New to PoE, and a question about armor...

[DenverRalphy]

Okay, I'm new to PoE, mainly because I've seen the hype for PoE2, and decided I'd like to play the first installment given that I'd skipped it a couple years back. Thus far, I'm enjoying the experience, but I have a question...

Armor DR vs Recovery: At the outset, I noticed that different armor types are countered with recovery. And at the outset they seemed to be pretty much static However, as I progress, and find amor of the same type, those upgrades to DR from a same armor type will also show a bigger hit on recovery (ie.. a character wearing scale armor gets a higher hit to recovery than a character wearing leather, but when I find better scale armor, the recovery stat is worse). Am I just unlucky trying to find armor upgrades? Or are higher grade amors of the same type counterbalanced with worse recovery stats based upon the point that your character should have built up recovery by the time they acquired new pieces to equalize the concept?

I can work with it either way. Just curious as to the mechanics.

[Drakan]

The basic armour sets in PoE have a pretty linear Recovery penalty (cloth -> leather -> plate ...) .

It's up to you to determine how much "penalty" you're willing to endure vs. survivability. (recovery vs dr). Most armours of the same type have the same DR / Recovery, the magical upgrades allow for it to be adjusted (Fine/Superb, etc). There may be specific thematic types of armour (some army left overs, or dwarven made etc etc) or if you're talking about specific unique or rare armours you've found, then it may vary from set to set, and this is where your discretion will have to come into play.

Are you willing to saddle your rogue with 10% extra recovery time for some nice DR types or stat boosts from a nice unique chain mail ... that kind of thing. The loot tables are randomly generated for the most part, but your luck has nothing to do with it, really, just look at the item, understand the bonuses it grants to your character and the penalties associated, what kind of character it is, and what you're willing to deal with as that character. You can equip full plate mail on your wizard, if you're willing to slow down your spell casting to that extent, the game allows it, it's up to you. :)

I hope this helped to some extent.

[ColorsFade]

There's some leeway between types of armor and recovery/DR. In general the heavier the armor the better the DR and the higher the recovery penalty. But it's not static. Not every piece of Scale Mail is going to have the same recovery penalty.

Bottom line: you have to actually look at the stats and determine what you desire for that character you're going to equip it on. You may get some more DR but decide you don't like the recovery penalty. In that case, you may be better off enchanting your current armor instead.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

There are various pieces of unique armor that offer higher DR and better recovery:
https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Unique_armor
https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Armor

And once you've found your favorite armor, you may choose to enhance it with Durgan refined steel: --> https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Durgan-Refined

[Atzepan]

Choosing you armor:
A) if you have the WM expansions there is 1 Soulbound armor use the wiki to figure out what character you like to get it.

B) Look at the unique armor a lot of unique armor has special ability which you can't enchant onto you armor like https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Osric%27s_Family_Breastplate wich has second chance. The disadvantage is some of the armor are quest related might not be optainable depending on what you choose to do and some of them might be in the random loot pool (not sure) never got gloves with mechanic 2 in my second playthrough =S

C) If none of the uniques realy give you something like getting your caster a recovery penality of 40 or 50 just to get an extra stat that he or she doesn't even use in the game or so rarely that it wouldn't matter if you had it or not, you can choose to self enchant your armor.
For Self enchanted stuff:
If you remove/subtract the quality enchantement Fine, Exceptionel, superb or legendary from the armor. Most of the armors behave like 1 DR means reduce recovery with 5%.
there are exception to this rule:
http://www.gamebanshee.com/cgi-bin/search/banshee_search.pl?_layout=pillars_items_Page&_cgifunction=search&pillars_items.id=167 you get 2 DR for 5% less recovery which means you get 1 DR for free i use this for caster
http://www.gamebanshee.com/cgi-bin/search/banshee_search.pl?_layout=pillars_items_Page&_cgifunction=search&pillars_items.id=901 Not sure about this one if it realy has no penality, don't remember using it or if i didn't find it.
Every Heavy Armor that specialized in Slash/Piercing and Shock DR (like the crucicle knight armor) they have 12 DR with a 50% penality. This means you get 2 DR more for 50% penality
compared to the Brigandine which has Crush and Corode focus but only 10 DR with 50% penality

Nota Bene: If you choose to enchant yourself you will reach a soft cap with exceptionel. which is
+4 DR. Because Superb and Legendary require mats from unique monster which only drop 2 pieces or so. You might get lucky through your curio shop if that still works but else you'll only get to upgrade 2 armour to superb and 2 to legendary if you don't upgrade a shield.