Is Armor Worth It? Interesting Numbers

[BMJedi]

So, I was really curious about game behavior I've been observing in MM 6, 7, and 8 about enemy hit rate versus armor class. So, I looked up the formula.

It's (Monster Level * 2 + 5) divided by (Monster Level * 2 + 10 + Player Armor Class)

That alone didn't tell me much. What exactly does, for example, AC 25 do for you, vs. AC 50, or AC 100? And, is it worth it to give up dual wielding or attack bonuses in favor of armor class?

I started plugging in a lot of numbers to the formula. Monster level 10 vs. AC 25. Monster level 25 vs. AC 50. Monster level 50 vs. AC 100. And also lower level monsters vs. very high AC.

I discovered something very, very interesting about the statistical curve I got.

No matter the monster level or the AC, the monster's base chance to hit before taking into account any armor was 95 to 98 percent. AC 50 started approaching a mathematical limit of 75% vs. just about any monster level. AC 100 started approaching a mathematical limit of 50% vs. just about any monster level.

Conclusions? It looks like no matter how much AC you put together, the highest level monsters are *always* going to have a 50/50 chance to hit you, vs. a 3/4 chance if you wear light armor, and close to 100% if you wear no armor at all.

So, considering that armor slows you down and reduces your attack rate, is it worth it to ever wear heavy armor or use shields? Higher dps seems better, because if you kill them faster they will stop swinging sooner.

Does Might and Magic basically follow the "Armor is Useless" trope, then?

[BMJedi]

Quick addendum - It occurred to me that the very complicated monster to hit formula works out to being reduceable to rolling a d4 to hit. Interesting.

[Bandobras Took]

I think you're forgetting the big picture.

Plate and Chain both reduce damage from physical attacks. That's a pretty valid reason to use them, with the added AC making the wearer a bit more survivable in the long run.

I do agree, though, that it would be nice to see games where heavy armor was actually the key to not taking a lot of damage, period.

[BMJedi]

@Bandobras, are you sure about that? All the sources I can find say that armor provides no damage reduction at all, only a reduction in enemy chance to hit, and the damage I see in the game seems to bear that out. Where are you getting your information? Mine came from here:

https://grayface.github.io/mm/mechanics/

Notice that this is the same Grayface who made the famous patches for all three games.

Edit: Oh, wait, I was playing specifically MM6 at this time. I just remembered about MM7 and MM8 changes - you must be referring to that. In MM6, though, I don't think there's any damage reduction from heavy armor.

[Bandobras Took]

Yes, but MM6 has many, many issues regarding class and skill balance anyway.

MM7 & MM8 are indeed what I was referring to, with the GM levels.

[Xfing]

100 isn't a very impressive number to get. What about 200? Will it still be just a flat 50% chance to be hit? You can hit 200 on all classes except maybe Wizards/Liches because the Staff of Elements has a significant AC penalty, but otherwise you can really stack up a high AC with enchanted apparel such as belts, cloaks, rings etc.

[Bandobras Took]

No matter the monster level or the AC, the monster's base chance to hit before taking into account any armor was 95 to 98 percent. AC 50 started approaching a mathematical limit of 75% vs. just about any monster level. AC 100 started approaching a mathematical limit of 50% vs. just about any monster level.

I've thought about this some more.

Conclusions? It looks like no matter how much AC you put together, the highest level monsters are *always* going to have a 50/50 chance to hit you, vs. a 3/4 chance if you wear light armor, and close to 100% if you wear no armor at all.

So, considering that armor slows you down and reduces your attack rate, is it worth it to ever wear heavy armor or use shields? Higher dps seems better, because if you kill them faster they will stop swinging sooner.

Does Might and Magic basically follow the "Armor is Useless" trope, then?

I don't think so. There are a few nuances in MM6 that make plate+shield well superior to leather and no shield. (I think we can agree that getting hit only 50% of the time is well superior to being hit 100% of the time.)

