Armour vs Deflection

[SerWind]

So I think the general gist of it is that deflection is better? But my mages seem to take a lot of heat and I was wondering how viable it would be to strap them in armour.

Also a couple of other questions

1) Is Barik severely/fundamentally gimped by is inability to change gear?
2) How bad of an idea is it to dump all stats I'd normally put into dodge on a mage into parry, then take that two point skill that uses dodge for parry? Especially on potd, seems like it might be worth it.

[wendigo211]

Leather armor tends to be the best because it increases deflection, heavy armor does not. On the higher difficulty levels at least (I've never played on anything less than PotD), armor just isn't worth it because the enemies hit too hard. E.g. a two-handed warrior hits for around 100 points of damage. If you have 15 points of armor, you take 85 points of damage. If deflection reduces that hit to a graze you take 50 points of damage. Armor reduces the damage you take by 15%, deflection reduces it by 50%. Heavy armor also tends to provide no defense against crushing attacks (hammers/fists) so against those attacks armor does nothing for you.

The heavy armor also increases your recovery (time between actions) too much. With selfless/prideful haste, it's manageable, but I'd still rather have a 1s recovery in light armor when hasted than a 2s recovery in heavy armor.

On to your questions:

Originally posted by SerWind:

1) Is Barik severely/fundamentally gimped by is inability to change gear?

Short answer, yes. You can upgrade his armor if you have a forge upgrade. But he's still a heavy armor character with poor stats. You can fix most of his problems by act 3, but by then the game should be a cakewalk.

2) How bad of an idea is it to dump all stats I'd normally put into dodge on a mage into parry, then take that two point skill that uses dodge for parry? Especially on potd, seems like it might be worth it.

There are two approaches you can take:

1. Fight unarmed. In this case you use dodge for both ranged and melee attacks, it's not a bad choice since there aren't too many enemies with crushing resistance and you don't have to buy the ability that uses parry against ranged attacks. The downside is your melee attacks will be useless against enemies who do have crushing resistance. If you decide to take the Duelist talents, your riposte will not hit very hard either.
   
2. Pick up the talent that lets you use parry for ranged attacks. I prefer this option if you will fight with a single one-handed weapon (preferably a hammer) and pick up the Duelist talents. The nice thing about the Duelist talents is the accuracy bonus applies to spells as well (if you only have a single one-handed weapon equipped). Since spell accuracy uses the average of Lore and the spell skill, Duelist 3 is like getting a +60 bonus to Lore for the purpose of spell accuracy. The PC spell talent tree isn't that great, after you pick up the extra spell slots and the ability that grants a +10 bonus to lore, none of the talents do that much for you as a spell caster (the +25% damage abilities are great for weapon based attacks though), so you'll have talent points to spend in the agility tree.

[SerWind]

Oh god let me pick your brain for a moment. Thank you so much for the very indepth and well constructed post, you've illuminated a lot of things for me.

1) So pretty much you do recommend what I said, about picking up the dodge to parry. I've thought a lot about making a monk spellcaster but it seems overall very weak and a big risk on potd trial of iron. I think I'd prefer to just go straight caster.

2) Who would you recommend replacing Barik with? I am playing a loyalist playthrough and considering who your choices are (Eb, an obvious dissenter, but her abilities seem great. KIS who is a beast woman, pretty sure they are sentenced to death by Kyros essentially, and Sirin, an unwilling supporter) Verse, Lantry, and Barik seemed the best bet.

3)Do you recommend leadership talents? I usually take them for extra spell slots, and the revive.

4) The way I build my all spellcaster is usually 18 in wits for lots of lore, and 16 in finesse for the accuracy, with a hit to everything else except resolve. Accuracy seems really important in PotD, but I'm not sure if I am gimping myself by hurting quickness so much. Could I do maybe 18 in wits, 14 to finesse, 14 to quickness, 8 in everything else?

5) I hear Verse is a REALLY good damage dealer but I am never sure if I am building her right. Any recommendations here? What kind of stats are you looking for on weapons. I usually just take something if it offers a slight negative to one or another stat but a medium or big boost to another.

All that being said, please feel free to answer whatever you'd like. No expectations for you to do another big write up. Any help is greatly appreciated, thanks again.

