New HR pvp set analysis and suggestions

kunekaden · January 2014

Final Edit to this post:

After extensive testing, I have found that the new set is great as-is.
(Assuming the bugs are worked out.)
My analysis was made too narrow by focusing only on the 4 armor pieces, and not including overall potential stats from all item slots and boons.

^ The above statement only holds if the set bonus works as it is currently implemented on test: weapon and offhand counting as part of the 4-set.

original post left as-is, below.

================================

Overall Analysis vs. Master Predator

This armor set seems to have been designed to give a more defensive option to Hunter Rangers. As you will see below, the set essentially takes a chunk away from the offensive capabilities of Master Predator and puts it into a nicely balanced range of defensive stats.

I think this is a great step forward. The devs set out to create alternate pvp sets (with tenacity) in order to give more variety to players in pvp, and that is exactly what this does - in very black and white terms. Bravo!

Offensive Stats vs. Master Predator

Power 1162 vs. 515 (+647)
Crit 1144 vs. 1162 (+18)
ArPen 1144 vs. 0 (-1144)

Total offensive stats: 2324 vs. 2803 (-479)

I think that it's great that the devs have listened to the HR player feedback of "too much armor penetration!", but a pvp set is absolutely not the place for this to happen. HRs are great at penetrating armor, and removing this stat completely will really hinder one of our primary functions.

If I were allocating stats on this set of armor with the intention of players actually wanting to use it for pvp, I would make the offensive stats look a bit like this (working within the dev-allocated 2324 points, while still keeping stats different from Master Predator)

Power 415
Crit 1062
ArPen 847

Further keeping in mind that the dev who allocated stats seems to want to increase power and crit, but decrease ArPen;

Power 633 (+18)
Crit 1162 (+18)
ArPen 529 (-615)

Defensive Stats vs. Master Predator

AC 8 vs. 9 (-1)
Defense 784 vs. 1170 (-386)
Deflect 546 vs. 0 (+546)
Regen 546 vs. 0 (+546)
Movemnt 0 vs. 113 (-113)
Tenacity 760 vs. 708

Total Defensive Stats: 2646 vs. 1991 (+645)

EDIT: After checking the other new pvp sets, it seems that the lowered AC is a mistake - all others seem to have the same AC as Gauntlgrym set.

So I included movement as a defensive stat because it really is just that. The removal of movement speed is justified by the increase of the potency of the 4 set bonus by +5% movement speed.

Overall, the bonuses are very even across all defensive stats. I especially like the inclusion of Deflect on a set that gets a 4-set bonus that depends on deflect (always wondered why Master Predator's has no deflect).

One of the factors that draws some HRs to the Master Predator set is its ability to reach defensive hallmarks like ~1700 regen and over 30% damage resistance (high def). If i were to redesign the defensive bonuses with this in mind (again, within the constraints the nameless dev has imposed), it would look something like this;

AC 9 (+-0)
Defense 904 (-266)
Deflect 650 (+650)
Regen 228 (+228)

4-set Bonus

Movement +20%
chance to regen 2% of max HP when deflecting an attack

I've said it before, but I'll say it again; The healing aspect of this 4-set bonus essentially reads "...a chance to regenerate 1% of your max HP..." Why? Healing suppression. One can not deflect an incoming attack in pvp without being under the influence of healing suppression. Hopefully the %chance of triggering this effect has been increased to nearly 100% to compensate (master predator seems to have roughly 75% chance to trigger this effect).

EDIT: The % chance to proc the healing effect still seems to be around 75%

verilos · January 2014

This new pvp set is actually garbage as you hesitated to put it.
So little armor penetration... Only fools will use it in pvp. Especially because of the 10-20 % mitigation buff everyone will get from tenacity.

Most people don't seem to understand how mitigation works in relation to armor penetration.
Look at this simple example: Suppose player X has 50% mitigation, when player Y attacks X he does only half the dps he is capable of.
Now suppose player Y has 50% armor penetration: He does 100% more dps than before, not 50% as most people assume.

