Def vs HP vs Vit (Rev. 17)

In general, a Defense ring is best if you take lots of little hits (if “little hits” still aren’t hitting the 85% def cap), a HP ring is best if you take a few big hits and a Vit ring is best if you aren’t taking hits.

Cons of each type

Wearing a Def (Defense) ring is useless if all the damage you are taking has reached its 15% damage cap already, since increasing your Def will not reduce the damage you take further once it has reached its cap. Or, if you get hit with an Armor Piercing bullet or are afflicted with Armor Broken.

Wearing a HP (Health Points) ring is useless if your current HP is less than your normal maximum HP, since increasing your maximum HP further is pointless if your current HP never reaches your normal maximum HP.

Wearing a Vit (Vitality) ring is useless if your current HP is equal to your maximum HP, since there’s nothing to heal, or if anything can kill you from full HP with one hit, since you’ll have no chance to heal afterwards.

These charts go to two decimal places where applicable.

Def vs. Vit

A Def ring will reduce damage from a hit instantly. A Vit ring of the same tier will heal the same amount of damage after 8.33 seconds. Therefore, a Def ring is better if you get hit every 8.33 seconds or less, while a Vit ring is better if your time between taking hits is more than every 8.33 seconds. Usually, this means Def is better….or is it? (Depends on playing style and class)

This chart compares Def and Vit rings of different tiers. The number is how much time, in seconds, must pass between hits for Vit to be better than Def.

	2.78	8.33	13.89	16.67	19.44	22.22	25
	1.67	5	8.33	10	11.67	11.67	13.33
	1.39	4.17	6.94	8.33	9.72	11.11	12.5
	1.19	3.57	5.95	7.14	8.33	9.52	10.71
	1.04	3.13	5.21	6.25	7.29	8.33	9.38
	0.93	2.78	4.63	5.56	6.48	7.41	8.33

HP vs. Vit

For a Vit ring to heal as much as an HP ring does, you will have to go for some number of seconds for the vit to heal as much as the HP would. This number varies depending on the rings. T1 Vit rings will heal 40HP in 156 seconds, while T5 Vit rings will heal 140HP in 205 seconds. If you can survive that long between taking damage at full health and fully healing, dying, or escaping to Nexus, Vit is better. If you can’t for any reason, HP is better.

ERROR: 40hp in 156 seconds doesn’t make it better than an 80hp ring in 156 seconds, but in 312.

	78	156.5	196	235	274.5
	47	94	117.5	141	164.5
	39	78	98	117.5	137
	33.5	67	84	100.5	117.5
	29	58.5	73.5	88	102.5

Def vs. HP

If both of these are superior to Vit, you’re taking damage frequently. What determines which of the two is better depends on how many of these frequent hits you can take without dying. If you can only survive 17 hits or less, HP is better. If you can survive 18 hits or more, Def is better. (Unless you want to be switching your def and HP rings every time the added bonus from the HP runs out.) Also take debuffs such as bleeding into consideration when choosing between HP and Def.

This chart determines how many hits you need to be able to survive for Def rings to be better (Health boost from Ring / Def boost from ring, round up).

	40	80	100	120	140
	14	27	34	40	47
	8	16	20	24	28
	7	14	17	20	24
	6	12	15	18	20
	5	10	13	15	18

Note: In general, most of us prefer defense rings to vitality rings. However, it is strongly advised to carry both a defense ring AND a vitality ring. This can become useful in many scenarios (ie. You are in an abyss and you switch to a vitality ring, then hide behind a wall to regenerate HP), unless you have a high level heal pet, in which case vit is practically useless.