Medium/Heavy armor for runewords

About Armor bases for runewords:

For what I see/read most of the people prefer to use elite light armors as base for the end game runewords.

Do they normally use light armors because of the low STR requirement or because Medium/Heavy armor have Walk/Run penalty? (Or both?)

And for Mercenaries?
The Walk/Run penalty is relevant? or should I use a Medium/Heavy armor if Merc has enough STR and defense is higher?

(Nowadays I normally ignore medium/heavy armor that dropped and look only the light ones for possible bases....)

I'm likely the least expert on the board here but I think people enjoy using the highest defense possible for their armors and don't focus on requirements nor FRW. I say this because

Sacred Armor is quite popular for a mercenary base.

also style points- eg my barb and his

Kraken Shell

People saying that FRW on Merc is very relevant, I personally didn't notice it and I almost always run around without tele (or Enigma). The only thing that matters is if you are gonna use Merc from Acts 1 or 3 you need to think and plan which armor will you choose because they both have low STR, other than that I would say always go for the max def (aka

Sacred Armor).

Now that applies to yourself as well but there is also one more component to it and that is a play style. If your goal is to farm as much as you possibly can in the shortest amount of time then you want to maximize your speed and running speed (which IMHO is redundant since you are teleporting around anyways but hey who am I to judge). Otherwise you can consider alternatives as you please...

In addition to that, there is also a simple calculation which says that

Archon Plate is the best in def-to-req department, you get the most out of it for the least stats you need to be able to actually wear it and that is still, in most cases, a big deal.

At the end, I never really cared about that but recently that kinda changed -- some armors just look better than others. Style points ftw baby!

P.S. I would say that the unwritten rule is: If you have an intention of possibly/probably selling something then build it as majority prefers and if you are just making something for your own purposes then just go crazy as you like the most!

Elite armours all tend to have similar def: the top of

Archon Plate or

Dusk Shroud can beat the low-end of a

Shadow Plate whilst having a much lower strength requirement and no run/walk penalty.

And the def bonus of a maxed out heavy armour vs light armour is negligible - it’s just not worth the slower walk/run or stats.

And you say run/walk speed doesn’t matter until you run around with only +20% from crappy

Boots… it starts to matter pretty quick

Nate2.0 wrote: 9 months ago

And you say run/walk speed doesn’t matter until you run around with only +20% from crappy

Boots… it starts to matter pretty quick

I agree

But for Merc? FRW makes difference?

IMHO run/walk for merc doesn't matter. For myself I only use non-superior light elite armors because of repair costs and run/walk penalty.

Yea i agree with TheDoo, not the biggest consideration on a merc, maybe if you’re relaying on them to proc something like decrepit from reaper’s toll, but otherwise: meh

Generally I'd agree that merc-speed doesn't matter, but there are exceptions.

If you're main character is running a lot rather then teleporting, then the merc can struggle to keep up. If the merc is there to provide buffs you don't want to loose out on, then merc-runspeed might be something to consider.

As for myself, nothing but light on my chars, can be discussed for merc but I also use light only.

Love frw as a general rule, and combined with the lower STR required, it's easy to choose.

Except when you don't have the choice of course (Nat sin requires nat armor ^^).

For me it depends on my builds. My go to armor is most often an

Archon Plate for its high def low strength requirements. For my merc it depends on what

Eth armors drop such as a

Great Hauberk.

I prefer medium weight Enigma (and no FRW on

Boots) on a

Whirlwind barb, because it slows down your

Whirlwind. It feels like you have better control, and you can

Concentrate your damage in a smaller area

I have also made a few enigmas in gothic plates on pallys and zons for looks. Other enigmas or other endgame runewords I almost always make in

Mage Plate or

Archon Plate

For a merc, I just look for high defense and reasonable requirements

fredkid wrote: 9 months ago

But for Merc? FRW makes difference?

According to the Amazon Basin it does.

Trang Oul wrote: 9 months ago

fredkid wrote: 9 months ago

But for Merc? FRW makes difference?

According to the Amazon Basin it does.

I know that FRW affects Merc (which seems that is what the site says)

Medium and Heavy armors do slow down the movement speed of mercenaries.

My point is if it makes a significant difference for the Merc...
From previous posts: only if he is not catching up you while you are running/walking and you need him close.

fredkid wrote: 9 months ago

[..]
My point is if it makes a significant difference for the Merc...
From previous posts: only if he is not catching up you while you are running/walking and you need him close.

This is one of those mechanics that I never officially looked into from a technical perspective but simply went and played around with myself and came to the conclusion that i'm like 98.7% certain it works exactly the same for mercs. I.e. seemed obvious/noticeable enough to not bother looking into confirming it beyond that.

Step two was then to look at what that actually means in terms of gameplay and what armor weight you want. And from my testing across a plethora of different builds/playstyles, the answer - as usual - is....it depends.

If you're on a teleporting build (i.e. keep your merc with you) and want the distance between yourself and your targets to remain as big as can be (assuming you don't just 1shot them before anything matters anyways), then you want your merc to be as fast as possible (light) to maximize the distance he covers away from you before hitting the wall of mobs.

If you're on a teleporting build but want mobs to be within a specific closer distance to you without being blocked by your merc (e.g.

Nova), you're often better off slowing him down via heavy. Or via medium if you want some slowing down but also don't want too much of it to keep kind of a "mid-range distance".

If you don't have

Teleport, it all boils down to your run and clear speed as typically, a merc won't keep up in run speed anyways so you want them to

Teleport over to you reliably but also not too soon. That reliable

Teleport requires them to be at a specific distance at the right time which may work out better with heavy or with medium or sometimes even still with a light armor to adjust their run speed (and hence the distance/time to distance) in relation to your own run/clear speed.

(Just to name a few examples of how it differs...there's quite a lot of additional more intricate scenarios)

Depending on your own build, needs and preferences in terms of where you want your merc and when, it really does make a difference.
Probably the biggest and most noticeable case being an early-gear (i.e. not yet 1-shotting everything) blizz sorc which ideally wants mobs to move through the blizzard, rather than be stopped by the merc too soon and hence really does benefit noticeably from a slower merc. In a case like that, one more step by a mob can make quite a difference.

Personally, for my final builds, I still ended up with archons across the board except for one build's merc that is intentionally kept at a medium penalty.