Offense & Defense

[Voltekka.2375]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@"Einlanzer.1627" said:This is why so many sets have Power primary.

To clarify/expand on this, Power is a primary attribute on so many sets because it offers the bulk of the damage boost in the game, Precision and Ferocity combined offer less of a damage boost than Power alone.Calculations:

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/1006614/#Comment_1006614

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/1006649/#Comment_1006649

This is the relevant part:

Base: 24Power vs Vitality/Toughness: 29Precision/Ferocity vs Vitality/Toughness: 36

In that calculation I take a Ranger in full ascended using a Longbow and calculate how many auto-attacks at max range are required to kill themselves. At base values it takes 24 hits.Increasing Power, Vitality and Toughness by 1000 equals 29 hitsIncreasing Precision, Ferocity, Vitality and Toughness by 1000 equals 36 hits (a lot more than Power alone)

This means Precision and Ferocity are terrible stats for damage, if not combined with high Power, this is by design of course, so builds can use multiple attributes and still do damage.

"Yeah! Science!"

[Ayrilana.1396]

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:Berserker deals around 50% more damage than Soldiers, but has less than half the effective HP. Combining that with healing skills and dodging, this means that defensive stats are actually a lot more effective than people believe them to be.People were telling you this each time you started a new thread, remember?

In every thread I was asking for theorycrafting on Soldiers vs Berserkers to try to gain clarity and everyone was willing to argue with me

without providing any evidence. I finally found it

, and yes, the people arguing that defensive stats are better than most players think were right. So, I suppose you could say I've switched sides. Congratulations.

The spreadsheet at the beginning of the thread doesn’t provide evidence though.

[Einlanzer.1627]

@Ayrilana.1396 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:Berserker deals around 50% more damage than Soldiers, but has less than half the effective HP. Combining that with healing skills and dodging, this means that defensive stats are actually a lot more effective than people believe them to be.People were telling you this each time you started a new thread, remember?

In every thread I was asking for theorycrafting on Soldiers vs Berserkers to try to gain clarity and everyone was willing to argue with me

without providing any evidence. I finally found it

, and yes, the people arguing that defensive stats are better than most players think were right. So, I suppose you could say I've switched sides. Congratulations.

The spreadsheet at the beginning of the thread doesn’t provide evidence though.

It's called data. Data = evidence.

[Ayrilana.1396]

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Ayrilana.1396 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:Berserker deals around 50% more damage than Soldiers, but has less than half the effective HP. Combining that with healing skills and dodging, this means that defensive stats are actually a lot more effective than people believe them to be.People were telling you this each time you started a new thread, remember?

In every thread I was asking for theorycrafting on Soldiers vs Berserkers to try to gain clarity and everyone was willing to argue with me

without providing any evidence. I finally found it

, and yes, the people arguing that defensive stats are better than most players think were right. So, I suppose you could say I've switched sides. Congratulations.

The spreadsheet at the beginning of the thread doesn’t provide evidence though.

It's called data. Data = evidence.

Not necessarily. I can provide data that the world is flat, that doesn’t mean that it is. It’s also possible to take pieces of data and string together an assertion that isn’t true/accurate. Someone could take the damage difference between the stat sets, as well as the difference between HP, and then make an incorrect assertion about the two.

[starlinvf.1358]

@Westenev.5289 said:The 50% damage bonus helps burst down mobs and end fights quicker. That generally means less mechanics, stress and (enemy inflicted) damage all around.

If you want to point the finger anywhere, it's that we have enough base vitality and toughness to make sets like berserkers and vipers viable (and, therefore, meta).

Except it isn't...... Full glass has always been risky, even among classes with higher base HP. Its dodges and invulnerability frames that allow the Glass Meta to work, since dying in one hit matters less when you can consistently avoid being hit/taking damage.

This simple fact the game's design is exacerbated by the poor threat AI mobs pose; yet the line between Potato fights and Legit threats is based on number of strikes per second. Situations where the number of strikes overwhelms the players active defenses is what it takes to make things dangerous. But this 2 fold issues is made 2 folds further in how the Devs try to compensate by increasing the damage per strike to be more punishing to players who don't use, or can't manage active defenses.... only to have it scale out of control rapidly with Enemy count.

So from a defensive perspective:

• 1 mob attacking allows you to meter out your defenses and cool downs.
• Multiple mobs are manageable if their attacks are heavily spaced out, or execute attacks with close timing to allow a batching effect for defensive actions
• They stop being manageable as soon the number and timing strikes become effectively constant
• And that problem made worse across the board with how mob attacks load their damage

The Contrast to PvP gives clear examples to the underlying problem. PvP is about Opportunity, Pressure and Counter play. PvE, at its core, is a simple war of attrition. Thats why the most dangerous mobs in the game are ones that have attacks that are similar to what players have, or have special mechanics that makes Raw DPS ineffective. Those that don't are simply about who can reach lethal damage first; with the majority not even taking actions to avoid or mitigate damage at all.

You take away the active defenses, you actively force players to have to soak damage. And in doing so, change the entire dynamic of combat and buildcraft priority.

[Einlanzer.1627]

@Ayrilana.1396 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Ayrilana.1396 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:Berserker deals around 50% more damage than Soldiers, but has less than half the effective HP. Combining that with healing skills and dodging, this means that defensive stats are actually a lot more effective than people believe them to be.People were telling you this each time you started a new thread, remember?