First, Shield Mastery adds armor at a superior rate compared to the armor skills (3 AC/point for shield vs 1 AC/point for armor types).

Second, and related to the first, Plate Mastery only requires the 4 skill points (because you have to become an expert first). Both Leather and Chain require skill rank 10 for Mastery. This means that plate armor costs the *least* in terms of skill points to reach no recovery penalty (to the tune of 45 extra points to work with). This is crucial, because, as noted, getting AC through armor skills isn't a very good return on the investment.

Finally, Axe+Shield has merit. Axe skill reduces recovery time and increases attack and damage. Sword skill does not increase damage. Spear skill does not reduce recovery time and adds AC at a lower rate than the shield skill. Sinking points into Sword+Spear doesn't strike me as vastly outstripping sinking points into Axe+Shield.

[Tress]

I may be wrong in my calculations below but what i feel is that armor skill in general is not worth too much aside from benefits that skills give like flat damage reduction of plate/chain or recovery rate elimination, i think main benefit is reduced recovery time. Extra armor class is not that much, also in general monster auto attacks except some like sword masters are not main problem, most monster have main damage done by spells or special skills, also difference between huge armor and lower armor i think is aproximately 20-30 % to hit chance which is not so big. That said i am sure there is alot more relevant stats like recovery rate which scale much better.

Finally, Axe+Shield has merit. Axe skill reduces recovery time and increases attack and damage. Sword skill does not increase damage. Spear skill does not reduce recovery time and adds AC at a lower rate than the shield skill. Sinking points into Sword+Spear doesn't strike me as vastly outstripping sinking points into Axe+Shield.

A said above, i dont really see armor class as too beneficial for reason of not being too efective thus shield can be of limited use to begind with, unless you dont have anything useful to put in off hand other than that, you get 1 point per skill and it needs to compete with monster level that can be as high as 100 , which is miniscule against that and monster auto attacks are not really most dangerous thing.

As for axe and sword - extra damage is nice but does really even 10+ damage is better than faster attack(lets say on 80 damages its some 13 % advantage, less if you have better weapons, or more if better). It needs to be noted that sword have inbuilt 10 recovery rate advantage against axe, which can be really important. Lets take more extreme case , at same skill when sword speed would be caped at 30 axe would have 40 it would bet almost 30 % advantage, which would also scale along with all other stats like high str, weapon enchantment etc. So in my opinion recovery rate trumps all other stats by huge margin. This is also reason why daggers are so good even for magic class , not to mention thief's which become deadly at master.
So all in all , i think main priority aside from getting 10 in skill for Gm for melee classes (or whatever is cap for class) is to push everything in armaster or weapon skill that increases speed. Other bonuses just dont scale that well. If you somehow reach RR cap, i think your team is already Gods among st man and it no longer matters what your stats are, it will just take extra round to terminate enemy.

[Bandobras Took]

Armsmaster is without a doubt the way to go and makes dual-wield a no-brainer.

However, as I mentioned, I was talking about MM6 in my last post, wherein Armsmaster doesn't exist. Without Armsmaster, swords aren't getting any bonus damage whatsoever, nor are daggers(other than a tripling of the *dagger's* damage, according to Grayface). Spears aren't getting recovery.

So in MM6, Axes at 10 Master are doing 10 extra damage/hit over Swords at the same. According to Grayface, if you're doing Spear+Sword, you're not getting any bonus damage because the skill used for damage calculation is going to be the Sword skill. And that damage bonus is only going to keep improving.

As you recommended pumping a skill that reduces recovery, I'll note that Expert Axe reduces recovery.

also difference between huge armor and lower armor i think is aproximately 20-30 % to hit chance which is not so big.

We're going to have to agree to disagree on that one. Not getting hit an extra 20-30% is *huge*.

[Kinox]

The discussion is interesting. As I'm a more Magic oriented player, I'll have to add a 'bold' contribution to it.

