The Tavern

I have a simple easy question that I have not been able to figure out on the Wiki. If I am have a melee/magic hybrid character that is going to use medium armour (such as mottled dragon armour) do I just train dodging or do I train a bit of armour too?

Also when training dodging or armour is there a point where it is not worth raising the skills anymore? I have heard that you train your weapon until the point where you hit minimum delay. Is there something like that for dodging and armour?

Thanks!

unlike weapon speed, and other things (like shields, which are closer to what we're talking about), there's no clear cut-off point for armour. check the bots rather than the wiki for this stuff: https://crawl.develz.org/info/index.php?q=aevp

for mottled the penalty is almost irrelevant. i train it to 5 and i think most people do the same or something similar. for heavier armours (like fire/ice/pearl) it's often better to just train the magic skills higher (and if you have many, stay with light armour). swamp dragon armour is usually not worth it if you're casting.

also: there is no "medium armour", evasion penalty, which includes mda, 1 is light. anything beyond that is heavy. it's mostly irrelevant, but the game uses this distinction for a few things (like ash skill bonuses? i can't think of anything else right now).

Don't bother with Armour at least until you max Dodging. You'll need xp elsewhere. For example, getting some Stealth can be useful, it makes easier to flee and pick your battles which is important for dodgy character.

Dodging is always useful to train, there's no point when it stops improving your evasion. The same with Armour and AC.

Unless you're focus-training dodging (which you probably shouldn't be), you're not going to max dodging until around the end of the game, and many of the biggest threats there are undodgeable. That said, mottled dragon armor is only armor to mages, so there's little point in putting much xp into the armor skill. Start casting in -2 or greater armor, then we'll talk about armor wearing hybrids.

And yet, by increasing Armour skill, you reduce the penalties wearing Armour applies to the success of magical skills.