In every thread I was asking for theorycrafting on Soldiers vs Berserkers to try to gain clarity and everyone was willing to argue with me

without providing any evidence. I finally found it

, and yes, the people arguing that defensive stats are better than most players think were right. So, I suppose you could say I've switched sides. Congratulations.

The spreadsheet at the beginning of the thread doesn’t provide evidence though.

It's called data. Data = evidence.

Not necessarily. I can provide data that the world is flat, that doesn’t mean that it is. It’s also possible to take pieces of data and string together an assertion that isn’t true/accurate. Someone could take the damage difference between the stat sets, as well as the difference between HP, and then make an incorrect assertion about the two.

Stop being such a contrarian. It's really unbecoming. As usual, I don't even know what argument you're trying to make, and I suspect you don't either.

[Einlanzer.1627]

@starlinvf.1358 said:

@Westenev.5289 said:The 50% damage bonus helps burst down mobs and end fights quicker. That generally means less mechanics, stress and (enemy inflicted) damage all around.

If you want to point the finger anywhere, it's that we have enough base vitality and toughness to make sets like berserkers and vipers viable (and, therefore, meta).

Except it isn't...... Full glass has always been risky, even among classes with higher base HP. Its dodges and invulnerability frames that allow the Glass Meta to work, since dying in one hit matters less when you can consistently avoid being hit/taking damage.

This simple fact the game's design is exacerbated by the poor threat AI mobs pose; yet the line between Potato fights and Legit threats is based on number of strikes per second. Situations where the number of strikes overwhelms the players active defenses is what it takes to make things dangerous. But this 2 fold issues is made 2 folds further in how the Devs try to compensate by increasing the damage per strike to be more punishing to players who don't use, or can't manage active defenses.... only to have it scale out of control rapidly with Enemy count.

So from a defensive perspective:

• 1 mob attacking allows you to meter out your defenses and cool downs.
• Multiple mobs are manageable if their attacks are heavily spaced out, or execute attacks with close timing to allow a batching effect for defensive actions
• They stop being manageable as soon the number and timing strikes become effectively constant
• And that problem made worse across the board with how mob attacks load their damage

The Contrast to PvP gives clear examples to the underlying problem. PvP is about Opportunity, Pressure and Counter play. PvE, at its core, is a simple war of attrition. Thats why the most dangerous mobs in the game are ones that have attacks that are similar to what players have, or have special mechanics that makes Raw DPS ineffective. Those that don't are simply about who can reach lethal damage first; with the majority not even taking actions to avoid or mitigate damage at all.

You take away the active defenses, you actively force players to have to soak damage. And in doing so, change the entire dynamic of combat and buildcraft priority.

I think the downed state has a lot to do with the design of PVE encounters. There's a big part of me that wonders if the game would be better off without it.

[Ayrilana.1396]

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Ayrilana.1396 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Ayrilana.1396 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:Berserker deals around 50% more damage than Soldiers, but has less than half the effective HP. Combining that with healing skills and dodging, this means that defensive stats are actually a lot more effective than people believe them to be.People were telling you this each time you started a new thread, remember?

In every thread I was asking for theorycrafting on Soldiers vs Berserkers to try to gain clarity and everyone was willing to argue with me

without providing any evidence. I finally found it

, and yes, the people arguing that defensive stats are better than most players think were right. So, I suppose you could say I've switched sides. Congratulations.

The spreadsheet at the beginning of the thread doesn’t provide evidence though.

It's called data. Data = evidence.

Not necessarily. I can provide data that the world is flat, that doesn’t mean that it is. It’s also possible to take pieces of data and string together an assertion that isn’t true/accurate. Someone could take the damage difference between the stat sets, as well as the difference between HP, and then make an incorrect assertion about the two.

Stop being such a contrarian. It's really unbecoming. As usual, I don't even know what argument you're trying to make, and I suspect you don't either.

No. You're just refusing to make a counter argument.

In case things weren't clear, I was arguing against your assumption that all data is evidence and against your assertion in the following:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:So the real contest here is to look at Berserker's vs Soldier's and see what the tradeoff is in terms of damage and defense. This spreadsheet does exactly that:https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xXxJl1yTzgVeeLtOdPpBk9nWyXmyhvJ1hGcEtnQ1H34/edit#gid=0

Berserker deals around 50% more damage than Soldiers, but has less than half the effective HP. Combining that with healing skills and dodging, this means that defensive stats are actually a lot more effective than people believe them to be.

[Einlanzer.1627]

@Ayrilana.1396 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Ayrilana.1396 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Ayrilana.1396 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:Berserker deals around 50% more damage than Soldiers, but has less than half the effective HP. Combining that with healing skills and dodging, this means that defensive stats are actually a lot more effective than people believe them to be.People were telling you this each time you started a new thread, remember?

In every thread I was asking for theorycrafting on Soldiers vs Berserkers to try to gain clarity and everyone was willing to argue with me

without providing any evidence. I finally found it

, and yes, the people arguing that defensive stats are better than most players think were right. So, I suppose you could say I've switched sides. Congratulations.

The spreadsheet at the beginning of the thread doesn’t provide evidence though.

It's called data. Data = evidence.

