Soldiers need both armors?

I have a bane that im going to respec. How important is having the wolf spider armor or is it skippable?

I think it's a decent choice in your late fourties, if you're out of other choices.

If you've got bane spider armor, wolf spider armor is totally skippable. All wolf spider armor gives is 3% S/L resist and mag 2 mez protection. Bane armor gives 7.5% res all, 20% max HP, and mag 4 protection. The only benefit to taking wolf spider armor would be the extra mez protection, but mag 4 is already enough for the vast majority of situations (and where it isn't, an extra mag 2 isn't likely to save you). While if you had unlimited power slots it might be useful, it's totally not worth it given how many other powers you have competing for your choices.

Thanks Muon. Thats what i was thinking. Just wanted to hear it from someone else first.

I did take both armors on my mace bane melee build, primarily because my only alternative was to take one of the first two ranged mace attacks (which suck), one of the soldier gun attacks (which cause lots of redraw) or combat training: offensive, which tends to be a nearly useless pick considering how much accuracy I got from my IO slotting. The wolf spider armor, while not an awesome pick, is a better pick than CT: Offensive if only because taking both armors allow you to slot a steadfast prot -KB IO in one and a steadfast protection: +3% def IO in the other.

This is a pretty specific case though - I put that build together as a secondary build around L34-35 and used it for soloing so the fact that I only had 2 attacks by L12 (bash/pulversize) was not a big deal, since I almost never SK'ed down low enough to lose any attacks. My other build on that character is a huntsman build (bane soldier that only takes gun attacks and group buffs) which is what I used in groups.

If I understand the way status protection works, though, there IS an advantage to taking both armors. Since the bane armor only gives you 4 points of status protection that means that 2 normal holds/stuns/etc will be enough to hold you as they will stack up 6 points total. The extra 2 points from the wolf armor will mean it takes 3 normal holds/stuns, etc to overcome your protection, since the total status effects need to be higher than your protection.

Mind you, I never took more than the bane armor on my huntsman build and never had any problems - but he capped ranged def fairly early and leveraged WaWG to keep foes at range (or played tag with them). If you are playing a melee bane you might need the extra 2 points, especially against foes that stack a lot of stuns up.

I was going through mids for a bane build on my soldier (so close to 24!) and in the end I took both armor powers, making the Wolf Spider armor a set mule for steadfast prot -kb and I think the +3% def.

I like having both the wolf spider, and crab/bane armors. Why? More passive status protection is a Good Thing. It's the difference between using an awaken and running the frell away, and being disoriented after using the awaken.

I haven't taken Wolf Armor on either my Bane or Crab, and I've never missed it.

The Crab really doesn't need the extra mez protection as they're already around scrapper/tanker levels of protection via Fortification + Crab Armor (those two let me resist Nictus-Romulus' rez-stun).

Bane's can benefit from it a bit more being as they don't get a mez protection toggle, but my experience was that the 4 points from Bane Armor was enough when combined with the fact that my decent (now soft-capped) defense meant most mezzes weren't even hitting me in the first place. The chance of there being enough mezzes of the same type aimed my way to overcome 4 points of protection is fairly low in PvE situations, nevermind the chance that enough of them will actually hit all at the same time. On the trip from 1-50 (and some tf'ing at 50) I maybe got stunned once or twice vs masses of Green Ink Men, and held a couple times by Rikti - we're talking single digits for total times mezzed on the journey, probably fingers-of-one-hand numbers.

I'll admit that passively resisting awaken-stun is a nice perk, but it's not worth an entire power choice just for that imo.

It won't kill you if you don't have it. But it's a nice little bonus/slot mule/whatever you want from it if you do.
Personally, I do, because I like having whatever small edge I can get

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

It just might kill you if you don't have it. Under mag 6 mez protection leaves you very vulnerable to any mob(s) that can double stack standard mez powers. Granted, you -could- just meticulously avoid fighting anything mez-heavy...

Also, what EricHough said. Mace beams stink, rifle redraw stinks, CT:O stinks.

Yeah, wolf spider armor isn't a huge benefit. If you have other things you want, they can be a better choice. Interestingly, while my Crab build (fort and both passive armors) never gets held in PvE, my wolf spider build (fortification and wolf spider armor only) does occasionally get held.

Yes, one would never want an extra slot for another IO like +recharge, etc. Depending on the build and what you can do, it might be nice. Or not. Really depends.