End Game DPS Suits - Which do I choose? (Patreon)

I thought I was completely done with working through the armor sets, but conversations have made it clear that I've still not managed to completely spell out in detail why some armor sets are so valuable. So I feel it's useful to add a little addendum in here, in part to expand on this and in part to provide the stats behind it.  

Once again, back into the primer on this matter, survivors work best when they go for specific classes.  You can find the links to the specific articles in this collated post on all my articles held on BoardGameGeek, so I'm not going to go into the specifics here. Suffice to say we currently have Tanks (who take hits), Supports (who control the monster and provide "healing"), Trappers (who use trap negation abilities to reset the HL deck without penalty), Bruisers (who attack and set block/cancel hits in the same activation, normally using Blood Paint, but also Green Armor, Gorment Armor and Phoenix Armor), Debuffers who weaken the monster (usually arrows) and the class that 90% of people want to be - DPS (Damage Per Swing), who do the work of smooshing the monster into the ground. They tend to be broken into Deadly DPS and Strength DPS*, and there's usually crossover between both classes because in Kingdom Death Deadly tends to be linked to good strength (a design choice I disagree with).  They both use the same dice roll to wound, but they have different target numbers and benefits. 

 *There is also autowound DPS, but we're not going to go back over that road here, they're brokenly overpowered, that's all you need to know. 

Because Deadly based survivors are limited in scope (and I've never seen anyone other than myself use the Ink Sword). We are specifically going to look at Strength DPS survivors (SDPSS... yeah, let's not use that acronym) and we will refer to them as DPS for the remainder of this article.  DPS survivors can use a whole host of different weapons, pretty much whatever they like, and apart from Archers who are best placed in Rawhide or Dancer and Swords who best utilize Vagabond, there are in essence three choices for your end game armor set if you really want to wound via strength and you're not planning to make use of Propulsion Drive (which involves running around to build up strength and luck before hitting).  

These choices are Cycloid Scale, Phoenix and Dragon Armor; and the reason that I'm writing this article is to tell you that contrary to popular belief, Cycloid Scale is not always the answer, in fact it's the answer about 30-40% of the time, but the other two armor sets have their place and in fact they're both very powerful when correctly used. Yeah, I'm rolling back my opinion on Phoenix Armor a bit and accepting that it has a place in the game, it's affinities are still ass though.

In order to demonstrate this, I'm going to run through each armor's pro's and cons so you can see which one suits you best.  As mentioned before; if you want to be an archer, you should either stick with rawhide so you can also be a hybrid AI controller, or take it's upgraded version (Dancer Armor). This is because at the moment, none of these three above work well with a bow with the exception of the Sunshark Bow (which is still the strongest bow overall and synergises with Dragon and Phoenix).  So, if you're using the Sunshark Bow, come on into the cool club below.

Cycloid Scale Armor

We shall start with the armor set that has the lowest skill floor, Cycloid Scale. This armor easily the simplest of these three to use, it's got Prismatic which is 'affinity for dummies' so it's super easy to build with and also its way of gaining extra strength is really low skill as well, you move into the blind spot and swing to gain Sharp. Ta-Da! It's basically enhancing what you were already doing as a DPS, get in the blind spot for the bonuses and safety it represents.

The L1 Sunstalker is also a relatively weak monster to fight when you compare it to the other two here. At level 1 (which can be farmed for the entire set) it's very prone to dying faster than you'd think, and while SunSquidShark can surprise you with how dangerous it becomes at higher levels, it will alwaysl remains a monster you burst down as fast as possible.

Other benefits to the Sunstalker fight include a predictable set up (there are no random terrain pieces at all) and the gains of additional resources in salt, which is used in some Sunstalker gear and also cooking (good old OP cooking). You can also manipulate events to gain the Suppressed Shadow secret fighting art, which is a ridiculously powerful SFA - but generally it's hard to achieve that without preparation and more typically you tend to see it on extreme farmers or people who are fighting the L3.  The other things to note is that the Sunstalker is extremely hostile to gear with the soluble and flammable, so some settlements may find this to be a risky proposition because they've invested a lot in monster grease and phoenix or silk armor for their protections (why???)

