Ansalons Armor Tier List

[Ansalon]

This is an armor tier list i threw together. It's just my opinion based on reading their ingame description. Most of them i've never worn. Some can go up or down a tier depending if you use them in a specific build. List will be updated for Beast of Winter when I have time.

 

 

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S - tier: Best in Slot

 

• Miscreant's Leathers: Hands down the best armor for dps due to the reduced recovery time
• Sharpshooter's Garb: Best Armor for Arbalest/Arquebus/Crossbow users. Reduces reload time.
• Devil of Caroc Breastplate: Reduced Recovery time and +2 Power Pool. Especially good on Multi class since both classes benefit from the increased Power Pool
• Reckless Brigandine: Increased Action speed per engaged target. Best armor for tanks with a lot of engagement slots

 

 

A - tier: Very strong but is probably either situational or outperformed by a similar armor

 

 

• The Bloody Links: Exceptionally strong on Streetfighter/Humans due to proccs on bloodied
• Swift Hunter's Garb: Reduced Recovery Time. Outperformed by Miscreant's Leathers.
• Pale Hide: Very good on dps off tank. Incoming hit to grazes conversion and low recovery time. AoE fear
• Hearth Defender's Scale: Bonuses if good Relations with the Watcher, Penalties if bad. Very strong on a frontline support.
• Casità Samelia's Legacy: Deflection scaling with Intimidate. Very strong if stacking Intimidate & Deflection
• Patinated Plate: Chance to Stun attackers when hit with melee weapon. +armor against melee attacks. Strong on a pure tank but makes you super slow. Very good on chanter tanks, less useful on builds that care more about recovery.
• Deltro's Cage: +2 All Electricity Power Levels could have been great on Fury (Druid subclass) but 55% recovery time makes it garbage. Apparently you can make some very powerful builds with this armor. 55% recovery time keeps it out of beeing S - Tier. Sidenote, outside those synergies the armor is fairly useless.

 

 

B - Tier: For when all your other good armors are taken

 

 

• Fleshmender: Health/sec and Incoming hit to grazes conversion Very good on dps off tank.
• Effigy's Husk: Decent on a Ranged Streetfighter but Bloody Links is way better. Does have 0% Recovery though
• Furrante's Breastplate: Reduces damage taken by party memebers and increases healing. Grants Concentration. Good for frontline Casters
• Blackened Plate Armor - Grants damage or heal over time aura. Random Mind Inspiration when bloodied. Second Aura deals damage over time and reduces armor by 1. 
• Gipon Prudensco: +25 defense vs disengagement attacks. +1 deflection/+2 reflex when hit in combat (stacks 10x). Immunity to Flanked. Can get Immunity to disengagement attacks instead. Good if you want to rush past frontline to get into backline with your frontliner or to retreat with your backliner. Imo best used as a defensive option for a squishy frontliner.

 

 

C - Tier: Decent to wear before you get the good armors. Can be situationally good

 

 

• Garari Cuirass: Incoming hit to grazes conversion. Reduced damage from weapons.
• Cabalist's Gambeson: Very good against spellcasters.
• Spider Silk Robe: Immune to Dexterity afflictions and Grants Binding Web.
• Magnera's Chain: Increases recovery time on attacker when getting crit with melee weapons. Resistant to Might affliction. Ok for tank.
• Iridescent Scale: Can be enchanted to be exceptionally strong vs a specific dmg type. Conjure Greater Blight.
• Saint's War Armor: Revives the wearer when they get knocked unconcious 1/per combat. Decent but with correct play they shouldn't be knocked unconcious in the first place
• Desgraza Breastplate: Reduced Damage the lower health the wearer has. Ok for tanking
• Five Suns Breastplate: See above
• Honor Guard Breastplate: See above
• Humility: 20% Resist Slash/Pierce attacks. Not bad on a backliner just not very good either

 

 

D - Tier: Don't waste your money on enchants

 

 

• Nomad's Brigandine: Can get Immunity to disengagement attacks but if you are a dedicated tank you probably dont care about that. Too much recovery for an offtank

 

Edit:

 

Moved Patinated Plate into tier A. More useful on chanter tanks or builds that doesn't care about recovery then i gave it credit for.

