Cap armor

[Stigs]

I am beginning to think about how to position my ranger at cap. He will be an open archer, and a giant. He is currently in FGB at level 62. From reading the forums here it looks like augmented chain is the way to go for an open archer, and especially one that will not have fantastic maneuver defense because of race. Is a good set of brigandine absolutely not doable cap/post-cap? I know the answer is probably, it depends on your style, but I will need to begin planning for armor now because whether it is a good set of brig or augmented chain, it will be expensive and I've never been rich. I would prefer to stay a bit more on the magical side due to roleplaying, and this makes me want to stay in brigandine as well, or at least play devil's advocate for it.

TY!

[Drazaan]

Sounds like you have some pretty intentional reasons for staying in brigandine and that's fine, it can most definitely work.

For open archery once you have the armor training, I have found augmented chain/hauberk to be a great in terms of having a notably increased durability. It adds not only to your crit divisor, but also to your AvD and CvA. Equally the case, as an open archer, I have many more PTPs left over than MTPs, making more armor training a no-brainer for me as PF was already maxed.

Benefits in brig are lower spell hinderance, lower action penalty, and potentially more affordable sets.

I would encourage you to get a set of brig and one augmented chain with the same base enchant (e.g. 4x) and take both out to test for several hunts if you can spare the armor training temporarily with the annual FIXSKILL coming up. That will give you a better idea as to what level of spell hinderance and what level of armor is tolerable to you. If you need access to a set of chain, PM me and I'd happily let you borrow some.

[Stigs]

Thanks for the considerate reply Drazaan. I came into some 5x hauberk with a little crit padding and will give that a test vs. the brig. I can do the 80 ranks for the maneuver penalty now, and see how it goes from there. Maybe stay in the FGB until 80ish-trains, and work on bringing the hauberk up in the meantime.

[BriarFox]

You’ll need 110 ranks to get the spell hindrance for hauberk down to 11%. With a paladin friend with rank 5 fluidity, though, you can get that to 7%.