Best Armor for PVE Excluding the Drake/Scale

[Eleraan 351]

So curious which armor is best for PVE.  I don't see much real difference between them based on the wiki. Why use the greater penalty and heavier chain over studdeded if they basically do the same.

 

Is the 2.5% difference for plate just make it the best overall? I know there are damage differences based on the different types of damage but for General PVE it is what, Bite, Pierce, Crush?  Studded matches or exceeds plate. Is that enough to outweigh the 2.5% from Plate?

 

Or does the extra 2.5% from using Steel boost it over studded even further? Making steel plate the best "cheap" armor? 

 

Just trying to figure out which armor I should keep wearing

[Docterchese 1,570]

Main advantage of studded for PvE is the dramatically faster movement speed (not to mention that a set is 15 kgs lighter). Plus, there are plenty of situations where you'll take less damage wearing studded - plate is weak against crush attacks (much worse glance rate) which will probably make a reasonable difference when fighting some strong PvE mobs that use mauling attacks, like trolls or some of the rift mobs.

 

Once you hit a reasonably high fight skill (60-70) nothing PvE short of uniques or a champ troll gank squad will be able to kill you as long as your gear is imped reasonably well, so I don't think the minor defensive bonus of plate vs. studded is ever worth it in exchange for how much slower and heavier that armour is. Plus, you will spend most of your time on-deed (but probably still wearing armour) and you might as well be able to walk a few km/h faster.

 

 

Edit to add: I think if you want survivability in PvE then a good life transfer weapon will do much more for you than a plate armour set. Get an LT staff or huge axe and have unlimited free heals courtesy of squishy mobs!

Edited August 14, 2022 by Docterchese

[Archaed 2,280]

51 minutes ago, Docterchese said:

Edit to add: I think if you want survivability in PvE then a good life transfer weapon will do much more for you than a plate armour set. Get an LT staff or huge axe and have unlimited free heals courtesy of squishy mobs!

The best defence is a good offence! 

[Holar 1,484]

Like DrChese said,  invest in a good 2h weapon.

[Damascus 374]

I myself use rare studded armor i have collected and made over the years , so it has a  ar bonus .

I also use huge axe with LT  and nimble  , not sure if nimble works still .

I have used it at rifts often and just need keep eye out for gangs .

So studded is a good set for almost anything ..

 

[Burdok 163]

I'm a Steel/seryll plate man myself, I don't care much for grinding crazy skills but I do hunt a lot, and with the addition of Runes you can reduce the weight of plate. 

 

As DoctorCheese mentioned above plate is weaker against crush attacks, outside of rifts the only two mobs you need to worry about that do crush attacks are trolls and bears and I think Anacondas. 

 

For me, compared to leather which is weaker vs slash/pierce attacks, there are a lot more mobs that do this kind of damage.

 

All I can further add on this, in my 85QL plate with a good 2H weapon with LT I can pretty easily solo two trolls, so the crush damage negative buff is not that crazy. I've also never really had a problem at rifts other than taking frost damage but that has nothing to do with armor  

 

As you can see in my avatar to the left, I did own drake armor at one point, this was on SFI a few years ago, the armor I had was 90QL and after one hunting trip I sold it. Simply because it didn't feel as safe as my plate armor at that time. I remember struggling to tank a hell scorpius and a scorpion. Selling the drake was one of the easier decisions I had to make in wurm. My plate armor was a lot more tanky, and once you get used to inventory grouping and quickly removing and equipping armor via drag & drop the weight doesn't really make that much difference. When on deed there's no need to wear the armor so your speed is not affected, and most often when out hunting where you need armor you are either on a vehicle or a mount, so again, the movement speed doesn't matter that much.

 

 

Edited August 15, 2022 by Burdok

[Eleraan 351]

Hmm thanks. I have a good LT 2h. So it isn't that I am struggling. I was just curious which was best defensively generally. Since speed isn't that big an issue, I fight mounted. I guess I'll stick with plate.

