Armor
Contributed by: Mike
26th of August, 2005
It is TRUE, +armor mods in GuildWars are better than +life mods. If you don't feel like believing me, the proof is right here in this file. Keep reading if you are skeptical, and I will turn you into a believer.
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If you didn't know, the armor system in Guild Wars is this: +40 armor means you take 1/2 damage. -40 armor means you take double damage. For example, if you have 60 armor (base) then [SKILL X] will do 100 damage to you, if you have 100 armor then [SKILL X] will do 50 damage to you. If you have 140 armor, then [SKILL X] will only do 25 damage to you. If you are unfamiliar with exponential growth and decay, its like this, as you add more and more armor it becomes less effective, with +40 armor, damage was reduced by 50, and with armor +80, damage was reduced by 75, only 25 more. If you don't understand, then that's ok, it's not too terribly important, but it helps to understand.
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Example 1 is the simpler one; it doesn't require too much mathematical prowess although it still does help. Example 2 is far more in depth, and it required a few calculations so that it can be proven. Example 1 should be enough to sway you, but if you feel it isn't enough, read on through example 2 although it is much more complicated. It should shed a bit more light on the situation.
My qualifications: (skip it if you don't care) right now I'm taking AP calculus as a senior in high school, math is my thing, so this was easy for me. I'm pretty sure I didn't make any mistakes, and if you try to tell me any part of this is wrong you better back it up good, because you better be pretty smart to best me in math.
If you have comments about this, send 'em to: "mike65686@sbcglobal.net". I'd really like to hear what you think about this little paper here, but keep it short please.
I understand that all the numbers and statistics might be pretty boring for you, but I live for this junk, I'm a nerd like that. If you have questions, just send 'em to that address above. Don't hassle me or complain to me, nobody forced you to read this, but it is rather enlightening.
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Anyway, here are a few interesting stats, they're explained in detail in example 2.
(Assumed starting stats: 60 armor)
(Fairly sure that about 106 are max: 85 equip 16 shield 5 upgrade)
armor reduced dmg
60 0.0 %
65 8.7 %
70 15.9 %
75 23.0 %
80 29.5 %
85 35.1 %
90 40.5 %
95 45.5 %
100 50.0 %
105 54.1 %
110 58.0 %
115 61.5 %
120 64.7 %
As you gain more armor, the % dmg reduction doesn't increase as much. For example, look at the difference between 60-65, its 8.7%, whereas the difference between 115-120 is only 3.2%.
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EXAMPLE 1
I have 2 examples of proof, now here is the simple one. Say for example you could have 8 upgrades on your equipment. It works with 1 or 2, but 8 is an easier example to show.
Now, since you have 8 upgrade spaces there are 2 things you can do. You could either put on 8x +30 life upgrades, or add 8x +5 armor upgrades. Increasing your max life by 240 OR raising your armor by 40.
Now if you have a max life of say... 480 for example, adding 240 life will give you 150% life for 720 max life. We'll call this guy -PERSON A-. Now -PERSON B- still has 480 life, but takes 1/2 as much damage as -PERSON A-. Now say we use [SKILL X] on them. After 4 hits with [SPELL X] -PERSON A- is down from 720 life to 320 life, taking 400 damage. -PERSON B- is only down from 480 to 280, taking only 200 damage. Lets hit them 4 more times now. -PERSON A- is now dead, having taken 80 more damage than he could take, going from 320 life to dead. However, -PERSON B- has only taken 200 more damage, going from 280 life down to 80 life, but he's still alive. He can even take 1 more hit and live. This example shows that using all armor on the upgrades is better than adding all life.
EXAMPLE 2
Ok, so we know that armor is exponential. Lets look at the effects of adding either 2x +5 armor upgrades OR 2x +30 life upgrades to your equipment. For this example I'm going to use my elementalist's stats. It has a superior rune and a major vigor on it, so its max health is 446. Now on the staff we can put on 2 of those upgrades.
Say we add 10 armor, if you have a graphing calculator then put in these points and find the best fit curve, or you can take my word for it which I am good for. As I stated earlier, I'm in AP calculus now and I've worked the numbers for a good 30 minutes to make sure that armor is more effective. So unless you're like a 20 year old genius nuclear physicist, don't try and tell me I'm wrong, I won't hear it. Here are the points:
amount of armor damage that [SKILL X] will deal
20 200
60 100
100 50
140 25
180 12.5
If you graph the best fit line, you will see it curves like such:
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Now, it won't quite be that exaggerated but that's generally the shape of the graph. This shape means that when you add more armor, it reduces damage by less. For example, if you add 10 to your armor then you will reduce the damage you take by about 15.4%. If you add 10 MORE armor, damage will be reduced by a total of 29.3%. The first 10 armor reduced your damage by 15.4% from the original, but 10 more only reduced it by 13.9% more damage from the original. The nature of Guild Wars armor makes it so 10 armor will reduce the damage you take by 15.4% from what you were taking before. Now, when I mentioned before that 20 armor reduces your damage by only 29.3% from the original it actually followed the rule of -15.4% damage from what you were taking before. Allow me to explain, after the first 10 armor, instead of taking 100 damage, you take 84.6 damage. 10 more armor will reduce that by 15.4% and 15.4% of the remaining 84.6 damage is 13.9. Which means the new damage are 70.7 which are 29.3% lower than original. The point is 10 armor will reduce your damage by 15.4%.
Now to the life part, say you have the 446 life like my elementalist, if you decided to put on 2 PERFECT life parts you'd raise his life by 60. Now, 60 life from 446 original is only an increase of 13.5%. This one doesn't need much explaining. Even more, 60 MORE life would be an increase of 11.9% more than the 506 life you get from the first 2 life parts. In total, the 120 life is an increase of 26.9% life from the original 446.
With those facts down the choice is such, if you can only have 2 upgrades it's a choice between 15.4% reduced damage OR 13.5% increased life. Its not a tough decision to make, taking the armor will make you require more damage to die than taking the life.
Now, there is a point where you can get too much armor and at that point 30 life would help more than 5 more armor. But I guarantee that you will never reach that point, seeing as how it would require much much more than 4 upgrades to reach that point so don't worry.
Now I realize that +armor isn't ALWAYS better than +life. When you get health degeneration, armor doesn't matter. Now if you feel that you get more health degeneration than flat out damage, then life is the way to go. It's my experience that generally you take more flat out damage.
Leave your comments in the Proof That Armor is Better Than Life thread in our forums.
