Assessing Armors (Patreon)

After just about six months of posts (props to those of you who stuck through this!) We've reached the end of the series, a series that gives a close to definitive look at all the currently released armor sets in the game, with consideration of their roles, their strengths, their weaknesses and place in the meta.

Here is the chart of all the armors, from left to right is roughly when in a campaign you can be expected to be crafting them (at least by cost/design) and from top to bottom is the tier ranking, more on how a tier ranking is reached later.

Note before we go into this, I wasn't happy with my conclusions on Phoenix Armor and I went it to test it properly, it's overall score has been moved up quite a bit based on its set bonus when combined with extra movement abuse (which is very easy to achieve when you have Choeria giving you Harvestman. Without Harvestman it falls down a bit, but it's still at worse a C-.

I've also included both versions of Gorment (4 and 5 piece), the Calcified version of Rolling Armor, it's the yellow one. As for the hybrids, the Feather Mantle represents Dancer (it's on the art), the Skull represents Brawler and the crossed axes represent Warlord. 

Silk Armor and full Gorment Armor sit so far to the right because you need to kill an L3 version of the Spidicules/Gorm and they are comparable to L2 Sunstalker/Phoenix/Dragon King/Dung Beetle Knights - because you can grind out the armor from the L1s I've put them after the Phoenix/Sunstalker/Dragon King and before the Rolling because Rolling requires calcification.

Technically this is a scatter chart, and that gives us some nice extra tools for analysis. So lets dive into those before I summise why each armor set is where it is. If armor progression in Kingdom Death was a consistent, balanced movement forwards, where you use each armor set to step from one monster to the next, you would expect to see roughly a progression on this list from Rawhide in the bottom left to Green Armor in the top right.  Some armors might dip a little above or below that line, but on the whole it would trend like this:

However, when we put our armor sets back on, we get this:

As you can see, the only armors that land even close to the predicted places are White Lion, Phoenix, Rolling, Calcified Rolling, Warlord and Green armor. Which is honestly about right, one of the main reasons that White Lion and Phoenix are so maligned is because they're kind of 'fair' compared to most of the other options.  Also Phoenix has only made it to the place where it is on the strength of it's head, body and set bonus. 

There's a huge cluster of armors sat in the top left of the graph, where honestly we shouldn't see any armors at all, though Gorment is sat a little higher than its absolute power because of its 4 slot arrangement, you can see how much it drops when you go the 5 slot version - and I'm being a little generous with it on the scoring if I'm honest - because I like the look. 

Explanation of Tiers 

The tiers are set from E - which is better than being naked all the way up to S-Tier (With G for Green Armor being its own thing). S-Tier armor sets are either overwhelmingly powerful as a whole or they are the very best at a certain jobs in the game. I'll note where the jobs are in the individual summaries and also give some of the math behind them where appropriate. I know for one people still don't 'get' why Dragon Armor is an S-Tier armor, but it is.

Summary of Each Set

Rawhide - S-Tier

Providing a massive boost to individual survival pools, strong defenses and an essential game changing ability in the Rawhide Headband, this armor set punches way about its weight class. It's so strong and efficient that many other early armor sets are best ignored and nothing ever replaces it for supports and archers.

White Lion - D-Tier

Intended to be a pouncing with daggers & katars set, this armor has a poor affinity layout, relatively high cost and is tied to questionable weapon types. Daggers have a poor design in their entirety without the Backstabber Fighting Art, while Katar progression in the game is horribly stunted, with the only worthwhile route being Lion Beast Katar to Digging Claw to Calcified Digging Claw. Katars are also a Tank Weapon by design, which White Lion armor cannot do.

Partial Gorment Armor - B-Tier

The single largest draw for this armor set is the compact design, 4 slots for a full armor set is a great boon to archers who want to use arrows and still have some protection. In addition to this its helm is phenomenal and you can build a solid kiting loadout with the combination of the Guard ability, a bow and a few extra affinities.

