Armor Use

[Dreading You]

What does armor do in GW besides change how your guy looks? Does it reduce damage? Also, is there even a armor counter to show your armor count? I haven't seen one yet......

[Mattinator]

What does armor do in GW besides change how your guy looks? Does it reduce damage? Also, is there even a armor counter to show your armor count? I haven't seen one yet......

armor gives you well.... armor, which in turn will reduce the damage that people do to you, but armor can also have some nifty bonuses depending on what class you're playing. If you want an armor count can't you just add the armor from all of your equiptment up? :roll:

[Dreading You]

Sure you could add them....but i thought thats was what we invented computers for 8)

Hey check out the The Game Mechanics guide (http://www.guildwarsguru.com/content/game-mechanics-id674.php) over at GW Guru it has some pretty good info.

Below is an excerpt of from what the guide says about armor in GW:

Armor and Defense

Once you know how much damage an attack is supposed to do, you can start thinking about the defense of the target, to figure out how much damage you will ×actually× do - or how much damage you will take when someone swings back. This means talking about how your armor works, as well as any defense boosting skills.


Hit Locations

Each player can use up to five pieces of armor - a chest piece, leggings, boots, gloves, and a hat. Any given attack on a player will hit one of these five locations, and only the armor at that location is considered - all the other pieces are ignored. Additional defensive measures, such as an armor-boosting enchantment or a shield, are added to the target's defense, regardless of hit location.

Exactly where a given attack will strike depends on the orientation of the target, and the type of attack that you are making. Skills that automatically hit the target, such as Lightning Strike, always use the target's chest piece when calculating the target's armor level. Weapon attacks and projectile spells, however, have a chance of hitting the target at any of the five hit locations. The exact percentages are dependent upon the orientation of the target - if you're attacking from above, you are more likely to get a head shot - but under most circumstances, the rough hit locations break down as follows:

Hit Location Percentages Hit Location Chance to Hit
Arms 12.5%
Head 12.5%
Feet 12.5%
Legs 25.0%
Torso 37.5%


Clearly, your chest piece is your most important piece of armor, as it receives the highest percentage of hits as well as being the target of auto-hit spells. At the same time, your non-torso armor will be subject to a proportionally higher percentage of physical attacks, as many of the elemental spells that you'll encounter go right for the body. Mixing up your armor sets might not be such a bad idea after all.


Effect of Armor

All that needs to be done now is to figure out what effect the target's armor is going to have on your damage. The relationship is a simple exponential function, the form of which you should be familiar with by now - simply add up all of the target's defenses and calculate:

[Defensive Adjustment] = 2((60 - [Armor Level]) / 40)


Or, in tabular form:

Effect of Armor on Damage Armor Level Defensive Adjustment
0 282.8%
5 259.4%
10 237.8%
15 218.1%
20 200%
25 183.4%
30 168.2%
35 154.2%
40 141.4%
45 129.7%
50 118.9%
55 109.1%
60 100%
Armor Level Defensive Adjustment
65 91.7%
70 84.1%
75 77.1%
80 70.7%
85 64.8%
90 59.5%
95 54.5%
100 50%
105 45.9%
110 42%
115 38.6%
120 35.4%
125 32.4%



As you can see from the table, the target will take exactly the amount of damage they are expected to when they have an armor level of 60, and adding or subtracting 40 defense will result in them suffering half or double damage, respectively.

So, for example, a 30 damage physical attack directed at a Warrior wearing Knight's Armor (80 AL, +20 AL vs. Physical) using a 15 AL shield, would deal:

30 × 2(( 60 - (80 + 20 + 15) ) / 40) = 11.6 damage


While that same attack on an Elementalist in Master's Armor (50 AL + 24 AL vs. Elemental) would deal:

30 × 2(( 60 - (50) ) / 40) = 35.7 damage


Note that the Elementalist actually suffered more damage than what the attack would have naturally dealt. This is the case whenever a target has a net armor rating below 60 - sometimes you ×want× your attacks to be affected by armor, so that you can reap the benefits of their pathetic AL!

[Spux]

Yup, that pretty much explains it all :D

[Litebringer]

:D my protection monk can go up to 144 armor