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[ajburges]

 I noticed that there is a lot of questions asked about "best armor" scattered about and felt that the info should be consolidated into a guide for future refrence. So without further adu I give you:

ajburges's Armor Guide

Disclaimers
Before you read further this guide contains my personal opinions and possible input from posters on this thread. Hopefuly you will use this to form your own opinions instead of taking this as the one and only true source.

Several/Most armor choices make litle gameplay difference. Don't let the armor stats overide your sense of asthetics. Of the combos there is only 1 armor piece that is unreplaceable for one class/build.

Opening
The opinions of armor range from uselessness to moderate character boost. I tend to be in the camp of the later. Chosen properly, your armor can have the effect of up to 3 reseach upgrades with some perks no research tree touches.

The Armor Sets and Pieces
I could spend this section reiterating what each piece does but instead I'll refer you to the ME wiki. The information here is typicaly accurate, and more importantly, will be updated promptly following the relase of DLC.
ME2 Armor Sets: masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Armor
N7 Armor Pieces: masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Armor_Customization

Armor Bonuses
Here is the real meat. Where I discuss advantages of the bonuses.

• +x% power damage (0 <=  x <= 15): This linearly adds to any other boosts (powers and research) to power damage you have. Keep in mind that each level of damage reseach is a 10% boost when considering utility of this bonus. Investin here helps if your are a few pixels short of striping defenses in y hits (especialy impotant when y=1 like the insanity mooks early on)
• +x% weapon damage (0 <=  x <= 13): This linearly adds to any other boosts (powers and research) to weapon damage you have. More useful early on for th most part as you struggle to research upgrades. Later on only stress over it if you fall short of OHKO's with your Widow/Shotgun.
• +x% melee damage (0 <=  x <= 45): One of the most noticable bonuses as outside of this only a +25% boost to melee damage is possible. This linearly adds to to that boost. Vanguards, Iniltrators, and Shotgun Sentinels all should consider investing in this due to their tendency/ability to close distance
• +x% max shields (0 <=  x <= 36): This linearly adds to any other boosts (powers and research) to shields you have. Given the magnitude of other bonuses given (especialy for shielding oriented characters), The upper bound of this bonus is just too low to be a significant factor to survival time under fire. The Sentry Interface does look cool though.
• +x% max health (0 <=  x <= 28): This linearly adds to any other boosts (powers and research) to health you have. This suffers from simular problems as +x% max shields but when this makes a difference is a lot more appreciable.
• +x% to spare heavy weapon ammo (x = 0, 5, or 10): Some funs things to do with this one. I believe if you fire to 0 ammo with this and take it off and put it on again once you have full ammo again you get free ammo. More interestingly though: With this and 6 heavy weapon ammo research levels you can fire the Cain twice in a row. Useful for droping YMIR's on Insanity at level 30. Pew Pew indeed.
• +x% to spare weapon ammo (x = 0 or 10): This gives you at most an extra clip per weapon. You judge if that is worth it. The weapons I want this kind of bonus for don't get enough from it.
• Reduce delay before shields start recharging by X% (x = 0, 10, or 20): Never used it before as I didn't like the look. Can anyone tell me if any level of this alows the shield recharge to start before the Infiltrator Cloack cooldown finishes? If that can occur this becomes a must have bonus for Infiltrators. Other canidates include any build with a defenseive boost power (due to the long cooldowns of such powers leting the shields recharge can be shorter in a fight)
• Reduces the recharge time of powers by x% (x = 0 or 5): Never used, but to my knowledge the only item that offers this (Archon Visor) is bugged to give much less than the stated bonus. As such this is only of use to hardcore power spamers.
• Increases head shot damage by x% (x = 0, 5, or 10): As there is no proven work as to how headshots wrork I can only speculate as to the true effects. All I know is the Kuwashii Visor looks cool on my Infiltrator and probably contributes more to my Widow damage than the +8% damage their armor gives.
• Increases negotiation bonus by x%/+x% Paragon/Renegade Bonus (x = 0 or 10): Just short of making a Paragon/Renegade check. Respec to the +100% Paragon/Renegade power and slap this on after reloading form a previous save (You are using multiple saves in an RPG, right?)
• +x% Faster Health Regeneration (x = 0 or 10): Have never used this before. I need someone to supply how it works.
• Increases storm speed by 10% (x = 0 or 10): Infiltrators and Vanguards can live or die by the ground they cover getting to cover. Who knows when that bonus will save their lives. Plus boots of haste are always an RPG must have.

