User:Jdavis/Armor

This armor guide is a work in progress. Many features need to be added, refined, removed, etc.

This guide helps you plan armor loadouts for play in the Clockworks. The advice here applies equally well to free-to-play and pay-to-play players.

What Does Armor Do?

Armor does four things: It gives you health, protects you from damage, resists status effects, and grants you abilities. The contributions from your helmet and suit add to produce your total health, damage protection, status resistance, and abilities. Note well that your shield does not contribute in the same way. A shield's defenses protect only the shield itself. (For more detail, see the Shieldbearer Guide.)

Health

Armor gives you health, which greatly improves your survivability. A suit or helmet gains one extra health when it reaches heat level 5. Except for Ancient Plate Mail/Helm, all 5-star armor grants the same amount of health. Therefore health is rarely a consideration in choosing armor.

Damage

There are four kinds of damage: normal, piercing, elemental, and shadow. Each kind of monster attack contains a specific mixture of these types. Roughly speaking, beasts and slimes inflict piercing, gremlins and constructs inflict elemental, and fiends and undead inflict shadow. However, in shallow levels monsters inflict mostly normal damage, and even in Tier 3 there is a fair amount of normal. For example, in Firestorm Citadel normal damage is inflicted by Lord Vanaduke, slag guards, and trojans.

Almost all armor protects against normal damage and one other damage type. The exceptions are Ancient Plate Mail/Helm, Dragon Scale Mail/Helm, Radiant Silvermail, and Divine Veil/Mantle. When an attack hits you, your armor's protections are subtracted from the attack's gross damage to yield the net damage that you incur. (For more detail, see Defense.)

The overall importance of damage protection is not as big as you might think. Highly protective armor might let you survive one or two more hits than weakly protective armor. Consequently heat and damage unique variants have only a slight effect.

Status

Shock, freeze, and fire can absolutely wreck you, regardless of your damage protection. Stun, poison, and curse are less threatening. Sleep is almost absent from the game, and should not be considered.

thresholds

Abilities

Armor can grant four kinds of abilities: movement speed increase, attack speed increase, charge time reduction, and damage bonus.

four kinds of damage bonus granted by armor: one weapon type against one monster family, one monster family, one weapon type, or blanket

Armor by Class

Because offensive bonuses are a crucial consideration in choosing armor, I group armors into four categories: Swords, Handguns, for Bombs, and Other. Some of the Other armors, particularly Black Kat and Chaos, offer offensive bonuses to all weapons.

Overall, there are 72 5-star armors. In almost all cases the suit and helmet are obtained identically and enjoy identical statistics. The seven exceptions, marked with * below, are: Radiant Silvermail has no matching helmet, Perfect Mask of Seerus has no matching suit, Divine Veil has a fiend bonus while Divine Mantle does not, and the four Kat armor lines have unusual and asymmetric alchemy paths.

Swords

Wolver; see also Black Kat and Chaos

Handguns

Gunslinger, Padded; see also Black Kat and Chaos

Then there are 36 Padded armor lines, organized as nine variants in four status flavors: Falcon (sh+4, fr-3), Firefly (fi+4, sh-3), Grizzly (fr+4, po-3), and Snakebite (po+4, fi-3). These armors are marked with ? in the status columns below. Each armor's official name begins with "Sacred", which simply means "5-star".

Bombs

Demo; see also Black Kat and Chaos; ignore Mad Bomber

Other

Specific Situations and Objectives

General-Purpose Armor Sets

Advanced knights often own many suits and helmets, that they can assemble into an ideal armor set for any given situation. Frugal knights and less-experienced knights may prefer to build a single armor set for use throughout the Clockworks. Such a general-purpose set would ideally protect against all four damage types and a few of the most important statuses (shock, fire, and maybe freeze). There are exactly three options:

• Divine Veil with a normal+piercing suit. For sworders, Skolver Coat is ideal; the set protects against shock, fire, freeze, and curse, while conferring two offensive bonuses. Gunners should consider Justifier Jacket, although well-rounded armor is arguably less important for them than for sworders and bombers. There is no piercing armor for bombers. Notice that Divine Mantle is not as good as Divine Veil, due to its lack of fiend bonus.
• Radiant Silvermail with a normal+elemental helmet. Vog Cub Cap, Nameless Hat, Perfect Mask of Seerus, and all bomber helmets are worth considering. For more offense, consider Chaos Cowl.
• Dragon Scale Mail/Helm with a normal+shadow suit or helmet. Snarbolax Coat/Cap and Shadowsun Slicker/Stetson seem especially good.

