Druids need a Medium Armor type

[fatherpirate]

I know that hide armor is going away under the current plan, I wish they would
reconsider and make hide armor on par with chainmail and keep it in game.

Why ?

What is the point of giving druids medium armor prof. if your removing the only
medium armor type they can wear and use thier powers ?? Duh.

That would be a lot easier then inventing some new weird armor materials for
for druids to use chainmail.

[Talias006]

There are already Darkwood Breastplates which, while wooden, mimic some of the qualities of Mithral.
Just have to look for them on live before the update, and they get grandfathered into the system.

[TreknaQudane]

There are already Darkwood Breastplates which, while wooden, mimic some of the qualities of Mithral.
Just have to look for them on live before the update, and they get grandfathered into the system.

They will only ever exist in low level variants... They won't have the scaling AC or DEX bonus that higher tiers of armor have. And it's a large difference, like 20+ AC..

[Stillwaters]

They will only ever exist in low level variants... They won't have the scaling AC or DEX bonus that higher tiers of armor have. And it's a large difference, like 20+ AC..

Yeah Mithral and Darkwood seems to have been forgotten when they developed the changes.

However Feather of Sun confirmed there were changes in dragon scale from "steel" to dragonhide meaning druids could wear the medium variants, until a solution arrives "soon".

[fatherpirate]

They will only ever exist in low level variants... They won't have the scaling AC or DEX bonus that higher tiers of armor have. And it's a large difference, like 20+ AC..

er....crafting anyone?

[TreknaQudane]

er....crafting anyone?

Crafting doesn't matter.

They will for ever have the base AC and MDB of the low level variants. They for example wouldn't get the progressively increasing AC and MDB due to being Skirmish/Feycraft/Spiritcraft/Celestial. At that point you may as well use leathers.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

So... I've been holding onto this Hide armor for SIX YEARS NOW!!!!

and they finally give us Druids!

and they are going to take Hide armor away????!!!!!

[Zyerz]

Darkwood armor and Darkleaf are both generally medium armor and made out of wood.

[donblas]

Darkwood armor and Darkleaf are both generally medium armor and made out of wood.

Correct (DL breastplates are light I think), but if, like mithral, the devs seem to have forgotten these - because they were rushed into making a system and so forgot quite a lot of important stuff - then these armors won't have higher level variants.

Metal armors will now have higher level versions with more AC, but existing darkwood armors won't, and it may be there won't be new ones.

The devs forgot that the material of armors is important, so mithral is now in many cases worse than steel (despite it always being better in DnD, but it's not like DnD has anything to to with this MMO), and that druids might like some special non-metal armor.

Nevermind it's not like druid is important to the success of the expansion or anything.

[TreknaQudane]

So... I've been holding onto this Hide armor for SIX YEARS NOW!!!!

and they finally give us Druids!

and they are going to take Hide armor away????!!!!!

Near as I can tell, you'll keep any hide you have now. But it's going to be really weak compared to the new armor tiers that'll drop.

No -new- hide armor will drop however. My druid saw no new Darkweave/darkleaf armors on llama either

[fatherpirate]

Hold the phone a sec..

Crafting IS going to change, it has to change because all the armor stats are changing.
So to say crafting (in final form at expansion release) cannot make eqivalant armor
is assuming too much.

But we could really use more info on crafting in the post expansion.

[Talias006]

Solution is to go farm The Lords of Dust until you get one of these:
Rakshasa Hide

Since it's a named armor it should be grandfathered into the new system at an appropriate AC/MDB.

So Cannith crafted Darkwood BP until 16, and then this beauty until they give some decent (Medium) armors at Epic that a Druid can make use of.

[Vellrad]

Wait, what does that mean? That after the update my cool looking armor will just dissapear?

[donblas]

Your cool looking armor is safe, devs have said it won't change.

BUT

Say you have darkleaf breastplate which has AC5. You'll be able to craft it in all the normal ways. This is fine for druids. There is also the standard metal breastplate (breastplate) AC 5 that your druid can't use.

All this is fine until you reach level 8.

In the new system you'll still be able to use your DL breastplate with its normal qualities, but other toons will be able to get metal armors like

Lvl8 battle breastplate AC8, which can also get +6 enhancement
lvl14 magecrafted breastplate AC11, max dex 4,which can go up to +6
lvl20 mountain brestplate AC15, max dex 5, +7 maximum enhancement .

