Assessing Armor: Leather Armor (Patreon)

As we discussed last week, it's time to get on with a look at the armor set that is generally built as a one of for the vast majority of settlements. It's an example of a well designed set that has some high synergies, but isn't overpowered or too one dimensional. This is your gurl, Leather Armor.

Leather Mask

Resource Cost: 1x leather, 1x scrap

Assessment

Efficiency: Super cheap, just two resources, one of which is even a relatively dead resource in the early to mid part of the game. So the mask's price is exceptionally competitive, especially when you consider the way that it protects your head and brain.

S

Defense: As mentioned, this mask provides armor points for the head and insanity protection. Leather is one of those armor sets you can get quite early on and then keep using for a long time. It's not the top defensive item in the game, but it's in the upper portion.

A

Abilities: +2 Insanity when departing, very solid, very simple. It's a number that allows a 0 insanity survivor to have protection without going insane. It's not going to win any awards, but it is solid.

B

Affinities: The affinities on the mask are very good, they provide a lot of flexibility and can be combined with the body to make a blue or a red easily, or you can use the down red to activate the Counter-weighted Axe in one of the cookie cutter leather builds which are super easy to get. 

A

Score: Overall the Leather Mask is an excellent portion of this armor set, it's cheap (even considering the conversion cost for making Leather), it provides a lot of protection, and it has useful affinities for a lot of weapons, especially tank style ones.

A-

Leather Cuirass

Resource Cost: 1x leather, 1x bone

Assessment

Efficiency: Again, this gear is super efficient, bones are the least valuable of the three resource categories, so having this as an additional cost in addition to the leather is not a large deal.

S-

Defense: Very bog standard, it's 3 armor, which is very good for when you get it and also good enough to use against most monsters in the game currently (when you also consider shields). It won't work for your primary tank against really powerful monsters, but you'll be using this for most of the normal ones.

B+

Abilities: N/A

Affinities: The affinities are the reverse of the Mask's, this clever piece of design means that these two pieces of gear can be fit together in either configuration to give you a blue or a red affinity. However, on the whole the Cuirass's affinities just isn't as useful as the mask's.

B

Score: The curass is not quite as good as the mask because it's got no abilities, but this is a solid, no-frills piece of gear.

B+

Leather Bracers

Resource Cost: 1x leather, 1x hide

Assessment

Efficiency: Oof, that extra hide in the cost is a pretty steep increase in price over the previous two pieces of gear. So efficiency takes a hit here. Still it's only 2 resources, so it remains a lot more effective than many other options.

A-

Defense: As you gain survival for departing, the defense on this part of the leather set is higher than average. Survival is one of the best tools for defense in the game because of its synergy with block/deflect, dodge and dash.

A+

Abilities: Survival gains are always useful to have built into your armor, because then you have to rely less on the generally less optimal +survival when departing innovations. This piece of gear provides as much survival when departing as the entire rawhide set (rawhide is still better for survival spam however).

B+

Affinities: This right green affinity is very potent in the leather armor set as it connects to the boots. The green affinities in leather are part of what makes it so, so powerful.

A

Score: A very solid, useful piece of gear. You should not underestimate just how important that +2 survival is for the armor set as whole.

 A-

Leather Skirt

Resource Cost: 1x leather

Assessment

Efficiency: One of the cheapest pieces of armor in the game, costing 1 hide and a fraction of an endeavor to make. It cannot be understated just how useful cheap armor is.

S+

Defense: Solid defense, just like the cuirass.

B+

Abilities: N/A

Affinities: This down green affinity is part of the cookie cutter monster grease + leather shield package that leather armor promotes and rewards the use of. When you are not using this with the leather/grease package, this affinity becomes less relevant, but on the whole it's a very important affinity when you consider the shield combo.

B+

Score: Mostly what the leather skirt has going for it is that combo with the leather shield and its extremely cheap cost. 

A-

Leather Boots

Resource Cost: 1x leather, 1x hide

Assessment

Efficiency: The boots cost as much as the bracers do to make, which is on the steeper side of the costs in this set. However, you get a lot more for romp your resources, with double the number of affinities and also a movement based ability (and we always score movement stuff a little higher, because of how powerful movement is in the hands of a very skilled positional player).

A

Defense: We get not just 3 armor, but also an ability that has defensive applications because it allows you to re-position a little after attacking. A single square can actually make a massive difference between being able to dash-cancel the monster's next attack, or having to eat a bunch of hits to the face.

A

Abilities: I think I've pretty much covered why this ability matters in defense above. Movement is strong.

A

Affinities: Left and Right half greens mean that the boots combine with the bracers and monster grease to give us 2 green affinities towards active monster grease. These affinities are the best in the set.

A+

Score: As the strongest single piece of gear in the leather set, the boots are essentially what made the leather set the go-to mid game armor for your tanks. They are not flashy, but they put in a load of work.

A

Leather Armor

Resource Cost: 5x leather, 1x scrap, 1x bone, 2x hide

Assessment

Efficiency: Honestly it is insane how much you get for your 9 generic resources and that endeavor you spend. One of the main reasons why leather remains such a meta set is because it's a huge boost in overall hunt power for a very low cost. This armor set (along with Screaming Armor) is why so many other armor sets are just not bothered with.  Only rawhide and screaming armor are more efficient.

S

Set Bonus: Ignoring Bash and +1 armor to all locations isn't that powerful, this is because bash is just one way monsters cause knockdown, so it's not a free 'always be standing' ticket.

B

Defense: 4 armor to all locations, plus protection for the brain and survival gains when departing are all huge benefits to this armor set. It's very generic, but generic is often what you want and need. Also it has massive synergy with monster grease and the leather shield.

A

Abilities: +2 insanity, +2 survival when departing, ignore bash, move 1 extra space after your act. These are all minor abilities, useful but not overpowering. They add together to give you a very reliable set, but not a dominating one on the ability front.

B

Affinities: One of the strongest points of this set is the affinities, they are a combination of forced usefulness (Monster Grease synergy) and flexibility with the blues and red. This armor set literally paints you into a corner with grease + the shield, but the benefits of following that are massive.

A+

Score: Overall Leather Armor is a quiet workhorse. It gets the job of taking hits and staying alive done with dependability and it's an incredibly efficient package that also allows for crafting of the Leather  Shield (which is the beast of the leather worker location). It's not the best armor in the game, but it is something you can always get online quickly and cheaply because of its low costs and generic resources. 7 hide for a complete armor set means that you are not as stretched thin on hide as you normally would be.

A+

Next time it's hybrid town. We'll start with the weakest of the sets (Brawler) and work our way up from there.