I'm quite happy with my chain, honestly. I've seen a few people rock out the brig/HP, and I've seen the discussions about it when paired with cleric buffs (as you probably have too). My thoughts are still, I think clerics could pull off brig or HC easily, given the stupid number of defensive buffs they have.

There are a couple of damage concepts in games, the two primaries being 'dodge it' and 'reduce it'. Clerics aren't ever going to excell at dodging it; their skill sets and magic and communes are just horribly biased to increase the 'reduce it' aspect. Ergo I think heavier armor would work good/great for a cleric, despite being tert. I hesitate to say train HP just because it's HP, and Kodius swears up and down that no one but paladins should use that.

There's also the sort of generic reduction to offense from armor penalty now, isn't there? So going too far into heavy armor could be ugly?

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Pants.

I know I'm the odd man out on this one, cuz there aren't many stealthy clerics out there..

But the way it's worked out for me -- I have higher evasion than parry/shield/armor, and dress in full leather while I work stealth, and swap in brig accessories when stealth locks. The brig's pretty great, and not so hindering that I can't hide melee on slightly lower tier critters than my normal hunt.

Currently..

~470 evasion
~460 lt armor
~450 shield
~430 stealth
~420 parry
~300 brig

Not a defensive dynamo, being that my offenses are a bit higher than the above, but I like this balance on any character, and not sure it's a balance that's even possible if you focus on heavier armors.

>I currently run all four armors.. plate head/hand, chain shirt, and brig greaves that I swap out with light armor greaves. I'm generally highly hindered maneuvering wise, but I'm alright with that due to the fact of I have so many buffs and debils that it shouldn't matter. And so far, it has not.

I can't expand much on an offensive penalty for heavier armors, but I do know there's a much more significant penalty for mixing armors in 3.0 than there ever was in 2.0 (TDP farming is looked down upon these days :p)

Segmere Freat
Baron's Own Militia

I found out quickly that mixing all 4 armor types at level for Flavius means he gets hurt. At level Flavius normally runs chain shirt, plate helm, plate gauntlets and chain greaves- when chain locks up, I switch out to a leather coat, and if I have time I work brigandine- but I try not to have more than 2 or 3 armor types going at a time.

When underhunting something that still teaches defenses, Flavius can run all 4 armor types at once.

In general though I am sticking with chain and plate- with light armor to play with when Flavius wants to pretend he is Seg and can hide.

I suspect that any armor is still viable, even if not necessarily optimal in all situations.

Is anyone going mainly HP now?

Eh, I haven't really had much problem. I'm mixing three armors at any given time and I'm hunting in shadow beasts with 371 as my average between evasion/parry/shield/defending. After a few hours of hunting I may leave shadow beasts with a couple leg abrasions from switching my greaves at melee.

>This is NOT what he said. He said that armor terts would probably be best served by less hindering armor and minimal mixing.

Not the impression I've gotten from discussions, I guess.

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Pants.