Is it time to disregard Armor Class, and how do I know for sure?

[GibsonMisho]

I am following Thiocan's 2HF battle-cleric build + some suggestions from Sirgog. Both guides and many forum posters state essentially, "at mid-levels you can stop worrying about AC (armor class) and wear robes or whatever".

I am level 14 now, I mostly SOLO (have a Ranger for grouping), and have used the best Adamantine (for damage reduction) & full plate (max AC I can get) I can find along the way. I am excited about the prospect of loosing the -5 armor check penalty, but don't know how to tell when to do it.

(1) How do I know if forgoing the armor class is going to hurt more than it helps?
base stats (32 pt) are:
Str 16
Dex 10
Con 14
Int 8
Wis 16
Cha 12

(2) what should I wear?

[bryanmeerkat]

I would say if you are wearing the best AC gear you can get hold of and when a same level mob always hits you then its time to stop worrying about AC

[painindaguild]

the answer is quiken.

as soon as u get quiken u can totally ditch ac. before that u want to actually heal wen u push the button so some concern with ac is on its place.

[Natashaelle]

<sigh>

AC is a particularly religious pursuit in DDO, but those who say that it simply doesn't matter are misinforming you.

In fact, however much AC you can aspire to, and whether or not you abandon that particular quest, depend both on your play style, and on whichever gear either drops into your sweaty palms or you deliberately grind for.

It is *perfectly* possible to get a cleric up into the lower reaches of professional tank AC, even *without* taking 6 levels of Fighter and Defender I. This is a level of AC which will be useful in some, but not all, of the endgame (I mean about AC 65ish fully barked and buffed and pally aura'd blabla).

But even AC which is slightly below that level can be useful, to protect against trash, or during solo/explorer, and etc...

**however** if you are an all-out DPS battle cleric, then the only way for you to get up there in a realistic and sustainable manner, including against attackers flanking you, will involve those 6 fighter levels and etc... and combat expertise and all that jazz...

So, high AC for a toon like yours is *feasible* ; but very grind & gear intensive. So, unless this is a main toon or something to justify all that extra work, then just keep some amount of AC as a reasonable backup plan for trash mobs etc, and put the focus of your character into your real strengths, and compromise on AC if it will help you to do that.

[AAAFate]

I am following Thiocan's 2HF battle-cleric build + some suggestions from Sirgog. Both guides and many forum posters state essentially, "at mid-levels you can stop worrying about AC (armor class) and wear robes or whatever".

I am level 14 now, I mostly SOLO (have a Ranger for grouping), and have used the best Adamantine (for damage reduction) & full plate (max AC I can get) I can find along the way. I am excited about the prospect of loosing the -5 armor check penalty, but don't know how to tell when to do it.

(1) How do I know if forgoing the armor class is going to hurt more than it helps?
base stats (32 pt) are:
Str 16
Dex 10
Con 14
Int 8
Wis 16
Cha 12

(2) what should I wear?

Well, you can wear a Blue Dragon Scale Robe (by collecting 25 blue dragon scales from Tor) the normal base price for a blue scale is roughly 100k, but people will trade them for two blacks/white scales. This gives you greater arcane lore which allows your BBs to crit. There is nothing wrong with getting adamantine heavy armor for DR3/- it does add hp, and right now AC is pretty useless if you plan to be a pure cleric, being that in most raids later on all you be doing is healing and usually at a distance. If you want to up your DR you can always go with Armor of Giants (or is it full plate of giants?) it's an armor that drops from Tempest Spine it's a +4 bonus and gives you DR 5/- min lvl 10 I believe.

The reason you should ditch AC and melee in late levels is because your role will be much more important if all you do is heal/buff and keep the party up, where the real dps is at.

There is a bunch more named armors/robes that can be good for you too, eventually you will be getting your Dragontouched stuff from doing reaver's refuge and that kinda opens up a lot of opportunities for you to customize what you want. But regardless, get away from anything that involves AC and look for abilities over enhancement +'s and get arcanes to help you out with blus/SS for more survivability.

[oweieie]

Well, if you're using a shield you should have an AC up around 42 or so, which should still do fine for you in level appropriate normal quests, but might be a bit low in elites. However your AC won't go up much beyond about 50 or so which you'll find is fairly useless in level 18 quests even on normal.

Really though, why are you getting hit? Run, drop a blade barrier, everything falls over dead.

[Natashaelle]

The reason you should ditch AC and melee in late levels is because your role will be much more important if all you do is heal/buff and keep the party up, where the real dps is at.

erm ... you may have missed the point that the cleric in question is a Battle Cleric

Well, if you're using a shield you should have an AC up around 42 or so, which should still do fine for you in level appropriate normal quests, but might be a bit low in elites. However your AC won't go up much beyond about 50 or so which you'll find is fairly useless in level 18 quests even on normal.

AC 42 is pretty much non existent. It's *barely* high enough for GH -- and I get about AC 35 at level 5, with some pretty basic gear !!!!!

At cap, I get my own AC well up into the 60s, stable, without even really trying -- in a helpful group, it's up towards 80. OK OK OK yes I confess 6 fighter levels and a massive pile of phat lootz, so sue me !!! ...

[Zenako]

AC and armor can be situationally important. Especially when you group up.