In exchange, Cycloid Scale is a set built around the simplest form of DPS actions, you sit behind the monster and poke it hard while avoiding being targeted by it. I've been through everything about the set in the armor's specific article so I'm not going to retread that ground here outside of adding them to the pros and cons list coming up. 

I will however add to that list by saying that in addition to the sometimes steep difficulty of fighting the Sunstalker, Cycloid Scale is also very expensive to make due to the fact that many parts involved in it are monster specific and not 'tutorable' via critical wounds, the Shadow tentacles and Cycloid Scale resources for example can be notoriously hard to find. 

Last of all, Cycloid Scale has a limited range of weapons it really synergises with, as mentioned above it's bad with bows because of its design requiring you to 'shadow' the monster by staying in its blind spot, it has anti-synergy with reach and it's almost useless with sharp weapons.  This last one is actually very significant, there are a number of meta weapons that use sharp, weapons like the Steel Sword, Lantern Glaive, Dragon Slayer and similar.  This redundancy and anti-synergy with sharp weapons actually puts a hard cap on how good Cycloid Scale can be when you consider the current design of weapons which get stronger and stronger before gaining sharp as their ultimate strength modifier.

This means Cycloid Scale is at its strongest when you are using it with weapons that would be very powerful if they had sharp.

Pros:

• Easy access to sharp for weapons that don't have it
• Large Survival gains on departing
• +1 accuracy (effectively +2 in the blind spot)
• Lots of evasion
• Prismatic makes for 'Layouts for Dummies' skill floor in builds
• Can be constructed from the L1 Sunstalker alone
• +5.5 strength per attack on average (meaning you gain an average of 11+weapon strength+survivor strength) to wound rolls.
• 3 armor points to all locations
• Ability to remove the Priority target token
• Can walk through others at times
• Simple positioning skills required

Cons:

• Almost useless with sharp weapons
• Expensive due to hard to get monster specific resources
• 3 armor, which can get shredded by reactions and indirect damage easily
• Anti-synergy with Reach
• Evasion isn't that important on this set, so it's a bit wasted
• Monster has anti-flammable, anti-soluable mechanics.
• Requires the blind spot to work, means it is sometimes limited in application because of low number of blind spots, anti-blind spot mechanics (Gorm, Hand, King's Man) and monsters without a blind spot (Lonely Tree). This means you often have to move + attack to get the sharp benefit, but not always.
• High variance on strength bonus (between 1 and 10) makes it unpredictable. You will experience extreme failures far more than the other armor sets.

Summary:

Cycloid is your choice if you are inexperienced with positioning, or if you are a survivor who prefers to spend their time wielding non-reach weapons in the blind spot. It is the least effective of these three armor types for flank or front attacking. It is especially effective if you have the new Backstabber strain fighting art, that has made daggers a viable weapon type.

Phoenix

As we've always discussed in length before, there's a lot wrong with the Phoenix as a quarry and its armor is certainly a part of that equation. But as mentioned in the capstone article for the assessing armor series (see tag at the bottom of this post for more); Phoenix Armor is kind of a B tier armor overall, and with the right survivor it has the potential to be higher than that.  

This is because; while Phoenix Armor has awful affinities, and the monster is one of the most egregious in the game to fight because of it's ability at level 1 to completely erase an entire hunt team without any counter play and it's general aging mechanics - it does hold some power. However, making a full set of Phoenix Armor is a thankless task that can also decimate your settlement if you don't observe all the little 'rules' that the Phoenix makes you follow. It basically demands you jump through hoops and the people who ask things like 'why don't people like hunting the Phoenix, I love it' are players who have adapted to that and are fine with being so limited in their options.

If you do take the plunge and grind all the parts; what you get at the end is an armor set with 2 amazing pieces, 1 piece that's very powerful if you remain insane and two pieces that kinda exist. Plus a set bonus that lets you hit the hardest in the entire game. Potentially, on a sword master you can hit the following average wound roll:

46.5

That's 30 for the black sword, 10 for Charge with Harvestman, +1 for SotF and +5.5 for the wound roll. 

