Please help me understand Heavy armor vs Light armor

[Thirtyeight]

I know most of this comes from me trying to reconcile how armor works in a typical rpg with how armor works in a rogue-like, but I just don't seem to understand why I should choose a less damage reducing type of armor over something like plate mail.

Starting a run as a typical strength based character, my first impulse is to grab and equip the heaviest armor I can find. I don't really understand encumbrance, or evasion, I just want to be as protected as possible so I'm less likely to die. I'm guessing this isn't really how I should be playing, but I don't understand why someone would prefer lighter armor. Aren't you much more likely to get squished that way? Whats the point of dodging when a single lucky hit takes most of your hp?

I want to run more complicated characters than the simple MiBe, but I'm guessing I need to better understand how armor works before I have a chance of getting them to survive.

As always, I appreciate your insight and patience.

[some12fat2move]

heavy armor generally is better protection than light armor. The catch is that it hurts your spell success.

[and into]

On a background/species that has decent strength and isn't casting, grabbing the armor that gives highest AC is generally best. Eventually you will train Armor, and also may well train Dodging *eventually* but that would come later. You can also switch to a lighter armor later and cast spells, or just grind up enough magic skill to cast spells in really heavy armor, but that's more of a mid-game decision.

Armor choice becomes more complicated if you are wanting to cast spells from the beginning, but if not, then "find chain/plate, train some armor skill when I seem to be killing dudes fine" is basically correct. Obviously a really well enchanted lighter armor, etc., can affect that, but yeah.

Now there are exceptions and more nuanced stuff, but the above generally holds and if you follow it you will nearly always be playing reasonably, and then you can focus on improving tactics and other things that matter more than absolutely optimizing out to the hundredth decimal your average damage mitigation from AC/EV.

[crate]

Start a game as something with a spellbook. Find a ring mail or something (ideally plate mail). Put it on, then check your spell success rate.

There's your main reason for wearing lighter armour.

[Sandman25]

Sorry, I have no patience There are very many factors to take into account, some of them are really complicated so if you want to I suggest to either 1) download offline version and learn how to use wizard mode or 2) read wiki, knowledge bots etc. to have detailed knowledge.
Or just read simple theoretical example:
1) you have AC 20 and EV 5, you were attacked 5 times, you were hit 4 times, you took 15 damage on average and thus lost 60 HP
2) you have AC 5 and EV 20, you were attacked 5 times, you were hit 2 times, you took 30 damage on average and thus lost 60 HP

[tedric]

For a strength-based character, you do want heavy armour. Encumbrance lowers evasion, which just means you'll be hit by more things. But heavy armour has a (more or less hidden) stat called Guaranteed Damage Reduction, which does what it says on the tin. So in practice you don't really care that you're getting hit more often, because many of those hits are so light that GDR nullifies them.

For casters, stabbers, etc. light armour is a better choice because encumbrance also lowers spell success and stealth. These characters often end up wearing robes or leather most of the game, and often upgrade to one of the dragon armours (higher AC:encumbrance ratio than normal armours, plus resists). The tradeoff in AC and GDR is made up for in three ways. One, dodging is in many ways better than AC because getting hit for low damage is still worse than not getting hit at all. Two, you can enchant auxilliary armour (hemlet, boots, gloves, cloak) to get your AC up a decent amount. Three, you have spells -- which are all kinds of useful. Various spells can boost your AC or EV, kill from a distance, create allies to do the fighting (and absorb the damage) for you, disable enemies for stabbing, etc. When you have that many options, you can avoid getting into melee situations as often.

[dck]

Uh, what the fuck.
"Guaranteed Damage Reduction" Doesn't at all do what it says on the tin (it doesn't wok on spells, it doesn't for ranged, it doesn't work for melee attack flavors) and isn't a factor to be considered when choosing your armor. And regardless, literally every armour that isn't a robe/animal skin gives gdr.
Anyway instead of bringing up misleading parts of how gdr works with melee attacks only I'd suggest a new player wears whatever gives him the best AC/EV balance, since AC and EV are basically equally as good (this isn't perfectly true but it's a good guidance).

