Body armor unrands

[tasonir]

Is it just me or do the body armor unrands seem weak/uninspiring? I'm always on the look out for some quirky 'plan your character around me' artefact like the elemental staff, maijin-bo, alchemist's hat, etc. They change the way you'd play, or over near complete protection from everything, etc. There isn't any character who isn't significantly better when they find the ring of robustness.

But body armors tend to be find and forget. I mean, I guess the robe of augmentation isn't <bad>, but I'd have a hard time saying it's really worthy of being an unrand. I don't think I've ever wanted to use salamander hide armor or the skin of Zhor, etc. Lear's basically prevents you from ever gaining resistances and isn't likely to be much better than your best suite of individual pieces.

The dragon king's armor adds MR to GDA in exchange for taking off +3 enchantment. It's nice in that it comes pre-enchanted, sure, but it's not really an awesome artefact of power, imho. It's wearable, but would you ever say the hat of the alchemist is "wearable"?

The only two that I actually like are Moon Troll leather armor, and the Orange crystal plate armor. Both are recent additions, and are certainly correcting the boring body armor problem, but I feel like it could go alot further.

I feel like there aren't really any good unrands in the ring/scale/chain mail range; Maxwell's and lear's are the only two here and both I'd say are not worth wearing 95% of the time you find one. There isn't a unique ring mail; seems like there's space for at least 3 good unrands here. But feel free to tell me how you dream about the robe of the night, and that it's the best unrand in the game

[Sar]

Robe of the Night is pretty great.

Also Maxwell is fun as a challenge item. Won 3 and 15 rune games with it as a Naga of Fedhas and Nemelex. Both time found early (bailey and a sewer, I think).

Well, and it really isn't much of a challenge to wear it in early game - the AC boost is immense! Gets trickier later though.

[emikaela]

i used lear's in my kobold^nemelex win, to save inventory slots. probably not optimal but reduced tedium a bit.

dragon king is a pretty awesome find for anyone who can use it unless you are in extended with infinite enchant armour scrolls already. it's better by far than the average armour i finish a 3-rune game with.

[duvessa]

there are lots of non-ridiculously-amazing artefacts that aren't body armour: elemental staff, mace of variability, majin-bo, sceptre of torment, singing sword, post-nerf staff of olgreb, sword of cerebov, zonguldrok, vampire's tooth, arc blade, post-nerf captain's cutlass, morg, chilly death, dark maul, brilliance, post-nerf skullcrusher, firestarter, undeadhunter, punk, lajatang of order, post-nerf piercer, eos, flaming death, finisher, devastator, trident of the octopus king, dyrovepreva, crown of eternal torment when it existed, hat of pondering, post-nerf hat of the alchemist, shield of ignorance, ratskin cloak, shield of resistance, gong, cekugob, bloodlust, rings of the octopus king

the three you mention in the opening are all, at best, around average among unrandarts as a whole, and the idea of planning a character around any combination of them sounds certifiably insane to me
i'm especially baffled by your mention of elemental staff. it's a staff that doesn't enhance any spells and doubles as a bad melee weapon, how exciting?

maxwell's and lear's hauberk are two of the best unrands in the game, they're in about the same range as prune or gauntlets of war, and overwhelmingly better than elemental staff or majin-bo or hat of the alchemist

i mean if you look at the most insane randarts in the game (plutonium sword and cloak of the thief, followed by stuff like brooch of shielding), sure, none of them are body armour, but none of them are shields or hats or one-handed weapons either
and i dont know what kind of crawl you play where you actually get a gda to +12 rofl

It's wearable, but would you ever say the hat of the alchemist is "wearable"?

no, because i generally wouldnt wear it

it's 100% pointless for skin of zhor to exist though, i'll agree with you on that

[n1000]

doesn't ele staff do more damage than an elec weapon with a decent skill level in what's already one of the best skills in the game?

I do agree that maxwell's/lear's are fantastic

[byrel]

it's 100% pointless for skin of zhor to exist though, i'll agree with you on that

I think it's probably reasonable equipment for a robe caster going to Cocytus. It's rather good equipment early game if you find it, as it gives you 5 AC without impacting your EV.

[byrel]

Annnnd a new unrand: +3 Robe of Vines {Regen++++++++}.

Yup, that's +320 regen, or 3 HP/turn by itself. Tack on vinestalker, amulet and spell, with at least 60 max HP and you get >500 regen or 5 HP/turn. Or a full hp per swing of a finessed quick blade.

Cheers!

[Pollen_Golem]

Annnnd a new unrand: +3 Robe of Vines {Regen++++++++}.

Tack on -10% max HP to make it a bad artifact nobody would ever use. :p

[duvessa]

It's already bad...