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What is the purpose of Toughness?


Sifu.9745

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Is Toughness a completely useless stat? I don't see any benefits for taking Toughness over any other stat. If i take a gear with 1000 Toughens, for example, i don't see for how much i get dmg reduced. 10%? 17%? 22%? Please, Anet, could you add the exact numbers? Why do i have to do a math by myself? We get exact numbers with ALL other stats, with Toughness being an exception for no reason.

Lets take a look at Guardian Sword. With base 1000 Power the sword Auto attack deals 158 dmg (in PvP). With adding 1000 Power the dmg rises up to 315. The Dmg is doubled! We get exact number, not just random numbers.Lets look at Vitality: 500 Vitality adds 5000 health, 900 Precision gives about 42% critical chance etc. You can see a numbers rising up with any other stat added, with exception of Toughness.Now lets take a look at toughness: I take a gear with 900 toughness. The tooltip doesn't show for how much dmg reduction 900 Toughness gives. If i have 1000 base toughens (2167 armor) and i take 900 additional toughness i get 1900 toughness (3067 armor). Great, right? I am immortal now, right? Hmm, am i? I have no idea, because i can't see any dmg reduction numbers on my gear. So i have absolutely no idea how much is toughness worth in reality. I guess 900 toughness gives 15 -20% physical dmg reduction and that's it. But it's stupid that i have to guess about it. We should get exact numbers.

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I never understood why my ranger with Pahua's armor (lots and lots of Toughness and Vitality) folds like a wet paper bag in a fight with a few HoT mobs, while I can leave my Minionmaster/Scourge with zero Toughness/Vitality pretty much unattended while wading into a thick crowd of HoT mobs.

Ok, some hyperbole here and I do understand how a Minion master can have lots of sustain through pets, traits and skills, but yeah, Toughness sucks. Also Condi damage vs Direct damage. Still, Toughness sucks. I think Toughness should mitigate Condi damage too.

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It doesn't work that way, it's not a flat damage reduction like that.

Toughness only enhances the characters Armour stat.. which is your total defence stat.100 toughness adds 100 armour basically and then that is combined with the defence rating of your equipped armour and if you are using one, your shield.Incoming damage is then calculated by your total defence stat (Armour stat) against the enemy's power stat, weapon damage and the damage modifiers of whatever attack/skill they are using against you.

Or to quote the exact formula on the wiki.Damage taken = (Opponent's weapon strength) Opponent's Power (Opponent's skill-specific coefficient) / (your Defense + your Toughness)(Just to clarify the last bit, your defence + toughness is basically your Armour stat total so you don't need to calculate that yourself as the game already shows it to you in the hero pannel.)

So as you can see it's not an exact number percentage of damage resistance because enemies have varying levels of power and skill strength..Plus they scale with the number of players fighting them which increases their level and stats and even gives them access to new skills and abilities etc.This also applies in your PvP example too with power.You tested it on the golem I expect which has it's own defence rating.Against other players you maybe hitting one player for say 1000 damage but you might hit another for only 400.. because they have a much higher armour stat total than the first one you hit.So basically you can't figure out how much damage reduction you are going to get from your gear and toughness because you don't know the other half of the math equation.. the power stat etc of whoever or whatever you are fighting against.You would either have to ask them for that information or be very good at spotting if they are using a common meta build and guessing their stat/gear setup from that.. and then you'll have to do the math rapidly in combat on the fly for each individual skill.. and calculate for potential critical damage as well >.<I can't even imagine that being possible for a human being though lol.

As for is toughness useless?I have to say from many years of experience no.. it's definitely not useless but you may not find it incredibly useful just on it's own.Most people will combine toughness with Vitality to make really tanky builds as the two stats do work really good together, specially if they are backed up with sustained healing either by yourself or another player.You can make some very tanky builds in this game using defensive stats like toughness.