Not necessarily. I can provide data that the world is flat, that doesn’t mean that it is. It’s also possible to take pieces of data and string together an assertion that isn’t true/accurate. Someone could take the damage difference between the stat sets, as well as the difference between HP, and then make an incorrect assertion about the two.

Stop being such a contrarian. It's really unbecoming. As usual, I don't even know what argument you're trying to make, and I suspect you don't either.

No. You're just refusing to make a counter argument.

In case things weren't clear, I was arguing against your assumption that all data is evidence and against your assertion in the following:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:So the real contest here is to look at Berserker's vs Soldier's and see what the tradeoff is in terms of damage and defense. This spreadsheet does exactly that:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xXxJl1yTzgVeeLtOdPpBk9nWyXmyhvJ1hGcEtnQ1H34/edit#gid=0

Berserker deals around 50% more damage than Soldiers, but has less than half the effective HP. Combining that with healing skills and dodging, this means that defensive stats are actually a lot more effective than people believe them to be.

It's not an argument - let alone one worth countering. You literally drag me (and others) into this nonsense in every thread. Not indulging it this time.

[Ayrilana.1396]

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Ayrilana.1396 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Ayrilana.1396 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Ayrilana.1396 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:Berserker deals around 50% more damage than Soldiers, but has less than half the effective HP. Combining that with healing skills and dodging, this means that defensive stats are actually a lot more effective than people believe them to be.People were telling you this each time you started a new thread, remember?

In every thread I was asking for theorycrafting on Soldiers vs Berserkers to try to gain clarity and everyone was willing to argue with me

without providing any evidence. I finally found it

, and yes, the people arguing that defensive stats are better than most players think were right. So, I suppose you could say I've switched sides. Congratulations.

The spreadsheet at the beginning of the thread doesn’t provide evidence though.

It's called data. Data = evidence.

Not necessarily. I can provide data that the world is flat, that doesn’t mean that it is. It’s also possible to take pieces of data and string together an assertion that isn’t true/accurate. Someone could take the damage difference between the stat sets, as well as the difference between HP, and then make an incorrect assertion about the two.

Stop being such a contrarian. It's really unbecoming. As usual, I don't even know what argument you're trying to make, and I suspect you don't either.

No. You're just refusing to make a counter argument.

In case things weren't clear, I was arguing against your assumption that all data is evidence and against your assertion in the following:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:So the real contest here is to look at Berserker's vs Soldier's and see what the tradeoff is in terms of damage and defense. This spreadsheet does exactly that:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xXxJl1yTzgVeeLtOdPpBk9nWyXmyhvJ1hGcEtnQ1H34/edit#gid=0

Berserker deals around 50% more damage than Soldiers, but has less than half the effective HP. Combining that with healing skills and dodging, this means that defensive stats are actually a lot more effective than people believe them to be.

It's not an argument - let alone one worth countering. You literally drag me (and others) into this nonsense in every thread. Not indulging it this time.

It is an argument as you're trying to establish a relationship between two unrelated things when there isn't one.

[starlinvf.1358]

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Ayrilana.1396 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Ayrilana.1396 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Ayrilana.1396 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:Berserker deals around 50% more damage than Soldiers, but has less than half the effective HP. Combining that with healing skills and dodging, this means that defensive stats are actually a lot more effective than people believe them to be.People were telling you this each time you started a new thread, remember?

In every thread I was asking for theorycrafting on Soldiers vs Berserkers to try to gain clarity and everyone was willing to argue with me

without providing any evidence. I finally found it

, and yes, the people arguing that defensive stats are better than most players think were right. So, I suppose you could say I've switched sides. Congratulations.

The spreadsheet at the beginning of the thread doesn’t provide evidence though.

It's called data. Data = evidence.

Not necessarily. I can provide data that the world is flat, that doesn’t mean that it is. It’s also possible to take pieces of data and string together an assertion that isn’t true/accurate. Someone could take the damage difference between the stat sets, as well as the difference between HP, and then make an incorrect assertion about the two.

Stop being such a contrarian. It's really unbecoming. As usual, I don't even know what argument you're trying to make, and I suspect you don't either.

No. You're just refusing to make a counter argument.

In case things weren't clear, I was arguing against your assumption that all data is evidence and against your assertion in the following:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:So the real contest here is to look at Berserker's vs Soldier's and see what the tradeoff is in terms of damage and defense. This spreadsheet does exactly that:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xXxJl1yTzgVeeLtOdPpBk9nWyXmyhvJ1hGcEtnQ1H34/edit#gid=0

Berserker deals around 50% more damage than Soldiers, but has less than half the effective HP. Combining that with healing skills and dodging, this means that defensive stats are actually a lot more effective than people believe them to be.

It's not an argument - let alone one worth countering. You literally drag me (and others) into this nonsense in every thread. Not indulging it this time.

I disagree, therefore your argument (what little there tries to be) is invalid.

[Einlanzer.1627]

@starlinvf.1358 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Ayrilana.1396 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Ayrilana.1396 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Ayrilana.1396 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:Berserker deals around 50% more damage than Soldiers, but has less than half the effective HP. Combining that with healing skills and dodging, this means that defensive stats are actually a lot more effective than people believe them to be.People were telling you this each time you started a new thread, remember?