[Burdok 163]

If you're already in plate, I would suggest slowly over time upgrading to Seryll plate, with the marks system and chance for seryll drops from rifts, it can be done in a few months if you dont want to buy any lumps. 

 

What I've done on my new toon on NFI is save up seryll lumps, I got a platesmith to make the armor for me and after that I put some Tin rune of Vynora on them, now everytime they get imp'd theres a higher chance for them to go rare, once rare/supreme I will replace these runes with Zinc rune of Libila to reduce the weight by 10%

 

[Nomadikhan 2,196]

My set of supreme chain mail is great against champ trolls.... well, I mean, I haven't died yet.

 

That sillyness aside I don't buy into the studded is omg so totes magotes it's SOooooo lighter, I mean who fights on foot purposely?  15kg is nothing when you should be mounted for combat anyway.

 

I'm just partial to chainmail, was the big thing back when I started the game before it just poofed and was never talked about again.

[Docterchese 1,570]

8 hours ago, Nomadikhan said:

That sillyness aside I don't buy into the studded is omg so totes magotes it's SOooooo lighter, I mean who fights on foot purposely?  15kg is nothing when you should be mounted for combat anyway.

 

Yeah, I don't think it's clear cut that studded is always better purely because it's lighter and faster, it isn't a huge difference. But you can easily get stalked by a mob when doing offdeed work on foot and not be close to a mount, and will have to run on foot to get to safety. New accounts are so much weaker, and for those players, being able to run away (as there are many things they can't fight) is really important; also, the extra 15 kg of inventory max weight is a decent bonus for them too.

[joedobo 1,187]

I've never understood why folks never point out that you can easily equip or remove all your armor. To remove do: r-click on body icon in the paper doll>choose unequip all.  You can keep your armor inside a backpack or an inventory group. To equip this armor, use shift select to select it all and drag it all to paper doll to equip. I only constantly wear armor if I'm going afk. Otherwise, I take it on and off.

 

iirc, someone pointing out that plate takes the most damage compared to other armors. You end up spending more of your time maintaining it.

 

plate:

1. It's heavy in inventory, even when it's unequipped.

2. If you're wearing it your foot speed is slow. we can't do a lot of working tasks on a horse after all.

3. It takes far more damage compared to other armors and results in more time spent maintaining it.

4. DR is good is most cases. But in case of troll bashing, the one scenario that really matters in wurm, it's average at best. 

 

I'm not sure if I'll go with studded or steel chain.

 

edit:

This site is better than the bad wiki: https://warlander.github.io/Wurm-Toolbox/#armor-calc

Edited August 23, 2022 by joedobo

[Tristanc 570]

I know I personally go with either studded or steel chain, depending on circumstances.

 

Hunting's something I do on the side, not as a primary task.

 

 

[Borstaskor 503]

I'd personally use studded any day of the week (Disclaimer: I'm only looking at studded vs chain vs plate).

The most "dangerous" ever-day pve mob for most people are trolls and studded are better against that than chain or plate is. If you're confident against a troll, you're mostly confident against most other stuff. It being lighter and often times cheaper/easier to maintain imped is a free bonus.

 

I say "dangerous" because it's not too hard to get to the point of every-day pve being a joke in terms of difficulty. So in the end, it doesn't matter too much and all armor sets are (kind of) close to each other in terms of performance.

 

Even my non-prem alt (= no skill) with full cloth gear casted with web armor kills the occasional invading troll while being afk on my deed. (and before anyone pushes up their nerd-glasses saying "but cloth has good crush defense" - it's only a tiny bit better than plate and it's worse than chain in that department)

[gorgian 181]

Personally use plate myself. If fight a lot of trolls, then just switch out 2H for 1h & shield. With good shield skill bash will go in to the shield.

 

I think shields should be included when thinking about armor.