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@"Sifu.9745" said:Is Toughness a completely useless stat? I don't see any benefits for taking Toughness over any other stat. If i take a gear with 1000 Toughens, for example, i don't see for how much i get dmg reduced. 10%? 17%? 22%? Please, Anet, could you add the exact numbers? Why do i have to do a math by myself? We get exact numbers with ALL other stats, with Toughness being an exception for no reason.

Lets take a look at Guardian Sword. With base 1000 Power the sword Auto attack deals 158 dmg (in PvP). With adding 1000 Power the dmg rises up to 315. The Dmg is doubled! We get exact number, not just random numbers.Lets look at Vitality: 500 Vitality adds 5000 health, 900 Precision gives about 42% critical chance etc. You can see a numbers rising up with any other stat added, with exception of Toughness.Now lets take a look at toughness: I take a gear with 900 toughness. The tooltip doesn't show for how much dmg reduction 900 Toughness gives. If i have 1000 base toughens (2167 armor) and i take 900 additional toughness i get 1900 toughness (3067 armor). Great, right? I am immortal now, right? Hmm, am i? I have no idea, because i can't see any dmg reduction numbers on my gear. So i have absolutely no idea how much is toughness worth in reality. I guess 900 toughness gives 15 -20% physical dmg reduction and that's it. But it's stupid that i have to guess about it. We should get exact numbers.

You don't have a fixed value because it depends on your encounter :Damage taken = (Opponent's weapon strength) Opponent's Power (Opponent's skill-specific coefficient) / (your Defense + your Toughness)Source : https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Toughness

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Toughness is hard to give a definitive number for because it has diminishing returns. Every point gives a lower % damage reduction than the previous one.

As far as its use goes...

For instanced PvE it is useless, because nothing hits hard enough to make a "Tank" character need to stack Toughness to survive (Thanks to Protection, Aegis, Block and Evade) and for anyone else, its actively detrimental because of aggro being influenced by Toughness rating.

Outside of this, it's useful for staying alive longer. OW PvE is predominantly power damage and so Toughness reduces this (Which makes healing skills more effective)

In PvP/WvW, there's a lot of Condition damage which is unaffected by Toughness, but it will still help against Power builds and will help you stick around a while.

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Thx, guys. Huh, complicated ... I think that Toughness should get replaced by some more simplistic defensive stat :) I have in mind something similar to Protection boon, which gives a definite numbers. With Protection you get exactly 33% dmg reduction. I am sure Anet can make it that simple.

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It's true that it isn't very useful, but i have only slightly toughness on my gear and i still remember doing some legendary boss and getting hit by one if its AoE abilities. I get knocked down and get up, everyone else is downed, and so i have to rescue them all. Well, i didn't HAVE to, but it helped the boss die faster. That was funny.

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@Teratus.2859 said:Plus they scale with the number of players fighting them which increases their level and stats and even gives them access to new skills and abilities etc.

Pretty sure that was never implemented.

You tested it on the golem I expect which has it's own defence rating.

Yep. Wiki has the armor rating for each of the different golem types. Same goes for raid bosses. For most other things I don't think anyone has bothered to document.

Against other players you maybe hitting one player for say 1000 damage but you might hit another for only 400.. because they have a much higher armour stat total than the first one you hit.

Also Protection.

So basically you can't figure out how much damage reduction you are going to get from your gear and toughness because you don't know the other half of the math equation.. the power stat etc of whoever or whatever you are fighting against.You would either have to ask them for that information or be very good at spotting if they are using a common meta build and guessing their stat/gear setup from that.. and then you'll have to do the math rapidly in combat on the fly for each individual skill.. and calculate for potential critical damage as well >.<I can't even imagine that being possible for a human being though lol.

Exact values are impossible but quickily triaging enemy builds is a necessary skill for PvP and WvW roaming.