N7 Piece Useage

• Chose a primary bonus to focus on for the sholders, chest, and arms. These all provide simular and small bonuses and few unique bonuses come from here. Good canidates are melee damage, power damage, and weapon damage.
• Chose between sprint speed, heavy weapon ammo, and health for the legs. Those are the big bonuses here
• For the head coose what best fits your needs. There are tons of choices here. Keep in mind though for missions in hazardous environments (Tali's recruitment, Collector ship, etc), all helmets save for the N7 Breather Helmet, the Death Mask, and the Recon Hood will temporarily be replaced with the N7 Breather Helmet and it is assumed the helmet bonus is replaced with the corresponding +5% health as well.
• Remember you want armor you don't mind looking at for 20+ hours

Armor Set Useage
A large number of set armors have higher bonuses then N7 armor generates. This comes at a large cost: costomization. All set armors have a fixed apearence and you can not even remove the helmet (please fix Bioware). Here I will address all armor sets released as of 9/20/2010:

• Blood Dragon Armor: Noteable for the +15% power damage; the highest available at this time. That is like adding another level and a half of biotic/tech damage research that also affects combat and ammo powers! The +10% shield strength is just icing on the cake. Note: that with all DLC N7 can come close with +13% power damage using the head (+5%), chest (+3%), and sholder (+5%) slots.
• Cerberus Assalt Armor: Creates a set of bonuses that N7 can achive or exceed inependently but can not achive at the same time. Overall the set of bonuses together are not that special. Easy way to get the +10% heavy weapon ammo temporarily.
• Collector Armor: do not personaly own but the +10% Faster Health Regeneration is unique to this armor.
• Inferno Armor: Like the Cerberus Assalt Armor this creates a set of bonuses that N7 can achive or exceed inependently but can not achive at the same time. Unlike it the bonuses are nice. morality boosts can help push you into meeting hard checks and the power damage and storm speed, while not useful to the same build groups, is still handy.
• Terminus Assault Armor: obsolete if you have all DLC. Use Sentry Interface, Kestrel Torso Sheath, Kestrel Shoulder Pieces, Off-Hand Ammo Pack, and Stimulator Conduits for the sam bonuses plus +20% melee damage and +5% weapon damage.

Conclusions
The armor bonuses can do a few things to significantly impact gameplay:

• Provide minor boosts to supplement damage research (important early game on NG+)
• Up melee damage (Vanguards, Iniltrators, and Shotgun Sentinels want this)
• Set up double Cain shots (you know you want too)
• Help pass negtiation checks (Only if you are close to begin with)

Some armor bonuses are of dubious or uncertain value:

• Provide extra headshot damage (all the Widow snipers know is that they want this)
• Provide extra health (I survived with 1 hit point!)
• Provide extra speed (Thats the difference between panting behind cover and swallowing that YMIR's rocket for dinner)

And some armor bonuses are insignificant to most builds:

• Provide extra shields (+10% shield. Awsome! This means my shields last +10% longer under fire. Anyone know what 10% of a second is?)
• Provide spare ammo (Sodier: well my Revant never ran out and I am still scrounging every body for Widow, Mattock, Viper and Vindicator ammo anyway)

The "best" armor depends on your classes needs, but most bonuses are relatively minor in what they give and 90% of the time you will get more enjoyment from the game by choosing your armor based on looks.

Modifié par ajburges, 21 septembre 2010 - 02:00 .

[ajburges]

[second post reserved]

[swk3000]

Something you might want to point out: open-faced helmets are unreliable. If you are not wearing the N7 Breather Helmet, the Death Mask, or the Recon Hood, the helm you chose will be removed and replaced with the N7 Breather Helm when a mission takes place in a hostile environment (a vacuum, for example). I did some testing of my own a while back, and I confirmed that not only do you lose the helm when it's replaced; you also lose the bonus it gives.



As an example, take your Terminus Armor setup. Altogether, it gives:



+16% Shields

+20% Melee Damage

+5% Weapon Damage

+10% Spare Ammo Capacity

+10% Storm Speed



If you then do the N7: Blood Pack Base mission, the SENTRY Visor is replaced with the N7 Breather Helm. Your Shield Strength drops down to +11%, and you get a rather useless +5% Health for the duration of the mission.