Moved Humility to Tier C. Slash/Pierce attacks are rather common in the game.

Moved Casita Samelia's Legacy into tier A. 

Moved Deltro's Cage up to Tier A based on siggestions for build synergies.

Moved Gipon Prudensco to Tier B

Edited August 18, 2018 by Ansalon

[Clerith]

Casita Samelia's Legacy is sometimes the MAIN armor I see on tanky builds here, even over Devil of Caroc breastplate. That makes it at least A-tier.

[Malkoy]

No love for Patinated Plate: 
 
I would bump it up to A tier at least. Great on Fighters and Chanters main tanks in group settings due to stun (amazing affliction). Conditional use: need to aggro enemies (have high engagement limit to make them attack you, and prevent them from  running towards squishies)
 
Blackened Plate Armor Very good for sustain on Fighters, generally found all enchantments usefull.
 
Gipon Prudensco: - Trash tier, Due to "No Fool, I" Enchantment not being functional. Biggest disappointment in the game.
 
Generally list is heavily skewed towards armors that favor builds reliant heavily on attack speed/recovery-reload.
 
Tanks, healers, buffers, Streetfighters would generally have very different criteria for favorite armor.
 
Other factors also come into play: I want to love Miscreant's Leathers, but Adra Ban for armor upgrade is ridiculous. Unless you use 2 Kraken's eyes to upgrade to Superior quality this gets very prohibitive, by reducing amount of legendary weapons for the group.

Edited August 12, 2018 by Malkoy

[Boeroer]

Humility: 20% resist against two damage types is low tier? Do you realize how good this is if you build a bit around it?

 

Again a list that was done with little in-game experience.

[Malkoy]

Humility: 20% resist against two damage types is low tier? Do you realize how good this is if you build a bit around it?

 

Again a list that was done with little in-game experience.

 

@Ansalon 

I would say that these lists are amazing for reasons that were not intended. I am relatively new to the forum (at least as active contributor), but this is the first time I see the informative gear lists like these outside of wikis AND they come with short descriptions. Clearly a lot of effort went into making these. I'd say due to the game being so mechanically reach, it would be very difficult to rank gear for all builds in general.

 

What would be INCREDIBLY AMAZING is compiling all these tier lists into one general neutral gear reference compendium post. Value of this to newcomers to the game would go through the roof. I am on my 5th or 6th (if we get all partials into one) play-through and was searching for the best Solo tank weapon for over an how due to gamepedia pages devouring my 16GB of Ram like is was a free fairy cake in the middle of Walmart. 

 

List like that would have pointed me in the right direction right away though

 

Lists are good: look at how well Boeroer's class compendium list is doing - it's pinned and everything.

 

At worst Build builders can copy-paste these links into their guides, so that poor sods like me could access Gnipon Prudanesko and Waharai Poraragwa pages by clicking links and not typing items names in google 

Edited August 12, 2018 by Malkoy

[mosspit]

However, one would also recognize the intention of these lists.

 

Not to rain on OP's parade, but do we will need replicas of such guides on Steam, Reddit and here? As far as I know, all 3 guides are copy-and-pasta and even though reddit has some discussions on the tiers I don't know if any changes where done to the ordering based on input. Not to mention, changes have to be done in multiple places (Steam, Reddit).

 

I recognize your efforts to do these things for purpose (if I would to guess) of SEO and increasing traction back to your channels. But at least have some weight behind these opionions and, as Boeroer says, supplement with in-game experience and testing. Sorry but to me, these guides are not useful at their current state.

[Urthor]

They're still great guides, like some items are misplaced maybe, but it's top quality content.  

