17 replies to this topic

[Lilie Mae]

Ok, I know that toughness is affective against direct damage while more HP helps more against condition and some burst damage.

I've read a post a while back calculating toughness efficiency, which also includes Healing Power and such. Anyway that was way too much math for me, so I'd like to hear a more simpler explanation of toughness..

E.g. how much damage reduction would you get from, say 100 toughness? (If that's possible to say that is, idk...)

For instance.. Say I play a damage build but invested in 400 toughness for some survivability. Will it even make any difference? Or am I better off to just go full zerker?

So to be more concrete, how much toughness is actually worth getting to make any difference. I play a medium armored class btw.

[Cube]

I'm full toughness on my guardian with power/tough/healing power on the gear. I personally notice very little change, if any at all. The only thing I noticed was that I was dying more often because the mobs would stick to me rather than anybody else. Not always of course, just most of the time. And with a team of people with poor damage that was painful

I'm also interested to know how much toughness is required to actually make a difference.

[matsif]

toughness as an attribute adds to the armor stat, Armor=defense rating of combined player/target armor + toughness.

so, in the damage equation:

Damage done = (weapon damage) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) / (target's Armor)

adding 100 toughness would add 100 to the dividing factor (target's armor in the equation) of damage received to the player/damage given to a target.  so, as an example, if you were to receive an attack of 1000 and had an armor rating of 100, you would receive 10 damage.  If you added 100 toughness, you would instead only receive 5 damage.

Knowing what mobs you are up against makes that armor stat conditional, as going up against a ton of conditions having a higher HP buffer is going to be better than having toughness since conditions don't look at armor.  Having a balance is probably the best to look at.

Edited by matsif, 06 March 2013 - 09:24 PM.

[Alex Dimitri]

Well i`ve noticed that Toughness works best if coupled with high vitality, meaning if you have lot of toughness and low HP (like my guardian) it doesn`t do anything spectacular ! While on my warrior (pow/vit/tough) even bosses hit me for just a mediocre amounts.
Again i don`t have a clue how this works (or how it`s calculated) it`s just observation from gameplay !

[wrigh516]

All professions have 916 toughness at level 80 to start, then with level 80 medium armor added on it's about 1980.  That is the armor rating used in the damage calculation.

So to half the damage of a medium armor profession, you would need 1980 toughness added on the 1980 armor rating.
Say you added 100 toughness, you would have a 2080 armor rating or a 4.8% decrease in damage taken.

EDIT:  To answer your specific question, 400 toughness would give 2380 armor rating.  A 16.8% decrease in damage taken.

Edited by wrigh516, 06 March 2013 - 11:08 PM.

[Reason on Cooldown]

Rumor is that high toughness attracts more aggro from mobs.  Or perhaps it's not just rumor.  My Guardian has 3100-3200 armor and +17K HP.  I notice a difference.  Plenty of "one-shots" that leave me with a sliver of health.  And a rather unhealthy obsession some bosses have with me. lol

But I believe that the formula that matsif gives is correct, as I've seen it somewhere on the official wiki.

[beadnbutter32]

If all you want is to know if you should add vitality or toughness, this check this out.

[beadnbutter32]

Reason on Cooldown, on 06 March 2013 - 11:08 PM, said:

Rumor is that high toughness attracts more aggro from mobs.  Or perhaps it's not just rumor.  My Guardian has 3100-3200 armor and +17K HP.  I notice a difference.  Plenty of "one-shots" that leave me with a sliver of health.  And a rather unhealthy obsession some bosses have with me. lol

But I believe that the formula that matsif gives is correct, as I've seen it somewhere on the official wiki.

This matches my experience, My warrior has a good deal of toughness and he always gets the aggro of bosses like the mining suit in the Dredge fractal.  All it takes is one attack, and the suit is stuck to him like glue, which is actually useful as it becomes his job to lead the boss around to the molten bucket drop thingys.  Another place is the Modinir Boss in Hirathi Higlands, Both the boss and the three mini-boss dogs home in on him every time.