The higher the mitigation of the target the more armor penetration you need because the damage increase up until 0% mitigation is not 1:1 with armor penetration.

I haven't done the math yet but it's very likely and stacking to 4000 arp and beyond may be optimal, need to be carefully compared with crit and power to see which will win.

But considering now every sentinel will be walking around with 70-80 % mitigation (maybe more?) and HR with 70% (solo 1v1) armor penetration has never been more important.
It might even happen such that GPF will now do more damage in pvp than vorpal because of the 9% debuff.

Also poor CWs will not get a taste of tenacity because the High Vizier set is something they simply can't give up now.

Example:
GWF with 80% mitigation, your armor penetration will take away, lets say, 30%. 50% left over.
Do you do 30% more dps? Lets see:
0.2dps before, 0.5dps after. 0.3/0.2 = 150% ... that's right. 30% armor penetration in this case gives 150% dps increase from 0% armor penetration.

So who will use this new pathetic set?

kunekaden · January 2014

wow, 200 views and 1 reply?
Really?

Too much text? Not flamebait enough?

I do hope the devs have taken a look. The 8 AC is a bug, so at least look into that.

vvv459 · January 2014

No arpen? Well, the HR will have to make do without this new set. It's unusable.

Although that regen would allow to replace one ring with something other than the beast one.
Probably some other changes.

fauust01 · January 2014

TL : DR

/sorry

kaylos29 · January 2014

ArPen as a stat gets really expensive after 3000. If you can get around 3000 while using the new pvp set, it is superior damage wise.

Example:
2 pc Master Predator (chest+arms)= 391+251+450=1092
2 pc Shadow Tracker = 463 (probably going to have 4 pc, but only 2 needed for the arpen)
Dread Ring Boon = 250
Rank 59 Lantern = 180
Shirt+Pants=184
4 rank 7 Dark Enchants = 740
Total = 2909

With a 17 Str, that would put you right around 33% ArPen. Campfire another 1%.

These are not too hard to get and leave room for improvement. You could get another 140 upgrading to rank 8s on the darks, and another 120 maxing out the artifact. Theoretically with rank 10s, you could get up to 3489 with only 4 offensive slots. Switch out some gear to go a little more offensive and you could still get to 4000. But, going all the way to around 3850 wounld only get you another 3%.

voltomey · January 2014

you guys can just use 2 parts from master pred and use 4 piece of this set and boom your armor pen problems are solved and why wine about armor pne stacking with this class when almost all the bow sets give it. it will be easy to hit efficient armor pen lvles there is also plague fire terror for you to use.I remember anouther hypacrit thread saying there was to much armor pen on the bow sets and gear hahahahah.

kaylos29 · January 2014

voltomey wrote: »

you guys can just use 2 parts from master pred and use 4 piece of this set and boom your armor pen problems are solved and why wine about armor pne stacking with this class when almost all the bow sets give it. it will be easy to hit efficient armor pen lvles there is also plague fire terror for you to use.I remember anouther hypacrit thread saying there was to much armor pen on the bow sets and gear hahahahah.

The consensus on Plaguefire and Terror was taht one was 9% damage boost and teh other a 4% damage boost regardless of your opponent's Damage Resistance and your Armor Penetration. Considering every other defense/mitigation reducing ability works that way, I have no reason to doubt it. That means those 2 are irrelevant to the relative comparison of ArPen and how it affects DR.

Still, you are right that you can get plenty of ArPen even using the Shadow Tracker set. ArPen gets real expensive at high levels, so much so that Power actually passes it for damage increase on many abilities. (except Rapid Strike which has a ridiculously low Power to damage conversion rate)

Edit: not only that, he is misunderstanding how PvP resistance works. PvP resistance is multiplicative, not additive. So 20% pvp resistance and 50% DR would effectively give you 60% less damage.

