Who wears medium armor?

[mattig]

Hidy ho all,

I can't find a reason why a party character would wear medium armor. So I was wondering if I was simply missing something.

They have improved medium armor in the game, better drops, better stuff in the stores. But it seems like the light armor is for the rouges and the massive armor, and heavy armor, is for the warriors. Why would a party member have medium armor then?

[Xerica]

medium armor is for rogues not light armor.

[mattig]

really? I've never seen any medium armor that gives bonuses to stealth, archery, or any other skills rouges use.

[Ilja]

Here is my personal estimate about the matter.

• Arcane Warrior can work well with medium armor, depending on their other classes and roles. Medium armor benefits most Arcane Warrior/Spirit Healers.
  
  Armor for Arcane Warriors depend a lot for their role. Reaper's Vestment is a powerful robe and is often enough to protect the spell oriented Arcane Warrior main characters, if they are not actually tanking. Tanking Arcane Warriors are more likely to go with heavy armor instead.
  
  If Arcane Warrior is not tanking and wants to wield armor, then Wade's Superior Dragonskin armor set is hands down the best armor they can get. Last time I gave that to Wynne, while my own character (spell oriented Arcane Warrior) fought in Reaper's Vestment, while supporting Alistair in front lines.
  
  
• Archer (warrior) can benefit from medium armor. Their talents gather a lot of threat from enemies, so they might get attacked a lot. Warriors do not have stealth to protect them from ranged enemies targeting them and most warrior talents work only on close range. Archers need to keep their stamina running, so they are more likely to go with medium armor than heavy.
  
  
• Dual Wield Warrior benefits the medium armor most. They do not have spells or stealth to protect them, but they also need to keep their stamina running. Light armor is does not protect them enough and heavy armor hinders their stamina regeneration, so such builds usually go with medium armor.
  
  
• Duelist may benefit from medium armor as well. It depends entirely of the build. Almost all dual wielding abilities benefit from strength, except cunning based Riposte. High Dexterity and medium Str/Cun Duelist rogues go well with medium amor. Such builds are often also using more rare talents like Evasion, which would be basically just useless for high Cunning based Assassin or Duelist characters (because interrupting block animation is equally likely to get those light armored characters killed than save them.)
  
  
• Ranger/Bard can work well with medium armor, if he/she is the player character and an archer. Combination is a bit rare, but gives good protection from threat gathered by using advanced archery skills. Aim and Song of Courage are devastating combination together and Shattering Shot can make the target really angry toward archer.
  
  I said player charter, because only other potential Bard/Ranger would be Leliana. Her Cunning is very low and she lacks all defensive abilities, when you meet her. It is better to give her another role than medium armor role, if you wish to take most out of her. I am giving her Stealth and first level talent from Assassin tree. She can then cast Mark of Assassin to whoever targets my mage and clear threat from enemies by going to stealth mode when ever her health goes below 75%. Works better that way.

That's pretty much it, as far as I can see. There is no point to give medium armor for Assassins or stealthy Dex/Cun Duelist characters. Giving them more strength than 20 is waste of points that can be used better to Cun, Dex.

Especially assasins rarely have high stamina anyway, so keeping the fatigue low (or rather positive and reduce the cost of their talents with light armor) is the best option. I usually go with standard leather armor with assassins, until I can get Wades Drakeskin armors for them. They survive just fine with that.

Same with Bards. They also need their talents running, so using higher than light armor is often the waste. The Bard/Ranger build mentioned above works, but other secondary classes just don't go too well with medium armor and bard.

[Rithm Fluffderg]

From what I understand, part of the enmity a character generates with an enemy depends on the armor they've equipped. The heavier the armor, the more enmity they generate.

A two-handed warrior might wear medium or, at the most, heavy (but not massive) armor because they simply don't have the talents necessary to mitigate damage all that well, but they're still expected to take hits - so they wear that armor so they're protected but not the #1 target, who should be wearing massive armor and at least a shield or something.

Of course, this all goes out the window when it comes to actual metagaming. From what I've read, the best armor in the game for a Rogue is actually massive armor for some reason - probably not intended to be the rogue's best armor, but wearing it benefits them. Of course, I don't actually know what this armor is because I don't wiki dive or read much metagaming.

[Ilja]

For those intrested:

Threat Dragon Age Wiki
http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Threat