In every thread I was asking for theorycrafting on Soldiers vs Berserkers to try to gain clarity and everyone was willing to argue with me

without providing any evidence. I finally found it

, and yes, the people arguing that defensive stats are better than most players think were right. So, I suppose you could say I've switched sides. Congratulations.

The spreadsheet at the beginning of the thread doesn’t provide evidence though.

It's called data. Data = evidence.

Not necessarily. I can provide data that the world is flat, that doesn’t mean that it is. It’s also possible to take pieces of data and string together an assertion that isn’t true/accurate. Someone could take the damage difference between the stat sets, as well as the difference between HP, and then make an incorrect assertion about the two.

Stop being such a contrarian. It's really unbecoming. As usual, I don't even know what argument you're trying to make, and I suspect you don't either.

No. You're just refusing to make a counter argument.

In case things weren't clear, I was arguing against your assumption that all data is evidence and against your assertion in the following:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:So the real contest here is to look at Berserker's vs Soldier's and see what the tradeoff is in terms of damage and defense. This spreadsheet does exactly that:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xXxJl1yTzgVeeLtOdPpBk9nWyXmyhvJ1hGcEtnQ1H34/edit#gid=0

Berserker deals around 50% more damage than Soldiers, but has less than half the effective HP. Combining that with healing skills and dodging, this means that defensive stats are actually a lot more effective than people believe them to be.

It's not an argument - let alone one worth countering. You literally drag me (and others) into this nonsense in every thread. Not indulging it this time.

I disagree, therefore your argument (what little there tries to be) is invalid.

Here you go: data is always evidence, it just isn't always enough to draw a conclusion. In this case, though, it is, because we're looking at simple data points and drawing a simple conclusion. Berserker's increases your offense by 50% over Soldiers, but Soldiers lets you take twice the amount of damage that Berserker's will. That means that Toughness + Vitality scales better for Defense than Precision + Ferocity does for offense.

But, how's this for something better - let's let Ayrilana turn this thread into a preposterous & abstract argument about what does or does not constitute evidence - a very typical Ayrilana contrarian tactic, and then act like I'm the one who did something wrong.

[starlinvf.1358]

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@starlinvf.1358 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Ayrilana.1396 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Ayrilana.1396 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Ayrilana.1396 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:Berserker deals around 50% more damage than Soldiers, but has less than half the effective HP. Combining that with healing skills and dodging, this means that defensive stats are actually a lot more effective than people believe them to be.People were telling you this each time you started a new thread, remember?

In every thread I was asking for theorycrafting on Soldiers vs Berserkers to try to gain clarity and everyone was willing to argue with me

without providing any evidence. I finally found it

, and yes, the people arguing that defensive stats are better than most players think were right. So, I suppose you could say I've switched sides. Congratulations.

The spreadsheet at the beginning of the thread doesn’t provide evidence though.

It's called data. Data = evidence.

Not necessarily. I can provide data that the world is flat, that doesn’t mean that it is. It’s also possible to take pieces of data and string together an assertion that isn’t true/accurate. Someone could take the damage difference between the stat sets, as well as the difference between HP, and then make an incorrect assertion about the two.

Stop being such a contrarian. It's really unbecoming. As usual, I don't even know what argument you're trying to make, and I suspect you don't either.

No. You're just refusing to make a counter argument.

In case things weren't clear, I was arguing against your assumption that all data is evidence and against your assertion in the following:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:So the real contest here is to look at Berserker's vs Soldier's and see what the tradeoff is in terms of damage and defense. This spreadsheet does exactly that:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xXxJl1yTzgVeeLtOdPpBk9nWyXmyhvJ1hGcEtnQ1H34/edit#gid=0

Berserker deals around 50% more damage than Soldiers, but has less than half the effective HP. Combining that with healing skills and dodging, this means that defensive stats are actually a lot more effective than people believe them to be.

It's not an argument - let alone one worth countering. You literally drag me (and others) into this nonsense in every thread. Not indulging it this time.

I disagree, therefore your argument (what little there tries to be) is invalid.

Here you go: data is always evidence, it just isn't always enough to draw a conclusion. In this case, though, it is, because we're looking at simple data points. Berserker's increases your offense by 50% over Soldiers, but Soldiers lets you take twice the amount of damage that Berserker's will. That means that Toughness + Vitality scales better for Defense than Precision + Ferocity does for offense.

But, how's this for something better - let's let Ayrilana turn this thread into a preposterous & abstract argument about what does or does not constitute evidence and then act like I'm the one who did something wrong.

Nope, still fails to prove a solid point.

[Ayrilana.1396]

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@starlinvf.1358 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Ayrilana.1396 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Ayrilana.1396 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Ayrilana.1396 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:Berserker deals around 50% more damage than Soldiers, but has less than half the effective HP. Combining that with healing skills and dodging, this means that defensive stats are actually a lot more effective than people believe them to be.People were telling you this each time you started a new thread, remember?

In every thread I was asking for theorycrafting on Soldiers vs Berserkers to try to gain clarity and everyone was willing to argue with me

without providing any evidence. I finally found it

, and yes, the people arguing that defensive stats are better than most players think were right. So, I suppose you could say I've switched sides. Congratulations.

The spreadsheet at the beginning of the thread doesn’t provide evidence though.

It's called data. Data = evidence.

