Armor Use Rebalance

[Machaeon]

I've noticed that armor use skill rather than your adventure level is the primary limiting factor on what armor you can wear. If for example, you're in Spiritist and you want to play as a pure Spiritist because that's the one class you want to play as then you will never have enough armor use skill to wear plain cloth armor that fits your current adventure level.

Let me break that down:

• Several schools only get 8 armor use per level
• All armor above T1 requires 10 armor use per level
  Kenaf cloth requires: 210 armor use and level 21 at a minimum (10/level)
  Padded kenaf cloth requires 310 armor use and level 31 at a minimum (10/level)
  ...
  Ironsilk cloth requires: 810 armor use and level 81 at a minimum (10/level)
  Padded ironsilk cloth requires 910 armor use and level 91 at a minimum (10/level)
  This pattern is the same for every armor type, not just cloth
• At level 100, someone in a school that gives 8/level can't wear t5 armor of any type
• At level 100, this FORCES anyone who plays a class that gives 8 armor use/level to level a school that gives 9/level up to 90 just to wear the BARE MINIMUM of armor for their tier.
• This also FORCES anyone who plays a class that gives 9 armor use/level to level school that gies 10/level up to 91 to wear any armor from a looted form (The best armor they are capable of wearing in that class)
• The only schools that give 10/level are Warrior, Mage, Scout, Guardian, Monk, Spearman, Elemental Archer, and Berserker
• At best, anyone who does not level one of the above classes is forced to wear the armor type pertaining to their class that is the worse of two options... due to as little as two points of armor use in t2 armor and a paltry difference of 10 armor use in t5.

Is there any benefit to 1000 armor use? No. None whatsoever, the armor you can wear is already limited by your school, and t5 platemail only needs 910 armor use. So why is it that 10 armor use per level is so heavily focused on? Shouldn't your adventure level already give you enough skill to equip the bare minimum for your tier? Is there any reason why a level 81 Battle Mage (who is supposed to be able to wear platemail) cannot wear level 81 plain cloth armor while a level 81 Mage can?

This system forces players to level classes they might not even want just to be able to wear armor that fits their tier. True, that would be fine in most cases: mystic classes would probably want mage as a base school, melee classes would probably want warrior as a base school, bow classes would probably want scout as a base school, disciples would probably want monk as a base.... but mystic classes wouldn't necessarily want Guardian as their base school. In fact I can't think of a reason why you WOULD want a prestige class.... as your base class.

TL;DR:
Armor use should not limit what armor you can wear, that's already limited by your level and your school. Armor from looted forms is also limited by how easily you can find the forms and/or someone willing to craft them for you.
You should be able to wear level 81 armor for your class at level 81.

[Spyrioyo]

I've noticed that armor use skill rather than your adventure level is the primary limiting factor on what armor you can wear. If for example, you're in Spiritist and you want to play as a pure Spiritist because that's the one class you want to play as then you will never have enough armor use skill to wear plain cloth armor that fits your current adventure level.

Let me break that down:

• Several schools only get 8 armor use per level
• All armor above T1 requires 10 armor use per level
  Kenaf cloth requires: 210 armor use and level 21 at a minimum (10/level)
  Padded kenaf cloth requires 310 armor use and level 31 at a minimum (10/level)
  ...
  Ironsilk cloth requires: 810 armor use and level 81 at a minimum (10/level)
  Padded ironsilk cloth requires 910 armor use and level 91 at a minimum (10/level)
  This pattern is the same for every armor type, not just cloth
• At level 100, someone in a school that gives 8/level can't wear t5 armor of any type
• At level 100, this FORCES anyone who plays a class that gives 8 armor use/level to level a school that gives 9/level up to 90 just to wear the BARE MINIMUM of armor for their tier.
• This also FORCES anyone who plays a class that gives 9 armor use/level to level school that gies 10/level up to 91 to wear any armor from a looted form (The best armor they are capable of wearing in that class)
• The only schools that give 10/level are Warrior, Mage, Scout, Guardian, Monk, Spearman, Elemental Archer, and Berserker
• At best, anyone who does not level one of the above classes is forced to wear the armor type pertaining to their class that is the worse of two options... due to as little as two points of armor use in t2 armor and a paltry difference of 10 armor use in t5.

