Toughness vs Vitality

[Anacrusis]

I've been thinking that vitality is better overall than toughness. Why? Assume one guy has toughness gear and another guy vitality gear. If you run into an enemy that does massive condition damage, the toughness gear will not help you at all. Toughness only stops direct damage.

However, if you run into an enemy that does purely direct damage, the vitality still helps you because you can absorb more of it. Therefore, it seems vitality would be better overall because it helps against all types of enemies. Although toughness is better if the opponent is strictly direct damage, its useless against condition damage.

The big question is how much does toughness reduce direct damage. Example. Let's say the toughness geared guy has 10000 hp's and the vitality geared guy has 15000.

If the toughness guy gets hit for 10000 direct damage but his gear reduces that to 5000, he will have 5000 hp left.

If the vitality guy gets hit for 10000, he will have 5000 hp left. This is a wash.

I'd like to know if this is an accurate representation of direct damage. However, if it turns out the toughness guy only takes 3000 damage when hit for 10000 , then toughness is much better for direct damage. I assume toughness should be way better against direct damage to balance it out.

We know vitality is better against condition damage, because the toughness guy would be dead if hit for 10000 of condition damage while the vitality guy has 5000 hp left.

[Littlefeather]

I've been thinking that vitality is better overall than toughness. Why? Assume one guy has toughness gear and another guy vitality gear. If you run into an enemy that does massive condition damage, the toughness gear will not help you at all. Toughness only stops direct damage.

However, if you run into an enemy that does purely direct damage, the vitality still helps you because you can absorb more of it. Therefore, it seems vitality would be better overall because it helps against all types of enemies. Although toughness is better if the opponent is strictly direct damage, its useless against condition damage.

Run into any melee or ranger with only vit...

Im a melee type player so its natural for me to value toughness over vit.

[Anacrusis]

Why is toughness better than vitality for a melee player? You get hit with an equal amount of dd and condition damage over time from all classes. The toughness doesn't help you against condition damage, but the vitality helps you against both.

[Michael5188]

Well I think it's worth mentioning with toughness your healing ability doesn't lose any potency.

[Toc]

Example. Let's say the toughness geared guy has 10000 hp's and the vitality geared guy has 15000.

If the toughness guy gets hit for 10000 direct damage but his gear reduces that to 5000, he will have 5000 hp left.

If the vitality guy gets hit for 10000, he will have 5000 hp left. This is a wash.

Then they both get healed for 5000 hps...
Toughness guy is 100% hps...
Vit guy is 75% hps...

[Gilymonster]

You make a point, but when it comes down to it, anybody that is in close combat should use toughness over vitality.

[Anacrusis]

I did not consider healing that certainly balances things out. Also, conditions can be removed but dd cannot so it's probably well balanced overall. Thanks guys.

[hlindegar]

Then they both get healed for 5000 hps...
Toughness guy is 100% hps...
Vit guy is 75% hps...

Those percentages aren't really relevant. It's the actual health amount remaining that matters. If two characters have 1k health, that doesn't put 1 guy whose max is 2k at a disadvantage to the guy whose max is 1.5k.

[JKRaven]

I have a Ele and a Ranger that use the exact same build style. Power, toughness, condition damage for my traits and on my items I stack power, vitality and condition damage. So I add a little toughness and vitality and it works out great.

However, I stack condition damage for the exact reason you said, DoT's are OP.

[Lagger]

Toughness wins over vitality anytime you're good at removing conditions from yourself. You can't remove direct damage, but having conditions on you is your choice.