Ascension questions and more!

[drumpel]

I've finally decided to get around to learning more about ascension and getting me some of those sweet, sweet, ascension points but I have many questions.

First of all: armor use! Did they redo the number of ranks required to wear armor or what? I could have sworn 8 ranks was required to train away all penalties (except spell hindrances) for double leather and 4 was required for full leather, but now the Wiki says 6 and 2 respectively?

What skills should, say, an empath have before focusing all experience on ascension?

Here is what I'm thinking for a runestaff using empath wearing double leathers:

Armor use: 56
Shield use: 0 (they made it so using a shield with a runestaff doesn't work now right?)
CM: max
PT: max
Dodge: max?
All magic skills: max (probably not EMC though)
Spells: max
Relevant lores: max
Perception: max
Enough climbing and swimming

This is like the basics for hunting and stuff, other skills like First Aid, Trading, or Picking Locks are optional.

Does that look right? Did I forget something? Any feedback would be great.

The Action Penaly (AP) is reduced to a maximum of 50% of the armor's initial AP.
Every 50 ranks over the base AP, the AP is reduced by (Armor Group - 1).
Soft Leather is Armor Group 2, double leather falls into soft leather. So every 50 ranks over 6 (56 ranks, 106 ranks, 156 ranks) the AP will be reduced by 1 point for Double Leather.

Using Double Leather, the AP will be reduced once you hit 50 Armor Use ranks over the AP of the armor. Double Leather has an AP of 6; so at 6 ranks of Armor Use you get the best minimum AP applied to you when wearing Double Leather, which is -6. At 56 Armor use ranks the AP drops by 1 and you get -5 AP, 106 Armor Use ranks the AP drops by another 1 for double leather and you get -4 AP and this will happen once more at 156 AU ranks.

Basically, spending 50 Armor Use ranks of TPs will net you a +1 to your overall SMRv2 defense and whatever other maneuvers utilize the armor AP in the equation.

If you think the cost of 50 AU ranks for that +1 to your maneuver defense is worth it for double leather, by all means, keep it. Honestly, that bonus is so paltry that I'd personally save the over training in armor use until post cap and utilize your TPs towards more HP or extra spell ranks that'll be more beneficial to playing a pure.

Full leather is 2 and double leather is 6. Armor use requirements were changed across the board last year. I don't think its worth the TPs(maybe way post cap?) to reduce AP for doubles(Which are only 6 AP). Per the Wiki "For example, an action penalty of -20 results in -10% to evade DS"

I would max dodge before even considering AP reduction for armors under 20 AP.

What about lore(s)? You don't list any but I suspect you have the benefits maxed?

If you are concerned about disarm, get 101 ranks of brawling + 1 rank of TWC to mitigate the risk. But to be honest in your situation I wouldn't bother.

100% Ascension and start maxing out stat(s) and/or skill(s). If something changes or you feel like you missed something just swap back to normal experience.

It wasn't Armor Use skill that was changed, it was the fact that they had two systems setup that were to play a part in armor.
1 was the RT modifier
2nd was the Maneuver Penalty (MP) modifier

Take Double Leather for example:
There used to be two columns on the Armor Use skill table on the gswiki, one for RT and one for the MP.
I did a whole lot of SMRv2 testing 18-24 months back and started spouting off my results here and on the official. I was posting that the AP (action penalty) reduction was happening at the RT modifier and not the MP modifier.

Apparently the MP wasn't active or being used like it was supposed to so they corrected the posted information saying that the RT/MP are one in the same in terms of Armor Use skill ranks.

It wasn't the Armor Use skill that changed, they just removed the incorrect information and no longer have the MP category.