Mistlands: Armor mixes?

[dr4296]

Greetings All !

So, we've been playing in the Mistlands for a few weeks. I have the full carapace armor set, maxed-out (for Mistlands benches). I've created level 3 Firestaff, Protection Staff, and Dead Raiser.

I haven't made any of the magic armor yet. I hesitate to go "full mage" (full mage armor and at least two Eitr foods) when out exploring for more Infested Mines, as I'm concerned about losing a lot of protection by switching to a full set of the magic armor.

I was wondering if anybody runs "mixed sets" of armor in the Mistlands: some carapace, some magic, maybe swapping in the root chestpiece or some of the Fenris stuff... and maybe some effective combos that people have found?

I guess I'm thinking of running sort of as a "battlemage" for a while.

Thanks!

[Exodite-Dragon]

Root Harnesk is still king in the Mistlands. Nearly every enemy deals piercing-type damage, which the Harnesk is strong against, and you can negate the fire vulnerability with fire barley wine, which you'll want to have on hand for those moments you encounter a gjall.

[Fury Fairy]

Carapace helmet (the only immediate upgrade for new biome since no move penalty, just more armor), root chest, fenris leggins for speed. Barley wine on hotbar at ALL times, you hear gjall roar - you pop one or die. 2 health 1 stam food, typically salad + honey chicken + lox pie (later on may use better Mist foods, but difference is marginal). Have no problems trashing mist in any scenario, though my top 3 weapons are spear, bow and clubs - latter for the holy Demolisher. No deaths so far from the start of the run.

As for magic - nothing prevents from going 1 food each (health, stam, magic) for same gear: elemental magic can be used from the get go, blood magic = read barrier - requires manual training near body pile or greydwarf spawner to level 50+ until just one magic food is enough to cast. Will do this prior Ash since magic by all means makes Ash a cake walk...

[w.f.schepel]

I went full magic armour. Works just fine and once your blood magic gets to a decent level it is just a walk in the park. The skellies really are your best friend. :-)

[Draconis]

Well, the skellies start to become useless in the mines mostly... they walk anywhere, but not where you would want them to :D

I actually don't mix armors after I got my carapace armor to 3.
Yep, the root harnesk gives you pierce resistance. That works quite well with Seekers and Ticks. It does not work on Seeker Soldiers and Gjall at all. And you don't actually have the time to change armor when you encounter them (escpecially not if you are playing on xbox or with a controller).
Also the advantage becomes smaller with higher ranks of the carapace armor. Using the root harnesk is beneficial up to level 2 of carapace. But after that you don't notice much more of the pierce resistance because the lack of armor rating compensates that.

As for mixing mage with warrior armor, I never found something that actually worked. Going hybrid ended up for me with..... too low max health for a proper stagger-limit, to low eitr to actually use magic for attack and trying to use staff of protection with warrior playstyle combined.... well, the shield did not actually make up for the missing health. And for the skellies you need two eitr foods anyway. So blood magic was out. And elemental too weak.

In the end I did just switch styles. I had two armor stands with a blackmetal chest beneath where I put my armors and weapons and some food for each style. So I could quickly change whenever I wanted. Or if I died as a mage i came back as a warrior (and vice versa).
Was much more fun than trying to play a battlemage.

[JP_Russell]

It's not especially worth mixing mage armors with others, as the eitr regen bonus is not actually as high as the percentages shown and you really need at least the pants and chest piece to have an appreciable effect. There's an argument that mage armors aren't worth using at all even with a mage build given how much mitigation you're giving up for a relatively modest boost in eitr regen, but I don't find it as fun when you can't spam spells as much, so I usually do use them and just accept the higher risk.

I typically run the root harnesk in the mistlands by default, and keep the carapace breastplate on me to switch to it if I have to fight a soldier or a gjall (especially starred ones), as you usually hear them before you actually have to fight them.

Fenris armor is overrated in general for later biomes, in my opinion, and I don't think the faster movement you get from adding a piece of fenris is worth the loss in mitigation once you have access to padded armor or better. I only ever use fenris any time I'm doing stuff in the meadows or black forest and sometimes the swamp to speed up farming.

Originally posted by Draconis:

I actually don't mix armors after I got my carapace armor to 3.
Yep, the root harnesk gives you pierce resistance. That works quite well with Seekers and Ticks. It does not work on Seeker Soldiers and Gjall at all. And you don't actually have the time to change armor when you encounter them (escpecially not if you are playing on xbox or with a controller).
Also the advantage becomes smaller with higher ranks of the carapace armor. Using the root harnesk is beneficial up to level 2 of carapace. But after that you don't notice much more of the pierce resistance because the lack of armor rating compensates that.

Choosing to go full carapace for more mitigation against soldiers and gjalls (seekers also do have a blunt damage attack) is fair, as is not keeping a root harnesk in your inventory if you're on a gamepad (I think it's pretty easy to switch on the fly with keyboard and mouse), but it's definitely not true that any level of carapace makes up the difference in damage against pierce attacks.

