What is the Best Gear in terms of defense?

[Pumping Lemma]

I've updated most of the new equipment on the wiki. I might have forgotten some things, but it's a wiki so everyone can make modification.

As there was a table for Shields and for Armors, I added one for Melee and Ranged weapons.

 

[Coalsack]

Hmm..seems like Kirlia's Winter Gear isn't in the 'Armor' list.

So, using a mix of personal experience an information from those tables, those are the best items for each class. Note that Mercenaries priority is overall defense and damage, the Tech Sp. focus on shields and overall defense, while Smugglers focus in evasion and damage.

Mercenary
-Weavemail Coat (+9 Defense)
-Plasma Tomahawk (Kinetic/Burning)
-Aegis Light Machinegun (Kinetic)

-Lightning Duster(+60% Electric Defense)


Tech Specialist
-Weavemail Coat/Armstrong Space Suit (+20 Shields)
-Plasma Tomahawk (Kinetic/Burning)
-Apollo Plasma Rifle (Burning) /Modded Arc Caster (Electric) / LM29-Entropy Generator (Freezing)

-Tam-Wolf 2.0 (Drone)/Lightning Duster(+60% Electric Defense)


Smuggler
-Armstrong Space Suit (+8 Evasion)
-Hardlight Dagger (+5 Evasion)
-Apollo Plasma Rifle/Modded Arc Caster (Burning) / LM29-Entropy Generator (Freezing) / NaN Deconstructor (Corrosive)

-Light Jetpack (+10 Evasion, goes without asking)

I choose the Machine gun for the Merc since it doesn't fail against mirrored enemies like the Hardlight Rifle, and has a bit more damage. While the Saumorian Railgun does more damage, it has less accuracy and doesn't have the shield bonus. I'm not familiarized with melee weapons use, so correct me if my suppositions are wrong.

 

[XBoxMaster131]

I use the Stormbull Shotgun. The jetpack and explorers cloak easily cancel out the evasion decrease.

 

[Pumping Lemma]

Hmm..seems like Kirlia's Winter Gear isn't in the 'Armor' list.

You're right, I totally forgot all the clothing. This is fixed!

About the best gears, I think this patch was an excellent balance fix, many weapon and armors can be considered as "optimal". Weapons were usually increased in damage and decreased in price, while the resistances on gears have been decreased. It might make the game a little harder.

By keeping in mind that (usually) crits are 5% chance of dealing 2x the damage, we have the following for weapons :

Ranged, best for damage:
- Saurmorian Railgun has the best damage in the ranged weapon, but is only usable by the Mercenary, has no crit, but a bonus to hit
- Stormbull Shotgun has the second best raw damage for ranged weapons, with one of the best accuracy boosts (but an evasion malus)
- Hirudo Devourer has very good damage and the Vampiric flag
- Apollo Plasma Rifle has the best damage of any Energy Weapon (and so benefits from many Tech specialist perks)

Ranged, best for defense (mainly for melee users or lust attack)
- Aegis Light Machinegun has very good damage and 25 shields (right now only usable by mercenary)
- Zil Champion's Bow and Royal Shard Bow have the best evasion boost (6)
- Hirudo Devourer has very good damage and the Vampiric flag
- Warden Shield has 20 Fortification (so 20 bonus HP)

Ranged, best for lust attack:
- Rudimentary Revolver is the only ranged weapon with sexiness
- Bimboleum Emitter has the best tease damage on weapons
- Myr Venom Thrower ignores blind (blind prevents tease attacks, so this makes the Myr Venom Thrower an excellent backup weapon) and uses drug (some enemies are immune to tease but vulnerable to drug, for example Chaurmine)
- Royal Shard Bow has the best evasion boost (6) and provides some backup lust attack when blind or when drug is needed


Melee, best for damage:
- Saurmorian Hammer has the best raw damage but can only be used by Mercenary
- Plasma Hawk and Tweaked Jolthammer have the second best damage (Jolthammer has an accuracy malus and a crit bonus)
- Vamp Blade and Tweaked Vamp Blade can drain shield

Melee, best for defense:
- Vamp Blade and Tweaked Vamp Blade can drain shield
- Tweaked Lava Saber has 15 bonus shield
- Taivra's Spear and Hardlight Dagger have the best evasion bonus (6)

Melee, best for lust attack:
- Bio Whip is the only melee weapon with lust damage (it deals drug damage. It also has +1 sexiness, like many other melee weapons)


For Accessories, many are now valuable:
- The Light Jetpack still has the best evasion boost but the Explorer's Cloak now also gives 8 Evasion (and 1 Defense)
- Allure gives 7 sexiness
- Flash Goggles are still great for any Steele who has problem with blind
- Lightning Duster, Salamander Longcoat and Knitted Scarf give various resistances (only 25% Cold for the Scarf, but with some armors, it might be enough to change "I'm dying" to "it's ok" on Uveto).
- The Aim-Assisted Eyepiece gives 6 Accuracy. I'm not convinced.
- Tam-Wolf 2.0 has still the best damage, I believe
- The Bimbo Siegwulfe is still able to take down almost any enemy if you can wait 100 rounds (by doing 1 lust damage every round)

