CS vs Gab

[_JB_]

Here's a series of tests I did today after some finidings I did earlier this week regarding Gab and CS defences.
Basically I just got attaked with differnt gear on and varying skill with r-hits.
The weapon used was a Raptor+6 with NO bonus, so no poison dmg. (167 AP)
The shields used were Chitin Shield+5 and Gab's Blessing+1 rebirth.
The attacks used were normal r-hits and Howling Sword: Inflict 300% damage with no chance of failure and 200 additional damage.
These test were done with the shields as the only variable per test and additional not mentioned dmg-reducing skills/items (pathos gloves/absoluteness/matchness) were not used.

These were the results:

As you can see the in the results Gab only came out better in the r-hit test. This is because the extra AC from the Gab makes up for the weapon defence loss.
However, as soon as a skill is being used with additional dmg (like the warrior skills and BP skills) the AC does not reduce the additional damage at all. The weapon defence of the CS does however.

We also see that the effect of the CS is strengthened with the more weapon defence used (test 2 vs test 4) and that the addition AC buff does not influence the effect of the CS (test 4 vs test 5).
The only explaination I can come up with for this 1st perception is that with increased weapon def, big stacks of weapon def on 1 item have increased effect due to the fact that weapon def is percentual and not accumulative (e.g 50 spr def (CS) > 50 spr def (20 boots, 20 gaunts, neck)).
The reason for the 2nd point is easy: like I said before, AC only has an influence on r-dmg and multipliers of that (the 300% dmg part of the Howling Sword skill) but will have no effect on the addition damage (the 200 dmg part of the Howling Sword skill). Thats why the 200 dmg will remail and what's left of the 300% dmg will reduce with additional AC.

On a side note: these results are only significant for a certain variety of skills: skills with a percentage of damage and additional damage (most BP and warrior skills). The rate in which each shield is more effective depends on the percentual dmg/additional dmg ratio. The more perentage damage the skill has, the better Gab becomes (r-hit is basically a skill which does 100% dmg and 0 additional dmg, that's why Gab did better in this test) and the more additional damage a skill has the better CS becomes (Helis does 250% dmg with 400 additional. CS will proove to be extremely effective against battle priests whereas against Hell Blade (300% 350 additional) the Gab's effect will be relatively stronger (though eventually CS will still stop more dmg probably).

Finally I'd like to thank Gary and Hito for helping me with these tests.

If there are any question marks regarding this whole subject I'd be glad to (try) answer them.

[cizia]

thanks for this :wub:

why is number of hits different in Tests 3-5 ? :P

does poison count as an additional dmg (like a skill's one) or is it constant dmg?

with matchless, Gab's would be a bit better :P less dmg - less reduced

could you pls test dmg vs rogues? :P I know Gab's will do better, but I'd like to know how will it go against CS & dd 25/15 :P

[_JB_]

thanks for this :wub:

why is number of hits different in Tests 3-5 ? :P
i was using buffer from ally clan for the tests so had to do them in outside arena. kept getting messed up at some points so some results have less hits than others because arenas just got filled...the avg dmg should still come up around the same, since [average dmg] = [total dmg of all hits] / [# of hits], with less hits the result is just slightly less exact.

does poison count as an additional dmg (like a skill's one) or is it constant dmg?
poison is an additional damage and is reduced only by resistances. so yes its a constant. on a side note: with this specific raptor some attacks just "missed" (it actually said "skill missed" or something similar while when that happens with a poison raptor you still get the elemental dmg (thats when you do only like 60 dmg with a skill) keep in mind however this was only the case with r-hits since the warrior skills are failsafe.

with matchless, Gab's would be a bit better :P less dmg - less reduced
matchless is i THINK a skill that takes another 15% off the total amount of dmg recieved, which means its a completely independant parameter which takes off 15% of all melee, magic and elemental damages, including failsafe skills and drains. the relative effect of gab vs cs would be exactly the same as without matchness
example:
no matchless
- CS = 80 DMG
- Gab = 100 DMG
100*100/85=> CS is 25% better
with matchless
- CS = 68 DMG (12 less)
- Gab = 85 DMG (15 less)
100*85/68=> CS is 25% better

could you pls test dmg vs rogues? :P I know Gab's will do better, but I'd like to know how will it go against CS & dd 25/15 :P
i could give it a try sometime but not promising anything for now, mainly because gab and +8/15 chit helm will clearly be much better than cs with +6/25 dd helm because of the extra hhealth and AC from helm and AC from shield while the DDs cancel eachother cout. [/b]

answers in italic

[cizia]

thx 4 replies

as for matchles, yes it's still 25%, but it's 12dmg vs 15dmg :P that's what I ment :P

