Best armor for martial artists?

[Krono]

I’m pretty new, so be gentle with me please.

I’ve been making my martial arts character, and up until now I’ve been wearing armor that boosts my martial arts skill. Bindings, armored skirt, that sort of thing.

At this point though, his base martial arts skill is at 55, so I figure I should probably be putting heavier armor on him even if it has a negative martial arts value. Should probably keep the bindings on though to protect his fists.

What say the veterans here?

[Gerustroncio]

I like to keep my MA guys with ninja rags myself, the masterwork grade provides quite a bit of protection, plus it gives a nice bonus to dodge too.

Pair that with a good masterwork leather turtleneck(or even a chain shirt), and perhaps samurai clothpants, and it's plenty protection for a MA.

Heavy armor hinders MA too much.

And for the head you can use somehting like the Flared helmet

[Frozeniceberg]

if you want to wear armor with no penalty i would suggest

Full master Work

Masked Helmet ( Crab Helmet is better but it might not be aesthetically pleasing)
Dust coat
Leather Turtle Neck
Samurai Clothpants
Drifters Boots
You can easily get them from armor king in masterwork quality (Thats if you have the $$$)

In your place i would avoid using heavy armor, taking penalty to your dodge is really brutal because that`s your only defense.
If you have problems with your fist taking damage you can get your arms replaced by robotic limbs and it should sort you out, even then your arms only take damage when you are fighting armor opponents (besides getting hit in the arm).

[Krono]

So lighter armor is still the way to go eh? Thanks all

[Strassenkater]

Or you could use medium armor:

Armored Rags
Blackened Chain mail (10% dodge penalty)
Armored Rag Skirt
Plated Boots

Quite heavy though and you will take some damage in the stomache area. In late game I even use the mercenary plate (30% dodge penalty) because you will take a lot of damage in light armor.

[Hobo Misanthropus]

Assassin's Rags, Blackened Chainmail, Armored Rag Skirt, Plated Boots (MASTERWORK ONLY) Skeleton, Fog or Mask III.

The assassin's rags will neutralize all the penalties of the Blackened Chainmail, provide you with some decent protection, including a huge boost to dodge and combat speed. This makes a 1v1 versus Tinfist viable if you've got at least 90 Skills across the board. Tinfist is probably the hardest NPC in the game, even harder than Elder King.

Until you reach true mastery, you should keep two sets of MA gear on you. One set, debuffs MA as much as possible, this is your training gear. The other set, buffs MA and dodge as much as possible, this is your "Doin serious work now thx" gear.

Note that this is more of a 1v1 MA setup, or, at least not fighting next to allies, as collateral damage (Attacks not actually aimed at your martial artist) are the MA's worst enemy. But 1v1 or even up to 1v5, your martial artist should never be in real danger except by a line of crossbowman, but that's what the flying dragon kick is for.

For non meta spam purposes, once you get your MA to 50 base skill, you can transition off your training gear, this will be strong enough outside of solos, to absolutely body everything if you've got enough backup. The irony is, more Martial Artists actually make life worse for you, since missed swings can still fly and smack one of your other guys like I mentioned, so I limit it to 1MA per group.

[Avos]

When training your MA you can make at a loom(no quality modifiers) the MA bindings, gi and gi pants for a +8 bonus. It helps initially. You can also get the straw hat and wooden sandals to go full kung fu warrior.