Armor Use FTW

Author	Topic: Armor Use FTW
Slarty Raven v. Writing Desk Member # 261	written Saturday, June 2 2007 09:10 Profile Homepage #0 With 0 Armor Use, a Blessed Large Shield (listed at 24% protection absorbed an average of 15% damage (range: 5-26%). With 10 Armor Use, it absorbed an average of 28% damage (range: 15-48%). With 40 Armor Use, it absorbed an average of 49% damage (range: 29-72%). Getting to 10 Armor Use costs a mere 30 skill points for Romans and DOUBLES the value of your armor, at least up to a point. This is the equivalent of having permanent, 50% damage reduction. (Do the math -- it really is.) Actually, it costs 18 if you train up to 6. Sheesh. 20's very doable. On Normal, with good armor, this means single digit damage all the time. Elemental and magic resistance can be pumped high as well using Roman Training, Luck, and Endurance. Throw in some buyable spell circles, enough Strength to carry stuff and hit hard, and the Icy Longsword -- which now heals plentiful amounts of HP, when you don't take much damage -- and I think we have a viable recipe for a Torment singleton. -------------------- Slarty vs. Desk • Desk vs. Slarty • Timeline of Ermarian • G4 Strategy Central Posts: 3560 | Registered: Wednesday, November 7 2001 08:00
Randomizer Law Bringer Member # 6785	written Saturday, June 2 2007 11:17 Profile #1 If you want to see something that's broken, at the start of the game versus the weakest monsters, protection spell gives at least 20% less chance of being hit and usally only 10% of normal damage. I've fought the tough starting goblins and gotten no damage. This doesn't work as well with the middle and highest tier monsters. Fomorians in melee do little, but their missle attacks do full damage. Fighting worgs and similar ones requires healing almost every round. I didn't know that armor use helped out that much except to prevent loss of AP due to encumberance. Posts: 4643 | Registered: Friday, February 10 2006 08:00
Slarty Raven v. Writing Desk Member # 261	written Saturday, June 2 2007 11:32 Profile Homepage #2 When is a double post useful? When it avoids a double topic... So I've started a Roman singleton on Torment, named Colossus in honor of the Colossus of Nero, though I have to admit my original inspiration was Piotr Rasputin (link breaks ubb). This is the damage reduction build described above. The most important stats are all untrainable (Armor Use, Roman Training, Str, Luck, Endurance) so there's no mucking about with trainer min-maxing. Mighty Warrior and Fast on Feet are obvious. I briefly considered Toughness (which seems to reduce damage by about 16%) but decided FoF's initiative was more important. Things started out well enough. Goblins hit annoyingly hard on Torment, and the higher level rats are brutal, but by halfway through the mines I had Armor Use at 8 and was already resisting nearly 2/3 of my physical damage. The nice thing about Roman Training is it boosts missile attack damage too, so I've been using a lot of hit-and-run tactics with my sling. Shoot, back 3, shoot, back 3, shoot, back 3, then close for the kill at melee range. Fire resistance is at 50%, so I was all ready to take on the drake on the bottom floor. But wait... did I say the rats hit hard on Torment? Mozannos hits for 70ish before armor and has multiple attacks. Even shielded and heavily armored he occasionally kills me in one turn. This game is definitely harder on Torment than any of its predecessors. -------------------- Slarty vs. Desk • Desk vs. Slarty • Timeline of Ermarian • G4 Strategy Central Posts: 3560 | Registered: Wednesday, November 7 2001 08:00
Randomizer Law Bringer Member # 6785	written Saturday, June 2 2007 11:39 Profile #3 Rats are nasty, especially the cursing vapor ones at the start until you hit the foul rats. I went with enough druidism to have protection and blessing versus them. I haven't tried successfully to kill that dragon until after the Ruined Hall. Use a call spirit or call hunt scroll to have monster(s) engage the dragon before you risk yourself. This way even if he summons help, the dragon's attacks for the first few rounds are on a summoned creature and not you. I prefer fast on feet for going ahead of higher dexterity monsters and the occasional extra AP. Posts: 4643 | Registered: Friday, February 10 2006 08:00
Synergy Shaper Member # 6292	written Saturday, June 2 2007 16:04 Profile #4 Rats are the Chitrachs of Nethergate. I can't tell you how many I bumped into in the wilderness with Woodscraft only at 4. -S- -------------------- A4 Items • A4 Singleton • G4 Items • G4 Forging • G4 Infiltrator • NR Items • The Lonely Celt Posts: 2009 | Registered: Monday, September 12 2005 07:00
