On the contrary, that just makes Plate even better.
The benefits it brings make your heals and buffs more efficient. And the combination of two people playing together makes it even more unnecessary to use Vubbe Gloves as a Swordsman, which is pretty much the only justifiable piece of Leather to use at low levels. This will hold true even better at higher levels, when both go into more difficult maps and the damage mitigation from Plate + Paladin will come handy for 3 star maps.
I mean, you say that, but at the same time don’t provide any elaboration to build the case where this would hold true.
From my part, I already provided you with:
- A link to the entire Item Database.
- A video where Evasion was tested and shows how it is impossible to 100% evade attacks.
- Took the armor we have available at level 120 and 170 and made the basic math to compare them while using level 50 of their respective attributes.
- Pointed out how different builds benefit more from using Plate instead of Leather .
- Pointed out how there is a threshold for the Evasion stat and why Leather is bad in this case.
I gave exact numbers on how 4 pieces of Leather are inferior to 4 pieces of Plate, so the only remaining factor is the use of Vubbe gloves for a 1 Leather + 3 Plate armor set. For this, I already said that every build outgrows the use of Vubbe gloves.
Hoplite-based builds do it before everyone else because of Finestra, but other builds still require to get the most out of their skills until they get enough skills for their rotation (which happens around Rank 5+, but guaranteed at Rank 6). Corsairs want to use 4 pieces of Plate for the extra Stamina which helps with Double Weapon Assault, while Doppelsoeldner gets Cyclone and Fencer gets enough skills to fill their entire rotation.
There is also the fact that past Demon Prison, every map goes back to be a “quest map”, where mob spawns are low and instead of long fights there are small skirmishes where AoE Range doesn’t make any difference. It also doesn’t help when there are many people playing the game, so you have to compete for mobs in the map (this also happens at low levels), so AoE Range becomes meaningless in these situations.
Then there is party play (for grinding parties and dungeons).
AoE Range isn’t as effective as when one is alone, since every one in the party contributes with their skills to the total AoE of the party. And let’s be honest, most of the AoE damage comes from Mages/Clerics/etc (all kinds of different builds). Not to even mention how a linker practically nullifies the need for more AoE range.
At higher levels most content outside the “quest maps” are for parties, so the use of Vubbe gloves is unnecessary and the damage reduction from Plate becomes more valuable as mobs start dealing way more damage. At this point DEX builds already have way more Evasion than they need and it becomes more important to reduce the damage that does get through instead of getting more Evasion (because it won’t make a difference, as there is a threshold past which there is no more benefits gained from adding more to it).
This will be even more important with the addition of the 3 star maps past level 200, where more HP and straight up % damage reduction increase their value in a build.
I pretty much already covered everything on this topic, so I think this might be my last post on it. Anything else would just mean going around in circles again.
I do see the benefits of using Vubbe gloves for particular situations (solo grind at Mage Tower, for example), but for everything else Plate will be better and there is simply no justification for ever using 4 pieces of Leather as a Swordsman.
These things are easier to tell once one is playing the game, and most people are able to figure out why using Plate is better as they keep on getting more used to the game and reach higher levels (reason why it was extremely rare to see a level 200 Swordsman still using Vubbe Gloves during our last iCBT2).
Maybe I can’t convince you that using Leather is inefficient for PvE, and that is fine. I am just typing this for anyone who reads these posts in the future when looking for information or for me to reference when this question arises again.