Although much can be thought about Skill Points strategical investment in MM6, MM7, MM8;
Nonethless, there is one unobserved fact here which, at least from my player perspective ('Magic & Might'), might set some decisions:

It's that, wearing Armor in these games means the possibility of equipping 1 extra slot of Magic item to a character — this means A LOT! Some
Enchantments are quite powerful and utilitiful, not to mention the possibility of finding good Armors as Artifacts/Relics).
For example, who wouldn't like a piece of enchanted item which gives +25 Resistance to [1 Element] or +10 to All Resistances (one can even stack these!), or Immunity to Sleep/Stone/etc., or even prevents from falling or drawning (what about 'Of Recovery' Enchantment? I'm not sure how it works, but it might reconfigure the way to spend Skill Points in Armor, if obtaining Master Level (or more) in Armor is way too expensive Skill Points wise — I personally seldom think it is, but of course I pay a price for this: sluggishness; curiously enough, Armor Skill is one of the LAST things I ever care to develop, even though I tend to equip Armor on all my characters whenever possible ), and indeed I should be considering doing this a little less.

Anyhow, the point here is that this simple 1 extra Magic item slot can make a lot of difference in your character or party if well used. However, it is likely that in certain conditions (where Enchantments are still weak or unlucky), wearing No Armor might be a better choice; or maybe for that mighty body-builded Knight (maybe in any or most part of the game): 'better leave the Armor using for the other fellows, for I stick to the "cloak-and-sword" tradition.'

[raekuul]

SPEAKING ONLY ABOUT MM6

In the early game, Armor is less helpful than it could be because of the speed issue (to get it fixed you have to invest skill points, which you need those for your offense at this point).

In the middle game, Armor is incredibly helpful for Knights and Paladins - as mentioned, for 9 skill points and a fly spell and killing a dragon and being smart about Nicolai, you get Plate Mastery, which eliminates your recovery penalty - and moderately helpful for other classes, primarily as a source of enchantments.

In the late game, everything hits with 99% accuracy anyway, so unless you can stack Power or Immunities or relevant resistances, you're back to "less helpful than it could be"

[Tress]

We're going to have to agree to disagree on that one. Not getting hit an extra 20-30% is *huge*.

In a online game or pvp without doubt , but i mm auto attacks from monster are far from most dangers you encounter. Sure there happens to be sweet spot where it matters , but lets quickly take example of free haven. Archer enemies usualy chip away health slowly with or without armor , and high armor will let you stay for few more rounds, but what makes game is that at some point you get hit by fire ball from green archer monster, and that is completely different level of interaction, where armor doesn't matter.
As for swords / axes . Probably for high skill levels axe would outperform(in theory) , but as far as i noticed, swords have better selection , and skill advantage doesnt matter even if you get extra 10+ damage from skill(would be noticeable on 20-30 but that is huge investment by which point it doesnt matter anymore, but on some 10 skill which on lets say 70-90 damage isnt as much) so everything comes back to recovery rates and fact that dual wield allows for better enchantments.

[Bandobras Took]

In the late game, everything hits with 99% accuracy anyway, so unless you can stack Power or Immunities or relevant resistances, you're back to "less helpful than it could be"

Unless Grayface was lying, this is false. Nor has it been my experience.

but i mm auto attacks from monster are far from most dangers you encounter. Sure there happens to be sweet spot where it matters , but lets quickly take example of free haven. Archer enemies usualy chip away health slowly with or without armor , and high armor will let you stay for few more rounds, but what makes game is that at some point you get hit by fire ball from green archer monster, and that is completely different level of interaction, where armor doesn't matter.

Since one can have both armor and resistances, I'm not sure why it matters that archers will eventually cast fireball on you. That's like arguing that fire resistance is worthless because some enemies use cold or lightning attacks.

Going back to that "Few more rounds" idea, that's the whole point. Your damage output drops to zero when you're dead. I'm not certain there's any point in the game where enemy auto-attacks cease to matter. Indeed, given raekuul's comment, there seems to be some sort of circular reasoning going on here: "Enemies always hit you, so don't bother with high armor." Enemies hit you *more* when you don't bother with high armor.