[wendigo211]

Originally posted by SerWind:

2) Who would you recommend replacing Barik with? I am playing a loyalist playthrough and considering who your choices are (Eb, an obvious dissenter, but her abilities seem great. KIS who is a beast woman, pretty sure they are sentenced to death by Kyros essentially, and Sirin, an unwilling supporter) Verse, Lantry, and Barik seemed the best bet.

Verse, Lantry and Eb would be a solid party. Although Sirin would also work. If you're playing a loyalist then, even though Sirin is recalcitrant, she is an Archon of Kyros. With Eb, she is the last surviving member of the Tidemaster school, you can argue that by turning her to Kyros side you're strengthening his empire. Most of his troops were hostile to him at one time or another, why not Eb?

The nice thing about Eb and Lantry is that they both have Lore training talents and they stack with each other. If you want a sky high Lore value (on my run with both of them I hit 210), get both of them in your party. The problem with Eb is that she has a low Lore skill for her level when you pick her up, so you have to train it aggresively.

3)Do you recommend leadership talents? I usually take them for extra spell slots, and the revive.

The extra spell slots one is useful, I don't really bother with the others. You can probably count on hitting level 18 by the end of the game (20 isn't out of the question), so that should give you an idea of how many talent points you have to spend.

4) The way I build my all spellcaster is usually 18 in wits for lots of lore, and 16 in finesse for the accuracy, with a hit to everything else except resolve. Accuracy seems really important in PotD, but I'm not sure if I am gimping myself by hurting quickness so much. Could I do maybe 18 in wits, 14 to finesse, 14 to quickness, 8 in everything else?

I don't find Quickness that good, because it only reduces the cooldown time of spells and abilities. If you grab the extra slot abilities, you'll have so many spells that they'll be off cooldown by the time you finish cycling through them. The sigils that reduce cooldown help as well. I normally max Finesse first (it makes a huge difference on PotD) then Wits. If I'm going hybrid I'll max Might then Vitality, for a spellcaster Resolve and Vitality.

5) I hear Verse is a REALLY good damage dealer but I am never sure if I am building her right. Any recommendations here? What kind of stats are you looking for on weapons. I usually just take something if it offers a slight negative to one or another stat but a medium or big boost to another.

Verse has two insane talents on the dual wield tree, Fury's Embrace and Sweeping death. As long she has those, she'll do well. For Verse you want to max Finesse, then Might and finally Quickness (so she can use those two talents more often). I give her two hammers, just because enemies have lower resistance to crushing than other damage types. Buff her with an elemental weapon enchant that has the Volcanic Weapon sigil (I like Static Charge) and watch her melt the enemies.

[Dorok]

About the armor and deflection the numbers you quoted are really right? I think they imply a 100% deflection chance.

For example with first items I saw in game, the best was 19% deflection which means it's not 50% of damages but in average 10% that is less than the 15% from 15 armor and 100 damages.

Also still during first parts I don't think 100 damages from a hit is common, which means that effective reduction percentage from armor is rather higher.

Also you highlight your answer is in PotD but I doubt OP is playing PotD because he didn't quote it. So in other difficulty level damages are lower and this favor armor.

That doesn't change the other arguments on recovery time and weakness on some damage types.

During very first part, party level 6, Hard difficulty, I had the feeling that have Barik in party was helping a lot. But it's just a feeling from one combat and when I tried with Barik Verse was in party too.

[wendigo211]

Originally posted by Dorok:

About the armor and deflection the numbers you quoted are really right? I think they imply a 100% deflection chance.

For example with first items I saw in game, the best was 19% deflection which means it's not 50% of damages but in average 10% that is less than the 15% from 15 armor and 100 damages.

Deflection from different bits of armor stack, you can get a +10% from the Blade Dancing talent, and a bonus for each point of finesse over 10 (not sure if it's 1% or 3%, since the attribute description and deflection description are different). Spectral Blur also increases it against grazes and hits. I had 72% deflection from just equipment, the bonus from a 19 Finesse (either 9% or 27%) and the +10% from Blade Dancing so either 91% or 109% without Spectral Blur and a 42% bonus (vs. Grazes and Hits) with Spectral Blur. During the fight in Ascension Hall (Act I), my buffed deflection was around 80%. Since I had a buffed Parry of 379 (meaning only 5% chance of critical hits), treating it as 100% is totally justified. This seemed to be born out by the combat rolls.

