Grimrock

That putting points into Armor is worthwhile.

doesnt really seem like it when it seems like evasion is close to worthless in grimrock 2 and my whole point isn't tanking anyway, but moving around and getting away from the enemy, and when I DO have to tank my armor will mitigate damage anyway. Is there any reason I should spend 4 points on my armor skill when I could be putting them in Critical or accuracy?

Evasion isn't worthless or near-worthless, it just isn't a potential super-stat like it was in LoG1. It still allows the character to avoid some attacks, and even if that's only a modest share of them, those are attacks that don't do any damage.

Beyond that, Protection still gets much better with more of it, and Armors gives you a % boost to your Protection value, which means that your Protection becomes that much better - especially if you're going to be wearing heavy armor anyway.

Neutronium Dragon wrote:Evasion isn't worthless or near-worthless, it just isn't a potential super-stat like it was in LoG1. It still allows the character to avoid some attacks, and even if that's only a modest share of them, those are attacks that don't do any damage.

Beyond that, Protection still gets much better with more of it, and Armors gives you a % boost to your Protection value, which means that your Protection becomes that much better - especially if you're going to be wearing heavy armor anyway.

I'd agree with you on the second except if I have say a Insectoid battlemage up front he can just take chitin armor and carry a wand and have the same bonus 5 points in Armor with the best heavy armors. The 5% increase per level just seems really small to me.

Or I put put points into atheltics and get a lot more hp which will kind of offset damage as well. Is there another reason to do so?

DannyAIC wrote:The 5% increase per level just seems really small to me.

I agree that the protection increase is kinda small. Especialy Light Armor users who usually invest only 2 points into their armor skill will see absolutely no benefit here. The best protection available on Light Armor is 8. Adding 10% increase for the skill results in 8.8 which the game then rounds back down to 8.

Yet Heavy Armor users will see benefits. The up to 25% increase per armor part can turn a regular 12 protection plate piece into a 15 protection armor piece and a 18 protection meteor armor piece into a 22.5 protection armor piece. Combined for your entire armor this results into one virtual additional armor piece.

I've tried doing a character with a protection focus. Even with 150 protection, the cemetery undead did too much damage. Evasion was similarly not useful. So unless you are very, very bad at avoiding attacks, I'd say you're much better off investing in getting more damage (if monsters die faster you don't have to dodge their attacks for as long), or in getting the super broken spells (invisibility and force field) that actually prevent monsters from doing damage to you.
Interestingly, the description of the Dodge skill and the Uncanny Speed trait in Grimrock 2 contradict each other. The former says the trait decreases cooldowns by 10%, which is equivalent to cooldown speed +11%, but the second says it only increases cooldown speed by 10%. I don't know which one of these to trust. I know Grimrock 1 outright lied about quick strike, saying it was 25% and 50% faster cooldown when it was actually -25% and -50% cooldown.
I don't agree that evasion is good in Grimrock 1 btw. Better than in Grimrock 2, perhaps, and certainly less hilariously terrible than protection, but dodge still seems like the worst rogue skill.

Armor is useful for not taking damage. That's about the size of it. It's not just the +% bonus, but also the removal of the evasion penalty.
Evasion isn't king, like it may have been before. But it helps, and it helps a bunch in really small doses.

But, it doesn't help at negative values.
I did some preliminary testing, specifically to look at the value of negative evasion. Tested in the editor, the number of hits required for a Sand Warg to deal over 500 damage at similar protection values (had to discard trials that included a wound, which made getting good numbers a nightmare). I started testing with a Forest Ogre, but since their club has -acc, I discarded the trials in favor of something probably less obviously biased.


Evasion -45: Average results of 7 trials: 31.16 hits, 1.6 misses
Evasion -23: Average results of 7 trials: 31.6 hits, 1.75 misses.

Evasion values at or exceeding 0 show a dramatic uptake in the number of expected misses. Not tested as thoroughly, but with 3 trials I had 7.2 misses at 0, and 15.8 misses at 25.
I might not buy the 5th point. But if you are taking physical damage, Armor has value. If your playstyle is one that works hard to kite monsters and drop them as fast as possible, go for it. I'm not that good. I get surrounded, and like to not game over when I do.

minmay wrote: Interestingly, the description of the Dodge skill and the Uncanny Speed trait in Grimrock 2 contradict each other. The former says the trait decreases cooldowns by 10%, which is equivalent to cooldown speed +11%, but the second says it only increases cooldown speed by 10%.

As a side note, can you explain what you mean here, Minmay? How would a 10% cooldown reduction be 11%value?

+10% cooldown speed = 10% more attacks.
-10% cooldown = 11.1111...% more attacks.

Think about haste. It's a 100% increase in attack speed, which is -50% cooldown.

Oh, ok. I think I see. So the former is what we actually have. Where the value is actually halved because 100% attack speed is twice as many attacks. Thus 10%=5% But in the second example, we're taking 10% off the value itself, resulting in 11% more attacks (11 attacks in the time normally required to do 10 attacks)

What the text means is "The duration of all cooldowns is reduced by 10%." It's not trying to deal in the math and associated wording usually found in haste calculations.