It's been long enough since armor skills were released that the dust has settled and people have a pretty good idea of their uses. I wasn't too impressed with my choices as a rogue before, and frankly, I'm still not now. If people generally agree, I'm hoping we can get a small review.

I'm a heavy armor wearing rogue, so I exclusively use armored evasion. It's a nice skill to use as there is no downside, but I'm still pretty unimpressed with it. It is next to useless for someone in light armor as the starting action penalties are already so small. For those wearing heavy armor, it's benefits are drastically reduced so that the actual benefits from over training armor use mean more. I think it probably helps medium armors the most, but I still wouldn't say all that much compared to over training armor. To sum this up, when I offer armored evasion to people, most have no idea what it does or have no interest.

While I don't use it, armored stealth does sound nice. The problem is, it focuses on helping light armors exclusively. Most rogues wearing light armor will probably 3x hiding, so don't have extra points to invest in armor use to get enough ranks. This is a different story post cap, but by then I'd say most rogues in light armor don't have an issue hiding. Medium armor will see some benefit, but not a lot and heavy armor gets nothing. I imagine some rangers might ask for a rogue this modification, but I've never heard anyone doing so.

As I would take armored support or fluidity over our rogue choices any day and other professions do too, I think some tweaks are needed.

I'm over on the Plat side of things but I have a few folks hit me up for armored stealth now and again. For the most part folks seem to prefer the encumbrance or spell hindrance reducers.

Anyway, if I were to make a suggestion for a rogue armor skill that would benefit light armor rogues, heavy armor rogues, and possibly even tempt folks to ask their fellow rogues to adjust their armor... it would be a skill that sort of mimics spells like Temporal Reversion, Wall of Thorns, Cloak of Shadows, etc.

Hear me out.

A one time chance to just ignore a hit that lands, and after the four hour timer wears off it expires all together. This is the kicker. The rogue has to use trap components and install them on the armor. Scarabs come to mind right away. Why just sell them when you can put them to work?

As an attack is about to land, the scarab buzzes to life and rapidly flies off to deflect the attack.

Maybe in the case of vials, the attack strikes it and the resulting spray of acid/liquid fire/whatever deflects the attack... or maybe instead the attack isn't deflected, but there is a retribution effect. Yeah, you get hit still, but they're now coated in acid and stunned, too.

Dark crystals could be fun in that they hit it and just get knocked over.

Spheres? Uh... everything including yourself just explodes. Because good times.

The key word here is 'chance'. 10% chance of activation per rank or something.

I'm literally spit balling here, but I think an armor ability like this would be straight up a rogue's alley.

.jaired
>LIKE A BOSS
Please rephrase that command.

Putting traps in the armor is kind of an awesome idea, I gotta say.

I'm curious, SCRAPPERK, what are your stats for that equation? IE: Do you have rank 5, what ASG are you using, etc.. I ask because on my lv40 rogue in brig the stat bonuses from either of my armor choices are a joke. It's 2 points here or 4 points there, whooooooooo cares?


I will take warrior support over that nonsense every time, it gives a very tangible, useful boost to my effectiveness. I think the fact that a rogue would prefer to beg the warrior ability is telling.

The fact that the warrior armor skills BENEFIT from using better armor means the value is redoubled. Compare to rogues who are penalized within the framework of the very skill they're training! Oh you trained for plate, that's great! Oh you want to WEAR plate? Penalties! Very bizarre setup.

This is fun. How about those small dark crystals from traps. Chance on hit, the attacker gets bounced back. 5 sec rt? no damage.

>Light leather wearer, 12.5 points.

Unless the wiki is wrong or I'm misunderstanding it, light leather has no action penalty.


>Conversely, if I adjusted your armor, you would get 10 points.

Ok, a little better there 10/12 AP removed.


>For me, 5 Ranks and wearing AG 4, that is 7 points.

That's OKAY I guess... but a rank 5 warrior support on that armor would net you 30lbs of carry. If you're getting encumbered on your hunts, that seems like more of a benefit (although I'm not exactly sure on the conversion from lbs -> AP, I think it depends on your weight).

I have attempted calculating this so get your grain of salt...

At 140 ranks of armor skill and 4 ranks of armored evasion on full plate, you can remove the amount of AP equal to over-training an additional 50 ranks of armor skill. It's not my favorite benefit on my rogue but what else is he going to spend 140 armor ranks on using armor skill in full plate?

<There's only one rogue I know of that uses armored stealth and since I've put on doubles I'm happy to get the armor adjustment when I can. Helps pretty significantly against war griffins, though by no means is it making or breaking my hunt.>

I train in stealth cause I'd rather not fall out of the shadows in the first place. In brig with two ranks in Armor Stealth I wouldn't say there's a drastic improvement, but it's definitely a noticeable one versus not having it and it helps make up for not being able to have Shadow Mastery up all the time like I used to be able to to.

For snipers, Stealth is probably the better choice cause the point of sniping is to stay in the shadows so you don't have to be dodging attacks. For melee users, Evasion is probably the better choice cause they're in the open far more often then any properly trained sniper ever will be.

Starchitin

PS Yes, I know that even the best sniper falls from the shadows occasionally, but a good sniper has the patience to time their shots so they can get back into them before they can be swung at.

A severed gnomish hand crawls in on its fingertips and makes a rude gesture before quickly decaying and rotting into dust. A gust of wind quickly scatters the dust.