Is there any benefit to 1000 armor use? No. None whatsoever, the armor you can wear is already limited by your school, and t5 platemail only needs 910 armor use. So why is it that 10 armor use per level is so heavily focused on? Shouldn't your adventure level already give you enough skill to equip the bare minimum for your tier? Is there any reason why a level 81 Battle Mage (who is supposed to be able to wear platemail) cannot wear level 81 plain cloth armor while a level 81 Mage can?

This system forces players to level classes they might not even want just to be able to wear armor that fits their tier. True, that would be fine in most cases: mystic classes would probably want mage as a base school, melee classes would probably want warrior as a base school, bow classes would probably want scout as a base school, disciples would probably want monk as a base.... but mystic classes wouldn't necessarily want Guardian as their base school. In fact I can't think of a reason why you WOULD want a prestige class.... as your base class.

TL;DR:
Armor use should not limit what armor you can wear, that's already limited by your level and your school. Armor from looted forms is also limited by how easily you can find the forms and/or someone willing to craft them for you.
You should be able to wear level 81 armor for your class at level 81.

I read threw this all and I have to agree something has to be done for armor use for bipeds may not just level but rating too, not school based.

[Daewa]

I absolutely agree, Even from a logical view point it wouldn't be as hard to put on cloth vs strapping up several heavy plates for platemail (which is what armor use sounds like it is supposed to be a factor in, that is determining how easily a character can use armor). Currently I have to be lv 38 to wear lv 31 cloth which is already falling far behind and making a noticeable bump in my progress.

[Racktor]

While I don't play a biped, the concept of armor use doesn't make much sense to me. After all, the ped has to craft the armor or buy it after hitting the level, anyway. Shouldn't that effort be enough? Why must armor be limited with such a vague stat?

I do wish I knew the actual reason we have armor use, as I don't know. There might be some balance reason or it might be to encourage leveling other schools and creating interdependence. Could we perhaps get a reason as to why Armor Use exists?

Otherwise, I support Mach's suggestion. It seems to be, at least to me, an annoying barrier we don't need.

[Alisto]

Rather than removing armor use - imo what we have now currently 'works' but serves no purpose - I'd re purpose it to something worth putting attribute points in.

Say, for each point of armor use you put attribute points into, you gain an additional percentage of your current armor. Would give a nice viable alternative to those who want to tank, but don't like the evasions (or do like the evasions, but don't want health). Although, dunno how to change the below-lv100 stuff so that you dn't have to adjust all the armor values and whatnot.

[Lio]

I couldn't agree more with this post .. as a HEALER, the max armour I can wear is 810au T5 Ringmail [the lower form of CHAINMAIL], having an AU factor of 820 at level 100.

Simply put, your Armour should be related to your character type - TANK = Plate type, DPS = Chainmail/Leather type, HEALER = Plate/Chainmail/Leather, CASTER = Cloth, not a differing arbitrary rate of AU factor per school per level IMHO.

Within the four types of course there are variations, but each school should be able to wear the best Armour for their type/school at least at lvl 100 .. maybe earlier ..

I'd personally prefer using the levels of character to determine when you can use what tier, not limit some to never wearing the top tier at all etc. .. for example a WARRIOR able to wear the T5 top level of plate at lvl80, but a Cleric needing lvl100 to wear same.

Good post Machaeon .. I fully concur.

[Racktor]

Rather than removing armor use - imo what we have now currently 'works' but serves no purpose - I'd re purpose it to something worth putting attribute points in.

Say, for each point of armor use you put attribute points into, you gain an additional percentage of your current armor. Would give a nice viable alternative to those who want to tank, but don't like the evasions (or do like the evasions, but don't want health). Although, dunno how to change the below-lv100 stuff so that you dn't have to adjust all the armor values and whatnot.