Screaming Armor - S-Tier

Largely ignored in 1.31, Screaming Armor got the full Adam treatment in 1.5, turbo charging it from mediocrity (where it was criminally underrated) to the point where it dominates the meta in the core game and competes with so many other armor sets throughout the entire game. It is the premier Spear armor set until you reach Dragon Armor and even after that it remains a ridiculously powerful support option with its Slam ability and generation of Acanthus. Screaming Armor does it all for an incredibly low cost.

Leather Armor - A-Tier

If you wanted the poster girl for efficiency, it would be rawhide, but a strong footnote would include a big mention to our Lady in Leather Armor. It's got one of the strongest out of the box builds with Zanbato + Monster Grease + Leather Shield (clearly a forced design from the team) and with the Silk Body Suit it can climb to become one of the most powerful tanking sets in the entire game.

Vagabond Armor - S-Tier

Technically easier than Leather Armor to make, Vagabond Armor's primary force of unbalance is caused by its interactions with the Black Sword (and a few other select swords). Without that it would likely be between an A and S-Tier because of the usefulness of getting a weapon master on tap for settlements that are struggling and the power of multiple Tabards in a hunt party generating unlimited Encourages.

Dancer Armor - S-Tier

Movement is king in Kingdom Death, you can't get hit if the monster can't reach you, and if it can reach you Evasion is an excellent queen.  Dancer Armor has both, in buckets. It's pretty much the only armor in the game that works with any weapon at all and it's an incredible set to use.  The interactions with Harvestman and Propulsion Drive fighting arts are terrifying.

Brawler Armor - D-Tier

Intended to be a Fist & Tooth armor set, this one is let down by how poor almost every single piece of gear in the set is (and how hard the set bonus is to trigger). It boils down to being a 5 armor per location way of wearing the White Lion Cloak, which is absolutely a powerhouse piece of gear in this set. But it has nothing else really going for it, poor affinities, weak abilities, high cost - a real shame.

Has meme potential with self knockdown abilities.

Phoenix Armor - B-Tier

Intended to be the poster child for monster armor sets, this armor has an incredible helm, the best body piece in the entire game and a set bonus that is nothing to scoff at. But this light armor set is flammable, expensive and is tied to a monster who can just cheat by deleting your survivors without any counter play possible. There's a lot of negatives involved in it.

However, it made it to the B-Tier on the back of those three things. +10 strength to a weapon is nothing to scoff at, Harvestman is a heck of a drug.

Cycloid Scale Armor - SS-Tier

The dream, the meme. The single best choice for one handed DPS survivors and also a lazy man's way out for anyone who wants to make some weird build work. It's not the best in every category and its armor points are large weakness that keeps it in check.  Getting an average of +5.5 to every wound roll (and bonuses for attacking from the blind spot) is huge. However this armor set comparatively bad for archers, tanks and reach weapons.

I'm not going to go overboard about this one, but there is no doubt that in overview, this is the strongest armor for the cost. It's just not the most efficient to build.

Dragon Armor - S-Tier

Criminally undervalued (by myself in the past also), Dragon Armor has a bunch of positive things going for it and really just needed a little more of a push to get it to a state where it would be considered dominant. It still remains the best choice of armor in People of the Sun where it's downside (awkward combination of

The Dragon King gives large discounts to this armor set because of how much iron he generates when you fight him and it's set bonus of +2 accuracy and +5 strength is comparable with the +1 accuracy and average +5.5 "strength" (aka Sharp) that comes with Cycloid Scale armor.

But, it's the combination with the Sunshark Bow or Lantern Glaive easily puts this armor set into the S-Tier and it has incredible interactions with any reach weapon in the game.

Silk Armor - E-Tier

Huge F in chat for Silk Armor. It's expensive, has an awful layout, weak abilities, a set bonus that doesn't synergise with the rest of its design and the hat is bizarrely locked behind the L3 Spidicules despite not deserving it. This one is getting a rehaul, which it deserves because of how wonderful the armor set looks, but until then it's dumpster tier stuff that you'd only make for mixed sets.