[Boeroer]

I'm not against lists. I just don't think that doing a "tier" list or ordered list by power is working in such a complex environment as Deadfire is. Especially not if you only use description/wiki etc.

 

Because it's very hard to draw the lines: is it a generalized list, is it a list that includes a few build tricks that make some items especially useful?

Some items are bad for certain builds while they are awesome for others. On average this can't be a god-tier item in general, but for a special build it can. See Reckless Brigandine: great if you have lots of engagement slots - useless if you have zero. That ring that gives you +2 defense for every enemy that engages you: great against a bunch of Xaurips, useless against a bunch of tigers (don't have engagement). And so on.

 

It would be better to do a list with all the Tipps and tricks and experience with that item, showing its pros and cons and then let the players decide what's best for their needs.

 

Because a tier list will always lead to controversy and is full of bias. As source for objective information it's rather pointless unless you put a lot of explanation into it. Better remove the "ranking", make it alphabetical and point out the goods and bads, maybe give recommendation for certain builds etc.

Edited August 12, 2018 by Boeroer

[Malkoy]

That ring that gives you +2 defense for every enemy that engages you: great against a bunch of Xaurips, useless against a bunch of tigers (don't have engagement). And so on.

*Entonia Signet Ring is supposed to give you +2 Defense per engaged enemy.

 

Beautiful lies that broke my heart part 2.

 

Can go to Hel with Gipon Prudensco:

 

If Obsidian ever incorporates sets into their next game, I would like these two to be a part of "Remnants of Shattered Dreams" 2 piece set.

Edited August 12, 2018 by Malkoy

[Clerith]

The problem with all this guy's lists is that he's probably only used like 20% of the items, and he only has a very simple, straightforward builds in mind, so any unique item that could be very well utilized in a unique builds gets dropped to the bottom of the list, since he has only cookie-cutter builds and limited experience.

[mant2si]

OP, should be more specific for which builds he post this info. For example, I didn't use any armor from TIER 1 & TIER 2 for my solo plays

 

> Gipon Prudensco: Can get Immunity to disengagement attacks. Good if you want to rush past frontline to get into the backline.

 

This argument looks like OP only read info about this armor on WIKI

 

>Blackened Plate Armor - Grants damage or heal over time aura. Random Mind Inspiration when bloodied. The second Aura deals damage over time and reduces armor by 1

>Patinated Plate: Chance to Stun attackers when hit with a melee weapon. +armor against melee attacks. Strong on a pure tank but makes you super slow

 

TIER 3? What? How can someone put possible Legendary Plate armor on TIER 3? Only 13AR make this armor very strong

 

> Miscreant's Leathers: Hands down the best armor for dps due to the reduced recovery time

 

But robes has 0 recovery time and 7 or 9 armor doesn't make any difference  on PotD

 

> Sharpshooter's Garb: Best Armor for Arbalest/Arquebus/Crossbow users. Reduces reload time.

 

If you already stack a lot of recovery bonuses, the robe will be better

 

> Reckless Brigandine: Increased Action speed per engaged target. Best armor for tanks with a lot of engagement slots

 

-4 to pierce armor make this armor useless without proper deflection stacking

[Ansalon]

 

Humility: 20% resist against two damage types is low tier? Do you realize how good this is if you build a bit around it?

 

Again a list that was done with little in-game experience.

 

@Ansalon 

I would say that these lists are amazing for reasons that were not intended. I am relatively new to the forum (at least as active contributor), but this is the first time I see the informative gear lists like these outside of wikis AND they come with short descriptions. Clearly a lot of effort went into making these. I'd say due to the game being so mechanically reach, it would be very difficult to rank gear for all builds in general.

 

What would be INCREDIBLY AMAZING is compiling all these tier lists into one general neutral gear reference compendium post. Value of this to newcomers to the game would go through the roof. I am on my 5th or 6th (if we get all partials into one) play-through and was searching for the best Solo tank weapon for over an how due to gamepedia pages devouring my 16GB of Ram like is was a free fairy cake in the middle of Walmart. 