Funnily enough, I was about to edit my post to write exactly that but I ran out of time in my class. So yeah, support to repurposing armor use rather than 100% removing it, too ^

[Guaran]

.. as a HEALER, the max armour I can wear is 810au T5 Ringmail [the lower form of CHAINMAIL], having an AU factor of 820 at level 100.

But at 100, you are at least at that point... It appears designed that way on purpose as you just get there at lvl 99. T5 jewelry cannot all be equipped at lvl 80 either.. you get the neck at late 90's.. of course as pointed out, the level is controlling the time at which these items can be used. Perhaps, the Armor use actually provides a bonus to the armor the class can wear, assuming the armor use is high enough? In your example of healer, Ringmail is probably the intended max armor for that school.

On thing armor use does is encourage multiclassing. Be interesting to hear the devs' reasoning on this.

Simply put, your Armour should be related to your character type - TANK = Plate type, DPS = Chainmail/Leather type, HEALER = Plate/Chainmail/Leather, CASTER = Cloth, not a differing arbitrary rate of AU factor per school per level IMHO...

I'm not sure a healer should wear plate.. would become unkillable. There has to be some challenge. Armor use really only affects the first school or 2, and then you have max armor use and it goes away...

[Lio]

..of course as pointed out, the level is controlling the time at which these items can be used. Perhaps, the Armor use actually provides a bonus to the armor the class can wear, assuming the armor use is high enough? In your example of healer, Ringmail is probably the intended max armor for that school.

Absolutely agree with you here on the level determining armour type by whatever system, indeed it may be that ringmail is the max intended .. and i guess then what i'm saying is that maybe HEALERS should get access to CHAINMAIL, ie be able to wear the best of their armour TYPE .. see clarification also below.

On[e] thing armor use does is encourage multiclassing. Be interesting to hear the devs' reasoning on this.

Yes indeed, that's really the point of the post I believe, that some players don't want to multiclass on one character, but currently have to in order to get a max, or higher, AU etc.

I'm not sure a healer should wear plate.. would become unkillable. There has to be some challenge. Armor use really only affects the first school or 2, and then you have max armor use and it goes away...

My apologies here, my reply wasn't that clear .. i meant any class should be able to use their max t5 armour of type - SCALE/PLATE, RING/CHAIN ETC, and each school within their armour type getting the ability to wear the higher grades earlier or later .. ie WARRIOR - max t5 plate at 80, CLERIC - max level plate at lvl 100 etc

.. so a CLERIC would get 1000 AU and be able to wear scale/plate as now, a HEALER, same au, but only be able to wear ring/chain and the DRUID same au, but only able to wear leather/hide .. CASTERS only able to wear cloth/padded .. and so on .. ie splitting the schools/classes into tank/dps/heal/caster groups, and awarding 10au to all per level, in their own specific armour type ..

Re-balancing, if necessary. in other ways if deemed too overpowered etc,

Anyhow, just some thoughts , and yes, it'll be interesting to hear any thoughts from the devs.

[Calyndrell]

As a biped I have never liked the armor use skill it always seemed pointless.

I definitely like the idea that it adds a percentage to your current Base armour value perhaps a total maximum bonus of say 10% or at a max 20% it would also mean that you could.vary the amount of skill to a greater degree some schools getting much less than others. And tanky classes could get skills that are class.related that provide big bonuses. So that for example a cleric even though it technically has the same armour as a warrior the warrior might have a class specific buff that makes his armour more effective.

Just an idea.

[Alisto]

Doing something similar with the shield skill would also be nice, I think it's about as useful as armor use skill right now.

[meepsa]

Doing something similar with the shield skill would also be nice, I think it's about as useful as armor use skill right now.

ooooh yes, and instead of increasing armor value it could (slightly) improve chance to block? (or both?)

[Spyrioyo]

ooooh yes, and instead of increasing armor value it could (slightly) improve chance to block? (or both?)

I think meepsa is right it should improve chance to block but also armor so both. It's shield it makes sense. For it just for armor doesn't makes sense.