[and into]

OP, I'd recommend not concerning yourself with stuff like GDR, at least not until you are pretty well accustomed to the game and want to dig into more detail out of curiosity. For one thing, GDR only applies to melee damage, for example. A lot of people forget that fact, even when they've heard it before. Also GDR's formula is complicated and doesn't really do what it says on the tin; "guaranteed damage reduction" is something of a misnomer actually, or at the least is liable to mislead you. (It does not simply reduce incoming damage by a %, which is what I would assume it meant if I weren't spoiled.) All you really need to know is that heavier armors generally provide more AC, and more AC gives very reliable protection against nearly all forms of attack in the game, including magic stuff like fireball and bolt of cold and dragon breath, etc. (Except for phantasmal warrior's attack, basically all attacks that ignore AC also ignore EV.) Heavier armors are more reliable for damage mitigation in melee combat due to GDR but really, if you are going to wear heavy armors, just go with the one that gives best AC. (Obviously if one gives a good resistance like MR and only one or two AC fewer, the armor with the good brand may well be better, but that's more transparent and straightforward of a decision.)

EDIT: Scooped somewhat by dck. *shakes fist at screen*

[Magipi]

On a background/species that has decent strength and isn't casting, grabbing the armor that gives highest AC is generally best.

I'd suggest a new player wears whatever gives him the best AC/EV balance

So, which of these advice is better?

[crate]

Magipi: both, in most cases. Since they tend to be simultaneously true.

[and into]

I was thinking more specifically in terms of what OP asked: "Early on I pick up biggest AC armor and wear it, is that right?" And I'd say yes, because going from 12 or 13 EV to ~5 EV doesn't really matter, whereas going from 4 AC to 10 AC matters a great deal. Eventually you can and often should get good AC and EV, they aren't mutually exclusive except for wearing heavy armor early on. The nice thing about throwing on plate is it gives boost to protection with no skill investment, so you can focus on making your weapon kill stuff while still getting decent damage mitigation. Once you are killing dudes well get armor skill for better protection, and then later on you can get pretty good EV too usually, and become even more resilient.

[Thirtyeight]

Everyone, thank you for your responses.

Looks like everyone is more or less saying the same thing, so I think my question is answered. I was afraid there was something i was missing that might help me get farther in the dungeon.

[Magipi]

Magipi: both, in most cases. Since they tend to be simultaneously true.

My experience is quite the opposite, lighter armour almost always gives higher AC+Ev sum, at least until you train some armour skill.

[Lasty]

GDR rule one: if you don't think about GDR, GDR can't hurt you.

@OP, as others have said, AC tends to be a bit better at preventing harm than EV, but you can and should profit by having some of both. AC being a bit better is offset by the way armour with high AC also has encumbrance, which affects your spell success and stealth values. Characters in heavy armour have to spend less experience to get good AC, but more experience to get good EV, casting rates, and stealth; characters in lighter armour have the opposite.

Early in the game you generally only need to get either AC or EV to a decent place to reasonably mitigate damage, but by the midgame you'll want to try to get both to a reasonable place on most characters.

Here's a vague, hand-wavey guide for decent armour profiles that is approximately what I aim for but that you shouldn't follow too closely:

By Lair, try to get EV to about 20 or AC to about 20. Getting both to 15 is probably okay.

By the time you're going for you've cleared Lair, Orc, and Dungeon, try to get (AC 30) or (AC 15+ and EV 25+) or (AC 20 and EV 20).

By the time that you're going into Depths try to have (AC 40+) or (AC 22+ and EV 28+) or (AC 30+ and EV 20+)

[and into]

Magipi: both, in most cases. Since they tend to be simultaneously true.

My experience is quite the opposite, lighter armour almost always gives higher AC+Ev sum, at least until you train some armour skill.

True, in early game you often have better AC+EV in robe. To explain myself I will have to go into somewhat greater detail, folks who aren't interested in nitty gritty can just ignore this.

The thing about EV is that because of how it works, there are certain cases in which increases and decreases in EV, for all practical purposes, don't actually matter. Going from 12 EV to 5 EV (or vice versa) is somewhat comparable to going from 60% spell failure to 90%. In either case, do you want to rely on those numbers for spell casting? Of course not. On the other hand—especially early on, when max damage that enemies can do is generally pretty low outside of certain bad luck with brands—going from 5 AC to 12 AC (or vice versa) is an extremely noticeable change. So if you aren't casting spells and don't have ridiculously low strength or something else weird going on, gaining AC at expense of EV gives best immediate protection. Yes, you do need to invest experience in armor skill before too long or else you will fall behind, but an early chain or even plate—which is not uncommon—will give great protection while you are focusing on your weapon skill. Later on you will have much greater options. Of course finding some +2 robe or +3 leather armor and training dodging is perfectly viable too, though. But if you aren't casting or using unarmed combat, and some chain or plate is available, you can usually get better protection with no skill investment in defense early on, simply by wearing that heavy armor. Obviously if you find a mottled dragon armor or something exceptional, then that completely changes your assessment, but unlike finding MDA on the ground, finding chain or even plate by D7 or so is not uncommon.