 

List like that would have pointed me in the right direction right away though

 

Lists are good: look at how well Boeroer's class compendium list is doing - it's pinned and everything.

 

At worst Build builders can copy-paste these links into their guides, so that poor sods like me could access Gnipon Prudanesko and Waharai Poraragwa pages by clicking links and not typing items names in google 

 

Thanks a lot man nice to get some positive feedback . Yeah that was what I was planning to do. I'm gonna work on an accessories list (not sure how this one will come out since there probably are too many of them in the game to list them all) then add a weapons/armor level progression guide. After that I was planning to make a post linking to all these guides combined so people have a reference sheet. These guides are made for  newcomers or for a hardcore gamer using it as q quick reference sheet for his own theorycrafting. Of course people are gonna be able to come up with this one scenario I haven't though of during my testing. Doing the write up/testing for all the 4 guides took me atleast 20 hours combined and then people on this forum expects me to have taken every possible scenario in to account. I will still update the list(s) if someone has a persuasive argument for why something should be rated differently.

Edited August 12, 2018 by Ansalon

[Clerith]

Most of the posters on this forum are diehard fans and have more knowledge about the game than anywhere else on the net. Combine that with the fact that tier list discussions are always volatile with a lot of differing opinions, and you're presenting yourself as an authority when you clearly haven't tested everything you've listed, you really open yourself up to a lot of criticism.

Edited August 12, 2018 by Clerith

[Ansalon]

However, one would also recognize the intention of these lists.

 

Not to rain on OP's parade, but do we will need replicas of such guides on Steam, Reddit and here? As far as I know, all 3 guides are copy-and-pasta and even though reddit has some discussions on the tiers I don't know if any changes where done to the ordering based on input. Not to mention, changes have to be done in multiple places (Steam, Reddit).

 

I recognize your efforts to do these things for purpose (if I would to guess) of SEO and increasing traction back to your channels. But at least have some weight behind these opionions and, as Boeroer says, supplement with in-game experience and testing. Sorry but to me, these guides are not useful at their current state.

Of course there is gonna be a large overlap between these 3 communities but I don't really see the issue of posting it on multiple forums? If you have read it already then just ignore it? It seems Boeroer has a lot of weight on these forums (from my tiny inspection it does seems deservedly) but he is launching a lot of attacks on my post and making claims about it with stuff taken completly out of context. Not sure whats up with that. Obviously I want people to check out my channels but get this - I actually enjoyed making these guides and having a civil discussion afterwards! It just kinda sucks waking up and seeing a lot of hate but w/e, I will still try to take peoples criticism into account just not as enthusiastically as I would have liked to.

[AndreaColombo]

Is Fleshmender really that much better than Garari Cuirass?

Edited August 12, 2018 by AndreaColombo

[Ansalon]

I'm not against lists. I just don't think that doing a "tier" list or ordered list by power is working in such a complex environment as Deadfire is. Especially not if you only use description/wiki etc.

 

Because it's very hard to draw the lines: is it a generalized list, is it a list that includes a few build tricks that make some items especially useful?

Some items are bad for certain builds while they are awesome for others. On average this can't be a god-tier item in general, but for a special build it can. See Reckless Brigandine: great if you have lots of engagement slots - useless if you have zero. That ring that gives you +2 defense for every enemy that engages you: great against a bunch of Xaurips, useless against a bunch of tigers (don't have engagement). And so on.

 

It would be better to do a list with all the Tipps and tricks and experience with that item, showing its pros and cons and then let the players decide what's best for their needs.

 

Because a tier list will always lead to controversy and is full of bias. As source for objective information it's rather pointless unless you put a lot of explanation into it. Better remove the "ranking", make it alphabetical and point out the goods and bads, maybe give recommendation for certain builds etc.