Also still during first parts I don't think 100 damages from a hit is common, which means that effective reduction percentage from armor is rather higher.

From Lethian's Crossing, two-handed opponents deal around 100 points of damage per hit. One handed is less, around 50, but still high enough to make the armor reduction from heavy armor dubious.

Also you highlight your answer is in PotD but I doubt OP is playing PotD because he didn't quote it. So in other difficulty level damages are lower and this favor armor.

Read his posts again, he's planning on an ironman PotD run.

[SerWind]

I appreciate all the input as always. I've been playing with the suggestions and I find I am doing way bettere this time around. I gotta say though I do not want to get rid of Barik. I wish there were more companions and a bigger party allowance.

That being said I wanted to ask another question: Is Verse absolutely necessary on PotD? If I had to pick between her and Barik, I'd pick Barik, and go with Eb, Lantry, Barik, Me. Or Sirin, Lantry, Barik, Me. But I already built Barik to be tanky, so.

[wendigo211]

Originally posted by SerWind:

That being said I wanted to ask another question: Is Verse absolutely necessary on PotD? If I had to pick between her and Barik, I'd pick Barik, and go with Eb, Lantry, Barik, Me. Or Sirin, Lantry, Barik, Me. But I already built Barik to be tanky, so.

By no means, feel free to use whoever you would like. I and others have soloed PotD, so you don't really need companions at all. That said, dual wield Verse probably is the strongest companion in the game, so you will have a harder time with Barik as opposed to Verse. However, you still should be able to complete it.

[SerWind]

I am going to take your word for it, that way when everything goes wrong and the Bane kill me, I'll have someone to blame besides myself :P.

Also I noticed Eb has an ability that fears Bane, that seems like it would be super useful. I remember wanting to use her so bad though because of her loyalty ability. Seems like a life saver.

[OnlyOffensive]

I didn't do alot of reserach, but from my expirience leather armor is better. For example i had Lantry in heavy first time and after restarting a game due to bug he was full leather with heavy helmet ( regent ) and 2nd time results were better, but honestly the difference not that HUGE, with haste you can cover reovery penalty and use heavy, but i don't really see any benefits from heavy anyway. There are alot consumables to counter bane, and all control works on them even on Havocs, so they aren't a problem, maybe only first havoc encounter might be a little challenging.

[Dorok]

Well it's possible dev totally failed balance heavy armor, for sure if 80% and later 100% deviation is easy and quick to reach, that is a strong advantage to light armor.

Also as PotD is pure damages increase it can only advantage the system based on percentage.

It's lame dev totally failed balance this, I don't understand how they can be so incompetent, that sort of detail is rather irritating, seriously a full set of items totally pointless, it's too stupid, items in game is same crap than PoE, that is a very weak system, and they added this, I can't believe it.

[OnlyOffensive]

It is very strange indeed for Obsidian, who has developed D&D games, where armor system is pretty well rounded and balanced to fail do better in Tyranny. Maybe they wanted to go much far from their previous expiriences, but anyway results aren't impressive....for armor. I don't see any idea behind armor at all, leather get deflection and precision ( which is good too for alot of builds ) and heavy armor gets... what? Increased recovery to balance armor protection that is worse than deflection with no penalties? The only thing that can justify armor is that resistance buffs scales with armor value, even if you have 0 resistances and buff 2 for example you will get 2+X where x=armor value, don't think it matters at any stage of game tho.

[SerWind]

Deflection is pretty much what armour was in D and D. Armour increased the chance for your opponent to miss based on their chance to hit. Not sure why they decided to change it. Also yeah there are some serious balancing issues, really bums me out they didn't put in modding tools. I'd love to expand on some of the story stuff with more options.

[Riggs]

Finesse increases deflection per piece of armor, so 4 pieces of light armor = that number x4. For main player character Finesse and maxed out light armor is best. say 9% x4 = 36, but then each piece also has deflection, and when upgraded(or found) to exquisite/masterwork - you can hit around 64-78% deflection without spells.
Spectral Blur spell can be picked up right in first Scarlet Chorus camp, and at base adds 30% deflection, and with strength accents can hit 40-50 % - so getting over 100% deflection is very easy.

