Armour Poll

[VaelophisNyx]

super interesting to see just how unpopular Brigandine is! It's cheap, effective, and easy to make.

[Maelstrom]

That poll was posted 2 years ago and I believe armor has changed since then.

[Mallia]

Silver plate armor (pretty)

[IceDweller]

Depends on the application, gambeson for general purpose. Iron or Steel chain if I'm expecting a fight. Chain armor lets me stay mobile and use ranged weapons without any serious debuffs while still offering excellent protection.

[Majn9n]

I don't really get why there is a healing debuff.

[Maelstrom]

Weeellll...  Some thoughts.  Armor isn't exactly clothing meaning armor is not easily donned or doffed.  Additionally, due to it's function to protect from injury it will be difficult to work around the armor to apply the bandages to the wound.

[Bumber]

11 hours ago, Maelstrom said:

Weeellll...  Some thoughts.  Armor isn't exactly clothing meaning armor is not easily donned or doffed.  Additionally, due to it's function to protect from injury it will be difficult to work around the armor to apply the bandages to the wound.

Except it is as easily doffed in game, and if your penalty is too high it's as if the bandage is evaporating rather than failing to be applied. Feels like it should be a chance to fail to use the item instead.

[ChubbyDemon]

I mean, there really isn't a best armor set to use, just what you want and are willing to spend the resources on.  You happen to live next to the right kind of trader?  Enjoy your way cheaper and stronger iron plate armor.  You want to be able to run into anything and get out alive?  Steel plate exists.  You want to be moderately protected with entirely renewable resources?  Wood lamellar is surprisingly effective.  You want armor to wear around the base for the occasional wolf attack?  Leather is perfect.

But if we're talking the armor that has the best protective stats with the least downsides, let's think.  Obviously it'll be made of steel, there's no reason to use anything but steel.  Bronzes are common but suck in comparison, and using iron is kinda like using copper after early game.  It takes a super common resource (for copper, it's tin, and for iron, it's coke/coal) to make the metal significantly better, so much so that using the original base metal is a complete waste of its potential.

So we're narrowed down to steel brig, chain, scale, or plate.  Off the bat we can get rid of plate, it's super strong defensively but you're abysmally slow, can't heal at all, and can't hit anything more than 2 feet in front of you.  If you're fighting anything that runs away, or has enough health/dps that it kills you before you kill it, the armor isn't worth it.

So steel brig, chain, or scale?  Scale armor is effectively brigandine armor but with very slightly more protection, and about 1.5x the durability, in exchange for costing double the metal that brigantine costs.  But chain armor has more protection than brigandine armor, and lower debuffs across the board, and is cheaper than scalemail.

So from this, the best overall armor set for exploring and fighting through the wilderness is steel chain armor...except there's a couple more armors we didn't look at.  The Blackguard armor and the Forlorn Hope armor.  Both of these are effectively iron plate armor with less durability in exchange for much lower stat debuffs.  Blackguard isn't enough to be viable, but Forlorn Hope armor is interesting.  It's got about double the debuffs of steel chain across the board, a 17% healing penalty compared to a 10% one, 16% hunger drain compared to a 7% one, an 8% movement debuff compared to a 3% one.  Clearly it's not the best to run around in, but that high tier damage modifier means it's also capable of effectively stopping tier 4 damage.  Not to mention it doesn't require the creation of a cementation furnace, just a LOT of gold.

So, thinking again.  Steel chain is clearly the best for occasional combat and moving around, but Forlorn Hope could be held in the inventory to swap out when say, fighting a bear.

[Thorfinn]

My money is still on gambeson. Unless you "cheat" by pausing the game, taking off armor, healing, putting back armor, unpausing, the penalty to healing is too nasty. Particularly since having a stack or two of poultices is basically a gimmee after about day 2 or 3.Yeah, maybe you can tank a bear with heavy enough armor, but if you are anywhere other than plains, you can easily give 'em the slip, and even on plains, with a little practice you can dodge them, so long as you are not slowed. With anything heavier, you have no choice but hope you can tank them.

The only real question is surviving a one-shot, which even on Wilderness, you can achieve in a few days, so long as you keep sprinting and hold a torch or something in offhand to speed up hunger. Then it's just a matter of not dying and losing those bonus HP. (Or in the case of us permadeath diehards, dying and having to start a new game.)

This is true even (maybe especially) in Resonance Archives. You are going to be taking damage, regardless of your armor. It all boils down to how much damage you can dish out between healing poultices. And when you have to sprint in to get your spears, any movement penalty at all is courting death.

 

[Chuckerton]

Hardened leather. Once you have leather production setup which you can do as soon as you start working with metal its very easy to make a ton of leather. 

Obviously other sets are better as armor. If you know youre getting into a fight soon wear the best armor you can get. But for exploring around, leather is better just because you can still move quickly and dont need a ton of food. Leather is better 99% of the time, but the 1% of the time where youre going to be getting into a fight and theres no alternative other than fighting, other armors are better. 

[JD2v0]

Makes me wonder how this poll would change if done again and not 2 years later, and also if the tailor gambeson was hard coded to only work with the tailor choice for background.

[Thorfinn]

Doesn't change my answer. I don't play with classes, nor do I enable class recipes. Gambeson is still "best" for how I play, apart from special circumstances. Mobility loss is almost unnoticeable -- it does not change which enemies you can outrun, and doesn't keep you from dodging the one big threat you can't outrun, the brown bear. And the one protection tier over leather is definitely worth it in almost all battle situations.

[Maelstrom]

Battle Jammies FTW!