Not necessarily. I can provide data that the world is flat, that doesn’t mean that it is. It’s also possible to take pieces of data and string together an assertion that isn’t true/accurate. Someone could take the damage difference between the stat sets, as well as the difference between HP, and then make an incorrect assertion about the two.

Stop being such a contrarian. It's really unbecoming. As usual, I don't even know what argument you're trying to make, and I suspect you don't either.

No. You're just refusing to make a counter argument.

In case things weren't clear, I was arguing against your assumption that all data is evidence and against your assertion in the following:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:So the real contest here is to look at Berserker's vs Soldier's and see what the tradeoff is in terms of damage and defense. This spreadsheet does exactly that:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xXxJl1yTzgVeeLtOdPpBk9nWyXmyhvJ1hGcEtnQ1H34/edit#gid=0

Berserker deals around 50% more damage than Soldiers, but has less than half the effective HP. Combining that with healing skills and dodging, this means that defensive stats are actually a lot more effective than people believe them to be.

It's not an argument - let alone one worth countering. You literally drag me (and others) into this nonsense in every thread. Not indulging it this time.

I disagree, therefore your argument (what little there tries to be) is invalid.

Here you go: data is always evidence, it just isn't always enough to draw a conclusion. In this case, though, it is, because we're looking at simple data points and drawing a simple conclusion. Berserker's increases your offense by 50% over Soldiers, but Soldiers lets you take twice the amount of damage that Berserker's will. That means that Toughness + Vitality scales better for Defense than Precision + Ferocity does for offense.

But, how's this for something better - let's let Ayrilana turn this thread into a preposterous & abstract argument about what does or does not constitute evidence - a very typical Ayrilana contrarian tactic, and then act like I'm the one who did something wrong.

A player's HP and the damage that they do are unrelated; they're not even on the same scale. You're also completely ignoring the stats of what they're fighting.

Nice ad hominem. When you can't attack the argument, just attack the person.

[Einlanzer.1627]

@"FrigginPaco.4178" said:There are several important things to know when talking about defense in Guild Wars 2.

The game tries to keep a fast pace in combat while making sure that active defense is rewarded more than passive defense (allegedly). This type of design choice is particularly noted with the Nerfs to Defy Pain on the Warrior some time ago, notably on the competitive modes, yet there are better options in PVE as well. However, the game does not like to provide much access to extremely powerful defensive skills. I'll pick on Warrior again just a little bit, but Shield Stance on the shield "5" is normally on a 25 second cool down for a 3-second guard. You're quite vulnerable for a whole 22 seconds before you can block for 3 seconds another time.

That said, there's a pretty good balance between choosing to dodge something or choosing to use a skill to evade it in some fashion to otherwise mitigate damage. However this particular concept differs greatly in methodology between PvE and the competitive modes at large. There are few individual attacks that you would consider dodging in PvE. Instead you would typically Dodge to avoid an AoE on the ground that you cannot run out of quickly enough. At least for me.

PvP & WvW are a whole other issue - there, a player needs to be recognizing the opposing players most dangerous moves. Typically you need to dodge someone's CC in order to avoid death by CC locking or just by the damage you'll take after being cc'd the first time at all. Unless you're fighting a champion in PVE, most of the mobs hits aren't going to be life or death. However in those competitive modes, literally every strike an opponent makes against you puts you precipitously close to defeat much faster.

Another thing to keep in mind in this conversation is the idea of sustain as well, although not specifically relating to the primary heal skill's activation. Many, but not all, builds have some method of keeping you in the fight without having to spend the time to cast your healing skill. It could even be bolstered by food that allows you to lifesteal or regenerate over time Etc. Time spent waiting to be healed is not necessarily a waste by any stretch, but it prolongs the combat, not shortens it.

As far as stats go, I feel like it depends greatly on the game of that you're playing. I'd write more, but its late. Maybe I'll check in tomorrow...

Most of this is true, however, it's a fallacy to distill all PvE into "you're fighting a single mob and dodge all of its slow, heavy hitting attacks" which is what I feel people are running with when acting like defensive stats are useless in PvE. This is clearly a caricature of PvE and not how most PvE combat actually occurs - certainly not when just doing stuff solo.

In reality, you are often chain-killing and fighting hordes at a time while taking a lot of damage, most of which it isn't possible to dodge, so you absorb it, boon up, heal through it, and kill as fast as possible (which dodging slows you down in doing). But if increasing your defensive stats improves your Time to die more than Precision/ferocity improves your time to kill (which is what this data reveals), there's a compelling case to be made that giving up a portion of the latter for some of the former is very effective even in PvE.

[Trise.2865]

"Glass cannons are glassy"

Yup. Sure are.

[starlinvf.1358]

@Ayrilana.1396 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Ayrilana.1396 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:Berserker deals around 50% more damage than Soldiers, but has less than half the effective HP. Combining that with healing skills and dodging, this means that defensive stats are actually a lot more effective than people believe them to be.People were telling you this each time you started a new thread, remember?

In every thread I was asking for theorycrafting on Soldiers vs Berserkers to try to gain clarity and everyone was willing to argue with me

without providing any evidence. I finally found it

, and yes, the people arguing that defensive stats are better than most players think were right. So, I suppose you could say I've switched sides. Congratulations.

The spreadsheet at the beginning of the thread doesn’t provide evidence though.

