Why are vitality main stats so rare?

[Egrimm Van Horstmann.7921]

After checking the wiki, it turns out there's only four pve sets that main stat Vitality at max level? You can find all kinds of builds around main stat toughness, but not main stat vitality. I would love to run a couple professions with a better health meter that don't completely sack damage to do so, like Barbarian.

[Infusion.7149]

Because you don't want to give up damage to do so in most cases.

 

Plaguedoctor is probably what you want as it doesn't give up damage immensely in a pure condi build.

 

Wanderer isn't advisable unless you are building for WvW, don't run it fully on all pieces, need boon duration+ run runes for it, don't heal, and want some damage (i.e. revenant not running ventari).

[Egrimm Van Horstmann.7921]

Given toughness main with power and precision already exists that doesn't add up. In some scenarios like Living World or running solo there are people who'd prefer the health boost over toughness as some professions benefit more from it for trait synergy. Also it increases mounts health, meaning you're able to add a buffer to prevent being dismounted.

[Infusion.7149]

So you want a version of knight's (precision+power minor) / cavalier's (power + ferocity minor) , maybe settler's (condition damage & heal power minor) with vitality?

 

 

 

[Opopanax.1803]

I have wanted stat combos like the op is asking about before:

 

Vitality > power = precision

 

Power=condi > vitality=toughness

 

Power = vitality > precision = concentration

[Danikat.8537]

3 possible explanations I can think of:

 

1) If you want a defensive stat for your main one Anet assumes you're making a tank build. Yes even at launch - the 'no trinity' stuff referred to the fact that any profession can fulfil any role and we don't have to have a tank, a healer and 1+ DPS in each group, it's never been the case that you can't make a tank or a healer/support character. And if you are making a tank then you're more likely to want toughness because that's also the taunt in many cases. A lot of enemies, particularly vets and champs, will target the person with the highest toughness. (Although it's not consistent - others will go for highest damage or the one who hit them first/most recently or whoever is closest.)

 

2) Vitality helps against both conditions and direct damage, whereas toughness only helps against direct damage because conditions ignore armour, so it could be considered a more powerful stat and ones with vitality + 2/3 damage stats are considered too powerful.

 

3) Someone at Anet set a limit for how many stat combinations were going in at each release, everyone involved made a case for the ones they thought should be included and no one was prioritising vitality main stat combinations.

 

It is annoying, I recently noticed how few sets include vitality, and how many of them are paired with fairly niche stats. But then it seems like every time I decide on a stat combination I want I then find out it doesn't exist and I have to settle for something else.

[Etheri.5406]

It's anets way of creating a gearing tutorial for you : It's literally telling you main stat vitality is something you almost NEVER need.

If you think you need main stat vitality, you should probably redistribute your stats because you don't.

[Egrimm Van Horstmann.7921]

> @"Infusion.7149" said:

> So you want a version of knight's (precision+power minor) / cavalier's (power + ferocity minor) , maybe settler's (condition damage & heal power minor) with vitality?

>

>

>

 

Yeah basically.

[phs.6089]

> @"Opopanax.1803" said:

 

> Power=condi > vitality=toughness

Mix Soldier+Dire?

 

 

 

[Egrimm Van Horstmann.7921]

> @"Danikat.8537" said:

> 3 possible explanations I can think of:

>

> 1) If you want a defensive stat for your main one Anet assumes you're making a tank build. Yes even at launch - the 'no trinity' stuff referred to the fact that any profession can fulfil any role and we don't have to have a tank, a healer and 1+ DPS in each group, it's never been the case that you can't make a tank or a healer/support character. And if you are making a tank then you're more likely to want toughness because that's also the taunt in many cases. A lot of enemies, particularly vets and champs, will target the person with the highest toughness. (Although it's not consistent - others will go for highest damage or the one who hit them first/most recently or whoever is closest.)

>

> 2) Vitality helps against both conditions and direct damage, whereas toughness only helps against direct damage because conditions ignore armour, so it could be considered a more powerful stat and ones with vitality + 2/3 damage stats are considered too powerful.

>

> 3) Someone at Anet set a limit for how many stat combinations were going in at each release, everyone involved made a case for the ones they thought should be included and no one was prioritising vitality main stat combinations.

>

> It is annoying, I recently noticed how few sets include vitality, and how many of them are paired with fairly niche stats. But then it seems like every time I decide on a stat combination I want I then find out it doesn't exist and I have to settle for something else.

 

I don't think they're doing it on purpose, I would just like to see it open up for more diversity in build crafting. Though I know it probably won't happen breaking stats from gear would make the most sense by giving us the option to shift gear to fill different build requirements.

