Assessing Armor: Brawler Armor (Lion Knight Hybrid) (Patreon)

We've been through all of the armors that make up the parts of the 4 Hybrid sets, so now it's time to take a look at them each individually. I'm going to reassess every single part in the context of the armor set they're now a part of, there's not going to be a cut and paste of previous opinions, in part because the way that hybrid armors work changes the value of the pieces and in part because sometimes the value/use of the pieces goes up and down.

We're starting with the Brawler set, the armor set I most overvalued when I first started playing because of how damn cool it looks when assembled.

Skull Helm

Resource Cost: 1x skull or 2x bone

Assessment

Efficiency: Super cheap to make, you may well have one of these kicking around anyway because you were using it early on due to a lack of hide. I cannot complain about this

S

Defense: It's 4 armor points due to how hybrid armors work. That is very respectable for the cost.

A

Abilities: The set bonus removes the downside of the Skull Helmet, so this one is now an N/A

Affinities: A down half-red is not a very good affinity on the whole, it doesn't contribute towards the monster-tooth necklace or lucky charm.

D

Score: This is a cheap piece of armor to get crafted, but it doesn't really contribute very much to the overall design of Brawler armor apart from efficiency.

 B+

Lion Skin Cloak

Resource Cost: 2x White Fur

Assessment

Efficiency: This is the standout piece of the brawler set, for just 2 white lion specific hides you get a 4 armor point piece. To be honest, this piece of gear is the primary reason why you might want to craft the brawler set, it's a way of getting the Lion Skin Cloak onto mid game builds without having to go with a mixed set or rolling armor.

S+

Defense: I really cannot stress strongly enough just how good the Lion Skin Cloak is, it's not as good as the Silk Body Suit (see the Spidicules article for that one) but damage reduction like this is something that must never be overlooked or scoffed at.

S+

Abilities: We talked about it in the defense section enough I think. It's really, really good.

S+

Affinities: A right Green is, okay, there are some neat things you can do with the Sunspot Lantern and Monster Grease to get close to the 3 Green Affinities you need for active grease. In isolation I do not have much to complain about on this matter.

A+

Score: A standout piece of gear, it's something that gets used early on in certain campaigns (like People of the Skull) and if you are planning to build Brawler Armor during the campaign it's likely that you'll get this one well in advance. 

S

White Lion Gauntlets

Resource Cost: 1x white fur, 1x bone

Assessment

Efficiency: The gauntlets are an efficient piece of gear when their armor points are bolstered up. However it's not as cheap as the helmet, so the efficiency score has to be lower.

A-

Defense: As good as the helmet. Everything I wrote there applies here.

A

Abilities: The ability does absolutely nothing for the armor set. So N/A and I have to deduct points because this is a second piece of the set that does absolutely nothing at all.

Affinities: N/A

Score: Efficient and cheap, like a lot of the brawler set's upper half, but the lack of anything useful on this piece of gear is detrimental when combined with how little the head does as well.

 B

Phoenix Faulds

Resource Cost: 1x iron, 1x leather, 1x tail feather, 1x organ

Assessment

Efficiency: The efficiency falls off hard here, there's no bonus armor being added to this piece of gear (in fact in context of how it works in phoenix armor's full set it's slightly lower). Somehow, the Faulds manage to be less efficient than they are in full Phoenix Armor.

C-

Defense: There's some defense here with the slight insanity gain and the 4 armor points, so it's one of the more defensive pieces in this set.

A-

Abilities: +1 insanity when departing isn't something this set cares about very much, but it has a minor benefit in protecting the survivor wearing it from hunt events. Worse than average.

C-

Affinities: N/A

Score: Again we have no affinities and an ability that's so mild it's basically not an ability at all. What is impressive, is that the Faulds, which are one of the worst parts of the Phoenix set are still the third most powerful part of the brawler set when in action (excluding efficiency costs). Which shows how bad the power of the head and arms are in this set.

B- 

Phoenix Greaves

Resource Cost:  1x iron, 1x leather, 1x small feather, 1x organ 

Assessment

Efficiency: You get more romp for your resources in this piece when compared to the waist, now it is worth noting that this is still jointly the most expensive part of the armor. However, unlike the Faulds, the cost is a bit more worth the price of admission.

B-

Defense: If insane gain +2 Movement is a powerful ability if you can ensure that your survivor remains insane. Movement, as have I mentioned before many times, is possibly one of the most powerful stats in the game. This is because of "dash-cancelling", the act of using high movement and/or range in combination with positioning and dash to make a monster do nothing but chase after you for a turn. Keeping this survivor insane however is going to require a lot of support from elsewhere.

B+

Abilities: As above, powerful ability, hard to keep active.

B+

Affinities: I guess the best you can say about this is at least it has an affinity, the Red affinity on this gear would have been far, far more useful if it was on the left hand side so it would combine with the Monster-Tooth Necklace. There's not much you're going to be doing with this affinity a lot of the time.

C

Score: While they are potentially powerful, and the second best piece of gear in this set, the greaves are still not that impressive because they lack support internally from the other pieces of gear.

 B-

Brawler Armor

Resource Cost: 1x skull/2x bone, 2x iron, 2x leather, 2x organ, 1x small feathers, 1x tail feathers, 3x white fur, 1x bone

Assessment

Set Bonus: +2 accuracy for Fist and Tooth brings it to a respectable 6+, but the +1 strength token for being knocked down is almost irrelevant. It is very difficult to work out how to knock yourself over and over without standing in front of the monster and activating the fecal salve. There are some non-gear ways of triggering the knockdown, but they are not repeatable or common.

D

Efficiency: Well, it's hard to really assess this, three of the parts are super cheap, while the other two parts are very over costed. I think on the whole it sort of averages out to a smidge below average because you don't get that much for your costs, but you can build parts of this set well in advance during the early game.

C-

Defense: Defensively this set is pretty strong, almost surprisingly so, this is because of the power of the Lion Skin Cloak in combination with a decent pool of armor points.

A-

Abilities: 1 point of Damage reduction, +1 insanity when departing, +2 movement while insane and the set bonuses. That's it. Which is pretty darn pathetic for what should be a mid game armor set. It is mostly the damage reduction that's carrying the score here.

B+

Affinities: Absolute trash. You get a down red, a right green and a right red. Of these, only the right green is potentially of use. Considering the effort involved in getting the waist/legs for this set you would expect better. Still, considering it uses 2 Lion Gear parts and 2 Phoenix Gear parts it is not surprising

D-

Score: OK, so. It's now time to address the elephant in the room, I've been tiptoing around this, but there is already a significantly better armor set for fist and tooth users, one that gives you extra accuracy, sharp, evasion, built in fecal salve, survival gains and a neat little thing called prismatic.  Basically, if you want to main Fist and Tooth during a campaign, you're better off having the Sunstalker in as a huntable quarry, because Cycloid Scale Armor ticks all the boxes you need and more.

As such I really can't give Brawler armor a good score. Yes it has the Lion Skin Cloak and it could encourage a fist and tooth tank build, but it is ridiculously hard to get the strength gains online. Multiple pieces of the armor set do nothing, the affinities are terrible and ultimately there are just better uses for your resources. If you really want to use the Lion Skin Coat, just get rolling armor; if you want to fist monsters, get Cycloid Scale or even White Lion Armor - yeah even that would be better.  

D