simple rule for armor vs vitality tradeoff - Page 2

On May 26 2012 18:19 Firebolt145 wrote:
I don't mean to sound rude but is there a tl;dr version for those like me that are too groggy to comprehend numbers atm?

On May 26 2012 19:05 Klive5ive wrote:

It absolutely doesn't do that. It just doesn't work because you've just ignored all the other variables!

If you want to compare the utility of armor vs health you need to consider these factors:

Health is made better by armor,dodge,block,resistance and +%life heals.
Armor is made by better by healing amounts but made worse by dodge.

So a lifesteal, +heal per hit character gains more from armor.
Whilst a +%lifeheal, high dodge character gains more from health.
Due to current itemisation however, +resistance is usually best.

On May 26 2012 22:11 Markwerf wrote:


you just don't know what you are talking about..

If you are just looking at EHP this equation works just fine. Ofcourse more reduction instead of vitality makes healing effects better and some skills complicate the situation but for the rest it works fine.
armor isn't made worse by dodge for example and +%life heals are just as good on vitality as armor.


The equation works very well for doing what the OP was aiming at, comparising +vit on items to +armor. Generally a point of vitality on items is much better then a point of armor for EHP but by how much is hard to gauge normally. With this equation you can estimate it pretty well. The tradeoff of healing effects and other skills based on your stats is something else but for a rough guideline it works well.
It's just something to think off next time in the AH you have to compare a 300 armor item to a 200 armor item + 50 vitality. If your build doesn't make extensive use of healing or armor points the latter will usually be better but it depends on how much you already have in each stat.
The equation works in the same way for intelligence and resistance actually. You can just replace the armor in it with intelligence or with 10* resist.

The lesson here basically is that +vitality and +all resist are the best item affixes to improve your EHP. +vitality is usually straight up best (unless you already have a lot of that) and +all resist is great because the items give huge amounts of that compared to other stats.

Overall best affixes from what i've seen in the AH are:
- your characters primary (dex/arm/str) as it provides decent boost to both DPS and EHP
- + all resist (provides best boost to damage reduction and thus good boost to EHP, while keeping healing effects efficient)
- + vit (provides best boost to EHP, reduces effectiveness of EHP though)
- + attack speed (provides best boost to DPS plus improves microability of your character)

Those four affixes are the best to look for in general along with a high DPS weapon. Armor is good too obviously but dropping a few armor points to get bonusses in any of the four above is worth it most times. Ideally you balance those 4 affixes a bit over your items as spreading out is more effective then focussing on one (on itself they are linear, with eachother they are multiplicative basically).

On May 27 2012 00:55 Klive5ive wrote:

You're right sorry.
I was in a hurry and got muddled when the OP said %lifeheal is better with health. It doesn't matter whether it's a multiplicative or additive effect.

However, I still don't think it's a good formula because of healing and skills; your conclusion doesn't apply to everyone.
A heal spamming monk would benefit a lot more from armor than vitality for example.
Attack speed is not great on everyone either.