Hello all! Would like to get the opinion of the denizens of this shard and maybe get a discussion started on the Armor Rating / Dex Loss ratio of certain armor pieces. Since Telamon posted the values of every piece of armor (THANKS TELAMON!!), I've been comparing some of the pieces of armor. While they are indeed era-accurate in their stats, it still makes no f* sense, pardon my language. Some obvious examples are platemail gloves as compared to bone gloves. Same AR rating, HUGE difference (-1 for Bone, -3 for plate wtf) in Dex loss: only difference is item hp. In fact, save for platemail arms and the gorget, no single piece of plate is worth equipping. Should someone want to be a walking tank, Bone armor is the way to go though he'll have to repair his armor about 35% more often.... and save himself about 6-7 dex loss for the same AR rating. Same dynamic goes for chainmail. The dex losses to AR rating preclude any sensible person from wearing it. Here's an example of the current AR to Dex loss. For example: Bone arms give 2.1 AR per 1 dex loss. Leather Gorget 0.9/0 Studded Gorget 1.1/0 Bone Arms 2.1 / dex Chest 2.2 / dex Gloves 2.1 / dex Helm 4.2 / 0 Legs 1.05/ dex Chain Coif 1.7/dex Tunic 2.02/dex Legs 1.7/dex Ring Chest 4.4/dex Legs 2.8/dex Sleeves 2.8/dex Gloves 1.4/dex Plate Gorget 2.1/dex Gloves 0.7/dex Chest 1.65/dex Legs 0.7/dex Sleeves 2.1 / dex What do you guys think about this? Should we keep it as it is and basically reduce Smithing to BoD manufacturing (chain and plate crafting is useless. Ringmail is the only armor, for dexxers that makes any sense) and all hop on the Tailoring (Bone seems to be the best armor in terms of ratio) bandwagon? This would mean Tailoring would be THE best armor crafting skill, not only for mage-related armor. PS: roses are red, skies are blue, we all pay taxes, we're all going to die and pvp is unbalanced. Those are the inevitable truths of life. But still lets debate if theres a way to balance this a bit better.
I suggested before to make exceptionally crafted armor have no dex loss, this might seem a huge change but in practice it isnt. found pieces of invul etc are still 'better. Even chainmail. There will be a proper use for colored ores and the blacksmith profession=economy isnt harmed but expands. I liked your topic btw.
Don't forget bone cannot be repaired by normal smithing means, so you're looking at a really expensive addiction to some white powder (fortifying of course) if you intend to wear bone armor for a long time.
In the armor compendium there's a note that says the armor bonus for exceptional is being reviewed. Right now an exceptional anything is slightly worse than a hardening anything. If they raise the exceptional bonus just a little bit, crafted suits of armor (tailoring and smithing) could be between hardening and fortification. I think this would be a great change. (I'm assuming up is the direction they intend to go with the exceptional bonus.) Hardening armor is so very common on the shard right now. As far as the inherent imbalances between types of armor, hell yes I think some changes need to take place.
Fisher: since Bone can be crafted here, modifying the excp rating is gonna apply to Bone as well as other ingot-based armour. Won't change a thing. Dalavar I see your point but this only applies to high end Bone armour. Excp material or its equivalent (Guarding or Hardening if it is ever modified) is easy to manufacture and come by, thus removing the need for Fortif powder. The person will have to tailor more Bone Armor but thats about it. However you're right that at high end level, one would be spamming a lot of gold into fortif powder when wearing bone instead of plate. BUT, considering just how ridiculously rich the top pvpers or pvmers are on this shard (buying sandals at 2.5 mil really??), I don't see spending a couple thousand gold per set on fortif powder being a problem, considering you're saving 6-7 dex points. Unless you're greedy, poor, unskilled or mathematically illiterate, most will prefer investing more money to get bettter dex lvls than spending less and having to repair less often. Haob I think removing dex loss with excp would be overkill and would make dexxers beyond-op. Invuln pieces are better than bone, for sure. But if you check the stats, Invuln Bone has the same magical ar bonuses any other ingot based armour has. If you're comparing Invuln chain or (even better) invuln ringmail to guarding bone or excp bone, sure, bone sucks. Then again compare a valorite plate legs with a best-leather-available bone legs and...... same AR.
At present rates, it costs about 20k to fortify one piece of armor fully. So even if you just do that for the bone tunic, you're still looking at a cost that's like 10x the price of the piece of armor itself. Traumaturge, there are some other interesting threads on this topic, definitely take a look if you have not already. My suggestion was to make ringmail have the studded dex penalty (i.e., none), chain have the ring penalty, and plate have the chain penalty. That way dexers could at least make a choice between studded and ring depending on what they want to do. Right now, even if you have 0 Magery, you are better off wearing studded than ringmail, since at least with studded you get to keep all your dex. That, to me, is a waste.
I didn't read the other posts however my initial thought is you cant repair bone armor Plus plate looks WAY WAY WAY better than bone
I like your solution Dalavar. As for the bone fortify, I had no idea it was THAT costly. But I still think my argument holds for lesser grade armor (excp and equivalent). AKA if you can replace it easily and cheaply, no point in wearing excp plate over excp bone. Zy: same as what I wrote for Dalavar: this point only applies to high grade bone armor. If you have replacements (excp), repairability doesnt matter.
That is, indeed, another issue. No sense in wearing plate helmet even though its stats are the same as norse and closed helms.
But higher quality does not change a thing really as long as it wrecks a dexxer's swing and bandagespeed, and make it too high and it will push out other options of viability, thats like balancing steps, every adjustment creates a new problem to adjust.
I do agree with the OP. I'm just trying to point out, in my round about way, another issue laid bare by the armor compendium: Even the best crafted armor (including bone) is still worse than a hardening equivalent. Judging by the prices on vendors I have seen with my own eyes, hardening armor sells for dirt cheap. And seeing as how anything a crafter can make even with the best ingredients is worse than that...there's really not much point to making armor at all. It's like a huge piece of the game is missing. Yeah you can go to the trouble of making armor that's black or blue, but its still worse than the dirt cheap white/grey/brown magical stuff. Sorry I attached that car to this train. So, again, I agree w/ the OP, the current armor values and dex penalties of the various types of armor do seem "off balance". Though I will say these other two points: in the field your bone armor is going to be in need of almost constant repair, like, annoyingly so; and, the "balance" between platemail and leather is far more "wrong" than the balance between platemail and bone.
The current armor system here isn't even era accurate. Back in the renaissance era ring, chain, and bone armor didn't even give a dex penalty and a platemail suit also gave less of a dex penalty than what it does now. I would like to see armor the way it was: http://www.uorenaissance.com/stratics/armor
In the age of Razor, if it were to really benefit a mage, they could very easily equip the plate with a Dress item hotkey, get protection up, laugh in the face of a group of dexxers and mow one down, possibly, before hitting the Dress item to drop all that metal to pack for a quick Med up. lol, shhh, no one do that please.