It's called data. Data = evidence.

Not necessarily. I can provide data that the world is flat, that doesn’t mean that it is. It’s also possible to take pieces of data and string together an assertion that isn’t true/accurate. Someone could take the damage difference between the stat sets, as well as the difference between HP, and then make an incorrect assertion about the two.

I remember this from John Oliver. P-Hacking. Playing with your data so you find something that counts as statistically significant, but probably meaningless. Like correlations between eating Cabbage and having an Innie Belly Button, drinking Ice Tea and believing Crash didn't deserve best picture, and eating raw tomatoes and Judaism.

[Ayrilana.1396]

@starlinvf.1358 said:

@Ayrilana.1396 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Ayrilana.1396 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:Berserker deals around 50% more damage than Soldiers, but has less than half the effective HP. Combining that with healing skills and dodging, this means that defensive stats are actually a lot more effective than people believe them to be.People were telling you this each time you started a new thread, remember?

In every thread I was asking for theorycrafting on Soldiers vs Berserkers to try to gain clarity and everyone was willing to argue with me

without providing any evidence. I finally found it

, and yes, the people arguing that defensive stats are better than most players think were right. So, I suppose you could say I've switched sides. Congratulations.

The spreadsheet at the beginning of the thread doesn’t provide evidence though.

It's called data. Data = evidence.

Not necessarily. I can provide data that the world is flat, that doesn’t mean that it is. It’s also possible to take pieces of data and string together an assertion that isn’t true/accurate. Someone could take the damage difference between the stat sets, as well as the difference between HP, and then make an incorrect assertion about the two.

I remember this from John Oliver. P-Hacking. Playing with your data so you find something that counts as statistically significant, but probably meaningless. Like correlations between eating Cabbage and having an Innie Belly Button, drinking Ice Tea and believing Crash didn't deserve best picture, and eating raw tomatoes and Judaism.

Or assuming that living on the east coast in the U.S. means that you have better odds of winning the lottery because a larger percentage of the winners are from there.

A couple things that the OP is ignoring is how much damage is done to an enemy is relation to the enemy's HP and how much damage the enemy does to them in relation to their own HP. Using soldiers with a 50% drop in DPS, and twice the effective HP, can cause the enemy to out-sustain them depending on the enemy's stats. This is exactly what I found many years ago when I was deciding to go from soldiers to berserkers. Enemies that I struggled with in soldiers were less of a threat to me in berserkers because I killed them before they could become such.

[Einlanzer.1627]

@Ayrilana.1396 said:

@starlinvf.1358 said:

@Ayrilana.1396 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Ayrilana.1396 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:Berserker deals around 50% more damage than Soldiers, but has less than half the effective HP. Combining that with healing skills and dodging, this means that defensive stats are actually a lot more effective than people believe them to be.People were telling you this each time you started a new thread, remember?

In every thread I was asking for theorycrafting on Soldiers vs Berserkers to try to gain clarity and everyone was willing to argue with me

without providing any evidence. I finally found it

, and yes, the people arguing that defensive stats are better than most players think were right. So, I suppose you could say I've switched sides. Congratulations.

The spreadsheet at the beginning of the thread doesn’t provide evidence though.

It's called data. Data = evidence.

Not necessarily. I can provide data that the world is flat, that doesn’t mean that it is. It’s also possible to take pieces of data and string together an assertion that isn’t true/accurate. Someone could take the damage difference between the stat sets, as well as the difference between HP, and then make an incorrect assertion about the two.

I remember this from John Oliver. P-Hacking. Playing with your data so you find something that counts as statistically significant, but probably meaningless. Like correlations between eating Cabbage and having an Innie Belly Button, drinking Ice Tea and believing Crash didn't deserve best picture, and eating raw tomatoes and Judaism.

Or assuming that living on the east coast in the U.S. means that you have better odds of winning the lottery because a larger percentage of the winners are from there.

A couple things that the OP is ignoring is how much damage is done to an enemy is relation to the enemy's HP and how much damage the enemy does to them in relation to their own HP. Using soldiers with a 50% drop in DPS, and twice the effective HP, can cause the enemy to out-sustain them depending on the enemy's stats.

Soldier's does 2/3 the damage that Berserker's does. Berserker's has between 1/3 and 1/2 the EHP that Soldier's does depending on class. Your argument is more likely to apply the other way around, with players out-sustaining mobs in Soldier's when they wouldn't in Berserker's.

That's the entire point - Vitality + Toughness has a greater effect on TTL (not factoring in Dodge) than Precision + Ferocity does on TTK. People think it's the opposite and it isn't. I'm not saying that means V/T is always better than P/F. This depends on a crap ton of variables, and you likely wouldn't want to run all Soldier's regardless. I'm simply saying it's a lot more balanced and competitive than people think it is and that there are compelling reasons to use some V/T including in PvE - at least some forms of it.