Full Gorment Armor - C-Tier

An upgrade that isn't, the Regeneration Suit is a fine piece of gear, but it has little to no good synergy with the armor set it's linked to. You end up with a 4/6/4/4/4 set of armor, but Gorment doesn't want a pile of Green affinities, it's constantly crying out for blue and red ones. I would prefer to use the Regeneration Suit in mixed sets or as an activator for things like the Shadow Saliva Shawl and Green Ring.

Rolling Armor - A-Tier

Very awkward to make due to two parts needing the L2 and L3 Black Harvests respectively; and it is this limitation which keeps it down in A-Tier. You do get an exceptional armor set when it is complete, but it's a slog getting there and often you'll just use the Plate, Circlet and Wing Belt separately instead of working hard to make the Greaves and Harness.

Props as well for being one of the only ways to get the Rawhide Headband working on a non-mixed armor set that isn't made of paper in the late game.

Warlord Armor - A-Tier

Warlord Armor takes the Phoenix Plackart and makes it super easy to keep activated, both with the affinity bonus and the Screaming Helm. It is a excellent priming platform for an Axe based tank and is especially strong in the hands of an axe master. However, its boost to axe strength is not sufficient, most axes don't use Deadly and even if they do, it's not a good match because of redundancy with the Axe Mastery ability.  It would take the S-Tier if it wasn't for Cycloid Scale covering the one handed axes and Dragon/Phoenix covering the two handed ones so well.

Lantern Armor - B-Tier

Hugely expensive, Lantern Armor would be a premier tank set and in the A or S-Tier if it wasn't for Cycloid Scale doing basically the same thing offensively. This armor set is premium for Club tank survivors, but most tanks tend to be on Katars, Axes or Grand Weapons.  Mostly it's the expense keeping this armor in place though.

Calcified Rolling Armor - S-Tier

A huge jump up in power for Rolling Armor here, calcifying the pieces is not that much extra effort if you're already crafting the two extra parts. There is some risk, a little cost, and it's all worth it because this armor set is the king of tank sets. Do not overlook the incredible interactions this armor set has due to its lack of the 'armor' keyword.  It works with the White Lion Cloak or Silk Body Suit, the Phoenix Plackart and any other neat armor piece you might be interested in.

It also memes in a 9 gear grid slot fist and tooth only build that uses the partial 4 piece Gorment Armor set and 5 pieces of Calcified Rolling Armor. 

Green Armor - G-Tier

When your entire campaign is bent around making one suit of armor, it better be good. It is, Green Armor is a one man walking monster killer, you barely need anyone else in the group when they have it and only Black Sword weapon masters exceed the power of Green Armor on offense (sorry Perfect Slayer fans).

That's All Folks

So, until we see Campaigns of Death and the Gambler's Chest, which promise to rehaul some of the armor sets and give us some exciting new hybrids, we can call a close on this series. At this point you should be versed enough to understand why full armor sets are so dominant in the meta, which ones are overpowered for the costs you pay, which niches each armor set sits in and you might even have a few extra ideas I've not thought about which you want to make use of.

You should also now be very clued up on how to design your own armor sets because you've seen both the best and worst of what you can get from the official stuff. But we will explore creating your own armor in a Designer Diary expose in the future.

Farewell to Arm(or)s!

Links to the Individual Armor Articles:

• Rawhide - Skinnery (Core)
• White Lion - White Lion
• Gorment - Gorm
• Screaming - Screaming Antelope
• Silk - Spidicules
• Phoenix - Phoenix
• Leather - Leather Worker (Core)
• Brawler -  Lion Knight Hybrid (Bone Smith/Phoenix/White Lion)
• Warlord - Lion Knight Hybrid (Screaming Armor/Leather/Lantern/Phoenix)
• Dancer - Lion Knight Hybrid (Rawhide/Leather/Phoenix/Screaming)
• Vagabond - Leather Hybrid/Alternate Promo
• Cycloid Scale - Sunstalker
• Rolling - Dung Beetle Knight
• Dragon - Dragon King
• Lantern - Blacksmith
• Green -  Campaign Armor  (Gorm/Spidicules/Dung Beetle Knight/Lion Knight/Manhunter/Flower Knight)