[Egrimm Van Horstmann.7921]

> @"phs.6089" said:

> > @"Opopanax.1803" said:

>

> > Power=condi > vitality=toughness

> Mix Soldier+Dire?

>

>

>

That is basically Trailblazers. It works for condi builds. Barbarians is clearly for power builds, yet only permitted in PVP. Marauder and Valkyrie are the only other power+vitality that don't add in toughness, con, or healing.

 

[phs.6089]

> @"Egrimm Van Horstmann.7921" said:

 

> That is basically Trailblazers. It works for condi builds. Barbarians is clearly for power builds, yet only permitted in PVP. Marauder and Valkyrie are the only other power+vitality that don't add in toughness, con, or healing.

>

 

Not exactly, Tralblaizer doen't have power and vitality is minor stat

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Trailblazer%27s_Intricate_Gossamer_Insignia

[Egrimm Van Horstmann.7921]

> @"phs.6089" said:

> > @"Egrimm Van Horstmann.7921" said:

>

> > That is basically Trailblazers. It works for condi builds. Barbarians is clearly for power builds, yet only permitted in PVP. Marauder and Valkyrie are the only other power+vitality that don't add in toughness, con, or healing.

> >

>

> Not exactly, Tralblaizer doen't have power and vitality is minor stat

> https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Trailblazer%27s_Intricate_Gossamer_Insignia

 

Both soldier and dire are minor stat vitality?

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Attribute_combinations

Granted no power, for condi that can work though. I have two equipped with Trailblazers and they do pretty good.

[phs.6089]

> @"Egrimm Van Horstmann.7921" said:

 

>

> Both soldier and dire are minor stat vitality?

> https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Attribute_combinations

> Granted no power, for condi that can work though. I have two equipped with Trailblazers and they do pretty good.

 

You are right, I was confused. But Op was asking for power+condi /vit+toughness

so imo soldier+dire is what they need

[lokh.2695]

Another point might be that defensive stats aren't that important in GW2 as in other games to begin with. The fact that every class has at least one decent heal skill(given, not for any build or any situaion but something that heals you for a good amount of HP either by burst or over time) and dodges, along with having multiple sources of damage mitigation(blocks, i-frames, barrier, reflects...) spread across all classes, makes having a lot of HP or tons of toughness less important. You see this in enemy design in the form of hits that deal so much damage that it wouldn't matter if you had 12k or 15k HP because you're supposed to dodge the attack to survive. I have played my guard on knights, soldiers, berserkers and other different stats over time and I found the difference between surviving 2 hits of an attack with bersi gear and 3 hits with knights just isn't worth the loss of dmg. DPS isn't important as a mechanic in GW2 outside of Raids, CMs or WvW. You can do T4 fracs, 5ppl with full nomads gear, you'll take far longer but you can complete it. What DPS does is, it shortens the amount of time you have to fight. This is not just important for the loot per time ration, but also factors into the groups overall concentration and focus and also offers less time to make mistakes. As an example, if you have a boss fight with a mechanic that will wipe your group if failed and the mechanic occurs every 45seconds, your group will have to succeed at the mechanic more often if the fight takes you longer, giving your group more oppurtunity to fail at the mechanic.

Toughness is more important than vitality on a mechanical level(as has been stated if there's a tank mechanic it usually revolves around toughness) or, in the case of WvW/PvP, because of the game mode where you most likely will not die from one or two hits that you could dodge but because of the many hits you take over the course of a fight.

Also having high Vit is only worth it in solo open world if you also have high healing power, sacrificing more stats to defense, lowering dmg and so on. I wouldn't mind having more options/stat-combinations in the game though. Some of the PvP exclusives seem really fun and I wouldn't mind if they were available in other modes as well. Maybe if they added these stats but no ascended gear for it,caping it at exotic, it wouldn't challenge balancing as much, but what do I know.

 

I think the best way is to mix up stats, skills, traits and upgrades working with what we have at the moment. I'm not a big theory crafter so I don't have any clever suggestions as to what could be what the OP is looking for.

[starlinvf.1358]

I'm more inclined to believe the stat combos from Core were based on PvP balance. Stat combos were very carefully selected to ensure there wasn't an ideal, catch all combo for most builds that could output both damage and soak damage. Incidentally thats what Celestial was, and it dominated in classes that could make use of all of the stats. Its also why it got pulled from PvP, and then later introduced with a significant nerf to its stat totals.

 

Anet recognized they painted themselves into a corner with Vipers stats, and since then many of the new stat combos were pushing to get more support builds into the meta. Consider Grieving should had been a new dominating damage stat, it ended up falling flat because condition damage just scales so much better then power damage when fully invested.

 

So this raises the question..... what build could abuse 2600 Vit? The first obvious suspect is Bunker Necro; but would it be effective?