For Armor and Clothing, there has been a lot of nerfs on resistances, but I think that almost everything can be used in a good situation. The most interesting is probably the following:
- Gemstone Links has now not only the best sexiness (10), but also the best evasion (11), and Nurse Outfit also has 10 sexiness now.
- Armstrong Suit (Premium) has the best Shields but Steele Tech Suit is probably better (and one of the best armors now), with 15 shields, 30% Electric and Burning Resistance.
- Winter Gear and Sleek Parka are probably the best choices on Uveto.
- Transparent Zipsuit still has the best Electric resistance.
- I recall that Khan's Simple Lab Coat has Corrosive and Poison resistance (but these are rare).
- Gray Goo Armor has the best Kinetic resistance
- Chitin Plates and Weavemail Coat have the best defense (9) (but Chitin Plates has some malus.)
- Business Clothes have a good fortification (still less than Insulated Coat) but also 3 Accuracy and Crit Bonus

 

[Zombiqaz]

So, using a mix of personal experience an information from those tables, those are the best items for each class. Note that Mercenaries priority is overall defense and damage, the Tech Sp. focus on shields and overall defense, while Smugglers focus in evasion and damage.

Tech Specialist
-Weavemail Coat/Armstrong Space Suit (+20 Shields)
-Plasma Tomahawk (Kinetic/Burning)
-Apollo Plasma Rifle (Burning) /Modded Arc Caster (Electric) / LM29-Entropy Generator (Freezing)

-Tam-Wolf 2.0 (Drone)/Lightning Duster(+60% Electric Defense)

I'm not sure if going for the bonus shield amount armour is the best idea for tech specialists, even though shields are their primary defence. Tech specialists get bonus shields based on their level and stats, not the gear they use, so +20 doesn't make that much of a difference. (For example, at level 10 my tech specialist has 215 shields with a Reaper Armaments Mk I generator.) Wouldn't you be better off with armour that provides other benefits?

Also, does the damage resistance from accessories affect damage to your shield, or does it only help once the shield is down?

 

[Zavos]

Techs shields generally have higher defense and resistances, a rather small shield increase could equal a significant net hp once resists are factored in.

 

[Zombiqaz]

Techs shields generally have higher defense and resistances, a rather small shield increase could equal a significant net hp once resists are factored in.

Techies get a defence bonus to their shields (based on intelligence) but if I understand the perk correctly they don't have increased resistances, only reduced vulnerabilities. E.g. instead of getting a -50% electricity damage vulnerability (common to many shields) they only have a -25% vulnerability.

Though with the current max intelligence (50), what gives you ~12 defence compared to 8 or 9 def for most armours (going by the wiki). And by looking up the shields page that some shields come with some defence built in.

Tech specialists also have some shield regen bonuses that scale with total shields, but again the increase is only about 10% for the largest shield-boosting items.

After checking on the wiki, and in game, I noticed that the weavemail coat doesn't give any bonus shields. And all the armours that do give shields have little or not defence, though they may have other bonuses such as evasion, sexiness, or damage resistances.

Because the player's health pool is much larger than the shield bonuses you get from armour, I think it would be better to get some armour that protects them after the shield goes down, either through defence or damage resistance.

 

[Zavos]

On the other hand, shields generally have far higher resists than conventional armor, combined with higher defense after the tech specalist trait is factored in.

also

Grey Goo Armor is supposed to be getting shields and electric weakness nullification with her next upgrade. In all likelihood, it will be coded around the time Fen asks Upcast to code it, whenever that might be. Or in January to come with Frostwyrm stuff due to vague brand similarities.

who knows?

I had thought that it would be coded months ago, like pretty much all the other core Uveto content.

 

[Zombiqaz]

Shields tend to resist kinetic attacks and be weak to electric attacks. Armours have a wider variety of resistances, but a lot of the, have electric, burning, and freezing resist. So it varies from item to item and from enemy to enemy.

I personally think that tech specialists would be better off with armour that has high defence for general purpose fights, or armour with damage resistances if you're fighting a boss and have/can get armour with the appropriate resistances. I would think that bonus shields from other items are either just a neat bonus, or maybe for characters with shields that have a low total shield value. For example if you had a shield generator with good defence or resistances - not that there are too many of those at the moment.

But in that case the tech specialist could make up for the low total shields with their perks, while for other characters the bonus shields from other gear might not be enough to make up the difference in order to make such gear worthwhile.

The grey goo armour is probably going to stay a reliable general-purpose armour throughout the game. It's likely to continue to be updated as the game moves along and gives better gear. Even right now it has one of the highest defence ratings, along with some sexiness and decent kinetic and burning resistance. The main reason to choose something else (other than a player's personal preference in clothing) is to get something with specific resistances for a boss fight.