For example, I have an all purpose cleric. She wears Full Plate of the Giants for the very nice and always useful DR5/-. She also packs along a Madstone Shield, but is normally using two sceptres. However there are times in some quests and groups where kiting around via blade barriers is not the best choice, but using a BB to grab aggro and do damage, and then swapping to the MAdstone and Blocking, can buy your party more than enough time to Kill them all (especially with a Rad Servant Aura going). Basically using BB to grab initial aggro and then tanking up. Makes overall healing needs on the rest of the group minimal. The DR5 helps take the edge off all attacks and with enough AC to get even some misses (more than just 1's) you also extend your ability to withstand damage, and lower the RATE of incoming damage enough that you can offset it with easy healing. So shooting for that 40+ level can be useful. Will it be enough to make you a melee killing machine, hardly, but it is valuable.

When solo, BB is the boss killer in most cases.

[Xeraphim]

erm ... you may have missed the point that the cleric in question is a Battle Cleric

Exactly. Blade Barrier and Quicken are Battle Cleric tactics. Real Battle Clerics should never have to swing a weapon

Quicken is mandatory if you are going into the front lines.

[voodoogroves]

You're on the right path with adamantine. What you want is DR more than AC, and probably healing amp more than that.

There are a number of ways you can get DR ... there's a turn-in from Necro 3 trinket (DR 5/good), the farmable trinket from Haywire foundry (DR 5/-) ... Golden Greaves from Chains of Flame (DR 3/-). Stoneskin on a clickie would be good for DR 10/admantine.


I imagine a set of DT armor/robes with healing amp in the eldritch/tempest and earthen (proc's stoneskin) in the sovereign could be a pretty solid end-game set for a cleric like yourself. Toss the radiant aura on, heal while you swing, spot heal with quicken.

You may be able to get in on Prey on the Hunter casual runs now and start amassing your Eldritch and Tempests.

[Chai]

No.

AC became useless 2 years ago save for a very specific few places. Even then, those quests / raids can be completed sans AC toon.

In GH, 50 is a good round number for not getting hit on every swing where its actually noticable.

Too far below that, you might as well be wearing robes and outfits.

[Natashaelle]

Exactly. Blade Barrier and Quicken are Battle Cleric tactics. Real Battle Clerics should never have to swing a weapon

Quicken is mandatory if you are going into the front lines.

Not in my book -- DPS (2HF/2WF), AC, Manyshot -- now **that's** Battle Cleric !!!

[Kinerd]

(I mean about AC 65ish fully barked and buffed and pally aura'd blabla)

The OP claims (a claim I see no reason to doubt) to primarily be a soloer. Without an array of hirelings, he or she will not be able to get every full AC buff, making it even more difficult to reach useful levels.

If things are missing you more than 1 in 20, your AC is still useful. Whether it is as useful as whatever you will pick up in its stead depends entirely on the whatever.

[Lilliana]

AC 42 is pretty much non existent. It's *barely* high enough for GH -- and I get about AC 35 at level 5, with some pretty basic gear !!!!!

I don't ask this to challenge you, but more because I'm curious and would like to know/learn.
How do you get AC 35 at lvl 5 with basic gear?
Can you also do it with a char that don't use shields like the OP?

[Natashaelle]

I don't ask this to challenge you, but more because I'm curious and would like to know/learn.
How do you get AC 35 at lvl 5 with basic gear?
Can you also do it with a char that don't use shields like the OP?

OK -- "pretty basic gear" does mean mith fp and mith tower shield, and NOT without a shield like OP. Your definition of "basic" may vary

guild airship AC buffs (each +1 buff stacks with each other and with everything else, and there are 3 you can get, our guild has 2 so far), + dex, + SoF and you're up in the 30s -- haven't even counted bark, cos frankly don't need it yet

Could likely get shield-less AC into the 30s anyway with bark pot, RR mith, and all mod cons, though I haven't really thought about that yet. Manacles incoming at lvl 7 > AC 40+

[Lilliana]

OK -- "pretty basic gear" does mean mith fp and mith tower shield, and NOT without a shield like OP. Your definition of "basic" may vary

guild airship AC buffs (each +1 buff stacks with each other and with everything else, and there are 3 you can get, our guild has 2 so far), + dex, + SoF and you're up in the 30s -- haven't even counted bark, cos frankly don't need it yet

Could likely get shield-less AC into the 30s anyway with bark pot, RR mith, and all mod cons, though I haven't really thought about that yet. Manacles incoming at lvl 7 > AC 40+

I think our idea of "basic" do vary But it was still good to see your suggestions, I hadn't thought of airship buffs and Tower shields. Many thanks

[Natashaelle]

I don't ask this to challenge you, but more because I'm curious and would like to know/learn.
How do you get AC 35 at lvl 5 with basic gear?
Can you also do it with a char that don't use shields like the OP?

OK I actually tested this today because you got me wondering, and if I take a +3 bark pot, am inside a pally's aura, and am hasted, AC gets up to 41.

I think at level 8, with iron manacles, +5 gear, etc I should be able to get it up to about 50ish. And that's not including combat expertise, which if I have it by then will move my buffed AC up towards 55

---

So, bottom line, the AC 42 suggested by someone is kind of ... low ...

[painindaguild]

thx for sharing, priceless

the answer is still quiken.

[Natashaelle]

ROFLMAO -- someone neg repped me for answering the question "how do I get AC 35 at level 5" --- hahaha

... plz consider my mind duly boggled

[oweieie]

Not in my book -- DPS (2HF/2WF), AC, Manyshot -- now **that's** Battle Cleric !!!

That's a paladin. A cleric doesn't have any of that useless nonsense.