Should melee rogues wear the heaviest armor?

[Zeratul]

So I created my character as a melee assassin rogue, high might and perception, low constitution and resolve. Initially, I thought that I should use lighter armor on him (+20% or even +0% recovery time) since he is a damage dealer and my guy was hitting like a truck, but dropping like a fly. I decided to experiment with heavier armor and to me, it looks like the melee squishes should wear the heaviest armor possible. The decrease in attack speed is not enough to justify the loss of survivability which as far as I can tell, at least doubled. I think the source of the problem is that there are no direct incentives to wear lighter armor except for the faster recovery speed. You don't get bonus defence(s) from wearing lighter armor and as far as I can tell, there is nothing in rogue's tree which would benefit the lighter armor directly. So... the nimble elf with cloak and dagger wearing the heaviest plate armor it is, or am I using the rogue wrong?

 

One more thing... I wasn't able to find the answer on how the recovery time is calculated exactly. For example: (see the attached file) the base recovery speed is 4 seconds and the modifiers come to the grand total of... -5%, so the recovery time should be 3.8 but it's listed as 3.2 That means that either the tooltip is wrong or the recovery speed modifiers are not actually all additive which complicates things with evaluating the effect of armor on attack speed.

[Climhazzard]

I've been using leather or mail on my melee hybrids supported by a Paladin/chanter tank and Xoti who I also spec melee hybrid, seems to work fine with proper support.  Usually just 10/10 for Con/resolve.  Piercing seems like the armor you want to prioritize, lot of firing squads in this game, so I avoid the armors that are weak to it, with the exception of the reckless brigandine.

Edited May 21, 2018 by Climhazzard

[Zeratul]

I've been using leather or mail on my melee hybrids supported by a Paladin/chanter tank and Xoti who I also spec melee hybrid, seems to work fine with proper support.  Usually just 10/10 for Con/resolve.  Piercing seems like the armor you want to prioritize, lot of firing squads in this game, so I avoid the armors that are weak to it, with the exception of the reckless brigandine.

Well, "fine" is good but have you tried scale or even plate on those hybrids? For me, it worked splendidly... The thing is I feel like the freedom to manoeuvre the battlefield with the rogue is more important than slightly higher attack speed and heavier armor grants that freedom because otherwise he gets focused and destroyed.

Edited May 21, 2018 by Zeratul

[aweigh0101]

It's been this way since PoE1. I can't even fathom of an optimized PotD party (in PoE1) that aren't all in Plate, regardless of class. I haven't reached end-game yet in PoE2 but I see absolutely zero reason to ever use less than Heavy.

The DR and AR systems PoE1/2 use specifically promote usage of heaviest armor. If Armors gave Deflection instead then it would be different.

Edited May 22, 2018 by aweigh0101

[Lokithecat]

I didn't even bother with plate, the only character using heavy armor, was my melee tank who had the Reckless Brigandine, with the bonus's to being Engaged and being injured.  Used 1 Medium (Hearth Defenders Scales) for the +2 Armor, 8 Resist all for the rest of the party.  Everyone else was in Leather, and they had 3 points (or less) Armor from what they wore, than Legendary plate with 20% recovery vs. 55%.

 

Agree though, if the heavy armor had Deflection (and useful buffs) would have probably used more of it.

 

Side note, Assassins shouldn't be getting punched.  They have a weakness to take 15% more damage and bonus to attacking out of stealth.  Sneak in to engaged people, stab, vanish, repeat.

Edited May 22, 2018 by Lokithecat

[Zeratul]

Agree though, if the heavy armor had Deflection (and useful buffs) would have probably used more of it.

 

 

That should probably be "disagree". I meant that lighter armors would be more attractive if they gave bonuses to defences (well, rather it should be something like naked or silk-robed characters having the largest bonuses to deflection and reflex, medium armor halves those bonuses and plate removes it completely) and classes like monks, rogues and druids had bonuses in their trees to fighting lightly clothed.

 

Side note, Assassins shouldn't be getting punched.  They have a weakness to take 15% more damage and bonus to attacking out of stealth.  Sneak in to engaged people, stab, vanish, repeat.

That sounds nice in theory and that's what I was trying to do initially but I completely failed to make my rogue benefit from that play style. Mid-game you have something like 8 or 10 guile (including the use of empower on your character) per encounter, if you use it only on escape and smoke veil you can maybe retreat from combat 6 times, but that means you are not using any of the heavy hitters like devastating blow or debilitating strike (for deathblows). And even the use of cheap escape is problematic since it reduces the uses of the smoke veil which you need for assassinate to proc. Isn't it better to stand in the midst of enemies and just spend guile on heavy hitting abilities (including attacking out of stealth)?

[Lokithecat]

I'm not sure Lighter Armors need to be more attractive, from my playthroughs, I usually only have 1 character in Heavy Armor because its just not as good as the Lights.  My Cleric has Medium, just for the party buffs (2 Armor 8 Resist for everyone) and wore light before that, and my Tank has Reckless Brigandine.  Beginning game was the only time I felt any pressure to use heavier armor, as the characters didn't have the HP pool to survive long enough to get healed, and the healing wasn't that impressive.  By mid game everyone was in Light Armor except the tank, and the damage that non engaged mobs would apply to my non tank characters was manageable, plus I could easily deal with them quickly.  Even if recovery penalties were 100% negated (say through a mod or something) I don't think I would use many of the Heavy armors, the Light armors have so many great 'utility' uses / enchants / combos.

 

I'm not 100% sure on this, having only briefly played with assassin, but I remembered one of my assassins killing someone from Stealth with backstab, and staying Stealthed.  I'm not sure if that is just bad memory on my part, or if it was an actual mechanic, where killing a straggler out of view of the main fight, didn't break my stealth.  Either way, I was pretty much using that character to finish off people, and spending the first chunk of the fight maneuvering them into place, and weakening everyone else while setting up engagements with the tank.

[Myrtillo]

So far, I never took the starting armor off for any companion, because I love how they look, and never bothered to upgrade any past the starting quality (I do unlock the cheap enchants though).

 

And all my main characters have been wearing miscreant leathers because it feels like the right look for a captain.

This includes my pure streetfighter that was in the middle of the melee (Veteran) and my single class cipher (no sub) that is dual wielding gun+sword, most often in melee range (in PotD).

 

I never felt the need to get anything heavier.

Edited May 23, 2018 by Myrtillo