Frankly, because of this, I never use anything other than the Recon Hood. It's bonus may be minimal, but at least it's a bonus I actually keep, instead of being removed whenever the game decides the location I'm going to can't support human life for a few hours.



Of course, your squad-mates get some little mask-thing to keep them alive in a vacuum; never mind that the rest of them is fully exposed.

[godlike13]

Kestrel Armor all the way

Modifié par godlike13, 20 septembre 2010 - 01:10 .

[Brawne]

godlike13 wrote...

Kestrel Armor all the way

/end thread

[khevan]

godlike13 wrote...

Kestrel Armor all the way

Except those bright blue glowing lights are a dead giveaway to my sneaky sniper Infiltrator. 

Peek  around the corner to see what enemies are in the next room, quietly step out to grab a closer bit of cover...

"We've been spotted!  Turn those damned lights off, Shepard!"


.....FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU.


*sigh*

Modifié par khevan, 20 septembre 2010 - 03:05 .

[PsyrenY]

swk3000 wrote...

Something you might want to point out: open-faced helmets are unreliable. If you are not wearing the N7 Breather Helmet, the Death Mask, or the Recon Hood, the helm you chose will be removed and replaced with the N7 Breather Helm when a mission takes place in a hostile environment (a vacuum, for example). I did some testing of my own a while back, and I confirmed that not only do you lose the helm when it's replaced; you also lose the bonus it gives.

I also use the Recon Hood for "no-air" missions on combat classes. For caster classes, the Blood Dragon armor set can be used instead.

Anyone remember which missions have both combat and no air to know when to swap helmets/outfits? I know that Tali's loyalty is one of them.

[khevan]

Optimystic_X wrote...

Anyone remember which missions have both combat and no air to know when to swap helmets/outfits? I know that Tali's loyalty is one of them.

The Collector ship, the Suicide mission, the geth weather station N7 mission, you already said Tali's loyalty...I know there's a few more but these are the ones I can remember off the top of my head.

Modifié par khevan, 20 septembre 2010 - 04:59 .

[sinosleep]

I largely wear whatever looks best because the only boost I've ever found to be REALLY noticeable is the melee boost, which is even more pronounced when used in conjunction with kestrel gear. Everything is has been kind of meh. I went through the game with an infiltrator rocking all + weapon damage gear and a kawashi visor and she didn't start reliably one shotting things any quicker than the next infiltrator that wore N7 chest and umbra visor to better represent Kerrigen from Star Craft. Same thing applies to + weapon damage gear and shotguns. The OSOK shotguns do it just fine with no upgrades, and the ones that aren't OSOK never become them with maxed upgrades from armor. I haven't done much testing with the SMGS or assault rifles but I'd wager the results would be much the same.



I'd wear what looks good and not worry too much abut it.

[PseudoEthnic]

For my Vanguard, I use the Kershel Armor(it was made for this class) and the Sentry Interface/Recon Hood(for hostile environments.) I find most of the armor parts useless, and only a few make a difference in combat. For example, my Soldier has the Strength Boost Pads, Capacitor Chestplate, Life Support Webbing, and the Heavy Damping Gauntlets. The last two are just cosmetic at best. My Engineer has hardly anything to really benefit him. I hope they come out with power-heavy armor in the future.

[jwalker]

I only wear the pieces to increase melee damage or the ones to reduce the time to regenerate your shields (up to 20%). Everything else, whatever

[RGFrog]

Meh, I just slap on the kestrel armor and forget about it afterwards. Let the helmet swap or not. It makes no difference. Kestrel gives you 30% melee and (with the helmet) 25% shields. Shields go down so fast that it's not even a noticeable boost (even when using ED to double them). So the melee is the only stat buff that makes any difference.

I guess that means I should swap out the shoulder pieces... but, meh... I don't elbow enough tangos to really care about that stat.

As I mostly play adept, I should stick with dragon armor, but I'm really tired of all the dialogue and character emotes being represented by flashing lights.

I'm with Sinosleep. Buffs are cool, but you'll not notice them being there or not being there. So wear what you think looks cool.

[Crippledcarny]

I go with armor based on looks. Why bother saving the galaxy if you can't be stylen' while you do it!

[RGFrog]

Indeed. I think i spent way too much time trying to figure out a color scheme that looked good but didn't make me look like I was part of bloodpack, bluesuns, cerberus, eclipse or out of the box neutral gray.

