most effective way would be to build enough survival to suvive whichever situiation or playstyle you are looking at, and then strip them away to the bear minimum in favor of dps. If it just happenens you can strip away everything to a glass canon, then there you go, that's the best way to.

Lastly just to throw in my favorite quote: "A dead dps is no dps."

Edited by Cannot See Me, 08 January 2013 - 05:34 PM.

[whodini]

Cannot See Me, on 08 January 2013 - 05:29 PM, said:

This is way to general of a discussion, it will help to identify which circumstances you are in to best determine what suits best.

That said, it is always true that high damage is never a waste. Don't get me wrong, surviving a fight is always the uttermost important part in a fight, way more than what amount damage you can do, but high survival is definitely a waste if you can manage a full health and healing on cooldown most of the time. When you are optimizing your build, and when you are thinking survival, you should never just think solely on vit/tough. You and your group's healing ability should be the defining factor of how much vit/toughness you need, and it also defines weather vitality or toughness is better for you. If the group has strong heal, you can affort to let your health fluctuate and that benifits from a larger health pool. If that's not the case, if in a fight you feel you cannot replenish your health fast enough, then adding vitality in this case generally won't help much, toughness could be better. At the end of the day, optimizing is all about managing your resource consumption, if you have healing on cd, if you have full health pool 100% of the time, then your resources are wasted.

I myself play a warrior and a thief, and I am a advocate of damage mitigation via toughness and skill/traits. Like CepaCepa mentioned, your vitality might need a threshold in most cases, but after that, my personal opinion is they are quite useless if not special situation calls for it, for example you are kiting mobs for whatever reason. Dogde, blind, block and condition removal (even swiftness) should always be your first resort for survivability, period.

In general, I would say the most effective way would be to build enough survival to suvive whichever situiation or playstyle you are looking at, and then strip them away to the bear minimum in favor of dps. If it just happenens you can strip away everything to a glass canon, then there you go, that's the best way to.

Lastly just to throw in my favorite quote: "A dead dps is no dps."        

And while the dps is rolling on the field like a puppy dog. The team takes the heat trying to save everything.  Saying sometimes dps is too busy escaping damage leaving others vulnerable to damage. I agree. Situational use only. Everyone plays different but everyone should be aware of what others are doing

[GuanglaiKangyi]

Cannot See Me, on 08 January 2013 - 05:29 PM, said:

Lastly just to throw in my favorite quote: "A dead dps is no dps."

Simple solution is not to die then.