Well imo I have been very thorough in explaining that every item should be seen in a context. I agree with you that a tier list is gonna be biased but the intention is to give my thoughts on it so people can make up their own mind/come up with contributions so I can improve the list. On pretty much every item that is very conditional I have made notes so people can understand why I have rated the item as I have done. I think removing the ranking will remove a lot of the bias, but will make the list near useless for a newer player or a hardcore gamer just picking up the game and wanting to do his own theorycrafting - which was the intended audience for this list. I just think it really sucks that you go around calling my list "useless" and that I have no ingame experience. Imagine you were at work and you had worked 20 hour (roughly the time i spent writing the guides) on your proposal and your boss just called it "useless", instead of giving you pointers on how to improve the proposal. I have no problem with criticism I just wish you chose a less hostile way of going about it. You claim that I just use wikis and ingame descriptions. Maybe its my fault for not explaining that well enough in the post but I have spent countless hours testing weapons to see how they work, but as you point out there are so many synergies in this game its impossible to do an exhaustive list. Especially since i'm just doing this as a hobby.

Edited August 12, 2018 by Ansalon

[Manveru123]

 Imagine you were at work and you had worked 20 hour (roughly the time i spent writing the guides) on your proposal and your boss just called it "useless", instead of giving you pointers on how to improve the proposal. I have no problem with criticism I just wish you chose a less hostile way of going about it.

 

Why would a boss give you pointers? He hired you to do a job. You're supposed to know how to do it. If not, get out, he can hire someone better.

 

Due to the fact that this game offers an incredible amount of different combinations and synergies between items and classes, a generalized "tier list" is completely useless. For example, Deltro's Cage is very strong if you build yourself around Shock damage, with the soulbound weapon and other Shock PL gear. And that's one of the best builds in the game atm. Nomad's Brigandine is fantastic when you combo it with Offensive Parry, there's even a build on the forums that explains the synergy. And Humility has - among other things - 20% Pierce resistance, and is a 0% light armor, which means that your 3 CON 3 RES Wizard with this armor is suddenly less vulnerable to getting one shotted in a ship battle.

 

TLDR if this really somehow took you 20 hours, well, imagine you could've spent that time watching cat videos.

[Verde]

I think Effigy Husk should be S tier and Swift Hunter's Garb a tier lower but other than that looks good.

[Verde]

 

Imagine you were at work and you had worked 20 hour (roughly the time i spent writing the guides) on your proposal and your boss just called it "useless", instead of giving you pointers on how to improve the proposal. I have no problem with criticism I just wish you chose a less hostile way of going about it.

 

Why would a boss give you pointers? He hired you to do a job. You're supposed to know how to do it. If not, get out, he can hire someone better.

 

Due to the fact that this game offers an incredible amount of different combinations and synergies between items and classes, a generalized "tier list" is completely useless. For example, Deltro's Cage is very strong if you build yourself around Shock damage, with the soulbound weapon and other Shock PL gear. And that's one of the best builds in the game atm. Nomad's Brigandine is fantastic when you combo it with Offensive Parry, there's even a build on the forums that explains the synergy. And Humility has - among other things - 20% Pierce resistance, and is a 0% light armor, which means that your 3 CON 3 RES Wizard with this armor is suddenly less vulnerable to getting one shotted in a ship battle.

 

TLDR if this really somehow took you 20 hours, well, imagine you could've spent that time watching cat videos.

So I'm not sure where you work, nor do I care enough to get the details, but your mindset is extremely archaic, unproductive, and hostile. I work at a leading small consulting firm with industry leading clients (which I can't divulge here) and at all levels of our org we coach each other and our clients. In fact, a key piece of our value proposition is our executive coaching.

 

The next time you come across something you need to learn or could benefit from guidance remember your own advice and see how you fair. Trust is built through vulnerability and looking out for others' best interests, not brutish "know or get out" responses.

Edited August 12, 2018 by Verde

[Frog Man]

 

However, one would also recognize the intention of these lists.