[Harak.8397]

My warrior runs Berserker weapons, (A,A / GS ) Knight armor and Marauder trinkets. I'll skip the build details but when all is said and done I have roughly 23k HP, just over 3000 armor and something in the ballpark of 2.4k, 2.5k power ( I forget... I abuse "for great justice" alot )

Earlier this week I was farming Blood rubies in Bloodstone Fen and doing the meta event going up against the Jade Armors. I realise that most of the warriors with me in the furball were probably zerkers and doing more damage than I did but when the Jade constructs managed to send us all flying back, I was the only one getting back up ( with less than a 3rd of my HP ) and back at it. During that time, the others were being massaged off the floor behind me, not doing any damage and preventing the massaging players fron doing any themselves. By the time another big hit came, I was back at full health to eat it again ( thank you healers! )

For older players like me who may no longer have the keen reflexes ( or skills ) we used to have, defensive stats allow me to not be a burden for my team while providing a fairly constant, if modest damage output.

I understand that if you never get hit, offensive stats only is the way to go but yeah shit happens.. and it has fangs.

[Einlanzer.1627]

@"Harak.8397" said:My warrior runs Berserker weapons, (A,A / GS ) Knight armor and Marauder trinkets. I'll skip the build details but when all is said and done I have roughly 23k HP, just over 3000 armor and something in the ballpark of 2.4k, 2.5k power ( I forget... I abuse "for great justice" alot )

Earlier this week I was farming Blood rubies in Bloodstone Fen and doing the meta event going up against the Jade Armors. I realise that most of the warriors with me in the furball were probably zerkers and doing more damage than I did but when the Jade constructs managed to send us all flying back, I was the only one getting back up ( with less than a 3rd of my HP ) and back at it. During that time, the others were being massaged off the floor behind me, not doing any damage and preventing the massaging players fron doing any themselves. By the time another big hit came, I was back at full health to eat it again ( thank you healers! )

For older players like me who may no longer have the keen reflexes ( or skills ) we used to have, defensive stats allow me to not be a burden for my team while providing a fairly constant, if modest damage output.

I understand that if you never get hit, offensive stats only is the way to go but yeah kitten happens.. and it has fangs.

Right. But the idea that there's anybody that's so good at the game they never get hit is asinine. Maybe if you're just repeating the same simple encounter with a single mob all the time. That's why I said in the OP that "get gud dodge moar" is a brainless meme.

[Astralporing.1957]

@"Einlanzer.1627"Damage is applied equally against all mobs, so it "scales" according to the number of enemies your skills can hit at the same time. Toughness also is applied equally against all attacks - it reduces damage of every attack against you. Vitality however doesn't work that way, because hit points are a depletable resource. That can significantly affect your calculation, depeding on what you're fighting.

By the way - again, you don't see the whole picture. For some reason you look look only at hybrid stats. What you should really look into is the survivability of dedicated bunker builds (nomad, minstrel). Only by looking at those (and looking at them in action, not merely at some calculations someone did) you will really see how OP can defensive stats be when properly used.

[Einlanzer.1627]

@Astralporing.1957 said:@"Einlanzer.1627"Damage is applied equally against all mobs, so it "scales" according to the number of enemies your skills can hit at the same time. Toughness also is applied equally against all attacks - it reduces damage of every attack against you. Vitality however doesn't work that way, because hit points are a depletable resource. That can significantly affect your calculation, depeding on what you're fighting.

By the way - again, you don't see the whole picture. For some reason you look look only at hybrid stats. What you should really look into is the survivability of dedicated bunker builds (nomad, minstrel). Only by looking at those (and looking at them in action, not merely at some calculations someone did) you will really see how OP can defensive stats be when properly used.

Well, I'm intentionally only looking at Soldier's vs Berserker's in this case because the two stat spreads give an easy reference point for understanding the relative efficacy of Precision, Ferocity, Toughness, and Vitality, which is what I was most interested in. I'm not necessarily trying to compare different stat combos in general.

Is it your opinion that bunker builds that use stats like Nomad or Minstrel work really well solo in PvE? Because that would be a surprise to me.

[starlinvf.1358]

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Ayrilana.1396 said:

@starlinvf.1358 said:

@Ayrilana.1396 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Ayrilana.1396 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:Berserker deals around 50% more damage than Soldiers, but has less than half the effective HP. Combining that with healing skills and dodging, this means that defensive stats are actually a lot more effective than people believe them to be.People were telling you this each time you started a new thread, remember?

In every thread I was asking for theorycrafting on Soldiers vs Berserkers to try to gain clarity and everyone was willing to argue with me

without providing any evidence. I finally found it

, and yes, the people arguing that defensive stats are better than most players think were right. So, I suppose you could say I've switched sides. Congratulations.

The spreadsheet at the beginning of the thread doesn’t provide evidence though.

It's called data. Data = evidence.

Not necessarily. I can provide data that the world is flat, that doesn’t mean that it is. It’s also possible to take pieces of data and string together an assertion that isn’t true/accurate. Someone could take the damage difference between the stat sets, as well as the difference between HP, and then make an incorrect assertion about the two.

I remember this from John Oliver. P-Hacking. Playing with your data so you find something that counts as statistically significant, but probably meaningless. Like correlations between eating Cabbage and having an Innie Belly Button, drinking Ice Tea and believing Crash didn't deserve best picture, and eating raw tomatoes and Judaism.

Or assuming that living on the east coast in the U.S. means that you have better odds of winning the lottery because a larger percentage of the winners are from there.

A couple things that the OP is ignoring is how much damage is done to an enemy is relation to the enemy's HP and how much damage the enemy does to them in relation to their own HP. Using soldiers with a 50% drop in DPS, and twice the effective HP, can cause the enemy to out-sustain them depending on the enemy's stats.

