1000 HP or 200 AC?

[bobokatt1970]

as the title states.. which would you rather have.. 1000 extra HP or 200 AC?  Just jugging items and trying to figure it out.  Was looking for the calc that shows what we think each AC point is worth but I am getting so many conflicting results based on what zones etc i am fighting in.  I tank but also raid.

[wildwaters]

A magelo with current gear, an idea of what you'd switch to, your current raid content and whether you'd be gaining mana , mod 2's or heroics would give us a better idea of how to help yah >.<

[Zunar]

as the title states.. which would you rather have.. 1000 extra HP or 200 AC?  Just jugging items and trying to figure it out.  Was looking for the calc that shows what we think each AC point is worth but I am getting so many conflicting results based on what zones etc i am fighting in.  I tank but also raid.

If you have a decent amount of Hps already, I'd say go with the AC.
I think if you tank alot, you'll like the extra AC.

[Kanan]

/shrug.. for my personal rule of thumb, those 2 are the same.  I use a 1ac = 5 hp ratio in gear evaluations, as a bst.  The other points brought up are important as well.  But when making these evaluations, there are situationals involved too: are you tanking?  Are you just getting pounded by AEs?

Given former, the good ole ele orb or metal orbs are better (I lose resists with metal and don't like being off 700s across the board).  Given the latter, Growth is probably better.  I won't use it because I don't like having to think about my orb other than checking to see if it's been drained.

[Hzath]

200 AC

[Nusa]

There is no single answer for this, and not enough info to answer for you specifically. The value of either depends on where you are now and what roles you need to play. But to pick a scenario, I'll assumie you're 85 with a fair number of AA's and want to tank for a group in Old Bloodfields:

If you have 30,000 hp and 3,000 AC now, then I'd say the AC would be the better choice. 3K AC doesn't do well in that content.

If you have 20,000 hp and 4,000 AC now, then HP would likely be the better choice. Good AC doesn't help much if you run out of hitpoints before the heals land.

Rules of thumb are nice, but you have to change them as your situation and environment changes.

For myself, I normally walk around with ~35K hp, ~4200 AC buffed using an elemental orb, which seems a comfortable balance to me. However, in a few seconds I can switch to a metal orb, which turns me into ~34K hp, ~4400 AC. So I can actually make a 1000hp/200ac trade when I feel the need. And I can add about 100 AC (and some  hp) with personal tribute as well. (And if one were truly desperate to stay alive, they might consider trading a lot of DPS to use a shield, but I don't do that.)

(I'm still 700's on resists even with metal, but I do have to use the old resist clickies to get there. With elemental, I'm 700's completely unbuffed.)

[Wolfcaller]

AC

[bobokatt1970]

Ok so I have been testing and testing and trying.  For more info and background... I have just over 4200 AA... I am maxed, all my mods such as shielding, avoidance etc are maxed and over maxed – dodge is V and block is V.  The original post was based on Power sources... in other words if I use the Pure Metal my AC is 4400 and if I use the Pure Elemental one, my AC drops roughly by 200 but my HP go up by roughly 1000. 

I am still using Pure Elemental for raiding... that is a no brainer... I don't tank in raids and if I do... it means something has gone seriously wrong and we are all pooched. 

When I solo to get more Glyph AA I have noted or noticed a decent return by the increased AC in places like Beza and Frostcrypt.  It's not huge.... don't even think so.    At times it "seems" to matter and other times it seems to make no freaking dif at all.  At the end of the day from working it now for 2 weeks straight... seems AC is king for "most" things but it seems to not matter for some others – actually that seems strange and contradictory but there is no way to state it otherwise.

Guess since we are not tanks... our mitigation sucks or is not up to par with actual tanks, we can hope for a best case scenario in which our AC helps out but I can't seem to put a 100% stamp on it -- so it's situational.

[Khauruk]

It always helps, it's just a matter of playerAC vs. mobATK, random number generator, and flawed eyeballs.  Sometimes it may seem to help more, and sometimes you're more likely to say it helps.  The problem is though that you would need to do an hour of parsing w/ the two ac values to get a reasonable inkling of it's benefit.

[AbyssalMage]

Ok so I have been testing and testing and trying.  For more info and background... I have just over 4200 AA... I am maxed, all my mods such as shielding, avoidance etc are maxed and over maxed – dodge is V and block is V.  The original post was based on Power sources... in other words if I use the Pure Metal my AC is 4400 and if I use the Pure Elemental one, my AC drops roughly by 200 but my HP go up by roughly 1000. 

When I solo to get more Glyph AA I have noted or noticed a decent return by the increased AC in places like Beza and Frostcrypt.  It's not huge.... don't even think so.    At times it "seems" to matter and other times it seems to make no freaking dif at all.  At the end of the day from working it now for 2 weeks straight... seems AC is king for "most" things but it seems to not matter for some others – actually that seems strange and contradictory but there is no way to state it otherwise.

It could be huge between Frostcrypt and Beza due to mob atk and other hidden factors you can't see.  Mainly what I've gained from countless posts is that a level 70 NPC from TBS will be totally different from a lvl 70 NPC from SoD.  This is really noticeable for us cause we tend to fight in older zones simply cause mobs have less HP's.  They tried to do away with this back when they made archytype NPC's and then add special "flavor" to them, but they seem to still go in and mess with the #'s making newer content harder than older content even though the NPC is the same "type" and level.  Another example is how ATK has "more" importance now than before SoF/SoD because it stagnated so badly.

I do the 1 AC = 4 hp's Thing, but prefer Hybrid Aug's "incase I'm wrong" mentality

[Grbage]

Reason you will see a big difference between TBS zones and SoF zones is mobs got their first attk bump in ages with SoF. The equation essentially takes into account your AC vs mob attk rating. Mob attack ratings had been flat for years so we reached a point where mobs were hitting for minimum (DI1) damage a lot. With SoF the devs were aiming to make mobs hit mid range (DI10). So, until you reach the point where mobs hit for minimum most the time (DI1) AC will always help.

So, IMO go AC.