Padded Armour Is Best In Game

[edyonline]

The movement is unbeatable. I just did a day 35 horde night with a steel sledge, fighting on the road. Barely got hit, and destroyed the horde with ease.

 

The movement serves two purposes. One it lets you dodge anything. Two it draws out zombie strikes. Once they miss, then it’s easy to line up the sledge swing of choice.

 

I just respected from a strength build, to a strength/fortitude hybrid, because I got a t6 M60. So I dropped shotgun for machine gun, took both sledge and club, and pain tolerance. What an unbeatable build.

 

TBH I didn’t even need the club, so probably wasted 5 points. It’s just that I maxed the books for it. I tried it, and it seems a little broken. But you can only hit one at a time. I’ll have to test it out questing, I’m sure it will come in handy.

 

I was having issues with stamina, swinging the sledge as a pure strength build. But the stamina from landing machine gun hits is phenomenal. And more than makes up for it.

 

I leveled using steel armour. But it’s way too slow, even with 5 points in heavy armour and all pieces using movement mods. I usually use padded, but I thought I’d try something different. And I’m convinced padded armour is top tier.

 

Does anyone else use padded armour with all their builds?

[zztong]

3 hours ago, edyonline said:

Does anyone else use padded armour with all their builds?

 

Yep, until I can kit out military armor with the right mods. I like mobility and stealth.

[AH64_Jimbo]

8 minutes ago, zztong said:

Yep, until I can kit out military armor with the right mods. I like mobility and stealth.

Same; I usually stick with padded armor until I can get decent military armor. Padded armor doesn't have the best protection, but it provides the best mobility in the game. IMO, you're spending more time moving around than getting hit by zombies, so it makes more sense to have an armor that doesn't slow you down.

[8_Hussars]

7 hours ago, edyonline said:

I leveled using steel armour. But it’s way too slow, even with 5 points in heavy armour and all pieces using movement mods. I usually use padded, but I thought I’d try something different. And I’m convinced padded armour is top tier.

 

Does anyone else use padded armour with all their builds?

Very Interesting.  I generally use light armour but have been considering moving to Heavy.  As Urban Combat #6  "Armor doesn't slow you down in combat" seemed to invalidate any light armor combat advantage.   Notwithstanding light armor has advantages outside of combat.

[ElDudorino]

The speed penalty from heavy armor is less punishing than the numbers lead you to believe. In a straight foot race yes padded armor wins but once you have vehicles, how many foot races are you getting caught up in? In your base and in PoIs you probably aren't sprinting much and outside you're on a vehicle, so really the hit to your speed doesn't affect much. As for combat, I don't know about the rest of you but I'm not sprinting there either. I'm lining em up and knocking em down. Plus there's the book perk as mentioned.

[theFlu]

8 minutes ago, ElDudorino said:

In your base and in PoIs you probably aren't sprinting much

Why wouldn't I, every time there's more stamina in the bar than there is empty? Standing at base, staring at camp fire; what do I get from the heavy armor then? Other than "25%" more time spent waddling over from box to box - it affects walking speed too.

 

The book is OP, it single-handedly wins the fighting part of the equation in favor of heavy. But I like clearing things in stealth, and that isn't as easily overcome.. and I like fast paced fights, it's a choice for early game. Might not be optimal in some sense, but once you're used to moving at a 100 all the time, going 70 for scrap armor is like walking in a swamp..

 

I also skip the bicycle for its inconvenience, bike wins A-to-B over walking, but loses A-to-birdnest!-back-to-bike-duffel-bag!-back-to-bike-wheredidIparkIT-vendingmachine!-damn.fence-backtobike-B ... That often means I'm running everywhere for a week or two, if not Trader-looping for higher tier transports. And once I'm used to it, there's no swapping to heavy until late game with the book and full fittings. Which I often just forget to do ...

[zztong]

It's the stealth that's important to me. I don't sprint a lot either because of vehicles or just that I like to keep stamina available. Indeed, I'm likely to crawl through a POI. I should try a game with heavy armor just for the perspective.