The seeker has two pierce attacks and a blunt attack. I'll illustrate below the difference in how much damage these deal between full rank 3 carapace and replacing the carapace breastplate with the root harnesk.

damage of seeker's attacks
no-star: ~90 pierce, ~100 blunt, ~120 pierce
1-star: ~135 pierce, ~150 blunt, ~180 pierce
2-star: ~180 pierce, ~200 blunt, ~240 pierce

in full carapace + feather cape
no-star: ~18.2 pierce, ~22.5 blunt, ~32.4 pierce
1-star: ~41 pierce, ~50.7 blunt, ~73 pierce
2-star: ~73 pierce, ~90.1 blunt, ~129 pierce

in carapace w/ root harnesk + feather cape
no star: ~5.7 pierce, ~28.1 blunt, ~10.1 pierce
1-star: ~12.8 pierce, ~63.2 blunt, ~22.8 pierce
2-star: ~22.8 pierce, ~111 blunt, ~40.4 pierce

From memory, I *think* the blunt attack is the more delayed one where they rear up and knock you back, so it's more telegraphed and easier to avoid or block, but I'd have to test to make sure. In any case, you can see that the pierce attacks deal more than 3 times the damage without the root harnesk, while the blunt attacks are about 25% more damaging with the root harnesk. In fairness, bonemass doesn't stack with the pierce resistance from the root harnesk, so full carapace will be superior against all attacks when activating bonemass.

[dr4296]

Originally posted by Draconis:

Well, the skellies start to become useless in the mines mostly... they walk anywhere, but not where you would want them to :D

I actually don't mix armors after I got my carapace armor to 3.
Yep, the root harnesk gives you pierce resistance. That works quite well with Seekers and Ticks. It does not work on Seeker Soldiers and Gjall at all. And you don't actually have the time to change armor when you encounter them (escpecially not if you are playing on xbox or with a controller).
Also the advantage becomes smaller with higher ranks of the carapace armor. Using the root harnesk is beneficial up to level 2 of carapace. But after that you don't notice much more of the pierce resistance because the lack of armor rating compensates that.

As for mixing mage with warrior armor, I never found something that actually worked. Going hybrid ended up for me with..... too low max health for a proper stagger-limit, to low eitr to actually use magic for attack and trying to use staff of protection with warrior playstyle combined.... well, the shield did not actually make up for the missing health. And for the skellies you need two eitr foods anyway. So blood magic was out. And elemental too weak.

In the end I did just switch styles. I had two armor stands with a blackmetal chest beneath where I put my armors and weapons and some food for each style. So I could quickly change whenever I wanted. Or if I died as a mage i came back as a warrior (and vice versa).
Was much more fun than trying to play a battlemage.

Thanks! That sounds like an excellent idea!: chests for both / switch back and forth!

[dr4296]

Originally posted by JP_Russell:

It's not especially worth mixing mage armors with others, as the eitr regen bonus is not actually as high as the percentages shown and you really need at least the pants and chest piece to have an appreciable effect. There's an argument that mage armors aren't worth using at all even with a mage build given how much mitigation you're giving up for a relatively modest boost in eitr regen, but I don't find it as fun when you can't spam spells as much, so I usually do use them and just accept the higher risk.

I typically run the root harnesk in the mistlands by default, and keep the carapace breastplate on me to switch to it if I have to fight a soldier or a gjall (especially starred ones), as you usually hear them before you actually have to fight them.

Fenris armor is overrated in general for later biomes, in my opinion, and I don't think the faster movement you get from adding a piece of fenris is worth the loss in mitigation once you have access to padded armor or better. I only ever use fenris any time I'm doing stuff in the meadows or black forest and sometimes the swamp to speed up farming.

Originally posted by Draconis:

I actually don't mix armors after I got my carapace armor to 3.
Yep, the root harnesk gives you pierce resistance. That works quite well with Seekers and Ticks. It does not work on Seeker Soldiers and Gjall at all. And you don't actually have the time to change armor when you encounter them (escpecially not if you are playing on xbox or with a controller).
Also the advantage becomes smaller with higher ranks of the carapace armor. Using the root harnesk is beneficial up to level 2 of carapace. But after that you don't notice much more of the pierce resistance because the lack of armor rating compensates that.

Choosing to go full carapace for more mitigation against soldiers and gjalls (seekers also do have a blunt damage attack) is fair, as is not keeping a root harnesk in your inventory if you're on a gamepad (I think it's pretty easy to switch on the fly with keyboard and mouse), but it's definitely not true that any level of carapace makes up the difference in damage against pierce attacks.

The seeker has two pierce attacks and a blunt attack. I'll illustrate below the difference in how much damage these deal between full rank 3 carapace and replacing the carapace breastplate with the root harnesk.

damage of seeker's attacks
no-star: ~90 pierce, ~100 blunt, ~120 pierce
1-star: ~135 pierce, ~150 blunt, ~180 pierce
2-star: ~180 pierce, ~200 blunt, ~240 pierce

in full carapace + feather cape
no-star: ~18.2 pierce, ~22.5 blunt, ~32.4 pierce
1-star: ~41 pierce, ~50.7 blunt, ~73 pierce
2-star: ~73 pierce, ~90.1 blunt, ~129 pierce

in carapace w/ root harnesk + feather cape
no star: ~5.7 pierce, ~28.1 blunt, ~10.1 pierce
1-star: ~12.8 pierce, ~63.2 blunt, ~22.8 pierce
2-star: ~22.8 pierce, ~111 blunt, ~40.4 pierce

From memory, I *think* the blunt attack is the more delayed one where they rear up and knock you back, so it's more telegraphed and easier to avoid or block, but I'd have to test to make sure. In any case, you can see that the pierce attacks deal more than 3 times the damage without the root harnesk, while the blunt attacks are about 25% more damaging with the root harnesk. In fairness, bonemass doesn't stack with the pierce resistance from the root harnesk, so full carapace will be superior against all attacks when activating bonemass.

Wow, thanks for the details!