CS - 800dmg
Gab - 1000dmg

after matchless:
CS - 680dmg
Gab - 850dmg

dmg difference when down from 200 to 170 :P

[_JB_]

thx 4 replies

as for matchles, yes it's still 25%, but it's 12dmg vs 15dmg :P that's what I ment :P

CS - 800dmg
Gab - 1000dmg

after matchless:
CS - 680dmg
Gab - 850dmg

dmg difference when down from 200 to 170 :P[/b]

that depends on how youre looking at it. now youre taking off the shield's effect first and then the matchless. if you do it the other way around; first take matchless off and the then shields effect youll have for example:
1000 dmg without anything
850 dmg with matchless no shield
425 with CS and matchless (-450)
595 with Gab and matchless (-255)
thats 195 difference. these are of course not accurate numbers because there are many other parameters like the skill used, other stats and weapon def etc but still CS remains the better shield in a similar case.

[LightInTheStar]

when u are duffed i think there will be a larger difference between gab and CS

[_JB_]

when u are duffed i think there will be a larger difference between gab and CS[/b]

yep, cos the duff takes relatively more away from the gab bonus than from the cs bonus (which doesnt have much AC to start with.

[JDizzle]

yes, but look @ how small the difference in damage it is, between his 11% is around 20 damage, as we ALL know, that this number is a variable in pk, thus it may average 20 damage more, in pk, it doesn't make THAT much of a difference between the 2 sheilds

overall still from your data you posted, i would still take a gabs adament +7 over a cs still, for the fact that a minimal in damage difference and you get a skill activation + more resist + dd on teh gab over the cs... and p.s. i tested a gab +7 vs cs +0, and im guessing the extra damage you have is the extra defense on the +5 maybe? idk, when i tested a gab +7 vs cs +0 i got exactly the same damage from a lvl 80 warrior hitting me.

and then again, it also influences the fact of what OTHER items you are using as you are saying weapon defense is a reduction in %, so, lets say you throw in an IN which is 10% more of a reduction and an iron belt, which also adds 50 more defense to reduce the r attack damage? and 10% more reduction?

idk, you can write as much as you want about these 2 shields, in the end, some people will prefer gabs over cs, and some will perfer the cs to gabs, you cant really change a persons choice easily ^^

[_JB_]

yes, but look @ how small the difference in damage it is, between his 11% is around 20 damage, as we ALL know, that this number is a variable in pk, thus it may average 20 damage more, in pk, it doesn't make THAT much of a difference between the 2 sheilds [/b]

ill have to disagree on that point. 11% is a bigger effect than an iron neck. these numbers do vary as individuals, but the results are the averages of a large amount of hits. plus, in the test the damage is low because the warrior testing was using the lvl 70 skill instead of 80, was using no wolf and most importantly: a raptor +6/-
10-11% less damage on average is really a very significant amount of weapon def in pvp. sometimes it will be 5, sometimes 15, but eventually when tanking more people for a longer time CS will always come out better. remember were dealing with averages, not individual damages. 10% is also the difference between 1000 and 900 or on the longer run between 10k and 9k HP.
im not trying to say that CS is better than gab. in fact i am seriously considering selling mine and replacing it by an adamant, but i do believe that i have proven with this test that an upgraded CS (+0 is really a lot worse than an upgraded one stat wise) will turn out to be better than CS when dealing with warriors or BPs. against rogues the gab will win hands down and against mages it will be about the same (unless the blessing of the gabs blessing kicks in)

and with the lvl 80 skill the difference will be even larger because the fixed amount of dmg is higher than the lvl 70 skill and the percentage stays the same: cs will have 20 weapon def more in this case while the extra AC of the gab will be useless. in other words: as long as the gab/cs is your only weapon def and you dont use pathos or absoluteness/matchless, the relative difference in dmg reduction from a lvl 80 warrior skill between the 2 shields will increase drastically compared to a lvl 70 warrior skill.