[Tress]

Since one can have both armor and resistances, I'm not sure why it matters that archers will eventually cast fireball on you. That's like arguing that fire resistance is worthless because some enemies use cold or lightning attacks.

Going back to that "Few more rounds" idea, that's the whole point. Your damage output drops to zero when you're dead. I'm not certain there's any point in the game where enemy auto-attacks cease to matter. Indeed, given raekuul's comment, there seems to be some sort of circular reasoning going on here: "Enemies always hit you, so don't bother with high armor." Enemies hit you *more* when you don't bother with high armor.

My point is that auto attacks from monsters are usually not comparable to spell attacks in terms of impact. Armor helps only for part thats not exactly that dangerous. Only time i really remember auto attacks taking me out before i can really do anything are masters of sword when they are tossed relatively early at you. When you are fighting speaker of the dead, the most you need to worry about is hit from dragon breath, not their auto attacks.
Are armor useless - no , is it worth to push into really high armor in hopes that you will be invincible and 90 (also hardly attainable number for high end monsters)% will miss you - hell no since those will be 90 from 40 % of damage you can potentially take. So in the end - yes , decent armor class is necessary, you cant go naked unless you are monk, but pushing it in my opinion is bit of an waste,

[raekuul]

Going back to that "Few more rounds" idea, that's the whole point. Your damage output drops to zero when you're dead. I'm not certain there's any point in the game where enemy auto-attacks cease to matter. Indeed, given raekuul's comment, there seems to be some sort of circular reasoning going on here: "Enemies always hit you, so don't bother with high armor." Enemies hit you *more* when you don't bother with high armor.

I said "less helpful than it could be" rather than "useless." Consider The Hive - scores upon scores of kreegan, most of whom are making base attacks, but with each set there's one or two casting Incinerate with every round. You still do want the best armor you can get by this point - Plate Mastery is basically free, especially if you have a Paladin, while other armors are mastered at only rank 7, so by this point there's no reason not to have your mastery. However, you're also wearing enchanted armor, and it's the enchantments on the armor more than the armor itself that's important (since basically every chest after Castle Darkmoor drops top tier armor). In the ideal scenario, the armor itself is protecting you from the base attacks and is providing enchantments that make it easier to deal with the kreegan casting Incinerate.

However, armor is also large in the inventory, so it's impractical to carry around an extra set of armor for each character to have the best enchantments for each situation (unlike rings and amulets, where you can change what you need on the fly), so your armor enchantment has to be something generalized. Since base attacks get less and less relevant as you go deeper into the game, your armor's enchantments will move away from defensive ones and towards ones that make you more effective in combat.

(Base attacks are never completely irrelevant, but except for two enemy types the deadliest attacks aren't base attacks anyway and half of them ignore armor class on top of it by virtue of being spells such as Incinerate).

[Bandobras Took]

Speaker For The Dead isn't a MM6 Monster. Keep in mind, I'm talking about MM6.

Okay; I did some testing, and here's an oddity:

It looks like anything with a *ranged* non-physical auto-attack ignores Armor Class entirely. *Druid* enemies will hit you at 100% no matter your armor class.

However, go fight a bunch of ghosts, which have a non-ranged non-physcial auto-attack, and they can't hit you. (So far as I can tell, Ghost and Medusa classes are the only ones with a hand-to-hand non-physical attack.)

That does mean that resistances take center stage at the end game. It isn't that auto-attacks aren't doing the bulk of the damage, it's just that the auto-attacks you face seem to bypass armor class entirely.

I do wonder if that was intentional. It brings to mind Dragon PCs in MM8 always hitting with their default attack.

[Kinox]

I do wonder if that was intentional. It brings to mind Dragon PCs in MM8 always hitting with their default attack.

I was thinking on that also.

