Armor is Useless for AC in this game

[AvasNem]

It seems that armor isn`t worth the feats and itemslots.
ScaleF/oracle/witch dip and Archmage armor grant you way more and consistent AC.
Am I missing something, becasue i realy like armor.

[Elnidfse]

It's not useless. It's just archmage armor and oracle/scaleF double dips are one of the easier ways to consistently have good armor without marrying a tower shield or dodge+3 crane feats.

[DarkFenix]

No it's not. /thread

[ope84]

At what difficulty we are talking about?

[Koveras]

Armor is not useless. It just isn't sufficient. You'll definitely require other sources of AC.

[Bard]

It's called armor class and it's higher without armor.

[tempest.of.emptiness]

Mage armor is much easier to dispel than armor.

[Player#2201]

Everyone seems to ignore the secondary unique effects a lot of armor brings. You might lose dex bonus because of the max attached to armor types, but some bonuses (elemental immunity, sacred/profane, untyped, etc.) still make them worth having even if mage armor overrides the main armor effect.

[urartu]

Hellknight class gets some bonuses for Armor on top of what the armor provides.

"As long as he wears Armor, a 9th-level Hellknight gains a +2 bonus on all Persuasion checks. In addition, while wearing the Armor, he gains resistance to fire 30, resistance to acid 10, and resistance to cold 10."

And at 10th level if he is wearing armor he becomes immune to fire. Sure you can pretty much make pseudo-immunity with buffs but still it is something. And it cannot be dispelled.

[Arcon]

Mithril - find it, love it. My tank buffed has 60+ AC - mix that with last stand.. he's pretty hard to kill. Fullplate is 9 AC + 3 dex AC = 12. So +5 M full plate is 17 AC. Magical Vestments seems bugged because it can add +5 on top of the +5. Then you work in feats/armor focus and a dex belt... that full plate starts working double time.


Though I will say, optional fights it's usually the necro that survives as the healer just keeps resurecting the meat shields to die.. as meat shields.

Good old displacement/mirror image though, mixxed with high ac mithril = fun times.

[Creomortis]

Got to admit having to take off armor to use my tanks buff skills before a fight gets tiresome after the 200th time.

[Johndoe101]

Armor is not useless . As you can get a high AC depending on what route you go with. The issue you can never have a high enough AC to avoid being hit. Depending on the armor material (mitheral, adamatine or etc) and add in class features . They can make armor useful still .

When it come to AC there are many ways to get a good to high AC for what sources your class use. Such as a wizard who use mythic mage armor , shield spell , belt of dexterity , ring of protection , amulet of natural armor and use of mirror image can make a wizard as tanky as fighter in full plate. While a rogue who use mitheral armor , armor related feat's and through use magic items with a high ac can be as tanky as a fighter. While a monk who invested in to their ac via item's or etc can have a high ac still.

Definitely taking shield and armor off a lot can be tiresome if they rely on alot of buffs.

[Elnidfse]

Originally posted by tempest.of.emptiness:

Mage armor is much easier to dispel than armor.

You can count the number of encounters that dispel buffs on a single hand with 3 fingers.
The ones that use dispel more than once is down to 1.

[Conquista]

armor mostly for rp or if you want to challenge yourself a bit more, while you can still get high enough AC for the game on most difficulties, naked tanks still outclass them easily

[YouOnly LiveOnline]

The way Armor works in general is dumb anyway. AC effects your chance to be hit, so if you really think about it having heavy Armor on would slow down your character making it easier to be hit.

AC should really be for dodge based classes so light / no Armor so it kind makes sense that you can get higher AC with these types of class. Heavy Armor should be damage reduction rather than miss chance.

On a side note if you want to use heavy Armour and tank I found using a Gendarme to be one of the better ways to do it. Despite having lower AC than a character with a bunch of dips, a full Gendarme built correctly can tank really well while mounted. I only play on core though so not sure what hard+ would be like.

[CHAO$$$]

Mirror image is better than AC.

Damage with dex has a major feat tax.

You cry when you get hit with greater dispel. You cry when you dont get to prebuff (like that one fight in act 6 that you cant avoid).

Classes like warpriest get class bonuses for actual armor.

Armor has innate magical bonuses (like the one that gives additional +4 attack (insight bonus?!)when outflank is active - that ♥♥♥♥♥ pretty good)

Naked dex dancer will ultimately give you more AC if you dont get dispelled but theres definitely reasons to not go that route.