[Litarath]

ooooh yes, and instead of increasing armor value it could (slightly) improve chance to block? (or both?)

Quoted for relation to something I've said about this before...

I looked through the threads and my own profile to try to find a post I made about this, but couldn't find it... a dev had explained that it only affects the quality of shield you could use.... same with armor use.

I'm pretty sure I made a post along these lines before, but maybe the history doesn't go that far back. If any of you find it... please let me know!

At any rate, my suggestion was along the lines of exactly what Meeps said. The reason I'd asked the question in the first place was because of a character of mine that is built defensively and relies exclusively on dodging, parrying, blocking, and evasion in general and I wanted clarification.

Unfortunately, I'd pumped a LOT of TPs into the shield skill, thinking it affected my block rate, only to find it didn't.

Personally, I think it should, as well as the quality of shields I can use. This is a change I'd be completely thrilled about.

Back to the topic of armor use, I'd also be supportive of the idea to be able to add into armor use like a regular stat point to boost one's armor, or just removing it and letting us use the class specific armor at the level it becomes available.

[Guaran]

...Unfortunately, I'd pumped a LOT of TPs into the shield skill, thinking it affected my block rate, only to find it didn't.

Personally, I think it should, as well as the quality of shields I can use. This is a change I'd be completely thrilled about..

So you were confused on what shield use is and how it works. We've all been confused about something in Istaria at one point. I was a hatchy dragon and scribed a flame damage spell tech thinking it would add flame damage to all my spells... (lol).

The term "Shield Use" can be interpreted one of two ways: "Which shield I can use" or "How well I use my shield". It means the first, but you are asking for it to mean the second.

Same for "Armor Use". It simply means which armor you can use, not how well you can use it. Thinking about Armor, it seems to me that I have armor with X amount of protection... being more skilled doesn't mean that armor just becomes 'better' somehow. Just doesn't make sense. As far as the game is concerned, this is how shields work as well.

The shields have the boosts to armor and block built in.

The tooltip even clarifies this on the skill in the Character - Skills tab: "Allows the character to use progressively more effective shields"

No need to fix what isn't broken.

[Alisto]

So you were confused on what shield use is and how it works. We've all been confused about something in Istaria at one point. I was a hatchy dragon and scribed a flame damage spell tech thinking it would add flame damage to all my spells... (lol).

The term "Shield Use" can be interpreted one of two ways: "Which shield I can use" or "How well I use my shield". It means the first, but you are asking for it to mean the second.

Same for "Armor Use". It simply means which armor you can use, not how well you can use it. Thinking about Armor, it seems to me that I have armor with X amount of protection... being more skilled doesn't mean that armor just becomes 'better' somehow. Just doesn't make sense. As far as the game is concerned, this is how shields work as well.

The shields have the boosts to armor and block built in.

The tooltip even clarifies this on the skill in the Character - Skills tab: "Allows the character to use progressively more effective shields"

No need to fix what isn't broken.

Worth improving them though, yes?

There's no reason whatsoever to put points into shield or armor use one you get up there in multiclassing, because multiclassing appropriately allows you to use all the stuff you'd want. And then you have two skills that are worthless if you put points into them.

[Guaran]

Yeah, I wouldn't ever put points in (armor use or shield use) and someone who did would want to take them out after its no longer needed.

The only think I can think would be a solution to that would be to refund any tps people put in them, and take away the ability to put points in. But there are probably people who do make use of it, even if for a short time, so I didn't mention it. But I wouldn't be against removing the ability to train them, since it isn't game breaking, might save some confusion, and would encourage multiclassing. But it can also be said it isn't game breaking to leave it as-is...

Someone could be a Ranger, but put training points in to two hand slash. It would be worthless to do so, but the game lets you do that. I'm not convinced that is reason enough to change how it all works with regards to shields and armor.

We can teach new players how that works. We can tech extra block on shields or parry on swords.