EDIT: Lasty's numbers generalize a lot—your HP is an important factor, for instance, also some gods or species will want more or can get by with less. But in general I agree that they are good guidelines.

[crate]

ok I guess you technically get more AC+EV in a robe early on, but the thing is that very early in crawl you cannot even come close to treating 1 EV as equal to 1 AC. It is reasonably true later but on d:1 1 AC is worth far more than 1 EV.

Enemy damage goes up much more dramatically than enemy accuracy does, in other words.

[Sandman25]

Well, early monsters have low to-hit so AC 4, EV 12 is better than AC 11, EV 3. At leasts vs Orc.

  Code:

           AvHitDam | MaxDam | Accuracy | AvDam | AvTime | AvSpeed | AvEffDam
Attacking:      3.9 |     10 |      54% |   2.1 |   125  |  0.80 |      1.7
Defending:      1.1 |      8 |      86% |   0.9 |   100  |  1.00 |      0.9
You finish taking off your +0 plate armour.
You finish putting on your +0 leather armour.
Enter Wizard Command (? - help):
Enter monster name (or MONS spec):
           AvHitDam | MaxDam | Accuracy | AvDam | AvTime | AvSpeed | AvEffDam
Attacking:      3.9 |     10 |      61% |   2.4 |   125  |  0.80 |      1.9
Defending:      1.4 |      5 |      42% |   0.6 |   100  |  1.00 |      0.6

Edit. Perhaps there is some bug in fsim, Max Damage is higher vs Plate Armour (I tried it several times). Or I don't understand what defending means.

[crate]

I'm not getting those results when I fsim against an unarmed orc (10/2 defenses (in plate) has me taking 0.5 AvEffDam per turn; 2/11 (robe) has me taking 1.0 AvEffDam). I don't know how fsim creates monsters, but you should probably be sure that both orcs have the same weapon.

[Sandman25]

Yes, that must be caused by unknown weapon indeed.
Results vs quokka show that Plate Armour is better.

  Code:

           AvHitDam | MaxDam | Accuracy | AvDam | AvTime | AvSpeed | AvEffDam
Attacking:      1.5 |      8 |      50% |   0.8 |   125  |  0.80 |      0.6
Defending:      1.4 |      5 |      44% |   0.6 |   100  |  1.00 |      0.6
You finish taking off your +0 leather armour.
You finish putting on your +0 plate armour.
Enter Wizard Command (? - help):
Enter monster name (or MONS spec):
           AvHitDam | MaxDam | Accuracy | AvDam | AvTime | AvSpeed | AvEffDam
Attacking:      1.4 |      9 |      43% |   0.6 |   125  |  0.80 |      0.5
Defending:      0.5 |      4 |      85% |   0.4 |   100  |  1.00 |      0.4

[HenryFlower]

I thought this was going to be stoneskin vs ozocubu's where there's a hard distinction between heavy and light which makes total sense because ???

[and into]

To be fair, oz's armor would be even more OP and good for all characters if it could work in any and every armor. Stone Skin doesn't provide as much AC. Plus distinctiveness is good I guess.

[Wahaha]

Whats the point of dodging when a single lucky hit takes most of your hp?

It doesn't. First of all because your hp is usually many times higher than the maximum damage that a monster can hit for, if it rolls max damage, and you have 0 AC. But ignoring the exaggeration, if you're worried about getting hit too hard, don't be. It's easy to have AC while wearing leather and training dodging because of the AC from auxiliary armor like gloves and boots and the enchantments on armor pieces. You can easily have something like 12 AC 20 EV in Lair without training armor. If on the other hand you wear a plate mail and train armor, you'll have something like 20-25 AC and 3-5? EV. They're both about as good when comparing only AC and EV values. If we consider the fact that to wear a plate you need more str than most characters start with, you can't cast spells (early-mid game context), and you have to find a plate in the first place, wearing a robe or leather becomes a lot more attractive.

With most characters I wear a robe or leather and don't train armor until the middle of the game, because it works very well, and because again most characters can't even wear plate without raising str.

In my opinion the stuff between leather and plate mail, like ring mail and chain? mail is trash, because these armors scale partially with armor skill, and partially with dodging skill, and it's hard to train both of these skills in the first third of the game at least. Someone will probably disagree with this.

You might want to try playing a merfolk or a kobold or halfling.