[AsgarZigel]

Yep, high armor and proximity are the two biggest contributors to aggro. I'm a necro built with high toughness and some healing power and am running with a defensive guardian in the guild dungeon group. Mobs always target the guardian and should he go down, they switch to me unless I'm far away. It's possible that both HP and toughness count towards this, but I don't have evidence of this.

Higher defensive stats are definitely noticeable though, although healing power and skills that heal you are a huge part of it. With not tough/vit at all you simply melt like snow in the sun, you really can't take many hits. Works best for speedruns where everyone knows the dungeon and mobs inside out.

So if you are still learning the dungeons and have some time, getting a bit of toughness is probably not a bad idea. This does let you make a few more mistakes than with a full on glasscannon build (barely surviving instadown skills for example), but if you have too much toughness compared to the rest of your group, normal enemies will probably be on your ass way easier then otherwise. (Bosses often have abilities to attack multiple targets regardless of aggro, but that depends on the boss in question)

It would definitely help what your glass and group composition is to give better advice. Do you run with pugs or with a fixed group? If you run with a fixed group, what are the other members built like? (Do you have a tank, for example)

[ben911993]

If you're looking to survive more, I actually recommend not taking much toughness. As others have stated, there's a noticeable difference in aggro once you've stacked a bit of toughness. On my warrior, when I used to stack toughness and get to 3k armor, everything was hot on my tail such that I couldn't stay still for one second to attack or I'd be shot down before I could actually get an attack off. I was stuck constantly kiting. I'm sure it was nice for my team mates! But it was a bit nerve wracking for me when I'd already exhausted all of my dodges and blocks and had to frantically kite, hoping nothing would catch up or no ranged guys were aiming at me.

Then I switched to a glass cannon build stacking no toughness, and only vitality from trait points. Now I hardly aggro anything ever. Admittedly, it's a selfish strategy to play. But if I'm able to kill things much quicker, I think it's a fair trade-off.

However, in regards to how much toughness is necessary or effective, I've heard that the general rule is to have 1 toughness for every 10 health. I'm not sure on the validity of that or where it came from, but I've heard it multiple times in game. Of course, sometimes vitality is much more worthwhile than toughness. Some cases would be Twilight Arbor, Caudecus Manor p2, and other condition heavy places.

[Thaddeuz]

Personally, my Guardian is the Anchor of my team. Meaning that i have 3k Armor and little Vitality in order to keep the aggro on me most of the time while keeping decent damage. This allow my teammate to be free to move and DPS the mobs as hard as they can. As ben911993 stated, this can be really hard on the nerve when you play with a full glass canon team, but this give a huge boost of survivability to the whole team. And since my job is clear in my team and they have really good DPS together, this make my job not really difficult. In pug, this is not the best setup, but there is not that much hard content in the game so i usually do this with my team. For the rest, my setup work fine with pug even if its not the best for my own survivability.

[AKGeo]

3k armor, 16k health on my guardian, 500 heal power on my berserker greatsword. I'm asked often for my build, although when I'm the only heavy in a fractal pug, I have a hard time on certain spots like Urban Battleground...the spike damage is ridiculous. I use Scepter or Mace with a focus for my defensive set on regular occasion. Toughness definitely helps me survive big single hits from bosses, but the lack of vitality means I can only take so much before I'm on the ground, or I have to start scrambling for aegis and Renewed Focus for an escape. I've contemplated taking a shield for that extra armor but it might not even do that much good, though interrupting the warriors' rush would be a good thing along with the protection from skill 4.

As a heavy, you really do need toughness to survive, but you also need to understand your class and its abilities in various situations.

I do a great job keeping the rest of the team alive, though. boons through the roof, aegis everywhere, and I pull aggro. If I survive, it goes quite smoothly.

Edited by AKGeo, 07 March 2013 - 09:45 PM.

