Heavy Armor: Better, Worse, or the Same in 2.1?

tinythinker

Thoughts from testers?

Solanum

I've not tested it much yet, but I still strongly believe plate to be the inferior choice overall.
I had hoped it would be better for PVP now that the damage is reduced and you'll no longer get two shotted, but came to realize, it's still going to be rather bad.

Magicka/cloth users have absorption shields and heals. These scale very nicely off their magicka, which also allows them to do remarkably good damage.
Stamina/leahter users rely on dodgerolling and heals, these scale very nicely off their stamina, and they can do remarkably good damage as well.

Plate users lack the resources of the other two armors, the little bit extra damage reduction granted doesn't weigh up to the far superior healing and mitigation power of the other two specs. To make matters worse, plate also has no damage potential at all.

This is not to say it's impossible to make a good plate build, you can invest in good resource recovery trough drink buffs, the right sets, and so forth. I am just saying that making a build work in plate requires more effort, and won't be as good as placing the same investment into one of the other two armors.

Exceptions might be when there is extremely good synergy, a dragonknight who get's extra blocking mitigation might think the 20% blocking cost reduction to be just his thing, but overall, if you can do it in plate, you probably could do it better in cloth or leather.

ThatNeonZebraAgain

Pretty much the same so far. Depending on what kinds of armor some of the new sets come in, it could be interesting, but @Solanum said it best: "if you can do it in plate, you probably could do it better in cloth or leather" with the exception of end-game PvE tanking.

It would be nice if they added a passive to the 5-piece passive bonus that allowed you to have some stamina regen back while blocking.

tinythinker

ThatNeonZebraAgain wrote: »

Pretty much the same so far. Depending on what kinds of armor some of the new sets come in, it could be interesting, but @Solanum said it best: "if you can do it in plate, you probably could do it better in cloth or leather" with the exception of end-game PvE tanking.

It would be nice if they added a passive to the 5-piece passive bonus that allowed you to have some stamina regen back while blocking.

Or increased the health bonuses/amount of resources you get back for being hit.

ThatNeonZebraAgain

tinythinker wrote: »

ThatNeonZebraAgain wrote: »

Pretty much the same so far. Depending on what kinds of armor some of the new sets come in, it could be interesting, but @Solanum said it best: "if you can do it in plate, you probably could do it better in cloth or leather" with the exception of end-game PvE tanking.

It would be nice if they added a passive to the 5-piece passive bonus that allowed you to have some stamina regen back while blocking.

Or increased the health bonuses/amount of resources you get back for being hit.

That too! Was really bummed when they lowered those values and put a cooldown on them in 1.6.

tinythinker

ThatNeonZebraAgain wrote: »

tinythinker wrote: »

ThatNeonZebraAgain wrote: »

Pretty much the same so far. Depending on what kinds of armor some of the new sets come in, it could be interesting, but @Solanum said it best: "if you can do it in plate, you probably could do it better in cloth or leather" with the exception of end-game PvE tanking.

It would be nice if they added a passive to the 5-piece passive bonus that allowed you to have some stamina regen back while blocking.

Or increased the health bonuses/amount of resources you get back for being hit.

That too! Was really bummed when they lowered those values and put a cooldown on them in 1.6.

I'm sure they'll get right on that right after they fix Argonians...