Cloak of Protection vs Cloak of Displacement

[Agent Chieftain]

Which do you think is overall better? Constant +1 to AC and saving throws, or enemies having disadvantage on attack rolls until the first time you take damage that turn.

Imposed disadvantage is a stronger effect, but can be ruined by an AOE effect that guarantees damage, or just by the enemy getting lucky enough to overcome the disadvantage. Whereas the +1 to AC and saving throws is always going to be there.

[Recjawjind]

Cloak of displacement is in this game (as it is in real D&D) one of the single best defensive items.
It's mathematically on average a +3.32 increase to AC, and with how much AC you can stack, you can get damn near unhittable for anything other than crits, which become a 0.25% chance with disadvantage.

Edit: Got their names mixed up, fixed now

[Agent Chieftain]

Originally posted by Recjawjind:

Cloak of displacement is in this game (as it is in real D&D) one of the single best defensive items.
It's mathematically on average a +3.32 increase to AC, and with how much AC you can stack, you can get damn near unhittable for anything other than crits, which become a 0.25% chance with disadvantage.

Ah, so it averages out to be more in the long run. Good to know. Still a bit concerned about a lucky hit early ruining the bonus, but I suppose an Ancients Paladin wearing the Armour of Persistence can handle it anyway.

[Agathorn (SH)]

I was debating this tonight on my Monk. On the one hand I just love seeing this huge AC number, so getting the +1 really just eggs me on :) But I read somewhere that the Cloak of Displacement actually gets better the higher your AC is (mathematically speaking) which makes sense, given the higher your AC the harder you are to hit which in turn is only snowballed by the disadvantage.

On the flip side, if something is already giving your attackers disadvantage, then the effect is wasted whereas the +1 from the Cloak of Protection is always useful.

Right now my Monk just starting Act 3 has a 22AC and 24AC if I swap out my +1 To Hit gloves with +2 to AC ones (Gloves of Crushing vs Bracers of Defense). I THINK at this point pushing my AC is hitting diminishing returns so I'm going to try running with the Cloak of Displacement for a bit.

[You Touched My Tralala]

Cloak of Displacement works really good on rogue 7 (and, IIRC, monk 7) with evasion allowing to take as less damage as possible every single turn.

With that said, CoD is better for characters you really don't want to be targeted, because Blur lowers aggro for enemies, also, taking as little damage as possible is highly prioritized for characters with concentration spells

Cloak of protection is good in case entire character build is around as much AC as possible meaning both rings with +1 AC, cloak of +1 AC, and say 2H axe with +1 AC, you'll be super tanky while still being more attractive than your Shadowheart trying to not break her Blessing concentration

[AokiYakumo]

Originally posted by Agent Chieftain:

Which do you think is overall better? Constant +1 to AC and saving throws, or enemies having disadvantage on attack rolls until the first time you take damage that turn.

Imposed disadvantage is a stronger effect, but can be ruined by an AOE effect that guarantees damage, or just by the enemy getting lucky enough to overcome the disadvantage. Whereas the +1 to AC and saving throws is always going to be there.

At low AC (13-17), Cloak of Protection is better overall.

At high AC (21+) Cloak of Displacement wins out. It has a lot to do with effective accuracy and how it skews averages.

[guard65]

I would say the cloak of protection is the better choice. The main reason is the cloak of displacement only gives disadvantage to physical attacks if you are not hit already.

There are so many things in the game that give disadvantage to attackers that it just seems the cloak is useless 50% of the time. You can not stack disadvantage.

In my party I have a battle master and another player with protection fighting style, just to name the first things that come to mind that also impose disadvantage on enemies. There is a volume of conditions, spells, and other effects that also impose disadvantage on enemies that I use in combat.

The main advantage that I would select the cloak of protection is that it gives AC and saving throw bonuses that stack with all the other items and bonuses.

[Agathorn (SH)]

The problem is AC is a diminishing return. I don't know what the average to hit bonuses are in BG3 (trying to find out actually) but at some point, AC just isn't that helpful. If I pushed it right now I could probably get close to 25 or 26 AC.

[AokiYakumo]

Originally posted by guard65:

I would say the cloak of protection is the better choice. The main reason is the cloak of displacement only gives disadvantage to physical attacks if you are not hit already.

There are so many things in the game that give disadvantage to attackers that it just seems the cloak is useless 50% of the time. You can not stack disadvantage.

In my party I have a battle master and another player with protection fighting style, just to name the first things that come to mind that also impose disadvantage on enemies. There is a volume of conditions, spells, and other effects that also impose disadvantage on enemies that I use in combat.

The main advantage that I would select the cloak of protection is that it gives AC and saving throw bonuses that stack with all the other items and bonuses.

Honestly, fair point. Protection beats Displacement on a Radiant Orb Cleric because they can just fire off Warding Flares ad nauseum to make attacks whiff. (A fair counterpoint to this though is that Araj sells the Thunderskin Cloak which makes the Radiant Orb build pop off even harder; since it triggers Dazed which causes the Clamour Boots to proc again, thus amplifying the feedback loop). Similarly, Blur exists, so there's an argument to be made that Displacement has no value because of that spell.

Still, Agathorn is right about diminishing returns on AC. At some point, a +1 to AC ends up being less useful overall than passive disadv. triggers, which makes the +1 to saves really the only good thing from the cloak.