Armour and Classes

[DreddBeat]

What armour types should I equip each class/party member with? Cloth, leather, metals etc.

[Scathe]

in terms of itemization, for head/feet/gloves, equipping an item with a good enchant is more important than the weight. good enchants include prophet, wind, king and to a lesser extent breeze and hero. later on around level 25 start mixxing in absolute protection enchant on everyone. for chest, you don't want to go over the limits of your strength + armor skill, but still want to prioritize the raw defense provided over the enchant, this makes "light" one of the best enchants for anyone that struggles with having enough armor skill to equip the heaviest plate. my cleric fell in the category of needing a "light" chest armor. my cleric only had 11 armor skill, but was equipped with the highest defense values from heaviest armors on my whole team, due to "light" enchant on chest, and due to using a shield on the front line while other front liners used two handed weapons. my cleric had very light weight head/feet/gloves. my soldier on the other hand, used the heaviest chest armor I looted, even though that one was completely un-enchanted, again prioritizing raw defense over enchant on chest.

gaulen - got to 21 armor skill by level 53 near the end of the game, making lightweight enchant on chest not necessary, got pretty heavy armor, pumped con and speed most levels to man the front line. used a shield for weight efficient defense until very late, did not max his weapon skill in the minimum amount of levels needed to do so, unlike my soldier and my two arcane soldiers. gaulen eventually transitioned from shield to 2 handed weapon. knowledge of herbs, knowledge of terrains, and object identification and learning combined to make gaulen fairly skill starved until things started getting to max.

soldier - heaviest armor is never a problem, transitioned from shield to 2 handed weapon early

arcane soldier - (I had two of this class) heavy armor was not a problem, but did not pump armor skill quite so much as the soldier, had around 25 skill at level 55. I used bows on both to put them on the back line. end of flames and incinerate air were a must, but mostly ignoring their elemental skills was good, other than 1 point in flame strike and 1 point in frost strike, skills that can be spammed. additional points in flame strike or frost strike are not really beneficial at all.

cleric - get a "light" chest if you're going to use this class on the front line. the prayer ability giving free healing is what makes this class good for the front line.

rogue - got armor skill to 20+ eventually, but armor was not a priority. but I used this class on the back line and was skill starved because my rogue was also taking mercantilism on top of shurikens, lockpicking, and trap disarming and bows and learning. early on light enchant on chest was a must, and did not get the best "light" chest, that one went to the cleric. eventually light was no longer that important. as a back liner my rogue did not need as much defense anyway.

[Woofy]

Short Answer - Whatever armor you can find! Any class can use any armor.

I only buy Armor when it has a really nice Stat Benefit, Or Prophet. It is Okay to take a 10% or so initiative penalty, especially early, to wear nice armor. I almost never take the Armor Skill after level 2 or 3. I put a lot of points into Strength for all of my characters, in part for Armor use.

My Barbarian will rule the Arena. I just dump the best of whatever armor I have on him.

Gaulen is a front line fighter with Axes for me, so he gets the best armor.(+2 levels of Armor skill) My Barbarian stands next to him, with a high strength and gets 2nd best armor (+1 level of armor skill), then my Thief on the front right.

In the back, It's Mage, Bard, and Cleric. They get the leftover armor. They use bows or Pole Weapons and, of course, spells. No points in armor skill.

Keep tabs on how much the armor will slow the character down.

Cheers!

[Scathe]

Originally posted by Woofy:

Short Answer - Whatever armor you can find! Any class can use any armor.

I only buy Armor when it has a really nice Stat Benefit, Or Prophet. It is Okay to take a 10% or so initiative penalty, especially early, to wear nice armor. I almost never take the Armor Skill after level 2 or 3. I put a lot of points into Strength for all of my characters, in part for Armor use.

My Barbarian will rule the Arena. I just dump the best of whatever armor I have on him.

Gaulen is a front line fighter with Axes for me, so he gets the best armor.(+2 levels of Armor skill) My Barbarian stands next to him, with a high strength and gets 2nd best armor (+1 level of armor skill), then my Thief on the front right.

In the back, It's Mage, Bard, and Cleric. They get the leftover armor. They use bows or Pole Weapons and, of course, spells. No points in armor skill.

Keep tabs on how much the armor will slow the character down.

Cheers!

huh, I leveled speed every level and split other levels between other stats, strength and agility got alot of attention for most characters, but gaulen and my cleric both got a lot of constitution too. my cleric got most of the herb boosts. none of my party took an initiative penalty for armor (that weight allowance tooltip mentions the penalty is to speed in combat too....) final stat lines were like this (after armor counted in), levels 53-55 party -
cleric - 70str, 83con, 72agi, 118spd, 83energy, 257 defense
average stats for everyone else - 60-70str, 50-55con, 75-82agi, 102-108spd, 35-40energy, 181-195def
soldier was higher on defense (226) gaulen was higher on con (82ish) gaulen was lower on speed (95)

it was more important for me to put points in agility compared to strength sometimes for fights like bees, since I had no mage. later on one of my arcane soldiers could blizzard bees, but that wasn't too efficient either. there was also the option of burning mage scrolls on bees, but that wasn't attractive either. mostly my soldier managed to hit them or either of my two arcane soldiers, all of whom had high accuracy but still didn't have the greatest hit chances on bees.

[Woofy]

Yeah, I always put Speed on every character every level...And split Strength and Agility too. Agility might be a little higher in the beginning, so I use the better weapons. You do need to monitor the weight penalties, but 10% penalty on speed and intiative isn't too much penalty for +20 armor bonus. I still usually attacked first. I did put points into armor at later levels when I had extra points after maxing important skills like weapons, Shurikens, and learning.

Mages really help with Bees, which is one reason I always take one. They Blizzard at first, then Fireball the Big Trees, and FrostBall the Flying Emerald Wyverns and some Demons.
Mages also get Magical Light (Max it), Remove Flames 1 point , and Incinerate air 1 point which help in a few places. The Absorb Energy is fun too.
Later, everyone can just whack the bees or Hounds with their respective weapons.

My Barbarian got the Strength, Speed, and Agility boosts from Herbs or Dungeon Bowls. I like the Barbarians passive skills like Steadfastness, which avoids stuns. He also uses a stunning flail, which is really nice.

My thief always put 1 point into Shurikens, which kill Hounds or Bosses like Beholders. I want to put 2 points into Sword, but can't always afford it. Quick Strike is really cool in later levels. It helps to have the Bees bleed out sometimes.

My Bard only took 1 Song - Speed. The others weren't really worth the points. It's good to have 1 bow.

But I like games like this where you have lots of options! :)