[and into]

Alright I know the fsim results against a quokka bore out what I said, but I can't help pointing out that's a really poor metric to use. "Because it protects me from a quokka" is not a good reason to do something in Crawl, as those are among the least threatening enemies in the game. You could do a bunch of fsims against legit early game threats and conduct a more detailed analysis that way, I suppose, or you could just play the early game a few times as gladiators who stick with leather versus ones that wizmode up a plate mail and throw that on, and compare the difference.

[Sandman25]

I ran fsim vs Yaks before quokka. Yaks have higher to-hit and deal more damage so plate armour was even better than vs quokka.

[and into]

Fair enough, but nonetheless one should note that, by the time you are fighting yaks, you've (probably) had time to train a decent amount of weapon skill (or solid damage spell) *and* your defensive skill of choice, assuming reasonable skill training and background/species combo. Not trying to be a pain in the ass here, just pointing to some nuances that aren't necessarily captured by a couple of fsim tests.

[dck]

quokkas should now be somewhat dangerous since you can't run away from them, but I think running the fsim with yaks is ridiculous since we're talking about the value of AC vs EV in the early game (this is maybe 4-5 floors) and when you're fighting yaks characters have definitely already developed in different ways.

[damiac]

This is interesting. I always thought the conventional wisdom throughout the game was that 1 point of EV was roughly worth the same as 0.9 points of AC, due to fireballs and other EV ignoring stuff.

I didn't realize that early game AC is worth way, way more than EV. But I don't understand, because I've also seen people saying that fighter backgrounds should ditch their starting scale mail for something lighter right away.

So when does that change? Because I've been sticking with leather armor, to get something like 5ac 12ev, when scale would give me something like 10 ac 5ev.
Is the issue that EV has to be above some breakpoint to become meaningful against average enemy accuracy?

Also, early game is the time when player accuracy actually matters, which heavier armor reduces. Is that still not a concern, or at least, not a big enough concern to warrant sticking with the lighter armor?

Obviously if you're going to cast spells, the decision is much easier.

[dck]

Uh, it's strangely specific and thus flat out incorrect to assign EV a value of 0.9 AC.
I would say once you reach temple depth EV/AC hit more or less the point of rough equality they share from that moment on.
The acc penalty is extremely minor and not something to factor in when deciding which armor to wear (particularly since it's tied to more important factors of such a decision anyway).

[Sandman25]

Also don't listen to everything you are told if there is a way to check it and see it yourself. I was surprised by fsim tests which show how good Fighter background is (yes, that shield really helps despite having low Shields skill).

Edit. And please don't tell me how awesome nets are, I missed 3 nets in a row in Zot 5 vs Ancient Lich (it had EV 10, I had Str 21 and Dex 20) yesterday and then I just switched to my cool freezing spear

[damiac]

Eh, I didn't mean it to be so specific, just that my understanding was that 1 point of EV is worth slightly less than 1 point of AC, on average.

But if they're roughly equivalent post temple, then why are people saying taking plate armor over leather is a good idea early on? Because leather gives a better EV + AC than plate does, until you have significant armor skill.

[crate]

AC is in general pretty much always worth more per-point than EV but the thing about treating them as equal for quick heuristics is that it's easy. You don't want to be doing something complicated because that defeats the point of having the heuristic in the first place (as opposed to going into wizmode and fsimming or something). Certainly I don't want to do AC + .9*EV to compare armours.

[duvessa]

But I don't understand, because I've also seen people saying that fighter backgrounds should ditch their starting scale mail for something lighter right away.

wtf, who says that

[damiac]

Yeah, all I really only meant by that is that AC is worth slightly more than EV, not that there's some magic formula, AC and EV aren't equivalent anyway.

But I'm seeing that and_into and Dck have pretty different views here, and I'm wondering what other people think.
and_into is saying early on, you should just take the highest AC item you can get, because the difference between 12 EV and 5 EV is negligible, whereas the difference between 5 AC and 10 AC is huge.
Dck is saying that basically throughout the game, AC and EV should be treated as basically equivalent, and therefore you should aim for the best combined AC and EV score.

I'm curious what other experienced players think about this? Should I just be going for highest AC that still allowed me to cast? Should I just be going for best AC + EV?
In general, the way I've been playing is going for best AC + EV, but with AC being slightly more valuable. So I"ll take the armor that gives me 7AC 12EV over the one that gives me 10AC 5 EV.

EDIT:
I don't remember who it was that said that about fighter backgrounds, it was a while back. The wiki's not the only place that provides bad information. I really have to figure out how to FSIM so I can answer a lot of these questions for myself.

[Sandman25]

No, difference between 12 EV and 3 EV is huge too (you can see it in fsim results earlier in the thread).

