A quick fix for the Scalemail!

[Baffoh]

The Scalemail doesn't have much going for it unfortunately, the only positive attributes that it does have are it's high durability (but not really) and it's ability to give fire immunity which while they do sound pretty good alone, there are quite a bit of downsides that turn away players from using it.

First of all, it's crafting recipe is a bit high for what it's doing: 3x Pig skin, 1x Log suit and 1 Dragonfly's scale to make it, but after making it you'd imagine that it would at the least have the same damage reduction as the Log suit you used to craft it but nope! It has a damage reduction of 70%, and you would say that at the least it's high durability should compensate for this but nay!

You would have been better off using the sum of ingredients for football helms and you'd get the SAME durability and a higher damage reduction of 80%, all the while without having to use Dragonfly's Scales to make em!

I haven't yet talked about another attribute that this armor has, and it's his ability to set on fire enemies when you get it while wearing the armor, it's... not great, the fire stun is good (that is if your enemy does get stunned from that) but the fire damage you deal in return is quite dangerous since it could burn some of the precious loot you planned to get from your defeated enemy, and also you have a much better tool which doesn't require you to get hit to set your enemy on fire and that is a torch! An item that's made with 2 grass and 2 twigs! Like come on! This armor gets always outclassed by way simpler items in every aspect of it expect it's fire immunity.

Anyhow enough ranting and let's start on how I would fix it!

For this fix my objective is to make the Scalemail at the least at the same level of the Marble suit and the Night armor, all the while still having some cool use that split it from other armors.

First of all I'd keep the fire immunity and remove the ability to set enemies on fire, the latter it's just too unreliable and it's not a downside which brings a lot of fun to the table, I'd also keep the base 70% damage reduction, but with a twist that I'll tell you in a moment!

Now for this fix I got inspired by one of Don't Starve most beloved items, the Thermal stone!

There are a ton of clothing items that replicated each others ability to delay freezing/overheating but nothing expect the Sunfish/Ice bream replicates the ability of the Thermal stone so I'd like for the Scalemail to have the same heat absorbing mechanic as the Thermal stone, but unlike the Thermal stone, the Scalemail would absorb heat twice as fast! I wouldn't make it also absorb cold because it shouldn't be this items job to act as just a better Thermal stone in all aspects, and also I like to keep these fixes on topic! All of Dragofnly's items are supposed to theme around heat, not cold but this could be just me.

Now aside from keeping heat the Scalemail will also repairs itself based on the heat it receives, larger the heat source, faster the repairing rate, just be careful to not let it reach 0% durability or it will break! This would make the armor pair well with the furnace and make players search for the largest possible heat source to charge their armor as fast as possible, it will also change color like the thermal stone when it gains heat!

And last but not least, it's the ability to scale damage reduction with heat! Here's how it would work:

-70% Damage reduction at <35°

-80% Damage reduction between 35°> and <50°

-90% Damage reduction between 50°> and <70°

-95% Damage reduction at 70°>

Alrighty and I'm done here for now, as usual tell me what you think about my suggestion and if you have any other concept for this armor feel free to tell me about it, I'd love to hear others concepts, this is probably my most convoluted suggestion so far and maybe something simpler would have worked way better so tell me about it if ya got any clue on how this fix this piece of strange armor!

[Juanasdf]

TIL scalemail only protects you for 70% of the damage... yikes...

I love these changes

[ArubaroBeefalo]

1 hour ago, Juanasdf said:

TIL scalemail only protects you for 70% of the damage... yikes...

I love these changes

i think that is to make it more durable. If im not wrong, the less protection the less damage is taking the armor

with a 95% of protection it will take 95 damage from a 100 damage hit while, with the current durability, is taking only 70

Having more protection is the least of the buff the armor needs because you can get higher protection by including a head armor that also will take part of the damage, making the scalemail last even longer

[Juanasdf]

I mean yeah but, for a boss drop which is supposed to be a log suit upgrade it feels kind of underwhelming. You might aswell pair a log suit with a helmet if you want more durable armor...