If anything, the issue with the pvp gear is the loads of crit on it. Crit will be really bad without a P. Vorpal against anyone with pvp resist. 20% pvp resist reduces 75% crit severity to 40%. Even with P. Vorpal, it is 80% instead of 125%. The set could use a reduction in crit and another boost to Defense/Deflect/Regen

kunekaden · January 2014

Some replies, Fantastic!

After my last post, I actually went to the test shard and started hammering out my gear options using this set.
The end result?

Increased base damage
Increased resist ignored
Increased deflect chance
Increased max HP
Increased tenacity
Very slightly reduced damage resist
Very slightly reduced % of HP regenerated

I won't post the actual numbers, because I'm sure you'll all have as much fun as I did figuring it all out.

In short, the new set is great as-is. (assuming the bugs are worked out)
My analysis was made too narrow by focusing only on the 4 armor pieces, and not including overall potential stats from all item slots and boons.

^ The above statement only holds if the set bonus works as it is currently implemented on test: weapon and offhand counting as part of the 4-set.

kaylos29 · January 2014

I thought the same thing when I first saw it. Where is the ArPen I thoguht. You gotta have ArPen for PvP right? And ArPen is great in pvp. It is just that the cost per 1% gets exorbantly high after 3K. My rule of thumb is that if I get more than 1% damage increase from the same amount of power stats as I do ArPen stats, I will go with Power, especially since that damage will transfer to targets I ahve already reduced to 0 armor. ArPen is so cheap early on though, that nearly never happens. Rangers can get really high numbers though pretty easily, so they actually hit that wall.

The only class that should be sporting such high Resist Ignore numbers (ie over 40%) should be GWFs, since with feats they can get 17.2% from Constitution alone. Throw in 24-26% for having 2600-3000 ArPen and wham you are at 41-43%. GWF damage range on weapons is so high, power is really bad for them for everything except deep gash, which is taking the double crit whammy to damage (since all deep gash procs are crits) with pvp resist. So they can sacrifice power for ArPen.

synozeer · January 2014

The devs said that these stats may not be final and that they are also creating a few other sets with different stats, so there's no reason to really work on the perfect itemization at the moment (unless you're bored).

vvv459 · January 2014

kunekaden2 wrote: »

Some replies, Fantastic!

After my last post, I actually went to the test shard and started hammering out my gear options using this set.
The end result?

Increased base damage
Increased resist ignored
Increased deflect chance
Increased max HP
Increased tenacity
Very slightly reduced damage resist
Very slightly reduced % of HP regenerated

I won't post the actual numbers, because I'm sure you'll all have as much fun as I did figuring it all out.

In short, the new set is great as-is. (assuming the bugs are worked out)
My analysis was made too narrow by focusing only on the 4 armor pieces, and not including overall potential stats from all item slots and boons.

How did you manage increased resist ignore WHILE increasing max HP and base damage with that set?
Right at the top of my head I don't see how you could do it with 4 offense slots. Not to mention sacrifice a lot of power to make up for the armor penetration.

kaylos29 · January 2014

synozeer wrote: »

The devs said that these stats may not be final and that they are also creating a few other sets with different stats, so there's no reason to really work on the perfect itemization at the moment (unless you're bored).

We're bored :P. Would be nice if they released another set style and had one of each set at each tier so you wouldn't have to pick and choose your tier based on which set you wanted for your build.

voltomey · January 2014

vvv459 wrote: »

How did you manage increased resist ignore WHILE increasing max HP and base damage with that set?
Right at the top of my head I don't see how you could do it with 4 offense slots. Not to mention sacrifice a lot of power to make up for the armor penetration.

4 rank 8 darks and radiant enchants and t2 pvp accessories you can get about 3k armor pen with out even batting a eye and have all defensive accessories. go back though the thread and a few other have already put light on it

New HR pvp set analysis and suggestions

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