Is Augmentation actually Worth it?

[bcadren]

I'm just thinking it's a rather lackluster unrand is all. +4 Robe {+4 STR, +4 INT, +4 DEX} seems like it would be worse than a normal +2 Robe of Resistance (rF+, rC+); +2 Robe of the Archmage; +3 Leather of rF+; +3 Steam Dragon Armour, etc. Is there actually a case where (unless it spawned REALLY early) it'd be a good choice?

[ThreeInvisibleDucks]

With those choices, I'd say that piece of artefact armour is as unappealing as the most of them are. +4 Int is roughly equal to half a level of a magic skill. Dex bonus is something, but not worth sacrificing AC for.

[duvessa]

I'd much rather have it than +2 robe of resistance or +3 leather of rF, on pretty much any character. +5 steam dragon armour is probably better most of the time I guess.

At the very least, it is more useful than zhor, etheric cage, crown of eternal torment, hat of pondering, shield of ignorance, ratskin cloak, robe of misfortune, or gong.

[bcadren]

At the very least, it is more useful than zhor, etheric cage, crown of eternal torment, hat of pondering, shield of ignorance, ratskin cloak, robe of misfortune, or gong.

Etheric Cage is bad? (I've never used it) Is the MPRegen not enough to be useful or is the contam too much?

Zhor (+4 Animal skin with rC) is pretty well clearly better than +4 Robe with no resists to me. *shrug*

I can also dispute all but Misfortune depending on the character or situation. Gong is very little cost on someone that uses F.Storm anyways, for example. Ignorance might be worth it on an Og, Ce, Na or Tr with good Int (10+), but no spells. Etc. Bad to the majority of characters and/or in the majority of situations good when it's useful.

[dpeg]

Remember that unrandarts/fixedarts don't have to be endgame-worthy. If you find Augmentation on D:3, I hope you're a happy player. The choice of when to switch out of Augmentation is then much more interesting than buffing the item so far that you'd want to keep it throughout. No?

[byrel]

At the very least, it is more useful than zhor, etheric cage, crown of eternal torment, hat of pondering, shield of ignorance, ratskin cloak, robe of misfortune, or gong.

Etheric Cage is bad? (I've never used it) Is the MPRegen not enough to be useful or is the contam too much?

It's more that you're giving up 2 AC for 0.5 MPregen/turn which isn't that great. OTOH, it could be OK on some characters. Vine stalkers would love it.

Ignorance might be worth it on an Og, Ce, Na or Tr with good Int (10+), but no spells.

Indeed, I've certainly worn ignorance before. It's not a bad shield if you happen to have +int from a randart you're wearing for something else. Not uncommon.

[argonaut]

I just did a 5 rune VSSu and wore Augmentation the entire time. The stat bonus helped with the aux attack, not too bad AC, and good stealth. I had a robe of resistance and a bunch of dragon armour options but none seemed quite as good overall. Would have switched to Moon-TLA if I had found it though...

[Aethrus]

I had a randart robe that was similar to the robe of Augmentation, and ended up wearing it all game. I thought about switching to archmagi later, but I was a Gargoyle with awful Dex and was already killing everything, so the little bit of Dex was helpful with dodging.

[tasonir]

I personally feel like the body armor unrands are pretty weak, I just made a post on this ~2 days ago? In any case, augmentation is something you'll probably replace for something better. I understand dpeg saying that not everything has to be endgame worthy, but I feel like body armors suffer this problem more than most other slots. And the lack of medium-weight unrands that are worth wearing means you typically go randarts or dragon armor, which is fine, but it'd be nice to have some high grade scale mail going around. Ah well.

[duvessa]

in most of my games i never find randart body armour (or dragon armour, for that matter) that is worth wearing at any point

[agentgt]

I use augmentation and various other crappy robes and even troll armour for statue form builds. Augmentation is sort of good for statue form case since it helps you cast it.

If your concerned with turn count and plan on casting spells like statue form I also highly recommend early game troll armour (I second dpeg on you don't need end game armour). I think the early regen is worth the sacrificing of enchant scrolls particularly if rpois is no where to be found. I generally have excess enchant scrolls for 15 runing magic dudes (I think one time I had 14 enchant armour scrolls).

Personally I think the best armour in the game right now is shadow dragon armour (with the exception of 3 runing fda its my favorite for non statue form dudes). I am sort of surprised at the general obsession of body armour on both irc and tavern. Through mild anecdotal observation it seems to be one of the most frequently asked questions in crawl.