defense since U44?

moo_2021 · January 30

I noticed my spammable damage could easily be cut half against max resist players vs usual heavy-armoured players like myself (I assume 30k). It makes attacking alone pointless because it's not possible to outdamage them, while I remain vulnerable. The effect appears much stronger than healing, e.g. 1.5k hps from vigor or 1k/s shield, and it scales with incoming damage, meaning I have zero chance to break it either by burst or attrition.

Is this largely correct? Is there any reason not to build at least 43k resist now? (33k + major and minor breach). Should I target higher?

moo_2021 · January 30

test results seem great. I sacrificed crit to push resist from 30k to 45k, and moved all damage CPs to mitigation CPs. Healing is slightly weaker but now I need a lot less healing, and a lot less resource and GCD to cast healing, and can at least survive a long time against good players without instant panic like before. Damage is not reduced much.

Good NBs still cut me like butter, but only when proc fires. Maybe I should change race to Breton for the extra 5k resist?

Udrath · January 30

Well if you're having fun with it then keep pushing. I'm not exactly sure about anything anymore (BG's only for me now), but I can share some things from trying out a lot of different builds.

Super high resist seems to only help against certain spammables, dots, some proc damage. It's nice sometimes for brawling in big fights and body block for people while having decent damage, but skills like crystal frags procs are always going to hit hard (66% increased damage is really balanced). Wardens are always going to crit burst hard because of their animal companion passive (Especially meta warden mech acutiy/vamp spammable). Dragon knights will always be able to corrosive and ignore your armor, etc, etc.

So it seems like at the end of the day no matter my set up, burst is always going to hurt unless I block a lot (obviously) or have great critical healing or I put out so much pressure to the point they do not feel comfortable bursting and fold when they do burst. Personally I thought I had better survivability with high crit chance than when I tired out high resist, but I try to have plenty of healing skills.

What I have learned from someone is if I am dueling or 1vXing and someone is not sitting on their backbar, then I need to have more damage -- and if I am sitting on my back bar more than them, then I need more defense or healing!

Sluggy · February 4

When I last played during the summer I had pretty much given up on my usual 28k hp, 10k wp dmg, 20k pen builds. I dropped all Max Mag/Stam and went 35k-40k health with a couple infused block cost reduction enchants and sword and shield on the backbar. Didn't sacrifice an ounce of killing power and I gained a lot more staying power. IIRC the block cost was around 650 on the shield bar and maybe 800 or 900 on the two hand. I had also invested more heavily in sustain and gave up all of my mobility. I was finding that even at speed cap most people could easily keep up so why bother. Granted, I was playing more frontline brawler in large sieges and open field fights. Probably wouldn't be such a hot setup when outnumbered, especially out in the open.

taugrim · February 13

From a BGs perspective, in U44 I've swapped out a 5th medium piece for a 3rd heavy piece on my melee Stamarc.

That gets me to 30k frontbar armor, ~34k backbar armor. Along with 37k health, that's plenty to keep me alive when I rack up damage and kills.

StaticWave · February 13

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moo_2021 wrote: »

I noticed my spammable damage could easily be cut half against max resist players vs usual heavy-armoured players like myself (I assume 30k). It makes attacking alone pointless because it's not possible to outdamage them, while I remain vulnerable.

That's the secret that most good players and 1vXers don't tell others. Stacking mitigation in this game has always been better than stacking damage.

Right now, your damage should come from using damage sets, with mitigation coming from traits/CPs/armor weight. You generally want to have around 30-33k resistances minimum. Critical resistances should be above 3k (less is fine IF you have more than 45k resistances). You also want to use Iron Clad and Duelist Rebuff blue CPs, as they are currently the best CPs for most builds.

For example, here is a typical stamden build using 3 dmg sets with capped resistances:

40.6k HP, 27.5k stam, 1.5k mag and stam regen, almost 6.5k weapon dmg, 16.8k pen before balorgh, 38.2k spell and 37.5k physical resist back bar, and 3.5k crit resist. Blue and red CPs are also all defensive. When I build ~200 Balorgh stacks, this will be my offensive stats:

6.7k weapon damage and 21k pen, enough to kill most people. This build is basically your average 1vX/group PvP build.

All I did was manipulate my armor weights, armor/jewelry traits, and stack more defense via CPs. You can do this on any class wearing any damage sets and will still get similar defensive stats.