New supporter item: Breastplate of Expertise (in Changelog)

This body armor grants Armor Proficiency. Its stats are similar to the MC, with less base AC (31 vs 35).

In related news, Armor Proficiency has been buffed to reduce penalties by 50% instead of 40%.

so its really good for the heavy CoC mage nice.

(The two APs do NOT stack.)

Does this mean that since the Breastplate of Expertise grants Armor Proficiency that it cancels out the penalties present on the armor itself?

It cancels half of its own penalty, yes.

I would've preferred just adding the ability to the MC. It's not really that great of a supporter item compared to the rest.

Just wondering, why was AP buffed?

buffed? I don't see that.

"Armor Proficiency has been buffed to reduce penalties by 50%"

so there would be nothing gained by using the skill and the new breastplate?

Actually I think it is a good trade off with the MC on a Light Mage. Take off 50% of the Penalties on a light mage which are not that much to begin with and you get a lot of leeway :)

oops my bad.

If you train up to 50% more on AP would that cancel out all the penalties?

"(The two APs do NOT stack.)"

i think that means that using the skill and the breastplate would just be redundant and would gain you nothing.

Read the thread a little better :)

AdminJonathan 4:20 PM EST (The two APs do NOT stack.)

If it inherently reduces half of its own penalties, then does that mean that it technically has twice the DX and Magic penalties of the MC, but never actually acts as such?

dx -2%, magic -8% as per the item-over tooltip in the items overview page. i would assume that then translates to a negative one and four respectively.

what we really need is a skill for mages that would compete with AP in order to make this useful

dudemus: If I'm not mistaken, novice (or someone else?) bought one this morning and tested it out to yield that data. He said it reduces UC by 2, also. If, by observation, it looks like it's reducing DX by 2% and magic by 8%, then it must actually reduce it twice that much, correct?

Or was the data that nov provided in the other thread just because Jon or Shade or someone had updated the items overview page with official information already?

the tooltip was actually up before novice bought his. also the tooltip for the mc states that same numbers...i think only jon has access to the tooltips.

Is the new item 6 bucks for current supporters or 11?

I assume it will be as always. 6 for the initial purchase. 11 for any after.

from the changelog introducing the special items store:

"After a lot of thought, I decided that the best fix to the supporter item rarity problem is to make old supporter items available for $11 USD.

(I freely admit that "makes Jonathan money" is one of the criteria involved in that "best" there. But not the only one. :)

So, just mouse over to Businesses and check out "Special items." Suggestions for a better name are welcome.

Details:

- there is no limit to how many you can get this way, although you might get tired typing your paypal password since you can only buy one at a time. (if this is a serious problem, it's possible to change this.)
- the "current" supporter item will still be available for $6, one per user at that price
- don't worry, this is not "items part 2" "

I paid $11 for my BoE....

new items are $11 too. Right?

does this armour proficiency from the BoE also reduce the bonus provided by AC to SG, i.e. to 0.5% instead of 1% like training armour proficiency does

if you are a supporter it should only cost 6 dollars. Other supporter items are 11 and under Business "special items".

"so its really good for the heavy CoC mage nice."

Is it? "real" heavy armor requires Adamantite Cuirass. The only other skill that would benefit any kind of mage besides Armor Proficiency is Evasion, which would be useless for a heavy mage. I'm honestly not sure what kind of minion it would be most effective for. Tanks NEED TSA, and Enchanters and Mages both could just train AP and not worry about the BoE's penalties.

maybe for an evasion enchanter...

In the old days of uberevasion, a McM would likely be far better.

Nearly the same AC but no penalties. And all the other armors an evasion minion/enchanter would use are elven. The corn would be the one where the AP would help though.

Corn: 10% /2 = 5%
BoE: 8% /2 = 4%
Total 9%

VS

Corn: 10%
McM: 0%
Total 10%

But who now really uses an evasion enchanter with a corn? Really?

k I'm unsure why noone here has mentioned potential phantom link wall/enchanter uses for the new item...I know on my strat it would be of great value on my first minion allowing me to train PL again insteaad of AP.

Sorry, some calculations were incorrect:

Skills would be for BoE + Corn:

4% / 2 = 2% BoE
10% / 2 = 5% Corn

Total -7%

vs

-10% for MCM + Corn

The magic part would be:

BoE + Corn:

-8 / 2 = -4% + corn bonus

vs

0 % for MCM + corn bonus.

So using a BoE gives 3% better for skils and 4% worse for magic vs the MCM on enchanter/evasion minions. Almost a wash.

For heavy AC mages, use Armor Proficiency as the skill and use CML/Adam etc... no debate there.

A PL wall/enchanter is a very rare type minion.

Perhaps on the rare bird of one it will be useful.

I think most use a PL wall with max hp and an enchanter separately.

Now....

If the BoE granted Steel Skin AND Armor Proficiency on the minon wearing it, we may have a winner.

give it an obscure ability. Like the EH damage reduction or a little innate SS. TSA has 2 abilities why not the BoE?

Giving it innate SS would be much more effective. Innate AP wouldn't be necessary since the wearer could just train it.

I tend to agree, *just* the AP alone on this MC substitute is simply not enough to make it worth having over an AC with actual AP trained or any other number of possible combinations... especially since we're talking supporter item here.

We need it to be a little more than that, so I suggest adding a ToE-like SS effect just for the wearer (and non-dispellable) that would stack with casted SS (if any).
The effect of the equivalent SS would depend on the enchant level on the BoE (say, full effect for a +100 one).

I guess it give a little flexibility like AP + evasion etc.

It allows a melee-based tank to reduce the bonus to SG damage while training BL so that it can match the damage... I will totally be working this into my next team ^_^

Yea,

Why use the TSA with its great strength bonus and its regeneration ability?

Heavy UC! *chuckle*

For AS-based tanks, regen means basically nothing... The ability to use both BL and AP to keep down the bonus to SG from base armor is great. With the TSA, you can boost your damage output by raising your ST, and it has the nice effect of increasing your encumbrance, but at much higher levels, to those that can't afford to chuck 200m+ net worth into both a melee and a ranged weapon, encumbrance means less. I had over 200m net worth equipped to my tank and still had *plenty* of room, using only a pair of +18 TGs to boost my ST. With a properly-built team, you could easily bolster 180m worth of weaponry and 70m worth of armor on a tank by 3m MPR.

To tanks intensive in HP or intending to push the outter limits of encumbrance, the TSA is the better choice. But situationally to the general setup I've been developing for my next team, the BoE works great. ^_^

forgot to throw in the part about choosing between AP and BL if you use the TSA. Choose BL, and you're more susceptible to SG. Choose AP, and even with the ST boost, your damage isn't nearly what it could be with BL.

I will admit, I'm tempted to swap in a BoE...
it would lower my str from 11m to 8m
would let me get to 300ac without too much trouble
and would let me train BL
too bad encumbrance exists..

I feel that if the penalties on the BoE were lowered it would be a much more viable item. As it stands, its pretty much only useful for enchanter walls, or other not-so popular minion choices...

8% penalty on all enchants seems a bit too much! I understand that half of these penalties are taken care of with the innate armor proficiency but I mean, this is a supporter item, and should be a little better than your average rare imho.

Ok...so I am running the BoE on an echanter plink wall..And I totally agree with DD. The penalties are quite steep. Even after I consider the AP I am still getting considerable drops from equipping armor...

I am quite tempted to untrain the Phantom link and just switch back to a TA or AC.

What if it was changed to have a slower steeper upgrade curve than the MCM but also with no penalties. Then it would have great use but wouldn't offer comparable AC to the MCM.