Simple math has no effect on the difference between mitigation and survival. Only people like you think that it does.
There are many things in a real battle that affects math and turns it from simple math to incredibly complex math.
To go by your simple math.
If you’ve lost 5k health and heals for 5k then you’ve lost 0k health.
If you’ve lost 5k health and throws up an absorb for 5k you’ve still lost 5k health. The 5k absorb will only affect the next 5k damage you take.
If you’ve lost 10k health and heals for 5k then you’ve only lost 5k health.
If you’ve lost 10k health and uses an absorb for 5k, then you’ve still lost 10 ´k health.
You’re now dead and unable to use absorbs and the person who healed still has 5k health left.
Then you have to factor in the math for distance and time since a spec that has a DoT and a slow can use both to keep the other away and chip away at their absorb. If the other person also has DoT then it’ll chip away at their health.
The last variant I’ll introduce in this is that one uses an absorb that while it absorbs 5k damage only absorbs 50% of the damage done by each hit.
The other person has taken 5k damage and heals for 5k. They’ve now taken 0k damage.
The other person takes 5k damage and uses an absorb of 5k that only blocks 50% of the incoming damage pr hit.
In the same span that it takes for both to inflict 5k damage to each other. One has effectively lost 5k health while the other has lost 7.5k health. The other person can now heal for another 5k and the second can ride this session out.
The first has lost effectively 0k health while the other still has a loss of 7.5k. From this point onwards the gap will only widen.
The only people who think they’re the same are people who believe that incredibly complex realities can be displayed by simple formulas. It’s like reducing the math of going to the Moon down to a simple X+X formula. It’s so incredibly /forehead, and those that actually know reality will do a mental /facepalm.