As for is toughness useless?I have to say from many years of experience no.. it's definitely not useless but you may not find it incredibly useful just on it's own.Most people will combine toughness with Vitality to make really tanky builds as the two stats do work really good together, specially if they are backed up with sustained healing either by yourself or another player.You can make some very tanky builds in this game using defensive stats like toughness.

It depends on what you are doing. In high end PvE the damage is often so high that it doesn't help much. You can be stacking layers of damage reduction and stuff will still hit for massive damage so the best defense is to not get hit. Additionally there are attacks which are linked to fight specific mechanics that are going to be guaranteed kills if you don't do the mechanic. Toughness isn't useful against those either.

Evade, blindness, aegis and to a lesser degree weakness(due to lower reliability) are much cheaper and effective in most cases than investing in toughness. Biggest difference is that those are all active defenses while toughness is completely passive.

@Sifu.9745 said:Thx, guys. Huh, complicated ... I think that Toughness should get replaced by some more simplistic defensive stat :) I have in mind something similar to Protection boon, which gives a definite numbers. With Protection you get exactly 33% dmg reduction. I am sure Anet can make it that simple.

It is simple. Toughness is a great stat if you preferred not to put any efforts into learning how to use active defenses. Don't want to learn the timing of enemy attacks, telegraphed animations or fight mechanics? Invest more into toughness. That will increase your chance of making through things without learning when to use your skills/dodges or what needs to be negated.

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Maximum Toughness you can get from Ascended gear is 1381 as a primary stat and 961 as a secondary stat. As others said, the reason you don't see the reduction is because it's relative to your Armor, light, medium or heavy.

Assuming Ascended quality, Light is 967, Medium is 1118 and Heavy is 1271. Given the base Toughness of 1000 for all characters, that gives us1967 Defense for Light, 2118 for Medium and 2271 for Heavy armor users. Let's assume you take 10000000 damage (10 million) and see how much damage each will take. Light will take 5084 damage, Medium will take 4721 damage and Heavy will take 4403 damage

Let's see the Toughness as Secondary stat (+961), the new values will be: 2968 for Light, 3079 for Medium and 3232 for Heavy. The new damage values will be: 3369 for Light, 3248 for Medium and 3094 for Heavy.

Now let's add Toughness as Primary stat (+1381), the new values will be: 3348 for Light, 3499 for Medium and 3652 for Heavy, the new damage values will be: 2987 for Light, 2857 for Medium and 2728 for Heavy.

Or more consolidated:Light: 5084 / 3369 (33.7% less damage than 0 Toughness) / 2987 (41.2% less damage than 0 Toughness)Medium: 4721 / 3248 (31.2% less damage than 0 Toughness) / 2857 (39.5% less damage than 0 Toughness)Heavy: 4403 / 3094 (29.7% less damage than 0 Toughness) / 2728 (38% less damage than 0 Toughness)

tl;drThis means, using gear with Toughness secondary is the same as having a permanent Protection boonAlso, we can see that going for Primary stat Toughness isn't really worth it

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Toughness is to offset the incoming damage, it doesn't fully prevent it. Without toughness your healing demand is higher.

With the healing nerfs in PVP/WVW , every class has to rely more on active defenses whether it is aegis, protection, kiting , evades, or weakness/blind.

For PVE, unless there is multiple minor incoming damage packets it's better to run full damage stats or damage with vitality (marauder, etc) as incoming damage will not be reduced enough for it to matter. The reason is except for a few cases such as Boneskinner there's a dedicated tank if tanking is possible.

The biggest issue with toughness in WVW is there aren't that many stat combinations with toughness that also have precision or ferocity which means only condi builds really benefit from heavy investment into it or full on healing builds on minstrel. Most power builds either run runes with toughness (such as durability/brawler/scrapper etc) or a few trinkets with cavalier (toughness main stat, power + ferocity secondary) or captain's (precision main stat, power + toughness secondary). Since most power builds aren't aiming for healing power , Crusader isn't normally used (power + toughness main stat, ferocity + healing power minor stat).