[dck]

I am not saying that, I agree that AC is hugely more valuable than EV early on because of how low the damage that is being thrown your way is; once warriors start appearing (temple depth meant more or less D: 6) damage is a lot higher but accuracy is not, so EV becomes more valuable and you can aim for balanced AC/EV without deviating much from what would be the optimal defenses for your depth.
I think the problem here is what you're referring to as early game. For me the early game is more or less over around D: 6.

[and into]

dck and I are not actually disagreeing, here.

By early game I mean *early game*. We are talking about the very start—the time frame when the vast majority of deaths happen even for very skilled players, and any boost to survivability is a godsend.

Under the conditions I stated: early game, sufficient str, not taking casting into account casting, assuming you found a suitable heavy armor that gives good AC... Then going heavy armor lets you use your items for a boost in defense without having to train a defensive skill at all. Those items give even better defense if you train a skill, but they give better protection than lighter armors for any given level of armor training (including 0)—again, under the stated conditions. EV is great but requires skill. Getting protection for 0 skill is really good early on, and remains viable. There are costs associated with going heaviest armor, however, and obviously you need to find a suitable armor. Also, obviously some species (like Halflings, Spriggans, etc.) get bonuses to EV that have an effect from the outset, but I'm talking about normal sized species (Hu, HO, HE, DE, etc.)

At one point in 0.6 heavy armor was so badly nerfed (because it was OP before that) that some people probably said stuff like, if you start as a fighter you should swap to a robe or leather armor at first opportunity. Mainly I think that was a joke, though, because in reality if you are going to do that, you just shouldn't start as a fighter. (Especially since gladiators started with bucklers back then anyway and began in leather, and yet also had nets already too, IIRC. Incidentally they began with a little bit of unarmed combat, for reasons that escape me.)

damiac, I think you want simple answers, and yet at the same time are picking at every generalization that people offer. A really rigorous comparison of EV/AC in terms of optimal play is really going down the rabbit hole; it is much more complicated than comparisons of weapon damage, for instance. How much do you value "control" over your HP in a combat situation (i.e., big chunks of HP coming off occasionally vs. smaller chunks more often)? Etc. I don't assume I know or accord to optimal play, but I have enough of a grasp to know that it is not a simple question of X EV = Y AC.

If you just want practical guidelines though, many people have provided them, at several points in the thread, and those guidelines were pretty reasonable IMO. Obviously they are guidelines and thus based on certain assumptions and generalizations, however.

[damiac]

Sorry, I'm not trying to nitpick or accuse you of being inconsistent, I'm just trying to understand what you're saying.

So, in practical terms, lets say I find a chain mail on the ground in D1, swapping from my leather would change my defenses from 5/12 to 10/5(or so, these values are just from memory). Should I do it? It seems that you're both saying yes.

Now, let's talk about what happens when I get to D6 or so. Assuming I haven't found any better armor, should I now switch back to that leather armor, for the better AC + EV? By this point, I'll probably not have trained any dodging yet, as I'm still trying to get my primary weapon down to decent delay.

I guess what you guys seem to be saying is that the overall damage reduction is most important. Early on, 5 extra points of AC will avoid more damage than 7 points of EV. Later, when enemies are hitting harder, those dodges are worth more damage reduction, while the 5 AC is worth less (since more damage is getting through)

Am I right about that? I see the logic to that, but I never would have thought to switch out of my starting armor, only to switch back to it later.

[crate]

If you haven't trained defensive skills then probably heavy armour gives you the best defenses (assuming you are a normal-sized character).

You should be training defensive skills though so this isn't actually a thing that matters.

[damiac]

Well, it does matter, in the examples I gave, do I stick with the chain or the leather armor? With a DgGl, it's hard to split exp between my weapon and defensive skills at that point, and even if I do, it's going to be a huge nerf to my weapon delay (we're talking about D1 to D6 here). I've tried splitting the xp 50/50 between weapon and dodging, and at most that gets me like 1 or 2 points of ev at the cost of increased weapon delay.

So like I said, the heavy armor gives the worse AC/EV balance at this point in the game. But like Dck and and_into pointed out, the AC is much more valuable at this very early stage. And this very early stage is the time when I have to make the best possible choices, because I'm playing a severely sub-optimal character.

[and into]

It is hard to say in the abstract, but I think I'd probably go with 10 AC / 5 EV in your example, damiac. You will get okay additional AC from armor skill, so it may very well make sense to start putting some experience in armor for defense before going too far into the game. Again Lasty's guidelines for what you will hopefully have at different points in the game were pretty good IMO.

However none of the above is *nearly* as important as consistently using good tactics.