[JDizzle]

here is 1 thing though... why did you do more hits with gab then to the cs, instead of doing them both equally... is it because the average wasn't that average? or the damage was relatively the same? lol... idk between both shields, your saying that its the difference between 10k hp and 9k hp, but do realize its not JUST warriors hitting you, and 11% is a "variable" in many situations (pretty much 99% of the time) , you are not just getting hit by warriors or bps.

[_JB_]

here is 1 thing though... why did you do more hits with gab then to the cs, instead of doing them both equally... is it because the average wasn't that average? or the damage was relatively the same? lol... idk between both shields, your saying that its the difference between 10k hp and 9k hp, but do realize its not JUST warriors hitting you, and 11% is a "variable" in many situations (pretty much 99% of the time) , you are not just getting hit by warriors or bps.[/b]

the # of hits varies between the shields for the following reason: i told my clannie on vent, "give me around 20". then i started pounding in the results in the calculator. when it was filling up nicely or when other people started attacking or debuffing i said, "that should do it". there was no messing with the results whatsoever, you make it sound like im trying to put the gab down. thats totally not my intention, but if in a total of over 200 hits CS turns out to be the better shield against tanks id say thats significant.
also, i didnt state anything about getting attacked only by warriors and bps. however i know that personally when i die in PK as support priest its usually by a well coordinated party of warriors who all pound on me. theres a reason that chitin shield has always been by far the best shield in the game untill FF expansion and not a shield with DD: warriors always will remain the biggest problem for priests.
the only thing im saying with this test is: CS absorbs more damage from warriors and bps than gab. of course you should bring the other variables into consideration: DD and curse of Gab, HP, relatively more dmg absorbtion when debuffed (and sexyness :P ) of CS, along with the superior dmg absorption from warriors. put that together whith what class is giving you most trouble in PK and you should be able to make a good decision by yourself.

[cizia]

for me warriors were never a problem lol

I was always scared of sins with cp who can cancel my heals easier and take me down faster

[_JB_]

for me warriors were never a problem lol

I was always scared of sins with cp who can cancel my heals easier and take me down faster[/b]

are you talking about ionia now? cos i play in cypher and like all the older servers everyone is pretty pimped out on there. whole parties of warriors running around with +9 armors and at least +9 weapons. lvl 83 rogues spike me around 1k maybe, take or give, with eskrima and CP using CS 25 DD IN and glass. if thats the highest hit theyre gonna drop im really a lot more worried about the 3 hell breakers +9 spamming me for 600s
but yeah if rogues are your biggest problem gab is really the way to go. as soon as i got mine i tried FP BP with smite8. with gab(+6 at the time) and 25 dd on i was outpotting the dmg of 3 lvl 80+ rogues including at least 1 83 with the 1k HP pots, it was crazy

[cizia]

no I'm talking about Pathos :P there are good warrior parties, but they always have 1 or 2 gg sins, who are the biggest problem for me... I could tank 3-4wars 80lvl at my int 68lvl with a Dread Shield as long as I wasn't debuffed :P but when some gg sin came out, I was most likely dead :P (even tho I used my dd cap all the time)

warriors are not THAT big problem, cuz they are doing constant dmg... you can calculate when to use hp pot when to use 10k heal/full heal and that makes you able to survive much longer... with sins you have to guess 'will the cp work now or not?' or 'is he going to spike me now or later?'

[Rad_Archer]

This is great info, just stats and very little "opinion." It's great to see that you can be totally objective with the results, so many people just have one idea in their head and try to make all the info fit around that idea instead of just looking at the results themselves.

I would like to see a bigger test. One with a lvl 83 warrior, BP and Sin over 200-300 hits each with each leet weapon:

hung8
tota8
Luggy8
Rappy8/9
Awedon8
Hallbreaker8
Shard8/9
etc.
then all the new weapons

It could be like an on going database of testing where the results could be added to and changed depending on the accessories, gear, weapon, etc. It would be very interesting to look at.