These will be random drops at appropriate level and will be able to be crafted.

Current named items will be updated, so duelists leathers will have values increased, but crafted and random armors already in existence won't get these increases.

So, yes you can keep your good-looking darkleaf breastplate and craft it to +5 to give you Ac10 for your level 20 druid, but another toon wearing a metal breastplate could craft +7 mountain breastplate for AC22.

It seems someone dropped the ball on special (eg darkleaf) non-steel armors so there are no non-metallic armors in their list except leather (they also forgot about mithral which is now inferior to steel), so druids are pretty much stuck with leather armor, despite the fact they have proficiency with medium armor!

Luckily druids aren't an important part of the expansion

[MrkGrismer]

Your cool looking armor is safe, devs have said it won't change.

BUT

Say you have darkleaf breastplate which has AC5. You'll be able to craft it in all the normal ways. This is fine for druids. There is also the standard metal breastplate (breastplate) AC 5 that your druid can't use.

All this is fine until you reach level 8.

In the new system you'll still be able to use your DL breastplate with its normal qualities, but other toons will be able to get metal armors like

Lvl8 battle breastplate AC8, which can also get +6 enhancement
lvl14 magecrafted breastplate AC11, max dex 4,which can go up to +6
lvl20 mountain brestplate AC15, max dex 5, +7 maximum enhancement .

These will be random drops at appropriate level and will be able to be crafted.

Current named items will be updated, so duelists leathers will have values increased, but crafted and random armors already in existence won't get these increases.

So, yes you can keep your good-looking darkleaf breastplate and craft it to +5 to give you Ac10 for your level 20 druid, but another toon wearing a metal breastplate could craft +7 mountain breastplate for AC22.

It seems someone dropped the ball on special (eg darkleaf) non-steel armors so there are no non-metallic armors in their list except leather (they also forgot about mithral which is now inferior to steel), so druids are pretty much stuck with leather armor, despite the fact they have proficiency with medium armor!

Luckily druids aren't an important part of the expansion

Approve (e.g. Well Said, Informative, Positive Contribution)

Wonderfully put, and this is getting to be a majorly nagging part of the equation.

I am really hoping that the item devs are simply keeping the new darkleaf/darkwood named and non-named higher levels 'under wraps' right now but I am beginning to get concerned about it.

I have numerous Rakshasha hides but I don't think it is all that terribly great currently.

[donblas]

I have numerous Rakshasha hides but I don't think it is all that terribly great currently.

I think you are right.

From what i can see it will get a bump to AC5 for being lvl16, with +4 enhancement and 3 nat AC (which won't stack with barkskin) for a realistic AC bonus of 9 for a druid. Metal medium armors (like the AC22 one I described above) will completely outdo named armors like this.

You'd be better crafting on a new random drop level 14 feycraft leather which i think would be 5AC and you could give it +6 enhancement, but that still doesn't overcome the problem inherent in having no wooden armors (especially medium ones) in the new system.

[ArcherBarry]

Solution is to go farm The Lords of Dust until you get one of these:
Rakshasa Hide

What do you all think of Parasitic Breastplate? I had it on my Barb that i copied, gave it to my Druid.

[donblas]

What do you all think of Parasitic Breastplate? I had it on my Barb that i copied, gave it to my Druid.

Hard to tell - look at its stats in Lamannia.

As it's not leather armor - it's flesh - it may have been missed when they upgraded named leathers.

But assuming it's treated as leather and gets bumped to AC 5 plus +5 enhancement (ignoring natural armor because of druid barksin being better), that's 10AC, so the 11AC from crafted +6 feycrafted leather is better (and you'll be able to add other effects to it with crafting), but that's still far behind the 22AC that will be achievable with crafted breastplates except it looks like these won't exist for druids.

[LightBear]

So mithral full plate is considered heavy armor?

Did anybody checked the (Epic) Cavalry Plate?

[donblas]

So mithral full plate is considered heavy armor?

Did anybody checked the (Epic) Cavalry Plate?

Nope it's medium armor and so has less PRR than (and is therefore mostly inferior to) steel full plate.

Stupidly I checked the AC increase but forgot to check whether cavalry plate was still mithral and therefore medium armor - next time lamma is up I will.