armor class

Contents:
  1. Function
  2. Calculation
  3. Upgrading
  4. PR Weight
  5. Strategy and Comments

Function

Armor Class (AC) is a measurement of an armor's effectiveness at blocking damage from an opponent's attack. Each piece of armor has an AC statistic, and the amount of damage blocked for each minion is based on the total AC of the armor they are wearing.

AC is displayed in the following manner:

[base] (+enchantment)

For example, A Buckler [6] (+5) has a base AC of 6 and an enchantment AC of 5. When an opponent attacks with physical damage, the AC of the armor is the total of both the base and the enchantment numbers. When an opponent attacks with magic, the AC is only based on the enchantment number. In the above example, an attack with a Katana would be blocked by an AC of 11, whereas an attack with Fireball would only be blocked by an AC of 5.

Each minion has an AC statistic on the fight page that reflects the combined total AC of their armor.

Calculation

Calculating the protection from AC is a bit complex:

  • Multiply base AC by a random amount from 100-200%. Subtract this value from the damage. *
  • For physical damage, reduce the remaining damage by approximately 0.167% for each point of AC (base value and plus value).
  • For magic damage, reduce the remaining damage by approximately 0.167% for each point of AC enchantment only (plus value).

The exception to this is that enchantments for Cloak of the Istari, Alatar's Gloves, Cornuthaum, Displacement Boots and Mage Shield do not grant AC at all.

By training the Steel Skin skill to 1/8 of your Hit Points, you can increase the effect of AC by 25%, i. e. each point of AC then reduces damage by 0.21%.

* Because of this flat reduction to damage, in the lower ranks where damage output is low it is possible (even easy) to drastically lower the potency of incoming attacks. You may want to think about it when starting a new character.

Upgrading

The AC of most items can be upgraded at either the Blacksmith or by Forging it yourself, although some items can only be upgraded by the Blacksmith. All upgrades to AC are to the enchantment number, and not to the base. Generally, the higher the base AC of an item, the easier and cheaper it is to upgrade the enchantment AC.

PR Weight

Armor that has been enchanted increases PR on a per-minion basis. The PR increase from armors higher than base is determined by the armor's Power weight and the armor's level of enchantment. Given a minion with power P, armor with enchantment N, and a Power weight of W, the adjusted power of a minion is: P * (1 + (W * N / 100))

Strategy and Comments

Equipping a minion with high AC armor is usually a balancing act between defense and penalties. Items with higher AC (such as an Adamantite Cuirass) also tend to have high penalties for magic and Dexterity. For this reason, light Tanks, Enchanters and Mages tend to have a relatively low total AC. A heavy tank would be less concerned with those penalties, and would therefore equip higher AC armor.

    last edited by DoS at Aug 20 2014 - Edit armor class

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