Heck you can even deconstruct it if you dont want to waste a scalemail, considering DF gives you a couple of gems. (Though duping through scaled flooring would be better imo)

[Echsrick]

because its like a thermal stone, it sould alsol give a light when its warm, aswell i wish to not use 3 pigskin for it, 3 pigskin? how about 10gold instead?

[Baffoh]

Sorry if I sound rather rude, but I never understood why is less damage reduction supposed to be useful to the armor's durability.

Like I get that you are wasting less uses of an armor by it having less damage reduction but the remaining percent of damage that isn't going to the armor is going straight to your face and at that point aren't you better off not using any armor if you don't want to waste any armor's durability?

23 minutes ago, Echsrick said:

because its like a thermal stone, it sould alsol give a light when its warm, aswell i wish to not use 3 pigskin for it, 3 pigskin? how about 10gold instead?

Yeah of course it should give off light at higher level of heating, I forgot to mention that, thanks for reminding me!

Also your idea about using gold instead of pig skin sounds pretty good to me since gold nuggets are also dropped from Dragonfly, though I do think that 3 pig skin is a better fit of a price to pay for what my concept for this reworked armor has to offer and I didn't want it to be too easy to get.

[Well-met]

just give it its DS1 durability

[ArubaroBeefalo]

1 hour ago, Baffoh said:

Sorry if I sound rather rude, but I never understood why is less damage reduction supposed to be useful to the armor's durability.

 

 

4 hours ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

i think that is to make it more durable. If im not wrong, the less protection the less damage is taking the armor

with a 95% of protection it will take 95 damage from a 100 damage hit while, with the current durability, is taking only 70

Having more protection is the least of the buff the armor needs because you can get higher protection by including a head armor that also will take part of the damage, making the scalemail last even longer

 

[Cloakingsumo198]

4 hours ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

i think that is to make it more durable. If im not wrong, the less protection the less damage is taking the armor

with a 95% of protection it will take 95 damage from a 100 damage hit while, with the current durability, is taking only 70

Having more protection is the least of the buff the armor needs because you can get higher protection by including a head armor that also will take part of the damage, making the scalemail last even longer

Can't they just add more durability instead of relying on that kind of math?

[ArubaroBeefalo]

2 minutes ago, Cloakingsumo198 said:

Can't they just add more durability instead of relying on that kind of math?

sure, i didnt say the opposite. But i see that suggestion quite often when it alone wont made it better

[Yuuko]

Is the scalemail supposed to be a good piece of armor, or is it supposed to be a utility piece that provides some effects?

If its supposed to be a utility piece then the low damage reduction works in its favor.  You can always pair it with an 80 or 90% reduction item to still get those values of protection, but the damage is split based on the absorption of each armor piece extending its life in favor of burning extra football helmets or thulecite crowns.

It provides utility.  Fire immunity and fire retaliation proc.

Are these totally useful and must-haves for every DST world?  No.  And imo that's okay.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

6 hours ago, Juanasdf said:

Heck you can even deconstruct it if you dont want to waste a scalemail, considering DF gives you a couple of gems. (Though duping through scaled flooring would be better imo)

duping with scaled floor is better if you want to multiply scales but if you plan is to waste green gems to make scalemail infinity it wont matter because both ways gives you 1 scale per 20% of green staff. Is on you if you prefer to get cut stone or the log suit back

[goatt]

They sound gimicky and some suggestions sounds a little bit balance breaking. But I like it.

[Well-met]

another way to make it better would be to have new mobs or a new boss that spills fire on the ground.

[Cheggf]

The current armor is useful against crowds such as bee queen. When would someone use this armor? The people who use thermal stones use backpacks, if they wanted to have better temperature management they'd be using clothes instead of a thermal stone.

[Guille6785]

2 hours ago, Cheggf said:

The current armor is useful against crowds such as bee queen

except it really is not, scalemail is complete garbage against bee queen and the only reason you'd think it's good is because you've never actually tried it

[Yuuko]

3 hours ago, Guille6785 said:

except it really is not, scalemail is complete garbage against bee queen and the only reason you'd think it's good is because you've never actually tried it

If only flingo targeted mobs that were on fire... lol

[Cloakingsumo198]

What if it gave overheating immunity on top of the fire immunity.