This would change a bit if the 4-stat demolisher amulet combination were made available to WVW/PVE (power+precision main stat, toughness + ferocity minor stat) which would mix well with marauder (power+precision main stat , vitality+ferocity minor stat).

The tooltip for a skill is based on non-crit damage against an approximately 2.6K armor target.

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I'm not great at math but I was under the impression that toughness alone isn't that great, you also need to have more overall hp to feel the impact. As for a purpose for toughness alone, it is the stat that determines most aggro for mobs. It you have more toughness, you're more likely to be the one mobs target.

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@Tyncale.1629 said:I think Toughness should mitigate Condi damage too.

This would make an interesting change to WvW at least, since the most popular builds in that mode seem to be only made to spam AoE condi in areas.

I can't even count how many times I've seen massive blobs of guilds in WvW running around and stacking purely to spam AoE condis and heals, probably trying to never die and get easy kills from the players that fall for these condi traps.

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@Teratus.2859 said:Or to quote the exact formula on the wiki.Damage taken = (Opponent's weapon strength) Opponent's Power (Opponent's skill-specific coefficient) / (your Defense + your Toughness)(Just to clarify the last bit, your defence + toughness is basically your Armour stat total so you don't need to calculate that yourself as the game already shows it to you in the hero pannel.)

So basically you can't figure out how much damage reduction you are going to get from your gear and toughness because you don't know the other half of the math equation.. the power stat etc of whoever or whatever you are fighting against.

Actually you can figure out how much damage reduction you are going to get from gear.The formular can be simplified to damage_taken = total_offense / total_defenseIf you double your defense you get damage_taken = total_offense / (2 total_defense) = 1/2 total_offense / total_defenseIf the formular on the wiki is correct, then doubling your armor value should cut your damage taken by half.

Of course you can't calculate a flat damage number, but you can calculate the relative damage reduction.

So the damage reduction is 1 - (armor at base toughness / armor at your current toughness)

Example:A Warrior with Berserker stats has 2271 ArmorA Warrior with Soldier stats has 3231 Armor

Damage reduction = 1 - 2271 / 3231 = 0.30 = 30%

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In general terms, increasing vitality seems to be much more useful than toughness for defence. However, sometimes the best choices for defence can depend on the class you are playing. For example, for a class that is able to heal a lot, such as the elementalist, I find that increasing healing power and vitality are the best options for increasing defence and survivability.

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@BunjiKugashira.9754 said:

@Teratus.2859 said:Or to quote the exact formula on the wiki.Damage taken = (Opponent's weapon strength)
Opponent's Power
(Opponent's skill-specific coefficient) / (your Defense + your Toughness)(Just to clarify the last bit, your defence + toughness is basically your Armour stat total so you don't need to calculate that yourself as the game already shows it to you in the hero pannel.)

So basically you can't figure out how much damage reduction you are going to get from your gear and toughness because you don't know the other half of the math equation.. the power stat etc of whoever or whatever you are fighting against.

Actually you can figure out how much damage reduction you are going to get from gear.The formular can be simplified to damage_taken = total_offense / total_defenseIf you double your defense you get damage_taken = total_offense / (2
total_defense) = 1/2
total_offense / total_defenseIf the formular on the wiki is correct, then doubling your armor value should cut your damage taken by half.

Of course you can't calculate a flat damage number, but you can calculate the relative damage reduction.

So the damage reduction is 1 - (armor at base toughness / armor at your current toughness)

Example:A Warrior with Berserker stats has 2271 ArmorA Warrior with Soldier stats has 3231 Armor

Damage reduction = 1 - 2271 / 3231 = 0.30 = 30%

^^ This is a really good breakdown. The fact remains you can quantify the impact it has and make a decision on how much to take is what matters. If that's useful or not to people ... that depends on what they are doing really. Admittedly, it's not the easiest thing to determine for lots of people so what would be nice is for there to be some calculator.