Must consider too that, there is an AD&D influence on M&M series.
Therefore, in AD&D, lots of magical attacks (e.g., arcane spells), such as 'Magic Missiles' and 'Fireball', instantly hit, it's not like the caster mage is 'aiming' like an physical ranged-weapon such as an arrow (although there are also the case of arcane spells which work like that: 'Acid Arrow').
In MM6 they've developed the 2 possibilities as in AD&D logic. So for example, Cold Beam (Water Magic spell) always hit the target (unless it is blocked by an obstacle or the enemy 'walks away', which has nothing to do with AC, it's more like a M&M engine gameplay issue passible of exploitation); while Spirit Arrow (and other 'Arrow' spells) is magical attack but requires hit against enemy's AC.

So, Druids always hit, Dragons always hit; because they are like casting instant hit spells such at Cold Beam.

[Tress]

Speaker For The Dead isn't a MM6 Monster. Keep in mind, I'm talking about MM6.

Okay; I did some testing, and here's an oddity:

It looks like anything with a *ranged* non-physical auto-attack ignores Armor Class entirely. *Druid* enemies will hit you at 100% no matter your armor class.

However, go fight a bunch of ghosts, which have a non-ranged non-physcial auto-attack, and they can't hit you. (So far as I can tell, Ghost and Medusa classes are the only ones with a hand-to-hand non-physical attack.)

That does mean that resistances take center stage at the end game. It isn't that auto-attacks aren't doing the bulk of the damage, it's just that the auto-attacks you face seem to bypass armor class entirely.

I do wonder if that was intentional. It brings to mind Dragon PCs in MM8 always hitting with their default attack.

Well i quoted it just because i remember mm7 better than 6, but point remains same, mm6 have same level of monsters, in fact I would say mm6 have it worse because it doesn't have get out of jail free card of protection from magic, which nullifies one if hardest danger that armor doesn't mitigate.
As for mm8 dragon , i believe thats an oversight as mm8 was made in haste and it have a lot of issues , just the dragon flame is something thats very notable. It certainly is its own form of damage, as it can kill even brinnes tombs inhabitants which should be immune.

[Kinox]

… in fact I would say mm6 have it worse because it doesn't have get out of jail free card of protection from magic, which nullifies one if hardest danger that armor doesn't mitigate.
As for mm8 dragon , i believe thats an oversight as mm8 was made in haste and it have a lot of issues , just the dragon flame is something thats very notable. It certainly is its own form of damage, as it can kill even brinnes tombs inhabitants which should be immune.

The MM8 Dragon Class's basic attack might be a special case in the series… But who knows?
I've just tried Grandmaster ID Monster at those peasants you've mentioned in Ravenshore's Lord Brinne's Tomb, and what it says about their Resistances is that they have complete Immunity — to everything, including Physical. They still are targetable and Stun spell provokes them into a standing hit animation . It really seem that the Dragon Class basic attack (at least in MM8) has something special which trespasses normal rules of Magical and Physical Resistances. That's really odd stuff.

In MM7 and MM8, although there is the possibility of using the very valuable sṕell Protection from Magic in its new form,
at the same time, it just takes an Expert Level in Leather Armor in order to eliminate the recovery penalty; and every class (except for Dragons in MM8, naturally) can become, at least, Expert in Leather. That might signify that Leather Armor gets a bit more interesting on those later games.

[Bandobras Took]

Well i quoted it just because i remember mm7 better than 6, but point remains same, mm6 have same level of monsters, in fact I would say mm6 have it worse because it doesn't have get out of jail free card of protection from magic, which nullifies one if hardest danger that armor doesn't mitigate.
As for mm8 dragon , i believe thats an oversight as mm8 was made in haste and it have a lot of issues , just the dragon flame is something thats very notable. It certainly is its own form of damage, as it can kill even brinnes tombs inhabitants which should be immune.

Actually, I don't believe monsters with non-physical ranged attacks (e.g. Warlocks in Nighon) automatically hit in MM7 (I could be wrong; haven't tested). Between that and the physical damage reduction/elemental resistances offered by the various armor types, MM7 has armor in a pretty good spot, overall.