Armored Grace and Contender's Armor

[Nssheepster]

I was rather curious about how the Heavy Mobility Enchantment on Contender's Armor and the Armored Grace passive from Fighter sorted out. Turns out, with both and 28 Athletics, I recover from attacks FASTER with my armor ON rather than off, it actually ends up a net GAIN if you start pushing it far enough. And that 28 Athletics? I could push it even further. The character's only L19, so there's another 1 Athletics there. 2 more could be gained from the Burglar's Gloves that I'm not wearing as well. Right now, I'm using this on a 2Her build, but I can only imagine it'd be even better with a dual wield build, or perhaps a firearm character.

 

Anyways, just hadn't seen this noted anywhere and I think it's a particularly interesting interaction. Not bugged, almost certainly not OP, but definitely cool and useful. I'm using it on a Fighter/Monk with the Sanguine Great Sword right now. I might end up using a similar combination for a firearm build simply to see how hard I can push it. Helm of the Falcon is currently improving my recovery time even further, so I expect I'd run with Acina's Tricorn for the firearm variant, and presumably go Fighter/Ranger, costing myself a base Athletics but gaining the Gunner passive. If anybody has any cool ideas for more ways to abuse negative recovery time with this combination, I'd love to hear them... And throw them on my always-growing list of characters to make.

[srulz]

I believe people has already found that for armors with -%recovery time, you can get faster than naked due to the way recovery time value from Armored Grace/Cosmo or similar pet work. So you end up getting "free" -10% recovery time from Miscreant's Leathers & DOC Armour when you combine Cosmo & Armored Grace vs naked.

[Boeroer]

Right. That's unintuitive but cool. Also works with Edér if you get his pet feat with Berath's Blessings. 

[Nssheepster]

Oh? Well now I need to snag an armor recovery pet, pick up the Burglar's Gloves, and see just how far I can push it. That's pretty neat. Definitely gotta run a build aiming for Dex Cap with a firearm now.

[brasilgringo]

Oh? Well now I need to snag an armor recovery pet, pick up the Burglar's Gloves, and see just how far I can push it. That's pretty neat. Definitely gotta run a build aiming for Dex Cap with a firearm now.

Firearm will still give you reload, besides recovery, if I'm not mistaken .

[Nssheepster]

 

Oh? Well now I need to snag an armor recovery pet, pick up the Burglar's Gloves, and see just how far I can push it. That's pretty neat. Definitely gotta run a build aiming for Dex Cap with a firearm now.

Firearm will still give you reload, besides recovery, if I'm not mistaken .

 

True, but AFAIK the recovery penalty applies to reload time as well.

[Boeroer]

Firearm will only give you reload and no recovery. And yes, recovery penalty from armor will also apply to reloading (unlike PoE1).

Edited January 11, 2019 by Boeroer

[Nssheepster]

Firearm will only give you reload and no recovery. And yes, recovery penalty from armor will also apply to reloading (unlike PoE1).

Good to know. Now if only my high powered flying chunks of metal weren't somehow totally meaningless to skeletons, even if those skeletons are wearing armor and are thus a large target.

[giftmefood]

I was rather curious about how the Heavy Mobility Enchantment on Contender's Armor and the Armored Grace passive from Fighter sorted out. Turns out, with both and 28 Athletics, I recover from attacks FASTER with my armor ON rather than off, it actually ends up a net GAIN if you start pushing it far enough. And that 28 Athletics? I could push it even further. The character's only L19, so there's another 1 Athletics there. 2 more could be gained from the Burglar's Gloves that I'm not wearing as well. Right now, I'm using this on a 2Her build, but I can only imagine it'd be even better with a dual wield build, or perhaps a firearm character.

 

Anyways, just hadn't seen this noted anywhere and I think it's a particularly interesting interaction. Not bugged, almost certainly not OP, but definitely cool and useful. I'm using it on a Fighter/Monk with the Sanguine Great Sword right now. I might end up using a similar combination for a firearm build simply to see how hard I can push it. Helm of the Falcon is currently improving my recovery time even further, so I expect I'd run with Acina's Tricorn for the firearm variant, and presumably go Fighter/Ranger, costing myself a base Athletics but gaining the Gunner passive. If anybody has any cool ideas for more ways to abuse negative recovery time with this combination, I'd love to hear them... And throw them on my always-growing list of characters to make.

 

great find, man! 

