armor reinforcement?

[khorpulent]

Anyone ever tried out reinforcement before? Everyone I know uses support, but I'm tempted to try reinforcement. Is it worth it?

[Jeril]

Some people have said they like it for warcamps. I've never tried it myself, 200 ranks of armor just for a 35% chance of my wounds not stacking, no thanks, I'd rather eat herbs, fast and easy for me and it works near 100% of the time. Most of us use support because it is useful 100% of the time, also handy that it only takes 150 ranks of armor for all five ranks of it. Being able to carry more before becoming encumbered is a great thing, having slash/puncture/crush resistance on your armor is all in where you hunt. When hunting anything that is likely to spike thorn you puncture is rather useful, also good in Nelemar too, a lot of weapons in there puncture and charge can kill with an open roll. Slash protection is great on plane four of the rift because of crawler burrows. Only place I can think of crush being good would be the stronghold area maybe the Minos.

[khorpulent]

Thanks, that seems like sound advice. I started untraining my support ranks because my mom's warrior has 5 ranks of support, so I figured it'd be useful for both of us if mine could do one of the slash/crush/puncture protections. Figured I'd ask about people's experiences with reinforcement first, though.

Anyone have any input on which might be more useful out of slash/crush/puncture? My warrior's 73 and is presently hunting minos. When considering the damage types of individual weapons, crush seems like the obvious choice. I made up a list of the damage types of every weapon, and as you can see crush covers every THW, blunt, as well as every pole and OHE that is of any consequence against plate. It would, of course, provide no protection against ranged weapons.

Puncture, on the other hand, wouldn't protect much against THW, blunt, or several of the more effective OHEs.

I don't know about what maneuvers/spells I'll face later on, however, and that seems like it may be a significant factor. Taking damage from weapons usually isn't what kills me, after all.

Here's my list:


CRUSH:

THW:
Every THW except katana
Blunt
Every blunt

OHE:
Short sword
Scimitar
Longsword
Backsword
Broadsword
Falchion
Bastard sword

Pole:
Halbert/Naginata
Jeddart axe
HoK
Awl-pike
Lance
Ranged: none

PUNCTURE:

THW: None

Ranged:
Arrows/bolts
Pole:
Every pole (excluding jeddart-axe)

OHE:
Dagger
Main gauche
Rapier
Katar
Short sword
Scimitar
Estoc
Longsword
Backsword
Broadsword
Blunt:
Crowbill
War hammer
Morning Star

[Sam]

I'm kind of stuck with support, due to my awesome +5 STR Bonus. I did use puncture resistance for a while when I didn't have very much padding, and it really works wonders, especially against mstrikes.

The problem with the specific resistances is that until you cap, you're probably going to keep changing your hunting grounds.

I dunno about OTF or Rift/Scatter, but puncture resistance is definitely the best way to go for Nelemar.

You need to look at the kind of weapons carried by the things you expect to fight, not just the whole variety of weapons that exist. I'm not sure if there's good data on that anywhere though.

[khorpulent]

Right, I just have no idea where I'll be hunting. It's taken me years and years to even get into my 70s, so I doubt I'll be capping any time soon.

[Jeril]

Well you aren't stuck with which ever resistance you choose. You can use the yearly fixskills to remove your armor ranks then retrain them or buy a potion from the adventure guild that will unlearn your armor skill, or a fixskills potion from there as well if you plan on changing more then your armor/cman skills.

[bremerial]

I trained in reinforcement when the ability to do so was made available. Actually thought it was quite good to be honest, if not a tad expensive. But ended up with puncture resist, which is much more practical in temple and very useful to my colleagues. I've still got three ranks of reinforcement which I intend to keep for now.

Sam and Jeril's answers probably sum it up. (1) Youre going to keep changing hunting grounds until you cap and therefore needs will change; (2) You're not stuck with any one skill. There are plenty of opportunites to change - either annually or with a little potion purchase or two, more frequently.

[tash]

I've used resistance (was at 3 ranks), but I now use support for reasons Jeril summed up quite nicely. Reinforcement was neat if I took a hit and it didn't stack.. but generally speaking, bleeding is less lethal than being overly unencumbered and not dodging a maneuver attack. Also, reinforcement can be added to another char, but as I read it, it only would help if a char has achieved some level of damage reduction (not so useful if you have pure friends). Everyone benefits from support.

One thing I'd add is, that for any warrior in the plate armors who does not also use a shield, the puncture resistance is a great thing against bandit archers. Or any archers, but bandits are universal across hunting grounds and trainings. That said, it's not usually too hard to come across a warrior with different armor specializations. You could always visit a local guild, assist some folks with training, and ask around to find a resistance you might deem helpful in a given area.