Unread postby Xfing » 07 Aug 2016, 09:53
Half physical damage is a good perk to have for sure. But AC gives you a chance to avoid an attack. These two shouldn't be counted as things in opposition to each other, but rather as things that synergize with each other.
At a high enough level of dodging and leather, a GM dodger with a master-skill leather equipped will inevitably overtake a GM in plate, especially since you only get +1 AC per point of skill in Plate, so not many people really feel the need to go above 10 with it.
In MM7 the best leather by base defense is Hareck's, which if memory serves gives +30 AC. With GM Leather at 60 you get +120 to armor class and +50 to elemental resists (there's -10 on the armor itself), so your total AC is 150, and that's not even counting boots, gauntlets, helmets and cloaks, let alone any potential "of Defense" enchantments you might have on you.
GM Plate only gives you +60 AC at most, as does GM in Chain, so with best base defense items in the game you can get as much as +120 and +96 to AC from those, respectively, with a nice physical damage reduction too.
The strongest chars defensively, though, are those who can combine more than one type of armor effectively, and have at least one and preferably two skills that scale better than +1 per point of skill. Knights, Paladins and Clerics in MM7 get Shield Mastery, which doubles AC gains per skill point. The Monk can combine a +3 per skill point skill with a +2 per skill point skill, and even throw in Staff if he feels like it, which I'm not sure if still contributes to AC from the Expert perk when used along with Unarmed - that whole thing is admittedly quite buggy.
In MM8 the Vampire has the potential to have some pretty amazing defenses given enough investment, with both Leather and Shield mastery, though most prefer to go for dual Daggers for better offense anyway. You get a lot of flexibility with how you want to build your Vampire, with both a scaling damage and a scaling AC option. Still, level 200 will be your upper limit anyway.
In MM7 the Knight is also the only class to combine Master Leather with Master Shield, and that could prove really OP should someone decide to go for it. Truth is, however, that at around 150 AC not many monsters, if any, can still hit you reliably, and any class can get there with bonuses or skill investment, regardless of their skill level limitations.
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