However, we all know the Black Sword is a silly weapon that's in a class of its own (Ivory Dragon Spanking Class). So, to be more realistic, on an almost newbie male survivor with nothing other a dance at the Choreia innovation, Phoenix Armor and a Lantern Glaive you can achieve this wound roll:

25.5

That's a 5.5 average wound roll, +10 for Charge with Harvestman while insane, +1 for SotF, +5.5 for sharp and +4 for the Lantern Glaive.  That's all stuff you can achieve with relative ease in the mid to late portion of the game, there's nothing special there, no need for anything other than gear and the Choreia innovation and you're rolling almost enough to wound the Lantern final boss on an average roll without the extra benefit that lantern gives you for the late game.

In truth, Phoenix Armor's synergy with the Harvestman fighting art is so strong that this is one of the few places where I recommend using male survivors on hunts. That's because of how the innovation works:

You should always make sure that you're fine with the male survivor being eaten, so generally you do this with newbies and plebs, but those who survive the dance become an incredibly strong base to work from. (Choreia is one of those innovations that's not really discussed too much in the general community and I'm looking to change that. It's absolutely worth the effort.)

In addition you're getting access to extra evasion from the helm and the amazing top tier ability that comes from the Phoenix Plackart - ignoring hits is good, especially with how it stacks on other things. 

It's just a shame that the Phoenix weapons are so weak outside of the archer options (and Finger of God is alright, but gets eclipsed by other spears quickly) and many of the other items are either situational (bird bread, bloom sphere) or limited in use/hard to get (Hours Ring, Crest Crown). The whole thing really does hold back the armor set, but for those of you who are wanting to do well in core game only experiences, Phoenix Armor has got you covered, because even then it'll give you a +7 strength bonus on your charges that combines just fine with sharp.

Pros:

• Charge strength bonus is massive, limited only by survivor movement and the size of the run up you can get - typically it is between +5, +7 and +10
• Charge stacks with Sharp
• Phoenix Plackart is amazing
• Evasion and insanity gains part of this set
• 5 armor on all locations as base, very durable
• Works really well with Reach
• High Synergy with the Sunshark Bow + Quiver & Sunstring
• Metal Helmet - allows for Oxidised Lantern Helm to be worn
• Courage gains from fighting Phoenix
• Good for dash cancelling

Cons:

• The monster is an absolute PITA to fight, easily the most variable of the four in the tier
• Terrible affinities
• Requires deep insanity pools to back it up.
• Flammable
• Needs iron to build
• Can be awkward to activate Charge, requires great positioning skills and patience
• No accuracy bonuses can mean Charge does nothing, which sucks when it typically takes two turns to set up

Summary:

If you are looking for a more durable 'bruiser' style of armor, this is a solid choice, especially because (currently) the Phoenix is an always present quarry in all of the campaigns we have.  However, you will need to become an expert at meeting the criteria for fighting the Phoenix (don't be too young, don't be too old, ageless helps, be insane, bring bandages etc etc) and this can be both taxing on the settlement and taxing for the players themselves.  

You'll also exhaust the pool of interesting items from the Phoenix quicker than most other monsters. This one is the choice for reach users who want to go with a tough armor set and don't mind the journey to getting it.

Dragon Armor

I love this set, and personally it's become my favoured choice of these three options. It currently is the most durable and tough non-heavy armor set in the game, and it has huge boosts for the hunt phase.

There's one other very special thing I'd like to mention about the Dragon King showdown, this guy poops out +stats like crazy and has a very strong SFA that's not that hard to get when compared to many other monster specific SFAs. You just need to survive being punched by one of his legendary AI cards.  

Pros:

• Toughest 'light armor' in the game right now
• Survival gain on arrival to showdown is incredible, this gives you two different sets of survival, one for the hunt and one for the showdown. Effectively "doubling" the survival limit.
• Metal Helmet - allows for Oxidised Lantern Helm to be worn 
• Ignores shattered jaw, which restores consume and encourage options
• Iron costs are mitgated by the high level of iron spawned by the Dragon King, meaning the armor set is the cheapest one on the list
• Dragon King fight is immense fun, the best showdown of the three listed here
• Lots of meaningful affinities
• +10% Protection from head severe injuries
• +2 Accuracy and +5 Strength  when using Leap is comparable to Shadow Walking
• Works with Sharp
• Synergy with Reach weapons
• Amazing with the Sunshark Bow
• Best armor for People of the Sun
• Leap has almost no issues vs. Sunstalker and Dragon King (4x4 monsters) you just jump from one side to the other over and over.
• +2 Extra movement during own act
• 5 armor points to all locations
•  Huge stat gains available from hunting the DK