Mages in heavy armor is not a bad idea - because they do not need to attack with weapons, soa little extra recovery is not as bad as on a melee. Plus with enemy AI, they go after low armor targets like mages first - ignoring heavy armor targets very often. So Barik will run up to 3 enemies - and they just run right past him to stab Lantry to death, but if in heavy armor, they might just focus on the closer target. So completely aside from the armor value - if it leads to less attacks, it can be useful to wear.

Barik can be good if you take his Iron Tolling thing plus the 'attack twice for 20 seconds after Iron tolling'. He is not great later on, but attacking twice does add up. He sucks as a tank (Verse even has a better taunt), has low dps (because of really long recovery times for heavy armor). His tanky talents can add some defense to the group...but so does taking a mage instead that can AOE freeze/burn/stun groups of enemies - not being attacked is better damage reduction than being hit for 15% less damage for example.

Verse after she gets higher up in the Duelist tree becomes the highest DPS in trhe game hands down. There are a few optimized player builds that can also do well - but the two abilities mentioned, plus riposite, plus the 'attack 3 times with basic attacksafter a kill' is super strong. Furys Embrace (attack like 14 times in rapid strike) plus Volcanic Weapon is insane, like a flamethrower of death.

All the allies have some strong abilities, just plan one group,and then a second playthrough with the other ones after.

For a player mage, going unarmed can be very strong too. You are not going to be attacking much with weapons anyway, and it can do good damage comparable with many weapons as it is, until later in the game when you get some really good weapons. But you get for free the 'defend with 1 skill instead of 2' with Dodge, instead of having to spend valuable talent tree points on it. Punching in light armor also has a low recovery time, and with Magic tree '+75% damage' talents...will be doing good damage in between spells.

[Dorok]

Originally posted by wendigo211:

...you can get a +10% from the Blade Dancing talent...

It's weird but I can't find this talent, I was looking for Verse, and then just to be sure checked for main character but couldn't find it. I only found Blade Dancer but it's only for dual weapons damages and for Verse.

For now party level 9, during act II, my highest deflection is from Verse but still far from 80%, she has only 53% with 16 finesse (and 16 quickness).

For my main character for now I gave up use light armor and make her use heavy armor (12 base, 10 lowest, 13 highest) nothing great but it doesn't feel worse.

Originally posted by Riggs:

Finesse increases deflection per piece of armor, so 4 pieces of light armor = that number x4. For main player character Finesse and maxed out light armor is best. say 9% x4 = 36, but then each piece also has deflection, and when upgraded(or found) to exquisite/masterwork - you can hit around 64-78% deflection without spells.
Spectral Blur spell can be picked up right in first Scarlet Chorus camp, and at base adds 30% deflection, and with strength accents can hit 40-50 % - so getting over 100% deflection is very easy.

Spectral Blur but there's any link with light armor? It's not working with heavy armor? I admit I didn't event noticed the spell lol.

EDIT: Ok I had seen Spectral Blur and was using at first and later gave up. but yeah there's no link with light armor and it's not working against critical and it's not added to deflection this is separate so no 100% deflection.

Riggs, same question than for wendigo, I don't see why my Verse has only 53% deflection.

EDIT2: Ok with finesse 19 she should get reflection to 65% which is higher, well I felt quickness was major so I spread between both.

[OnlyOffensive]

I found that AI less likely disengage from Barik once he get seasoned veteran talent, and if they do when he's in dps build he's gona decimate alot of them, i had Lantry+verse+barik+me all in light armor and if i maintain mirror image enemies almost always attacked barik or verse ( which is good too, because of riposte ), it was really RARE that enemies attacked Lantry, even ranged ones, but they sure sometimes picked my archer as a target, so it is completely fine to have mages in leather and do not suffer from it. Honestly Lantry has so many broken abilities to defend himself, so nothing after act 1 can really threaten him anyway, And later Barik's taunt work much better with high athletic + vengeance + extra attack on engage and he does job.