 

Not to rain on OP's parade, but do we will need replicas of such guides on Steam, Reddit and here? As far as I know, all 3 guides are copy-and-pasta and even though reddit has some discussions on the tiers I don't know if any changes where done to the ordering based on input. Not to mention, changes have to be done in multiple places (Steam, Reddit).

 

I recognize your efforts to do these things for purpose (if I would to guess) of SEO and increasing traction back to your channels. But at least have some weight behind these opionions and, as Boeroer says, supplement with in-game experience and testing. Sorry but to me, these guides are not useful at their current state.

Of course there is gonna be a large overlap between these 3 communities but I don't really see the issue of posting it on multiple forums? If you have read it already then just ignore it? It seems Boeroer has a lot of weight on these forums (from my tiny inspection it does seems deservedly) but he is launching a lot of attacks on my post and making claims about it with stuff taken completly out of context. Not sure whats up with that. Obviously I want people to check out my channels but get this - I actually enjoyed making these guides and having a civil discussion afterwards! It just kinda sucks waking up and seeing a lot of hate but w/e, I will still try to take peoples criticism into account just not as enthusiastically as I would have liked to.

<Rips a loud, looooooong wet fart>

 

S tier.

[Parasol_Syndicate]

I don't expect to persuade anyone, but Nomad's Brigandine is a really good package. 

 

+5 deflection just for being with allies, enchanted to +5 more in melee, combined with high armor is boss. 

Reposition a front rank character for free to catch anyone trying to flank. if they're alone they get free DR.

That is cheaper and less worrysome than many outcomes available. 

[Manveru123]

 

 

Imagine you were at work and you had worked 20 hour (roughly the time i spent writing the guides) on your proposal and your boss just called it "useless", instead of giving you pointers on how to improve the proposal. I have no problem with criticism I just wish you chose a less hostile way of going about it.

Why would a boss give you pointers? He hired you to do a job. You're supposed to know how to do it. If not, get out, he can hire someone better.

 

Due to the fact that this game offers an incredible amount of different combinations and synergies between items and classes, a generalized "tier list" is completely useless. For example, Deltro's Cage is very strong if you build yourself around Shock damage, with the soulbound weapon and other Shock PL gear. And that's one of the best builds in the game atm. Nomad's Brigandine is fantastic when you combo it with Offensive Parry, there's even a build on the forums that explains the synergy. And Humility has - among other things - 20% Pierce resistance, and is a 0% light armor, which means that your 3 CON 3 RES Wizard with this armor is suddenly less vulnerable to getting one shotted in a ship battle.

 

TLDR if this really somehow took you 20 hours, well, imagine you could've spent that time watching cat videos.

So I'm not sure where you work, nor do I care enough to get the details, but your mindset is extremely archaic, unproductive, and hostile. I work at a leading small consulting firm with industry leading clients (which I can't divulge here) and at all levels of our org we coach each other and our clients. In fact, a key piece of our value proposition is our executive coaching.

 

The next time you come across something you need to learn or could benefit from guidance remember your own advice and see how you fair. Trust is built through vulnerability and looking out for others' best interests, not brutish "know or get out" responses.

 

There's a difference between professional coaching and hiring someone who is unable to do his job. I work in gaming industry. When I want something done, I browse the offers of companies and always pick the one that provides the best service. My company hires specialists in every field, and each person is responsible for certain tasks. A marketing director and a programmer will not be able to teach each other anything relevant to the work they're doing, they are supposed to be very good at what THEY do. You can call that however you want to, but in the end.. I'm the client

[AndreaColombo]

Bit on the off-topic side but hiring someone full-time and being their boss is quite different from contracting someone for a time and being their client.

[Manveru123]

Yeah but unless you are a one-man-army indie developer, there are also boss-employer relations inside of your company.

[KDubya]

What does 'S tier' stand for?

 

A, B, C, D all make sense but why is 'S tier' higher?

 

I think it'd have been better to organize by weight class, have all the heavy armor together and so on.

 

Listing pros and cons for each and what type of build synergy they have would have ben great.