Return of Reckoning

Lindisfarne wrote: Thanks for your contribution to the discussion.

Slotting wounds on a tank doesn't contribute to the topic at all, nor is it advisable.

Important to know when looking on your characters armor value:

Your characters screen must show "Physical damage reduced: 100%" for the 75% cap.

for my perspectiv as a guard bot BG you need wounds on cap 7k rest i have thougnes (coz only wounds mitigate guard dmg and your block parry sux anyway on this lvl)

Don't give too much value to the % number offered by your character sheet. If you have 2000 armor and a White Lion/Marauder strips 1080, that leaves you with under 1000. Figure in 25% (about average) weapon skill figure to put you at 750, you are mitigating around 30% of physical damage.

Toughness is a very flat and linear modifier, and it doesn't yield value point for point like the % mitigation does, especially with how poorly Weapon Skill scales, but if you are already mitigating heavily with armor and resists, you can get a lot of out it.

A stat that I consider strongly undervalued is Initiative. It scales incredibly well until around 15%, so throwing on a few pieces with initiative until that value can yield a lot. On my DoK for instance, I go from 21% chance to be crit to ~16% with 24 initiative gain, effectively reducing anyone's crit chance by 5%, which has a lot of value, especially for Bright Wizard/Sorc or WH/WE, who have very high crit multipliers in most cases.

Point for point, Wounds is the strongest stat in the game for sheer effective hit points, but when you are taking constant damage and have to be healed through it, it doesn't compare to the other defensive stats.

I know a lot of people are stacking armor talis, even on tanks. The gear at this level doesn't compare to Sovereign or higher, which had ridiculous armor for its level range. If you can get around 2500 armor or so on a tank, it becomes very difficult for a melee train to kill you, which, in my opinion, makes your life a lot easier.

At the end of the day, you just need to consider which defensive stats best suit your situation and playstyle. If you are a ranged dps that only really needs to worry about burst damage, Wounds is probably the stat for you. If you are taking constant damage from a lot of sources, mitigation through avoidance/armor/resists/toughness is more valuable. If you are getting rekt by Guard and more Guard, Block/Parry/Wounds are your only options.

Also, try Deft Defender if you haven't already. It's the best 20 points I spent on any character. 18% chance to not take damage from any ranged damage dealer in the game.

If you have a pocket healer or good selfhealing - THOU would be better than WOU
If not - WOU

Have no idea what you'll do with armor talis - Armor protect against physical damage only also a lot of classes have armor ignore or a tons of weapon skill

SilverWF wrote:If you have a pocket healer or good selfhealing - THOU would be better than WOU
If not - WOU

Have no idea what you'll do with armor talis - Armor protect against physical damage only also a lot of classes have armor ignore or a tons of weapon skill

If you overstack armor, you can still have 75% mitigation through armor debuffs and Weapon Skill.

over stack armor and resistence it's a t4 thing i don't think is possible in t3 but i never tried and i dont know the t3 cap value well

The level 26 Armorcap should be 2860, Resistance 437.

Uchoo wrote:Don't give too much value to the % number offered by your character sheet. If you have 2000 armor and a White Lion/Marauder strips 1080, that leaves you with under 1000. Figure in 25% (about average) weapon skill figure to put you at 750, you are mitigating around 30% of physical damage.

Toughness is a very flat and linear modifier, and it doesn't yield value point for point like the % mitigation does, especially with how poorly Weapon Skill scales, but if you are already mitigating heavily with armor and resists, you can get a lot of out it.

A stat that I consider strongly undervalued is Initiative. It scales incredibly well until around 15%, so throwing on a few pieces with initiative until that value can yield a lot. On my DoK for instance, I go from 21% chance to be crit to ~16% with 24 initiative gain, effectively reducing anyone's crit chance by 5%, which has a lot of value, especially for Bright Wizard/Sorc or WH/WE, who have very high crit multipliers in most cases.

Point for point, Wounds is the strongest stat in the game for sheer effective hit points, but when you are taking constant damage and have to be healed through it, it doesn't compare to the other defensive stats.

I know a lot of people are stacking armor talis, even on tanks. The gear at this level doesn't compare to Sovereign or higher, which had ridiculous armor for its level range. If you can get around 2500 armor or so on a tank, it becomes very difficult for a melee train to kill you, which, in my opinion, makes your life a lot easier.

At the end of the day, you just need to consider which defensive stats best suit your situation and playstyle. If you are a ranged dps that only really needs to worry about burst damage, Wounds is probably the stat for you. If you are taking constant damage from a lot of sources, mitigation through avoidance/armor/resists/toughness is more valuable. If you are getting rekt by Guard and more Guard, Block/Parry/Wounds are your only options.

Also, try Deft Defender if you haven't already. It's the best 20 points I spent on any character. 18% chance to not take damage from any ranged damage dealer in the game.

Best post in this thread by far.