[edyonline]

1 hour ago, 8_Hussars said:

Very Interesting.  I generally use light armour but have been considering moving to Heavy.  As Urban Combat #6  "Armor doesn't slow you down in combat" seemed to invalidate any light armor combat advantage.   Notwithstanding light armor has advantages outside of combat.

Yeah it’s good for horde night. End game I usually have two sets. Full padded and a full steel set for horde night. But I usually forget to switch lol.

 

46 minutes ago, ElDudorino said:

The speed penalty from heavy armor is less punishing than the numbers lead you to believe. In a straight foot race yes padded armor wins but once you have vehicles, how many foot races are you getting caught up in? In your base and in PoIs you probably aren't sprinting much and outside you're on a vehicle, so really the hit to your speed doesn't affect much. As for combat, I don't know about the rest of you but I'm not sprinting there either. I'm lining em up and knocking em down. Plus there's the book perk as mentioned.

I found the difference very noticeable. Especially when playing Brawler, I get hit more often, which kind of defeats the purpose of wearing more armour.

 

I can even notice the difference between a fully kitted military armour with perks, and padded. Running through raiding POIs and in general is quicker.

Brawler is a lot like boxing, where you want to stand right in front of your opponent, but not get hit. 
 

I always use pain tolerance too. Because if you get stunned in padded armour, your as good as dead. Plus it makes up for the armour loss, enough that your not having a heart attack every time you get hit.

[Callum123456789]

I use padded as it works out more stamina used equals more food used to regen stamina so padded is a must for me eventually I get military kitted out so the debuffs are less punishing not only that I have a farm often by then to have a sustainable source of food.

 

 

 

 

[Riamus]

I've never been much in favor of light armor and don't do stealth at all, so never had much need for the benefit it provides for that.  Yes, you can run faster.  Yet I also don't wear the jacket or shoes that add speed either.  Sure, they make a noticeable difference and in many cases, that can be very nice.  But I like not having to try and be clever in getting through a big fight with a bunch of bobbing and weaving.  I prefer just to go in and kill things.  (I'm almost always a fighter/warrior (aka tank) build in games, at least for my first character).  So I go steel as soon as I can.  That said, I do use light armor (or none) until I have a bike because the stamina lost running around is a real pain in heavy armor in the beginning.  After the first few days (or week at most), I'll generally level enough to not have to worry about stamina and can go heavy armor and steel spear without worrying about running out of stamina unless I do actually start running or jumping a lot, which isn't too common once I have a vehicle.  And once I have full tier 6 steel armor, I can take so many hits without dying that I rarely have to work too hard avoiding being hit.  Of course, with the spear (especially steel), I usually kill anything without being hit without any difficulty and when things do get busy, that's what guns are for.

[ElDudorino]

1 hour ago, zztong said:

It's the stealth that's important to me. I don't sprint a lot either because of vehicles or just that I like to keep stamina available. Indeed, I'm likely to crawl through a POI. I should try a game with heavy armor just for the perspective.

 

You might be surprised by how much "stealth" you can pull off in the heaviest armor with no skill investment. Zombies in PoIs don't wake up from noise for the most part, so you can sprint up to a closet and smash it open from maximum melee range (just outside the trigger for the jump scare attempt) and the zombie will just stand there waiting for you to crouch and get that stealth bonus.

 

The main place you'll get into trouble is with outdoor zombies in the wasteland downtown at night. They'll hear you and then you've got a mini-horde on your hands. I just choose not to engage with the wasteland until I'm ready for war.

[Roland]

I use padded exclusively until I can replace it with military part by part.

[warmer]

I am a stealth/ranged build and I can count the times I have used heavy armor on 1 hand. I hate the speed reduction.

 

Light armor or medium with full movement mods, or at the very least no speed reduction

[Old Crow]

Full padded 4 lyfe! Not even full military (military stealth boots) with mobility and muffled connectors gives you as much mobility and stealth as a set of padded.

[Blasphemous]

I used to replace padded with military once I started getting level 6 parts but not anymore.

Like the OP said, unrestricted movement is crucial but so is sneaking for my (usually) stealth builds.

On top of that, repair with a piece of cloth instead of a repair kit. Fun.

