What's more important? Life, or damage?

[TheGreatDivorce]

In the PvP environment, what's more essential? Life, or damage?

If you had to choose between negating life to have an increase in damage or lessening life to have more damage, which would you choose and why?
For example if you had to decide to have 7k life and 4k damage on a Barb or Druid or whatever, or say 4k life and 7k damage; which one do you think is better suited for PvP? Let's say you can't have equal life and damage and must have one lopsided.

Thanks.

[luis19]

depends on the char.

ex- for a barb or druid i'd definitely choose more life since they usually cast slower than other casters (barbs are bound by equipment and druids are just slow), so being able to take many hits will greatly help. Also their dmg is multi-hit and usually causes fhr so lower dmg shouldnt work too bad.

however for bowazons, dmg is more important than life because to achieve the highest shooting frame, nearly all the gear is aimed towards IAS, leaving little room for resist. At this point, you are a 1-2 hit kill for nearly all elemental attacks anyway and for physical attacks, you can achieve maxblock/dr on weapon switch + passives (and if you pump vita over dex vs say a barb, your dmg will be too low to compete anyways; 2k life + 6k dmg > 3k+ life +4k dmg). So really at this point, pumping vita on a bowazon is pretty much useless since you lack resist.
(yes you can get maxed resist, and my zon does have it on certain switches, but usually your resist on a bowazon will suck while maintaining optimal dmg/speed)

[Jerkazoid]

u can sorta equate the two , the pvp penalty is 17%

wich means each 170 life = 1000 listed dmg

keep in mind though there are many other factors, youll need to figure pvp dmg AFTER the commonly found dr%, (and for elements resistance and absorbs)

consider 1/6 pvp + 50%dr

7k dmg = 583 life
4k dmg = 333 life

does that help you decide?



also more life means u can take more dmg before being put into recovery

[amob]

generally life, because you can deal more damage if you live a long time, but if you die really fast its generally hard to win

[Phyrexial]

It depends on how often you get hit really. Thus ranged builds would favor damage since their potential to get hit is much less than melee or close range builds which need the life to take a few hits while getting close to its target. If you fight at close range, getting hit is practically inevitable hence the need for more life. If you are ranged and tele, you are hit much much less so you'd want maximum damage output.

[RetroStar]

generally life, because you can deal more damage if you live a long time, but if you die really fast its generally hard to win

Well you can always argue the other way. More damage means your opponent will die quicker therefore no need for for that much life as they don't live that long.

Though I prefer life > dmg.