Cons:

• Needs iron
• One flaw in the affinity layout means the waist piece is often not activated
• Dragon King hunt is not for the faint of heart - it can cause Murder
• Can be awkward to activate Leap against smaller monsters
• Can feel a little 'bland' as only the head, chest and set bonus are really impressive on the abilities front
• Not good for dash cancelling, unlike Phoenix armor
• Not great without Reach or Sunshark Bow + Quiver & Sun String
• Requires good positioning skills (but more forgiving than Phoenix)

Summary:

If you're wanting a hard wearing set of armor that's not going to have you fall down the cracks which will reward you while you hunt it (overall the gains from the DK showdown offset the punishment the hunt provides as long as you manage Murder with Savior murderbait or similar) then the Dragon Armor is my armor of choice for all weapons that I do not want to be tanking with or especially using the Sunshark Bow or Reach weapons.

Conclusion:

So, for myself my priority when picking what armors is to use when I have the choice of all three of these revolves around what I want to be using and what I want to be hunting. But in general, because I like to take Sunstalker and Dragon King as quarrys together (because of the high synergy between the two) I will typically take 1x Cycloid Scale for one DPS and 1x Dragon Armor for the other DPS. This gives two different attacking play styles and also ensures that I'm not completely hosed by unexpected events. All eggs, one basket, you know.

I still remain Phoenix shy because of its aging mechanics, however the armor set becomes very desirable when you are playing People of the Lantern and you are approaching the post-Watcher world.  It is one of the few sets that can reliably reach the number you need to threaten the Final Final Nemesis naturally.

Here in cute graph form is the average wounding rolls for a selection of meta weapons (and the Nuclear Knife + Red Core because I left it in by accident) on each of these armor sets vs the four toughnesses for the DBK (my typical benchmark late game monster). Providing a visual aid that demonstrates the difference between each armor and the impact they do or do not have on average wounding chances.

This is just the average rolls, the variance on the cycloid and sharp portions in general is a lot higher than the portion added by Phoenix/Dragon. Consistency matters, don't let anyone pretend otherwise.

You can see that overall in this selection there's more benefit from Leap and Phoenix despite their activation limitations. So it's very much a case by case basis, with the right choice varying depending on the survivor, the monster and the weapon used. There is no argument that overall Cycloid Scale is the easiest to use for most players as its skill floor is lower than just about every single other armor set in the game, but to dismiss the other two is to limit oneself and options immensely. 

Personally, give me the consistency of Dragon Armor any day over the other options.

Honorable Mentions:

The Screaming Armor is also a common choice for DPS survivors, and it's very powerful in many ways, but it doesn't achieve the sheer high strength that we're looking for in these DPS survivors. In fact 'slam' is more of a utility/support/debuffing ability that just happens to have some synergy with spears because Slam works without attacking.  Personally, late game, I'm using the either the Lantern Glaive or Rainbow Katana & Blood Sheath most of the time with Screaming Armor, most other options feel better on one of the above three.  Screaming Armor often feels best as a tanking or hybrid DPS/support set because of the utility it provides.

Lantern Armor is the superior choice to get sharp onto clubs, however the armor set is best used by a tank because it's very expensive. Also, it's sadly heavy - which is not an issue until it is and then it's a game destroying problem. While we are on that topic, something that's worth noting is all three of the previous armor sets are not heavy, so they dodge a lot of nasty things that could cause problems for the survivor. Lantern doesn't do that, and while it's a really well balanced and correctly costed armor set - it's not really your first choice for someone who isn't going to be "front line". 

Leather in my opinion isn't really a DPS set (outside of it's Vagabond form), it's more of a Grand Weapon tanking set, in particular when combined with the Silk Body Suit or a bruiser style set because of its synergy with Monster Grease and the Leather Shield. Warlord armor is a viable option for axe users, though it lends itself towards a deadly playing style, so it's not that relevant here.  Likewise the other hybrid sets Dancer and Vagabond are very powerful if you have access to them, but they do not give extreme strength bonuses outside of the Vagabond's broken interactions with the Black Sword.