Are there any in-game protection value differences with light, medium & heavy armors?

[delar]

In the FAQ it says:

There are 3 types of armor in GW2: light, medium and heavy armor.

Light armor can be worn by scholar professions, medium armor by adventurer professions and heavy armor by soldier professions.

My question: Are there any in-game stat or protection value differences between light, medium and heavy armor or are the differences only cosmetic? Does heavy armor have more in-game "protection" value than medium armor and light armor?

[Malthurius]

I never payed attention to it, I'm not sure, I'd like to know as well.

[Delias]

I want to say 'no' or 'if there is a difference, it's very slight', but as I'm not 100% sure I won't bother. However if you want to know for the purposes of building a character that can take a lot of hits, the 3 highest health pools are Warrior/Necromancer/Engineer. Guardians are also very survival friendly due to damage reduction and knockbacks. The necromancer (obviously) is a light armor wearer, yet is one of the least squishy professions in the game due to not taking any HP damage while in Death Shroud and having miscellaneous life stealing skills.

[delar]

I want to say 'no' or 'if there is a difference, it's very slight', but as I'm not 100% sure I won't bother. However if you want to know for the purposes of building a character that can take a lot of hits, the 3 highest health pools are Warrior/Necromancer/Engineer. Guardians are also very survival friendly due to damage reduction and knockbacks. The necromancer (obviously) is a light armor wearer, yet is one of the least squishy professions in the game due to not taking any HP damage while in Death Shroud and having miscellaneous life stealing skills.

I read somewhere that elementalists that specialized in earth magic were very "tank-ish". Can you make a rogue that was defensively focused?

[Delias]

I read somewhere that elementalists that specialized in earth magic were very "tank-ish". Can you make a rogue that was defensively focused?

Thieves are one of the ones that couldn't really take hits, but their survivability was still high simply because of the utility they had. Mesmers also fall into that category. Can't build them to take hits, but can build them to not get hit. (Not through dodge rating or anything like that, there is nothing like that in GW2. Through stealths and clones and general "stop hitting me!" skills)

[Lucky_]

Passive survivability is dependent on two factors: Armour class and health pool. The game has three of each.

I'd assume that armour works similar to armour in GW1. There armour reduced incoming physical and elemental damage, but didn't impact chaos damage, life drain and "no attribute" damage. The reduceable damage taken differences between armour classes were very dramatic in GW1, and I suspect they will remain meaningful in GW2.

[Deleted]

There is no direct "armor rating" on items, but there is this:

Armor (player statistic)
Armor is a value that is listed on the hero panel. It is equal to Defense plus Toughness attribute, and will determine how much incoming damage will be reduced." ~source

Defense (statistic)
Defense is a value that is listed on the hero panel. It is primarily increased by equipping better armor, and together with Toughness attribute, will determine how much incoming damage will be reduced. ~source

Toughness:
Toughness is a defensive character attribute. Each attribute point put into toughness increases the armor of the character by one, which improves the character's ability to withstand direct damage. See the link for trait lines that increase Toughness. ~source

[Valeron]

Typically heavy armor will have a greater defense value than medium armor which is greater than light armor. So there is a difference, just not sure how much of a difference it is in gameplay.

[Delias]

Here, found this.
http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/...armor-effects/

Heavy Armor is only 294 "Toughness" in relation to Light Armor. If both parties had no bonus Toughness, that's only a 13.7% damage resistance advantage. If they had a bonus of 900, it's only a 9.7% damage resistance advantage. Really Armor Types aren't much of a difference.

[Valeron]

Well here snipet from an older Guru post that shows the difference in armor defense values at level 80

> Heavy Boots - 185
> Heavy Coat - 369
> Heavy Gloves - 185
> Heavy Helm - 123
> Heavy Leggings - 246
> Heavy Shoulders - 123
= 1231 Defense total.

> Medium Boots - 160
> Medium Coat - 344
> Medium Gloves - 160
> Medium Helm - 99
> Medium Leggings - 222
> Medium Shoulders - 99
= 1084 Defense total.

> Light Boots - 136
> Light Coat - 320
> Light Gloves - 136
> Light Helm - 74
> Light Leggings - 197
> Light Shoulders - 74
= 937 Defense total.

[omlech]

There's a 7% difference between each armor weight.

[Yoshimiko]

It's very slight.

Toughness has a much larger impact on survival.

[terrahero]

Depends how well armor reduces incomming damage. But i got major traits that offer just 5% dmg reduction, and require certain conditions before they becomes active. So, "just" 9.7% dmg resistance advantage?

[Fencers]

So slight as to be meh. Toughness and Vitality are the actual survival stats. Armor gained from, um, armor is pretty small in the grand scheme of things.

[styopa]

There's a 7% difference between each armor weight.

This^.

Light armor to medium, +7.something%
Medium to heavy +7.something%
Light to heavy +15%

Light armor is like 1575 pts, heavy is 1853.

Armor is not going to save your life by itself, I think that's the point.
PERSONALLY, I think that armors should be more effective, BUT heavier armor reduces your endurance gain, and slows your dodge. But it's not my game.

[Delias]

This^.

Light armor to medium, +7.something%
Medium to heavy +7.something%
Light to heavy +15%

Light armor is like 1575 pts, heavy is 1853.

Armor is not going to save your life by itself, I think that's the point.
PERSONALLY, I think that armors should be more effective, BUT heavier armor reduces your endurance gain, and slows your dodge. But it's not my game.

It's 13.7% between light and heavy, according to the math in the post I linked earlier. And that is assuming you have 0 toughness, it's significantly less if you have some toughness (9.7% if you have 900 toughness)

[Malthurius]

Does armor behave in the same way it does in GW1? I assume so or else hitting for 2x your max damage on critters would make even less sense.

For those unfamiliar, in GW1 having no armor didn't mean you just had no protection, it also meant that you took extra damage. In order to take normal damage you had to have at least 60 armor, which is what cloth wearing classes get at max level. Is this the same as in GW2? Do the scholar professions take 100% damage, adventurers take 97%, and Soldiers take 85% when wearing their highest armor values possible? Are armor values static like that?