The Great Healer Debate - Armor vs. Wounds

[Toggle]

It is regularly recommended that you slot enough wound talis to reach 8-9k+ heatlh to survive morale bomb and then rest to armor.

I do see some camps advocating for all armor talis though, but as someone already stated above, if you're running around with 6k hp and die by 3x 2k morale drop then theres no point to all the armor talis that you have.

As far as armor goes, you want around 3.3k armor to reach 75% physical damage reduction, but preferably you want 4k+ armor as a buffer for skills that penetrate or reduce armor.

Is that possible before end game gear while still being able to put out decent heal numbers?

[Nameless]

Healing numbers are not connected directly with your willpower, so yes u could

[empmoz]

Stack wounds, get crit reduction, spec into dodge/disrupt renown too. Toughness and armor are ok but not worth investing in tali slots

[R3xz]

It is regularly recommended that you slot enough wound talis to reach 8-9k+ heatlh to survive morale bomb and then rest to armor.

I do see some camps advocating for all armor talis though, but as someone already stated above, if you're running around with 6k hp and die by 3x 2k morale drop then theres no point to all the armor talis that you have.

As far as armor goes, you want around 3.3k armor to reach 75% physical damage reduction, but preferably you want 4k+ armor as a buffer for skills that penetrate or reduce armor.

Is that possible before end game gear while still being able to put out decent heal numbers?

For cloth healers it's definitely harder so I can empathize with my Zealot, I haven't gotten to invader with my zealot yet but so far Ive favored wounds on her. Keep in mind that willpower is a bit more effective on zealot than it does on the other healers.

On my DoK it's easier to reach those numbers while still maintaining 20%+ heal crit and close to or 0% chance to be crit ( gotta mix and match some set before invader/sov)

[Toggle]

It is regularly recommended that you slot enough wound talis to reach 8-9k+ heatlh to survive morale bomb and then rest to armor.

I do see some camps advocating for all armor talis though, but as someone already stated above, if you're running around with 6k hp and die by 3x 2k morale drop then theres no point to all the armor talis that you have.

As far as armor goes, you want around 3.3k armor to reach 75% physical damage reduction, but preferably you want 4k+ armor as a buffer for skills that penetrate or reduce armor.

Is that possible before end game gear while still being able to put out decent heal numbers?

For cloth healers it's definitely harder so I can empathize with my Zealot, I haven't gotten to invader with my zealot yet but so far Ive favored wounds on her. Keep in mind that willpower is a bit more effective on zealot than it does on the other healers.

On my DoK it's easier to reach those numbers while still maintaining 20%+ heal crit and close to or 0% chance to be crit ( gotta mix and match some set before invader/sov)

My only two healers are both cloth. Beginning to regret not making a DoK instead.

[R3xz]

Don't feel bad because DoK have to stay in the mid-line or front line to be effective at healing and silent/debuff. We have to take hits and deal hits in order to build essence without using Blood Offering and being useless for a few seconds. If we stay in the backline the entire time our heal output will be pretty ****. This is why these defensive stats are so important imo.

For zealot you can stay more safely in the backline, you don't have to micro-manage resources and only have to worry about your AP and your defensive targets. And it's ok if your armor is lower, you've got plenty of o-**** buttons.

[Toggle]

Don't feel bad because DoK have to stay in the mid-line or front line to be effective at healing and silent/debuff. We have to take hits and deal hits in order to build essence without using Blood Offering and being useless for a few seconds. If we stay in the backline the entire time our heal output will be pretty ****. This is why these defensive stats are so important imo.

For zealot you can stay more safely in the backline, you don't have to micro-manage resources and only have to worry about your AP and your defensive targets. And it's ok if your armor is lower, you've got plenty of o-**** buttons.

My biggest issue seems to be melee dps. I can ignore most ranged. But WLs are a bear to deal with. I’m at half hp or less after the KD, so if someone tosses a silence out - I’m done.

[Zxul]

My dok, 843 toughness and 3 k armor/-5% armor pen:



Armor is overrated.

[Omegus]

Perspective: RR82 Zealot, mostly pug and organised WB play in ORvR and Cities. Don't take this as being good advice for 6v6 or for anything other than the Zealot career.

For ORVR wounds is a no-brainer. You will be hit by every kind of damage from every source and by stacking armour you make yourself weaker to BWs and Engis who during any form of siege (attacking and defending) will be your main source of damage received.