An alternative strategy is to settle for three damage types instead of all four. For example, a sworder might wear Skolver Coat/Cap with Vog Cub Coat/Cap to achieve high offensive bonuses at the expense of shadow protection. My opinion is that slimes and beasts are the easiest monster families, so piercing protection is slightly less important than the other damage protections.

Bosses

The Gloaming Wildwoods are three levels of beasts, with some constructs. There is no status, other than lumber stun. Hazards include spikes, exploding blocks, and briars. You want normal and piercing armor. There may not actually be much piercing damage in there, as it's only Stratum 2.

The Royal Jelly Palace is three levels of slimes, some constructs, and some silkwings. There is no status, other than lumber stun. The only hazards are spikes and exploding blocks. You want normal and piercing armor. Elemental and stun armor are slightly useful.

Ironclaw Munitions Factory is three levels of constructs and gremlins, with a shock theme. Hazards are plentiful, including missiles, shock grates, exploding rockets, exploding blocks, and lasers. You want normal, elemental, and shock armor.

Firestorm Citadel is five levels of zombies and trojans, with some constructs and silkwings, and very few beasts and slimes. The theme is fire, but keep in mind that trojans can stun and shock. Hazards include wheel throwers, spikes, fire grates, shadow fire, exploding blocks, and revolving balls. You want normal, elemental, shadow, and fire armor. Of these, shadow is arguably the least important, because zombies are easy to dodge.

Shadow Lairs

The Shadow Gloaming Wildwoods are similar to the regular Gloaming Wildwoods, but with many additional undead. The gun puppies have been replaced with howlitzers. There is a strong poison theme. You want normal, piercing, shadow, and poison armor.

The Shadow Royal Jelly Palace is much like the ordinary Royal jelly Palace, but with a freeze theme. Also, the gun puppies have been replaced with polyps. You want normal, piercing, and freeze armor.

The Shadow Ironclaw Munitions Factory is much like the usual Ironclaw Munitions Factory, but with a fire theme in addition to the regular shock theme. You want normal, elemental, shock, and fire armor.

The Shadow Firestorm Citadel resembles the Firestorm Citadel, but with a curse theme in addition to the usual fire theme. Also, the gun puppies have been replaced with howlitzers. You want normal, elemental, shadow, fire, and curse armor.

The Unknown Passage is an extra level that comes after every Shadow Lair boss. It is the same for all Shadow Lairs; it has nothing to do with any of their themes. Normal damage is most prevalent, but piercing, elemental, and shadow damage are all present. Status is not a major consideration, but poison and stun can occur.

Missions

Operation Crimson Hammer is about five levels, filled with gremlins and constructs. Hazards include briars, exploding rockets, missiles, and shadow fire. You want normal and elemental armor. Do you also want fire? I don't remember.

Legion of Almire is two undead-stuffed levels, like an amped-up graveyard where the phantoms have been replaced by worse monsters. There is no status, except for lumber stun. Hazards include exploding blocks, briars, and spikes. You want normal and shadow armor.

Compound 42 is two levels filled with slimes, gremlins, poison, and fire. Hazards include poison grates, fire grates, flamethrowers, and shadow fire. You want normal, piercing, elemental, fire, and poison armor.

Heart of Ice consists of two freeze-themed levels filled with fiends and beasts, and scattered howlitzers. Hazards include freeze grates, spikes, exploding blocks, and revolving balls. You want normal, piercing, shadow, and freeze armor. Of these, piercing is probably least important, because beasts are easy to dodge these days.

Ghost in the Machine consists of two shock-filled levels filled with constructs and undead. Hazards include shock grates, revolving shock balls, and lots of drones. You want normal, elemental, shadow, and shock armor. Of these, shadow is arguably least important.

Final Thoughts

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