Thoughts on Armor

[thornhappy]

What sort of training would you all suggest for an empath that casts and heals, but wants to wear a heavier armor, (such as ciurboulli)? Especially for rescue missions..

Any suggestions? Is this just completely retarded or do I have a hope of wearing this spiffy new armor?

[Stunseed]

Brig is 35 ranks. 6% ( I think ) hinderance. Scale coverage on the entire body. So much more selection of nicer armors, as well.

I suggest Brig.

[thornhappy]

Well the whole point of training upward is I got a super nice set of ciurboullli that fits my character perfectly. Good to hear encouragement though!

[Stunseed]

Cuirb will do it in I think 23 ranks, with 4% hinderance. It's easily doable, seeing as how they have been more than one Empath wearing torso chain. Another option is to continue training past Cuirb and add accessories. The difference between leather coverage and scale is akin to night and day.

[Gan]

I'd stick with brig. My (formerly - now sold) capped empath was a tank in OTF with a set of heavily crit padded brig.

Find a set of crit padded, heavily padded or better and you'll be a tank and still be able to cast at only 6 to 7% spell hindrance.

[Latrinsorm]

20 ranks for cuirb, 35 ranks for brig, 50 ranks for torso chain; 5%, 7%, and 8% respectively.

Believe it or not, going from double leather to LBP isn't always a good move, depending on the weapon you're being attacked with, and the same goes for brig to torso chain.

[WRoss]

or you could go for 10x doubles if your rich, if you can't get hit then do you need to worry about anything else?

[Czeska]

Brig is 7% with 35 ranks. It can be a pain when hunting, but well worth it IMO.
So really, if you're only interested in wearing a lower level armor, definitely won't be overkill.

[Nilandia]

When you get up in the higher levels, however, you often have the mana to be able to deal with the spell hindrance. 7% is enough to be an annoyance and not much more.

As Stunseed's said, the difference between scale and leather armors is pretty sweet. My warrior's in somewhat crit padded brig from H4H2 and no redux (she's only 11 at the moment). Seeing her take hits in it when I was used to double leather was a pleasant surprise.

Gretchen

[Janarth]

or you could go for 10x doubles if your rich, if you can't get hit then do you need to worry about anything else?

You WILL get hit; the above is misleading in that even with 20x doubles (if such thing existed) you'd still get hit and still die. Towards the higher end hunting grounds, its less about AS/DS and more about survivability. You WILL get hit. No one dodges griffin attacks all the time...occasionally people get swarmed faster than they can kill them. During invasions the GMs will knock you all down, etc etc.

On a side note...when the heck did I become a Senior Member?!

[Gan]

Speaking from experience. As long as I maintained my spells in OTF, my capped empath could survive everything but being stupid. Drops from griffins never killed and rarely stunned. Even knockdowns by constructs in a swarm were more a nuisance.

With the ambush pushdown you'll experience with older ambushing combatants along with the melee DS pushdown from combating multiple targets, the question of overall DS equals out to how much padding your armor will sustain you until you can recover.

The hindrance with boneshatter was negligible at 6 to 7% (yes it fluctuated).

I highly recommend scaled leather armor with crit padding - at least heavily or above. Now with premie points, taking a set of brig to 7x or beyond and then having it heavily padded would be my end goal if I still owned my warpath.

[Janarth]

As I previously pointed out, your armor will get used. 10x doubles are very different than any kind of scale. I believe Ganalon's path was capped, and was still getting hit from the stuff he said (ambushes, griffin drops, occasionally some bad rt and then a swarm), so it happens.

[Gan]

OK, refreshing an older topic with the same line of thinking...

I'm getting sick and tired of brig hindrance. Its like it only happens when I really NEED the spell to activate.

Whats a good alternative to brig that has less hindrance for empathic/spirit spells and similar protective capabilities?

Curib?
LBP?
Doubles I dont think would be the optimum, however, other pure classes use them and seem to survive.

Your thoughts???

[TheEschaton]

Even with leather breastplate (lowest in the scale armor class), you're only knocking 3% off the base hindrance. Double has no hindrance whatsoever on MnS/MjS/Empath, but my empath dies so much in double leather it's ridiculous, of course, he's a two hander and too young (IE, not enough ranks) for brig. Maybe if you can get double w/ amazing padding, then it could be feasible.

-TheE-

[Gan]

I dont know how much the hcp on the doubles will offset the weakness inherent to the soft leather. I have a feeling I would get owned quick if I walked into OTF with doubles on though.

[Dwarven Empath]

HCP LBP FTW!

[Gan]

Thats what I'm considering, since I know of several high et pieces floating around... not to mention taking a setup to 7x myself then using points to get it padded.

So LBP is 3% lower than brig in hindrance? that would pull it down from 7% to 4%.

Hmmmmm.

[TheEschaton]

And from 6% to 3% on MnS.

-TheE-