For cities things are very different. The biggest threat to the Zealot is the order melee train (which works very well for the few groups able to actually pull it off). The composition of this melee train varies but it always involves at least one White Lion for the super strong armour debuff. The BW are usually bombing and I'm not standing near them and the Engineers... lol. Slayers, IBs, ASW (scary), WHs, etc, all form part of the train. To work out whether I would be better off stacking wounds or armour taismans in city I did a spreadsheet to work out what kinds of armour mitigation each class is likely going to do against me and worked out my EHP vs physical damage with armour talismans and then with wounds taismans. Wounds talismans won every time except vs something that had about 350 WS and no extra way of ignoring armour (I consider this to be the "baseline"). Note all calculations assumed I was debuffed by a WL because I likely will be.

This is the results: https://i.imgur.com/tx0ki4a.png. If anyone spots any errors in calculations please let me know so I can amend it. I *think* everything is correct but there are always things in this game that can catch you out. In addition, I know very little about ASW so had to piece together the spec based from Fenryl's posts (Assault stance plus double WS tactic). I have no idea if they stack extra WS on top as well; it seems they could come close to the cap if they wanted to.

The other thing to factor into this is that while damage mitigation increases your EHP, it can also be used to increase your effective heals. Based on a LOT of experience with city sieges I've found that the wounds + healing from me and other sources is enough to keep me alive long enough to force the enemy to switch target (especially if I'm kiting them away from the rest of their WB) or just keep me alive full stop. Usually when I die it's because I got hit by so many people that no amount of healing will help and/or the WB is wiping anyway (or I was half asleep and f**ked up... the usual reason tbh). The wounds also help out with getting tagged by a BW aoe, WH bullets, the token Swordmastrer deciding to hit me, etc.

The difference between armour talis and wounds talis is so small that even if it was a slight advantage for the armour talis it's still not IMO worth paying 4x-5x the price per talisman for a set of +180s.

[Toggle]

Perspective: RR82 Zealot, mostly pug and organised WB play in ORvR and Cities. Don't take this as being good advice for 6v6 or for anything other than the Zealot career.

For ORVR wounds is a no-brainer. You will be hit by every kind of damage from every source and by stacking armour you make yourself weaker to BWs and Engis who during any form of siege (attacking and defending) will be your main source of damage received.

For cities things are very different. The biggest threat to the Zealot is the order melee train (which works very well for the few groups able to actually pull it off). The composition of this melee train varies but it always involves at least one White Lion for the super strong armour debuff. The BW are usually bombing and I'm not standing near them and the Engineers... lol. Slayers, IBs, ASW (scary), WHs, etc, all form part of the train. To work out whether I would be better off stacking wounds or armour taismans in city I did a spreadsheet to work out what kinds of armour mitigation each class is likely going to do against me and worked out my EHP vs physical damage with armour talismans and then with wounds taismans. Wounds talismans won every time except vs something that had about 350 WS and no extra way of ignoring armour (I consider this to be the "baseline"). Note all calculations assumed I was debuffed by a WL because I likely will be.

This is the results: https://i.imgur.com/tx0ki4a.png. If anyone spots any errors in calculations please let me know so I can amend it. I *think* everything is correct but there are always things in this game that can catch you out. In addition, I know very little about ASW so had to piece together the spec based from Fenryl's posts (Assault stance plus double WS tactic). I have no idea if they stack extra WS on top as well; it seems they could come close to the cap if they wanted to.

The other thing to factor into this is that while damage mitigation increases your EHP, it can also be used to increase your effective heals. Based on a LOT of experience with city sieges I've found that the wounds + healing from me and other sources is enough to keep me alive long enough to force the enemy to switch target (especially if I'm kiting them away from the rest of their WB) or just keep me alive full stop. Usually when I die it's because I got hit by so many people that no amount of healing will help and/or the WB is wiping anyway (or I was half asleep and f**ked up... the usual reason tbh). The wounds also help out with getting tagged by a BW aoe, WH bullets, the token Swordmastrer deciding to hit me, etc.

The difference between armour talis and wounds talis is so small that even if it was a slight advantage for the armour talis it's still not IMO worth paying 4x-5x the price per talisman for a set of +180s.

Exactly the kind of math I was talking about. Thanks! But I'm still taking those shoulder skins...