Slarty Raven v. Writing Desk Member # 261	written Saturday, June 2 2007 16:33 Profile Homepage #5 Really? I don't think I've fought a single rat from the overworld map. Regardless, they are never concentrated as badly as the chitrachs, and frankly, a Vapor Rat is more distinct from a regular rat than pretty much any of the chitrach varieties are from each other. -------------------- Slarty vs. Desk • Desk vs. Slarty • Timeline of Ermarian • G4 Strategy Central Posts: 3560 | Registered: Wednesday, November 7 2001 08:00
Synergy Shaper Member # 6292	written Saturday, June 2 2007 16:53 Profile #6 Well, there are a lot of Foul Rats around throughout the entire game. Getting poisoned and having to stop and cure it after fights gets old. They are hard to kill in one turn before getting poisoned, if there is more than one before Soul Lances. -S- -------------------- A4 Items • A4 Singleton • G4 Items • G4 Forging • G4 Infiltrator • NR Items • The Lonely Celt Posts: 2009 | Registered: Monday, September 12 2005 07:00
Slarty Raven v. Writing Desk Member # 261	written Saturday, June 2 2007 17:01 Profile Homepage #7 That's what not being in combat mode is for. -------------------- Slarty vs. Desk • Desk vs. Slarty • Timeline of Ermarian • G4 Strategy Central Posts: 3560 | Registered: Wednesday, November 7 2001 08:00
Randomizer Law Bringer Member # 6785	written Saturday, June 2 2007 20:57 Profile #8 Most of the rats congreate around the swamps north of Vanarium. I just fought a bunch and as a sinlgeton they are nasty. At least you can walk around at 0 health while diseased and not die. Posts: 4643 | Registered: Friday, February 10 2006 08:00
Vagabond Apprentice Member # 9695	written Saturday, August 18 2007 14:25 Profile #9 Armor Use is simply a must if you want to get anything worth their weight out of your bigger armor pieces. With 0 pts in Armor Use, Bronze Plate Mail (advertised 30% reduction) does not offer more protection than Fine Leather Armor (advertised 10% reduction). In fact, as shocking as it may sound, actually it offers 2 times less theoretical protection. That's because, as with all advertisments, the percentage you see in the description is misleading in the way that it states maximum protection you could possibly get in theory. And how much of that you get in practise, depends on Armor Use. Lets analyze this. As per corescendata2.txt, Bronze Plate Mail has it_protection = 30, it_bonus = 0. (so that's total advertised 30) Fine Leather Armor has it_protection = 6, it_bonus = 4. (so that's total advertised 10) Now, it_protection is only a max. The actual protection of any armor piece is calculated this way: min(it_protection, (skill_armor_use+1)*4) + it_bonus. So with Armor Use = 0, Bronze Plate Mail = 4+0 = 4% Fine Leather Armor = 4+4 = 8% And that's that. If you want to maximize your armor/shield/etc, you need to raise the Armor Use. 7 points for Bronze Plate Mail, to be exact. Highest it_protection is 44, that of Polished Plate Mail, and is satisfied with 10 Armor Use. After that extra AU points won't give any additional protection, as far as a particular armor piece is concerned. Armor Use gives another independant reducement bonus, similar to Hardiness and Luck, so the extra points don't go to waste, especially for Romans since it's cheap, but aren't terribly useful either, unless you really dedicate your build to it. Overall it looks like this, as far as skills go: + luck + hardiness + max(0, armor_use-4) + min(it_protection, (armor_use+1)*4) + it_bonus, for each piece of equipment Each is calculated independently from each other, not stacked into a bunch. Another thing worth mentioning is that the process is heavily randomized, as evident from log window. That's because, unlike in some games, where X% reduce means something like DMG-DMG*REDUCE%/100, here X% reduction means that each point of damage has a X% chance of being nullified. Which is very unforgiving to those small reduction values, like for example, char has 3 pts of Luck which offers 3% reduction, and receives 70 dmg, it's quite possible that 1, 2 or 3 doesn't come out of rnd(1,100) in 70 tries even once. Not to mention the situations where received dmg is too low to expect a single pt decrease even if it was happening in a vacuum. So these skills are either pump it or forget about it... [ Saturday, August 18, 2007 14:39: Message edited by: heal plz ] Posts: 18 | Registered: Friday, August 10 2007 07:00