Armor seems pointless

[Crogg The Devourer]

I've determined armor is completely pointless especially at higher Haz lvls. Even basic enemies damage will out scale any armor upgrades. I've never even noticed a drop in incoming damage even at lower Haz lvls. Also is the number value of armor suppose to affect incoming damage? Is it a point value damage reduction? A percentage? It doesn't specify.

[Zefar]

One round I got at least 2 perks with 9+ armor and then had picked two other normal armors.

But I saw the explosion bug still did the usual 25 damage to me.

[Ser Pounce]

When you start getting hit for over 50 damage by grunt on stage 1, you understand that armor is actually fairly valuable if you don't wanna die by touching two bugs.

Don't know the details outside of the the fact that it's percentage based and you get less return the more you stack it but it's definitely helpful to reduce damage.

[Tyyne]

Especially at higher levels you start to appreciate armor. Would be nice to know the exact calculations etc (just like with life regen ) but even when we do not have those, Haz5 runs kinda want you to have either armor or dodge.

[Boomerwow]

Armor is not very good yeah. Unless you get a legendary +12 you can pretty much ignore it. 1 point of armor doesn't do anything. 3 points might reduce an incoming hit by 1 damage, depending on what your starting armor is.

[The Yeen Queen]

Originally posted by Crogg The Devourer:

I've determined armor is completely pointless especially at higher Haz lvls.

You've determined incorrectly. Like, hysterically incorrectly.

[RADN3CTAR]

I'm also curious as how armour affects damage taken. Since monster damage increases (a lot) with every layer I'm not sure if "investing" in armour makes that much of a difference. Anyways if anyone figures it out I'd like to know.

[Hailspork]

Originally posted by Ser Pounce:

When you start getting hit for over 50 damage by grunt on stage 1, you understand that armor is actually fairly valuable if you don't wanna die by touching two bugs.

Don't know the details outside of the the fact that it's percentage based and you get less return the more you stack it but it's definitely helpful to reduce damage.

Any chance you could find out how it works? It'd be nice to know exactly what +12 armor actually means when deciding between it and 10% damage...

[Crogg The Devourer]

Originally posted by Night Foxx:

Originally posted by Crogg The Devourer:

I've determined armor is completely pointless especially at higher Haz lvls.

You've determined incorrectly. Like, hysterically incorrectly.

You say that, but give no reasoning other than "You're wrong".
I see no damage reduction when picking up armor upgrades. Let alone any significant reduction especially when the damage output become double by stage 5 on Haz 4. The armor point value does nothing to explain what it actually does when taking it.

[The Yeen Queen]

Originally posted by Crogg The Devourer:

Originally posted by Night Foxx:

You've determined incorrectly. Like, hysterically incorrectly.

You say that, but give no reasoning other than "You're wrong".
I see no damage reduction when picking up armor upgrades. Let alone any significant reduction especially when the damage output become double by stage 5 on Haz 4. The armor point value does nothing to explain what it actually does when taking it.

I mean, others have already given pretty solid reasoning, do you want me to just parrot them? I don't have exact numbers but I can tell you that I can see a significant difference in survivability when I load up on the armor upgrades. Especially playing Juggernaut who starts out with high armor.

[Paranoia_Inc]

Originally posted by Hailspork:

Any chance you could find out how it works? It'd be nice to know exactly what +12 armor actually means when deciding between it and 10% damage...

I would assume the legendary +12 is just that. And 10% would be only one point of armor, if the baseline armor depending on class and upgrades is only 10.

[Wlerin]

Originally posted by Crogg The Devourer:

I see no damage reduction when picking up armor upgrades. Let alone any significant reduction especially when the damage output become double by stage 5 on Haz 4. The armor point value does nothing to explain what it actually does when taking it.

While it would be nice to see how it actually works (as would more tooltips/explanations in general), it's super obvious armour does have an effect. Just compare the damage the Juggernaut takes when walking on magma to any other class.

Maybe you don't notice it because the damage increases between floors. But even then, if you're seeing the same damage on the next floor after taking the armour upgrade, that means it's working.

[Crogg The Devourer]

Originally posted by Wlerin:

Originally posted by Crogg The Devourer:

I see no damage reduction when picking up armor upgrades. Let alone any significant reduction especially when the damage output become double by stage 5 on Haz 4. The armor point value does nothing to explain what it actually does when taking it.

While it would be nice to see how it actually works (as would more tooltips/explanations in general), it's super obvious armour does have an effect. Just compare the damage the Juggernaut takes when walking on magma to any other class.

Maybe you don't notice it because the damage increases between floors. But even then, if you're seeing the same damage on the next floor after taking the armour upgrade, that means it's working.

The damage value is the same on the same floor when taking even high armor upgrades.

[Wlerin]

Originally posted by Crogg The Devourer:

The damage value is the same on the same floor when taking even high armor upgrades.

Well, it isn't, so I don't know what else to tell you.

[GIRL]

The problem with Armor is that it's rarely worth it to take over other upgrades unless it's Epic or higher quality. Uncommon and Rare (+3 and +6) are usually outshined be gun upgrades of equal rarity, because if you kill stuff better you don't take damage in the first place.

The only time taking +3/6 armor upgrades are worth it is when there's only absolute trash on offer otherwise, sadly.

This could be balanced a bit better by making armor scale logarithmically, with the first 25 or so points being more potent than they are now, but stacking above that having diminishing returns. This would make an early-game +3 or +6 upgrade more immediately impactful and worth taking.

[Khadgar]

I just did an extremely scientific test over the course of one(1) run, where I took damage from a basic bug, then picked up an armor upgrade, took damage again, then picked up a second armor upgrade, and finally, took damage again.

Here are my results.

Armor  | Damage
-------|--------
16     | 21
19(+3) | 19
31(+12)| 15 

Adding 3 points of armor reduced damage taken by 2. Adding an additional 12 points of armor reduced damage by a further 4, which is 1/2 as effective as the previous 3 points.

Therefore, I will conclude that armor has very fast diminishing returns, and probably the metaprogression upgrades for it give you all the armor you'll ever want/need, unless you are offered a legendary armor upgrade.

EDIT: Here's an imgur album with my super scientific study data: https://imgur.com/a/5k1wl22