[RipClaw]

I'm more of a heavy armor type. But even with the heavy armor you can be just as mobile as with the padded armor. You just have to put the improved fitting mod into each piece of armor and specialize in heavy armor. If you then wear the baseball jacket, you're even a little faster than if you were running around without armor.

 

[zztong]

8 hours ago, Old Crow said:

Full padded 4 lyfe! Not even full military (military stealth boots) with mobility and muffled connectors gives you as much mobility and stealth as a set of padded.

 

Yeh, but eventually I want to wear something other than a throw rug.

[ElDudorino]

51 minutes ago, zztong said:

 

Yeh, but eventually I want to wear something other than a throw rug.

 

Of course, gotta look good when you're chopping up zombies and scrounging around in garbage bins.

[hiemfire]

10 hours ago, RipClaw said:

I'm more of a heavy armor type. But even with the heavy armor you can be just as mobile as with the padded armor. You just have to put the improved fitting mod into each piece of armor and specialize in heavy armor. If you then wear the baseball jacket, you're even a little faster than if you were running around without armor.

 

No you can't be "just as mobile", you can just get kind of close to the baseline that padded is at. Also Padded isn't just about the speed you can move (which can get stupidly fast with the special running shoes, college jacket, steroids and megacrush stacked, on foot you out run the bicycle, on the bicycle you outrun the minibike. You can't do that in heavy even with the improved fittings mods). It is also how long you can keep moving before needing to rest, how much noise you make while moving, how much food and water you burn through moving and how much you can carry while moving. Relative only to just using non-armor hat, pants, shirt, jacket and boots for the last one, the rest apply to every other armor set in the game currently. If it wasn't for the stinking pocket mods full Non-armor would trump full Padded Armor for stealth and mobility builds with nothing in str. Str has Pack Mule.

Edited March 28, 2023 by hiemfire (see edit history)

[Old Crow]

12 hours ago, zztong said:

 

Yeh, but eventually I want to wear something other than a throw rug.

 

Fair enough. I guess ghillie pieces might offset some of the stealth lost from using military armour.

[canadianbluebeer]

I'll stick with my heavy steel armor, M60s and steel knuckles.

 

They can kill me, but they gotta WORK for it! 

 

(btw, once fully perked, including the books, steel armor + gogojuice crush == queue up the benny hill music. Even in steel armor, it's silly.)

(fun, but silly)

 

 

[Kazgrel]

If I'm running an agi build, I stick with padded until getting some good armor mods, then I begin moving into military pieces unless I manage to high roll on a g6 leather piece.

 

Loosely related to the topic: What do we think needs to be done to make leather armor more appealing?  I'd say cut the movement/stam penalties down since it already offers a decent armor rating jump over padded.  By the time military armor is showing up, advanced muffled connectors should also be dropping/available.

[zztong]

1 hour ago, Kazgrel said:

Loosely related to the topic: What do we think needs to be done to make leather armor more appealing?  I'd say cut the movement/stam penalties down since it already offers a decent armor rating jump over padded.  By the time military armor is showing up, advanced muffled connectors should also be dropping/available.

 

I think that's an interesting question. I don't think I've ever used Leather armor. I don't usually have all of the armor mods that I'd want until around the time I'm getting high-end military armor.

 

I think there would be an opportunity to stretch out armor progression over many more player levels. Combine that with some tweaks to the leather armor penalties to be more of a compromise between padded and military, and perhaps leather armor would be more than something to sell to a trader.

[theFlu]

3 hours ago, Kazgrel said:

What do we think needs to be done to make leather armor more appealing?

For me, the armor difference is so small that any reasonable weakness on leather is pretty much always too much. Add the quality difference and mods and Padded will win.

 

One option might be to make them .. "conditionally different". For example, take away the ability to put pockets in Padded. That way, if you want to haul plenty of stuff around, you're better off in leathers. If you want max speed in light loads, padded. Makes no sense logically, but it would at least make it a decision.

[hiemfire]

11 hours ago, theFlu said:

For example, take away the ability to put pockets in Padded.

 

The pockets are padded armor's only real bonus over not wearing armor at all since it's crit and damage mitigation are so small that they don't really help. Pull the ability to put pockets in padded armor and then there is really no point to the armor.