Soldier's does 2/3 the damage that Berserker's does. Berserker's has between 1/3 and 1/2 the EHP that Soldier's does depending on class. Your argument is more likely to apply the other way around, with players out-sustaining mobs in Soldier's when they wouldn't in Berserker's.

That's the entire point - Vitality + Toughness has a greater effect on TTL (not factoring in Dodge) than Precision + Ferocity does on TTK. People think it's the opposite and it isn't. I'm not saying that means V/T is always better than P/F. This depends on a kitten ton of variables. I'm simply saying it's a lot more balanced and competitive than people think it is and that there

are

compelling reasons to use some V/T including in at least some forms of PvE.

But I can tell already you're also ignoring all the damage multipliers most power builds have from traits and sigils to make that comparison. Those compound rapidly via their multiplicative nature. I did the math on this before, and its not unusual to have raw damage values in the 7 digits, before being divided by the armor value and damage reduction traits. Theres also a thing where the damage reduction traits do the same multiplicative math in some cases (meaning they shrink in scale) while others can be additive (bigger reductions), so the math is kind of unintuitive.

For reference, the tool tip damage is based on the assumption of a target with 2597 Armor, which is 380 points higher then the baseline value of Heavy armor + Toughness.

So heres part of the issue...... HP grows linearly, toughness works on division, but Prc and Fer are multiplicative and compound with other modifiers. This is far from equal scaling between defense and offensive stats per point allocation.... especially when you start to realize you only need to meet certain thresholds to obtain certain TTKs.

[Ayrilana.1396]

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Ayrilana.1396 said:

@starlinvf.1358 said:

@Ayrilana.1396 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Ayrilana.1396 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:Berserker deals around 50% more damage than Soldiers, but has less than half the effective HP. Combining that with healing skills and dodging, this means that defensive stats are actually a lot more effective than people believe them to be.People were telling you this each time you started a new thread, remember?

In every thread I was asking for theorycrafting on Soldiers vs Berserkers to try to gain clarity and everyone was willing to argue with me

without providing any evidence. I finally found it

, and yes, the people arguing that defensive stats are better than most players think were right. So, I suppose you could say I've switched sides. Congratulations.

The spreadsheet at the beginning of the thread doesn’t provide evidence though.

It's called data. Data = evidence.

Not necessarily. I can provide data that the world is flat, that doesn’t mean that it is. It’s also possible to take pieces of data and string together an assertion that isn’t true/accurate. Someone could take the damage difference between the stat sets, as well as the difference between HP, and then make an incorrect assertion about the two.

I remember this from John Oliver. P-Hacking. Playing with your data so you find something that counts as statistically significant, but probably meaningless. Like correlations between eating Cabbage and having an Innie Belly Button, drinking Ice Tea and believing Crash didn't deserve best picture, and eating raw tomatoes and Judaism.

Or assuming that living on the east coast in the U.S. means that you have better odds of winning the lottery because a larger percentage of the winners are from there.

A couple things that the OP is ignoring is how much damage is done to an enemy is relation to the enemy's HP and how much damage the enemy does to them in relation to their own HP. Using soldiers with a 50% drop in DPS, and twice the effective HP, can cause the enemy to out-sustain them depending on the enemy's stats.

Soldier's does 2/3 the damage that Berserker's does. Berserker's has between 1/3 and 1/2 the EHP that Soldier's does depending on class. Your argument is more likely to apply the other way around, with players out-sustaining mobs in Soldier's when they wouldn't in Berserker's.

That's the entire point - Vitality + Toughness has a greater effect on TTL (not factoring in Dodge) than Precision + Ferocity does on TTK. People think it's the opposite and it isn't. I'm not saying that means V/T is always better than P/F. This depends on a kitten ton of variables, and you likely wouldn't want to run all Soldier's regardless. I'm simply saying it's a lot more balanced and competitive than people think it is and that there

are

compelling reasons to use some V/T including in PvE - at least some forms of it.

I tested berserkers vs soldiers against veteran vinetooth by doing just auto attacks. I got it much further in berserkers before it downed me than I did in soldiers before it downed me. The DPS in berserkers was 3.7K and the DPS in soldiers was 2.1K so 2/3s difference was not what I experienced. The purpose of this was just to test the difference in sustain between the two stat sets and the difference in their damage output. I tried to do more tests but got frustrated as people kept trying to "help". Even those that were just ignoring it only suddenly became interested enough to attack when they saw I was attacking it.

My argument is not more likely to work the other way around. The reason being that you're focusing on two unrelated stats while ignoring the DPS of the enemy you're fighting does as well as its HP. You're also arguing against people who have done extensive tests which formed the current consensus that berserkers is better. Just to clarify, by "people", I mean those years ago who tested this.

In the open world, it generally won't matter. You can generally pile enough players onto things where you collectively do enough damage and the damage the boss does is spread out; not everyone is going to take damage from every attack. The trash mobs on the maps also have low health so they die fairly quickly to not be much of a threat in the first place.

Edit: Actually, a better test of the DPS differences would probably have been to run a rotation on the golem using the two different sets as the damage will scale differently depending on the skill.

If you want to agree to disagree, I'm fine with that. I don't take much enjoyment as of late in these online debates and almost immediately regret it when I get wrapped up in one.