If shield use somehow affected block, then parry would be left behind. You can't train anything in regards to parry. The way block and parry work (dev's correct me if I got this wrong) is that each point in the skill, say a shield with +12 block, gives +12% chance to block. It quickly gets really powerful (or overpowered) which is why the ability to tech block and parry on bracelets was removed. Somehow tying block to shield use skill would probably be over the top. Maybe +1 block for every 100 skill? But even doing that would not make it worth putting points in it. Probably better to just leave it alone.

[Machaeon]

Yeah, I wouldn't ever put points in (armor use or shield use) and someone who did would want to take them out after its no longer needed.

The only think I can think would be a solution to that would be to refund any tps people put in them, and take away the ability to put points in. But there are probably people who do make use of it, even if for a short time, so I didn't mention it. But I wouldn't be against removing the ability to train them, since it isn't game breaking, might save some confusion, and would encourage multiclassing. But it can also be said it isn't game breaking to leave it as-is...

The problem though is that you CAN'T put tp into armor use, you have to get it from leveling classes and mystic classes don't really have a good base class that offers more than 9 armor use per level... which means you need to go outside your mystic specialization to get to wear the upper end of the armor for your class.

And armor use dictating what armor you can wear is well... redundant. You're already limited in what armor you can wear by your class and the armor from looted forms is ALWAYS more difficult to get your hands on because you'd have to loot the forms and techs and go through the trouble of making it yourself or find someone else who already has the right forms and techs to make it for you. Neither of which are easy for a new player to do, they clearly won't have the forms or the skill to make the armor and they may not be aware of where to even go to ask for help. I've seen people hitting a wall where you need better gear early on a biped and leaving the game because of that difficulty.

[silverth]

The problem though is that you CAN'T put tp into armor use, you have to get it from leveling classes and mystic classes don't really have a good base class that offers more than 9 armor use per level... which means you need to go outside your mystic specialization to get to wear the upper end of the armor for your class.

And armor use dictating what armor you can wear is well... redundant. You're already limited in what armor you can wear by your class and the armor from looted forms is ALWAYS more difficult to get your hands on because you'd have to loot the forms and techs and go through the trouble of making it yourself or find someone else who already has the right forms and techs to make it for you. Neither of which are easy for a new player to do, they clearly won't have the forms or the skill to make the armor and they may not be aware of where to even go to ask for help. I've seen people hitting a wall where you need better gear early on a biped and leaving the game because of that difficulty.

I'm no where near knowledgeable in how things work in ista, I rely on asking (mainly) Alisto, and now more recently others, about things for my peds. 4+ years playing, and I still don't like that armor rating makes my level 21 ped wait til 22 or higher before they can equip level 21 armor. I've abandoned working peds just for that reason.

So I support removing the armor use requirement for armor wearing. There's enough to focus on with peds as it is.

I'll now let the ones who know more get back to the discussion. :P

[Guaran]

The problem though is that you CAN'T put tp into armor use, you have to get it from leveling classes and mystic classes don't really have a good base class that offers more than 9 armor use per level... which means you need to go outside your mystic specialization to get to wear the upper end of the armor for your class.

The player does not need to do anything to wear the armor that is intended for that school.

And armor use dictating what armor you can wear is well... redundant.

Armor user skill allows the player to UPGRADE their armor beyond the intended for that school if they train another school that is better at using armor, such as Warrior. Keep in mind they are in no way REQUIRED to do any of that.

You're already limited in what armor you can wear by your class and the armor from looted forms is ALWAYS more difficult to get your hands on because you'd have to loot the forms and techs and go through the trouble of making it yourself or find someone else who already has the right forms and techs to make it for you. Neither of which are easy for a new player to do, they clearly won't have the forms or the skill to make the armor and they may not be aware of where to even go to ask for help. I've seen people hitting a wall where you need better gear early on a biped and leaving the game because of that difficulty.

So forms being Looted is part of this argument? Well that's a design choice by the dev's, and is really a stretch as any sort of justification for changing all armor to just immediately allow say a healer to wear Mithril Chainmail that they should only be strong enough to wear unless they are also a trained Warrior. To me this even makes sense from a lore perspective in the game.

It's fine as it is.