[brasilgringo]

Use Whispers great sword for alpha strikes with Clear Out first, see shenanigans thread. Then switch to Sanguine for bosses / stragglers

[brasilgringo]

Note also you stack the action speed increase (-17%) from whispers enchant this way, tho not sure it persists after weapon switch in combat?

Is the net speed increase from athletic plus contender that much better than using Patinated Plate with the - 15% Recovery improvement from Brunished Joint enhance?  

 

You'd get  -15% recovery and generally higher AR (9 crush/elec, 13 all else) vs. I think -28% recovery from your stacked Athletics in Contender (which only has 8 slash/shock and 10 all else for AR).  You can buff Contender +1 AR with enchant, but you can buff Patinated +2 AR for melee with enchant I think.  Plus Patinated has enchant to stun enemies who hit you in melee.

 

Is the extra recovery and higher athletics stack worth it vs the other items from Patinated, plus being able to spend some skill points in something besides Athletics?  Especially if you use other recover items like Helm of Falcon and high Dex?

 

It's a question for experts other than me ....

Edited January 15, 2019 by brasilgringo

[giftmefood]

Note also you stack the action speed increase (-17%) from whispers enchant this way, tho not sure it persists after weapon switch in combat?

 

Is the net speed increase from athletic plus contender that much better than using Patinated Plate with the - 15% Recovery improvement from Brunished Joint enhance?  

 

You'd get  -15% recovery and generally higher AR (9 crush/elec, 13 all else) vs. I think -28% recovery from your stacked Athletics in Contender (which only has 8 slash/shock and 10 all else for AR).  You can buff Contender +1 AR with enchant, but you can buff Patinated +2 AR for melee with enchant I think.  Plus Patinated has enchant to stun enemies who hit you in melee.

 

Is the extra recovery and higher athletics stack worth it vs the other items from Patinated, plus being able to spend some skill points in something besides Athletics?  Especially if you use other recover items like Helm of Falcon and high Dex?

 

It's a question for experts other than me ....

 

You can test it in-game using the console! I would but I'm too busy playing they are billions right now. 

[Nssheepster]

You'd have to do the math, specifically. OFC, Patinated Plate is only one option, there's also the Devil of Caroc Breastplate and... Miscreant Leathers? I think that's the light armor that does the same kind of thing.

 

The reason I specifically value Contender's Armor is to get the NEGATIVE recovery penalty the easiest, by stacking a stat that's already valuable, Athletics. It's not a bad armor overall anyways, so it's not like that's a bad thing. The idea is intended for a DPS character, the kind of character that you normally want wearing Light Armor if you can get away with it, so Contender's is an upgrade simply by virtue of being a Medium. The extra engagement slot it offers isn't specifically useful in most cases, but it can be, so that too is a benefit.

 

If I was building a tank, I'd not use any of the armors mentioned here simply because I want to be as durable as possible, and none of them are how I do that. Patinated SEEMS good for a tank, with the stun on being hit... But tanks aren't actually HIT a whole lot, so that's not really as valuable as it seems unless you're doing a specific type of tanking with excessive healing and intentionally lowered deflection. I'd use something more like Blackened Plate Armor, for the free debuff and either a little DPS or a little healing out of my tank. It's not huge, but it's better than nothing, and the rare times you come across Decay attacks your tank doesn't enjoy them.

 

Overall, especially if you're stacking Dexterity, Contender's isn't probably worth pushing ALL the way, after you get into Negative Recovery you should probably stop. Diminishing returns and all that. But another advantage of Contender's is that you don't actually NEED Armored Grace to push it into Negatives, just a pet with lower recovery penalty. Even then, if you don't push it into Negatives, and just stack Dex and get 25 Athletics, it's still way better than a similar Light Armor. You could easily use this on something OTHER than a Fighter and STILL get serious benefit from it.

 

As I said in the first post, it's not an OP combination, but it is pretty good, and it's ended up with one of my DPS characters being more durable than they otherwise would be, which can be pretty valuable in clutch situations. On top of that, I like to run solo runs, or with just one or two companions for RP, so that extra durability is a lot more relevant for me than it would be in a full synergistic min-maxed party. Hell, my current run is a Moon Godlike Chanter with Tekehu, gonna finally get the 'Solo' ending instead of siding with someone. Two people only, a Chanter and a Chanter because reasons.... Yeah, durability is a good thing when I do things like this. XD