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@Khisanth.2948 said:

@"Sifu.9745" said:Thx, guys. Huh, complicated ... I think that Toughness should get replaced by some more simplistic defensive stat :) I have in mind something similar to Protection boon, which gives a definite numbers. With Protection you get exactly 33% dmg reduction. I am sure Anet can make it that simple.

It is simple. Toughness is a great stat if you preferred not to put any efforts into learning how to use active defenses. Don't want to learn the timing of enemy attacks, telegraphed animations or fight mechanics? Invest more into toughness. That will increase your chance of making through things without learning when to use your skills/dodges or what needs to be negated.

Incorrect. See, for example, Lord Hizen. He's beaten top notch PvP players and WvW roamers using glass builds. He also uses toughness builds to solo fractal CMs, open world metas, and legendary bounties. So have I, for that matter. I won't say there aren't better players out there, but I'd say it's a stretch to say that players who can do these types of things qualify as incapable of learning timing, telegraphed animations or fight mechanics.

You use the right tool for the job and in my experience, toughness is an excellent stat for condi builds, especially those with a poor power ratio. If you only deal 10-15% of your damage from power using Viper, then it's a no-brainer to take toughness for solo play. It will allow you to play more aggressively and stretch between defensive cooldowns where a glass build would be forced to play defensively, very possibly losing more damage than you gain from taking power stats!

Here's a video to illustrate the point. I'm wearing Dire gear and my evasion is pretty solid. The combined effect allows me stay on offense the entire fight. My health stays above 66% despite no kiting, line of sight, healing, or rotating to water attunement. Using Viper stats vs. Dire those hits landing for 10-15% health per shot land for 25-30% health and you're forced to play defensively very quickly. The small amount of power damage gained by taking power/precision with this build is much less than the damage lost having to play defense and heal.

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In any PvE content where the NPCs are not using the 'aggro on toughness' mechanic it can increase survivability a lot if you're not 'skilled' in timing dodges yet or if you're having latency issues.

Soldiers is an ideal gear set for new players, especially if coming from something like WoW. Despite being a tab-target game fights in FFXIV are all about moving in and out of telegraphed AoEs... so FFXIV players can probably skip toughness. After that, graduate to Knights or Rabid, and then once you're fully dodging properly... you go berserk, vipers, or whatever fits your build...

Before HoT I had high toughness builds on all professions. I didn't do as much DPS as others, but we didn't have a DPS meter so I didn't really fully know that also... I survived more than most other people though because the folks I was running with were, like me, coming from 'tab target' games and not good at getting out of the way of attacks. Over the years I started learning to dodge more. Now... the attacks that do hit me still take me down if I put on the old "knight's" set I used to use, so toughness has little value for me in most PvE now.

In WvW where you're not being focused, just being attacked alongside your group - it can greatly increase your survival rate but it comes at the cost of giving up some DPS stat that may have been more useful to the group. I use it on a 'WvW roaming' build - if you're playing WvW solo, even when you end up with a zerg or a group they will often break up after each battle or they might all be in comms and suddenly port out on you... so having toughness makes things viable.

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@"Sifu.9745" said:Is Toughness a completely useless stat? I don't see any benefits for taking Toughness over any other stat. If i take a gear with 1000 Toughens, for example, i don't see for how much i get dmg reduced. 10%? 17%? 22%? Please, Anet, could you add the exact numbers? Why do i have to do a math by myself? We get exact numbers with ALL other stats, with Toughness being an exception for no reason.