I kind of liked going all white with kestrel and acting like I was a visiting Storm Trooper, but that got on my nerves after one mission

[EKozski]

Before the, kestrel armor came out, I'd spend a good 20 minutes trying to find a color or colors that worked. Then, it got to the point that I just didn't care. Now that the Kestrel Armour is out, I just change it to black with white accents. YAY!

Did you ever notice how that ammo belt almost looks like Batgirl's Utility belt from the Batman tv show?!!?

Modifié par EKozski, 20 septembre 2010 - 07:39 .

[PsyrenY]

khevan wrote...

The Collector ship, the Suicide mission, the geth weather station N7 mission, you already said Tali's loyalty...I know there's a few more but these are the ones I can remember off the top of my head.

You are right about the Collector Ship. The Suicide Mission has air. I forgot the Weather Station. Any others?

[ulrichd]

Optimystic_X wrote...

khevan wrote...

The Collector ship, the Suicide mission, the geth weather station N7 mission, you already said Tali's loyalty...I know there's a few more but these are the ones I can remember off the top of my head.

You are right about the Collector Ship. The Suicide Mission has air. I forgot the Weather Station. Any others?

Legions loyalty mission, there's two blood pack N7 missions, that's all i can think of right now

[Kronner]

ME2 Armor = USLESS. Makes no difference whatsoever on Insanity. Melee bonus is an exception.

[ScroguBlitzen]

I think the ME2 Armor helmets are at least useful for making you look cool. I like Kuwashii, Sentry and Recon hood for that.

[Kronner]

I meant gameplay-wise.

[All-a-Mort]

EKozski wrote...

Before the, kestrel armor came out, I'd spend a good 20 minutes trying to find a color or colors that worked. Then, it got to the point that I just didn't care. Now that the Kestrel Armour is out, I just change it to black with white accents. YAY!

Did you ever notice how that ammo belt almost looks like Batgirl's Utility belt from the Batman tv show?!!?

I think I've actually spent most game time fiddling with the armour to get a set and colour scheme that works. I suspect I take the roleplay element too far: I mean, do I give a femshep hotpink armour or is that sexist? Do I choose a set that is camouflaged for the environment, considering anything short of cloak is useless in that regard when enemies are either scripted to notice you or in the literary universe of the game likely have sensors anyway? Do I use the recon hood or does that make Shepard look like a futuristic gimp? For the moment I've gone for a default of kestrel in black with white and gold bits to have a Cerberus feel but without having to use the minging official Cerberus armour set. Honestly short of the parts that do a little for shields or add heavy weapon ammo (and assuming anyone bothers to use them)...most of the pieces and sets aren't really worth the effort of thinking about that hard.

Modifié par All-a-Mort, 20 septembre 2010 - 09:52 .

[RGFrog]

It's understandable as it's really the only classic RPG element left in the game. That and face creation. Peeps spend hours on that. Only to find in game it looks little like what they setup. Lol.

[PrinceLionheart]

I tend to Mix and match the Kestrel Armor since primarily play as a Vanguard. Even though the whole armor set is "Made for the class" I replace a few pieces to optimize my play style.

My Vanguard Armor Build:
Sentry Interface
Kestral Torso Sheath
Strength Boost Pads
Kestral Arm Sheathing
Stimulant Conduits

So it gives me 45% melee damage, 11% Shields, 10% Storm speed, and 8% Weapon Damage.

Modifié par PrinceLionheart, 21 septembre 2010 - 02:18 .

[ajburges]

I realize that most bonuses are not apparent most of the time (save melee damage) and I thought I stressed that. It doesn't change the fact you can tool your armor to provide the same effect as additional research. After all without disruptor ammo a lvl 30 Assassin infiltrator insanity needs about 5-6 sniper rifle damage upgrades to one shot Blue Sun mooks with the Widow without cloak. As I like Warp ammo for my Widow (and I have both squad class ammos which prevents switching for just myself) this is a relevant breakpoint for me.



@swk3000 thanks for reminding me to include info about helmet replacement. I can't believe I forgot this given how much of a beef I have with it (Why does Jack get to prance around in a vacuum with bondage gear and a face mask while I need an environmental suit?).



I will make changes if/when the edit window loads.

[Mr_Raider]

Blood dragon armor. It's fun to order drinks wearing blood dragon armor.