Armor vs Vitality

[shoop]

I am wondering how I should balance Armor (damage reduction) vs Vitality bonuses in my equipment choices.

I notice that Armor bonuses tend to be valued higher than Vitality bonuses. I don't see why. My reasoning is as follows: armor / vitality bonuses only matter if they make the difference between life and death. Typically, on hard difficulty and somewhat later in the game, my estimate is that tough enemies tend to kill you in five or fewer hits (often less). Suppose you have an armor bonus of X, that will save you at most 5X vitality. Thus, an armor bonus of X is worse than a vitality bonus of 5X. This would mean that an item or talent that grants Vitality +50 is better than an item or skill that grants Armor +10. Suddenly those +Vit items do not look so bad anymore?!

 

I can think of two reasons why the above reasoning may not be altogether valid: at a given vitality regeneration, you will recover a larger percentage of your total vitality if you focus on armor rather than vitality. Thus, in long fights the balance may swing more in the favour of higher armor. The other reason would be if you get a damage reduction percentage boost, which would multiply the flat armor rating of all your items. Still, I don't think these two objections are strong enough to kill my overall argument.

 

Is what I say above accurate? If not, how should I balance armor vs vitality?

Edited June 7, 2011 by shoop

[LHammonds]

Good question. I have not played this game yet but I was curious about this myself.

 

Here are some existing topics about this:

 

Armor vs Vitality @ techarena.in

Armor vs Vitality @ GameFAQs

[swordsman5]

Interesting links LHammonds thanks, although it would appear that there still isn't a definite consensus from the posters, I'd guess that individual play style has a far bigger impact than just the general maths. I'll probably go with my tried and trusted method......experiment, save often and re-start the game at least a dozen times!

[shoop]

Interesting links LHammonds thanks, although it would appear that there still isn't a definite consensus from the posters...

 

yeah those links were quite relevant, although unfortunately everyone there is just shouting opinions at each other :-) I did get the sense that my interpretation of percentage based damage reduction is accurate: I believe that it multiplies your armor value. Example:

 

- armor A

- damage reduction R%

- effective armor E = A + A*R/100

- you are hit for D damage

- actual vitality lost is D-E

 

I will test whether this is correct in a few hours. How much percentage-based damage reduction can you reasonably get in the game? I know there is the "cover" ability that you get if you always stay inside Triss' butterfly sphere, which grants 10% damage reduction. But how much can you get from items? My guess is that it is hard to get it higher than something like 50%.

[redneck1st]

Interesting links LHammonds thanks, although it would appear that there still isn't a definite consensus from the posters, I'd guess that individual play style has a far bigger impact than just the general maths. I'll probably go with my tried and trusted method......experiment, save often and re-start the game at least a dozen times!

 

Thats how I've been getting through my first time playing it and so far it's worked pretty good.<G> If all else fails re-load and try something new.<LOL>