Lets take a look at Guardian Sword. With base 1000 Power the sword Auto attack deals 158 dmg (in PvP). With adding 1000 Power the dmg rises up to 315. The Dmg is doubled! We get exact number, not just random numbers.Lets look at Vitality: 500 Vitality adds 5000 health, 900 Precision gives about 42% critical chance etc. You can see a numbers rising up with any other stat added, with exception of Toughness.Now lets take a look at toughness: I take a gear with 900 toughness. The tooltip doesn't show for how much dmg reduction 900 Toughness gives. If i have 1000 base toughens (2167 armor) and i take 900 additional toughness i get 1900 toughness (3067 armor). Great, right? I am immortal now, right? Hmm, am i? I have no idea, because i can't see any dmg reduction numbers on my gear. So i have absolutely no idea how much is toughness worth in reality. I guess 900 toughness gives 15 -20% physical dmg reduction and that's it. But it's stupid that i have to guess about it. We should get exact numbers.

In theory its as simple as this.(Competitive at the very least.)Toughness = Reduction in power damageVitality= Reduction/protection from condi.

Or at least thats what everyone loves to claim, honestly toughness should be rolled together with vitality and turned into something like "Survivability" or some such thing to make it so more stat-sets can have them incorporated. But I digress.

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@Atomos.7593 said:

@Tyncale.1629 said:I think Toughness should mitigate Condi damage too.

This would make an interesting change to WvW at least, since the most popular builds in that mode seem to be only made to spam AoE condi in areas.

I can't even count how many times I've seen massive blobs of guilds in WvW running around and stacking purely to spam AoE condis and heals, probably trying to never die and get easy kills from the players that fall for these condi traps.

The mainstays for damage in WvW are still Hammer Rev and Power Scourge, still. Condi zerg comps do exist but they can have a hard time against enemy groups with a lot of cleansing from Scrappers, Spellbreakers, and Tempests in support roles. (Or you can play Burn Guard solo and try to catch people with lots of burning from reflects.) It's really not a condition meta overall, despite how much power condition builds enjoy in WvW thanks to gear with Expertise on it.

Roaming, too, you'll see some bunkery condition builds (Torment Renegade/Herald, Fear Core Necro, sometimes a Mirage, Thief, or Druid as well) but they haven't edged out normal Power burst builds for Holo, Soulbeast, Daredevil/Deadeye, Spellbreaker, Sword-Sword Herald, or Reaper.

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@ASP.8093 said:

@Tyncale.1629 said:I think Toughness should mitigate Condi damage too.

This would make an interesting change to WvW at least, since the most popular builds in that mode seem to be only made to spam AoE condi in areas.

I can't even count how many times I've seen massive blobs of guilds in WvW running around and stacking purely to spam AoE condis and heals, probably trying to never die and get easy kills from the players that fall for these condi traps.

The mainstays for damage in WvW are still Hammer Rev and Power Scourge, still. Condi zerg comps do exist but they can have a hard time against enemy groups with a lot of cleansing from Scrappers, Spellbreakers, and Tempests in support roles. (Or you can play Burn Guard solo and try to catch people with lots of burning from reflects.) It's really not a condition meta overall, despite how much power condition builds enjoy in WvW thanks to gear with Expertise on it.

Roaming, too, you'll see some bunkery condition builds (Torment Renegade/Herald, Fear Core Necro, sometimes a Mirage, Thief, or Druid as well) but they haven't edged out normal Power burst builds for Holo, Soulbeast, Daredevil/Deadeye, Spellbreaker, Sword-Sword Herald, or Reaper.

I think that condi builds (even the AoE focused ones) that are not purely bunker based are fine. I have no problems countering them on my elementalist, necromancer or warrior, or just simply avoiding the AoE condi traps.

Here I'm referring exclusively to the AoE condi skills that can be easily spammed in large groups in tight areas, sometimes resulting in a virtual stalemate between both sides where each side is too afraid to run in and initiate a fight because there are too many AoE condi effects blocking the only path. Some classic examples of areas in WvW where this frequently occurs are in the ogre camp and dredge tunnel entrances/exits.

Perhaps these kinds of situations were not intended by the devs with how the skills currently work, but this is the end result anyway. IMO these resultant stalemate situations are extremely boring and require little skill.

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