Doctor Archive

None of my characters wear armor and I don't really know if it's needed for a character who doesn't directly participate in PvE or PvP if I can help it. But since I've dropped a lot of my health and action points to bump up my mind, and since I'm going to have to drop Pistols entirely (I've had Pistols IV for a long time and I've kept it as long as I can, but the whole thing's got to go, including novice), I'm going to be pretty helpless soon. Would wearing armor help me survive if I get aggroed, or would it just slow me down? I do have CH, but no high-level pets, and anyway having a pet out seems to get the CH aggroed more often, in my experience.

If you're really dropping all of your combat skills, a little armor isn't going to keep you alive for very long.

However, I believe it would still have its place. If you go out group hunting often, get yourself some nice armor. Get the heaviest, most protective stuff you can find. Don't worry about encumbrance. When you're out fighting, keep your armor off and keep yourself out of the fray as best you can - healing others, avoiding monsters, etc. Then, if an enemy ever targets you, throw your armor on (write a macro to do this instantly). Once you've got your armor on, do two things - first, yell for help so that the rest of the party can come to your aid and,second, stand still. Let that beastie beat on you - that's what the armor is for. However, by standing still, you're allowing everyone else in the party to hit more often, dealing more damage, and thusly, killing the beastie a lot faster.

So, yeah, armor is still useful, but use it sparingly. (A nice PSG is good for those situations, as well.)

Helm is the most useful piece as it protects you from taking serious mind damage. Of course it also causes you to do more mind damage to yourself when healing others. Plus, it slows down your regen. So, you basically have 3 options -

1) Wear a light suit of armor (like Mabari) which will give you a 50-60% damage reduction in PvE with little encumbrance.

2) Wear a heavy suit and mitigate the mind encumbrance with musician buffs and/or food

3) Wear no suit (or a partial suit) and have a macro handy for when you start getting beat on.

#3 works very well as long as you aren't in an environment wear critters (or people) will one-shot you. In those cases, #2 is the only option. For me, it's full composite (and mind buffs galore) for PvP and nothing for PvP. I just don't get agroed much and when I do I am pretty good at getting the agro switched to my rock beetle (which I always keep in reserve purely toaccomplish this when grouped with others).

I suggest you wear a full suit of goodcomposite armor. I will agree with Ail in that armor works very well with doctors. We have the ability to enhance ourselfs which more than compensates for the encumbrance, with the exception of mind stats. As a doctor, you should max out your mind stats anyway (I have mine set to 1100/800/1100) which helps with the mind encumbrance.

We are pretty much the only class that has the ability to wear a full suit of heavy armor so take advantage of that fact. It may be expensive but it's well worth it - I am always delighted in how much damage my armor absorbs for me. It WILL keep you alive longer.

Don't forget to at least take off your helmet while healing/enhancing since the encumbrance causes these actions to cost more and regen more slowly.

-Bel (Master Doctor/Master Pistoleer)

I've almost dropped armor completely with the new decay rules. I occasionally will throw on a little armorweave when hunting since it's low encumberance and practically disposable. I do have a composite helmet with an encumberance slice that I will use if my mind is taking hits. It's on the toolbar so I can take it off and put it on quickly, which is very handy. My mind is the only thing I really need to protect when I have a good health/action buff rolling.

I also have a self-healing macro hotkeyed. If I take damage, I can quicklystim myself as needed. I can go up against some pretty tough stuff as long as it doesn't one-shot me.

Doctor is the profession that benefits the most from armor.

We don't really have issues with health and action encumbrance and usually we do have huge focus/willpower so mind encumbrance is not an issue.

As for cost of healing or using weapon special a rishcate or a Breath of Heaven will take care of that....

I walk all day long in 540/480/546 ham cost composite and i spend that day spamming non stop specials or healing myself and others....