[Sammich]

Ideally one would have a mixture of both vitality and toughness, because, as you stated in your original post, toughness is better for direct damage while vitality is better for condition damage.  I would like to point out something, though:

Health does not make any difference if the damage isn't lethal.  What I mean by this is that it doesn't matter whether you have 1000 health or 20000, if you are hit for 500 damage, the outcome is the same.  You live to fight another day.  If that 500 damage was direct damage (ie, not toughness/armor-ignoring) then toughness would have reduced that, and if it was condition damage/armor-ignoring, it really makes no difference because you are still alive.  This principle can be expanded to multiple hits as well - if you are hit 10 times and sustain 10000 damage (just picking these numbers out of my head), the outcome is the same if you have 11000 or 20000 health.  I say this because when I bring this up I often get "well, you're never just hit once."  And that is certainly true.  I'm not saying that you will only sustain 500 damage in an encounter, but that as long as you have enough health (more than the damage you are going to take) you're fine.

[Dawn Quickblade]

If you wish to discuss the AI of enemies you are free to make a thread in a more appropriate forum, if not please keep it to pm.

Edited by Dawn Quickblade, 08 March 2013 - 01:31 AM.

[Dipl Ing Forest]

@Lilie Mae,

You can easily calculate efficience of additional tougness with this formula:

f(x)= 1- x₀/(x₀-x)

while f(x) shows your additional damage reduction, x₀ is your value of armor and x is your additional armor.

For example: I got 2427 armor on my engineer, i think about adding additional 300 armor. How effective are those 300 armor?!

--> f(x)= 1- 2427/(2427+300) = 0,11.

f(x) = 0,11 --> so this is 11% less dmg.


You see the efficience depends on your value of armor. If u already have much armor additional armor is less effective. But it is your choice to decide if it is worth it.

Sorry for my bad english.

[Necropolis]

How effective is toughness?

Interersting you ashould ask? Light armor... Well I am still trying to figure that out myself. My necro and my elementalist both are geared with cleric armor and shaman accessories and shaman weapons/sets (Staff/Scepter/Dagger/Focus/Warhorn...). My ele is such a squishy noob it just makes me nuts and I cant figure how this can be. Both classes use light armor, both are exactly geared but the ele is a pansy yet my necro can tank the shit out of trolls in Frostgorge or any other mob for that matter. I dont understand, I cant imagine Anet being dumbass enough to tweak toughness per prof, that be just wacked out but who's to know, Toughness seems weird how each prof are affected by damage. W/E love all the chars, will continue to pay each and see how future updates affect each.

Edited by BrahFromZa, 10 March 2013 - 04:29 PM.

[beadnbutter32]

Sammich, on 07 March 2013 - 11:42 PM, said:

Health does not make any difference if the damage isn't lethal.

I have  to disagree with this.  Characters never get hit just once.  In most dungeons your character is getting hit often and hard even when you dodge and kite to the best of  your ability.  A large health pool allows a player to absorb considerable damage before health gets low enough to be a concern.  There are times when adding some vitality to increase a character's total health can be helpful.

I have found it can help increase surviveabiliy on medium and light armor classes.

[Sammich]

beadnbutter32, on 10 March 2013 - 06:42 PM, said:

I have  to disagree with this.  Characters never get hit just once.  In most dungeons your character is getting hit often and hard even when you dodge and kite to the best of  your ability.  A large health pool allows a player to absorb considerable damage before health gets low enough to be a concern.  There are times when adding some vitality to increase a character's total health can be helpful.

I have found it can help increase surviveabiliy on medium and light armor classes.

We're really not in disagreement here.  At the end of my post, I talked about getting hit multiple times, and re-reading it I apologize for it not being worded as clearly as it should have been.  Obviously, you will almost always be hit multiple times in an encounter.  Because of this, I don't mean that one should completely ignore vitality, but just that you only need enough to last you throughout the entire encounter.  Let's say that over the course of a fight you get hit 10 times for 1000 damage each time (I'm just using these numbers because they are easy to work with, not because they represent any actual damage you may or may not take).  That's 10k damage, something that would be covered whether you have 11k health or 21k.  Sure, it might be "worrying" to have only 1k health left, but it doesn't matter because the fight is over and your health should now be regenerating.  My point isn't that vitality is a bad idea, it's that there is a point where vitality no longer matters because you will survive the fight and any excess would just be a waste.