Uploaded October 2024 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
This video was made in response to a comment on my Rivers of Blood build guide: youtu.be/ZILb-vKYK6w
I explained pretty clearly in the video that armor and Endurance do help, but that it's way more efficient and valuable to focus on Vigor instead of pumping Endurance for heavy armor sets.
Like, the Knight set provides an average of about 22% damage negation for a weight of 25.6. Meanwhile the Bull Goat's set, which is the strongest armor in the game, provides an average of about 33% at a weight of 63. So you get around 11% more protection at OVER DOUBLE THE WEIGHT. And then in terms of Endurance and Equip Load, you can comfortably wear the Knight set and use some reasonably heavy weapons/talismans with only 20-25 Endurance. For the Bull Goat's set, if you're wearing JUST THE ARMOR and you want to be in medium load, you need 41 Endurance. That's before considering any weapons or talismans. More realistically you'd need 50-60 Endurance to be able to wear that set and have the gear you want.
You can consider wearing armor and increasing your damage negation to be an increase of your effective hp, right? So if you have 1000hp, and you have 30% damage negation, then you effectively have 1300hp.
At 10 Vigor you have 414hp. At 31 Vigor you have 1031hp. At 40 Vigor you have 1450hp. At 60 Vigor you have 1900hp.
Let's do some math. We'll assume you start as a Wretch and start off with 10 in all of your stats.
Scenario A: If you spent 61 points to get Endurance to 50 and Vigor to 31, then you would have 1031 base hp and 33% damage negation. That brings your effective hp to (1031 * 1.33) = 1372hp. So that's about a 330% increase in your effective hp compared to having 10 Vigor and no armor. If you want to consider how efficiently you're spending your stat points, it's (330 / 61) = 5.5 (I'm not a math guy but I can tell you that the higher this number is, the better).
Scenario B: Meanwhile at 40 Vigor and 20 Endurance, you've spent only 40 points between Vigor and Endurance. You'd have 1450 base hp and 22% negation, for an effective (1450 * 1.22) = 1769hp. That's a 420% increase in your effective hp compared to having 10 Vigor and no armor. For efficiency, that's (420 / 40) = 10.5, so about twice as efficient as leveling Endurance so you can wear heavier armor.
Scenario C: And if you spend 50 points to go to 60 Vigor, which I strongly recommend all builds do (didn't do it in this one cuz I wanted more damage), then you'd have a base 1900hp. Even without putting any armor on at all, that's still a 450% INCREASE to your effective hp, compared to 10 Vigor and no armor. That's an efficiency of (450 / 50) = 9, still significantly more efficient than scenario A. But WAIT, we can still equip some armor, even without leveling Endurance past the base value of 10. You could easily put on something basic like the Sage set, which provides about 14% negation on average at a weight of 9.8. So now we've got (1900 * 1.14) = 2166hp, an increase of 523% over 10 Vigor, no armor. The efficiency then would be (523 / 50) = 10.46. And I just took a quick glance at light armor sets, I'm sure you'd still have plenty of equip load leftover for a slightly heavier set like the Depraved Perfumer set or something, for even MORE negation and efficiency.
Armor isn't important in this game, Vigor is.
This video was made in response to a comment on my Rivers of Blood build guide: youtu.be/ZILb-vKYK6w
I explained pretty clearly in the video that armor and Endurance do help, but that it's way more efficient and valuable to focus on Vigor instead of pumping Endurance for heavy armor sets.
Like, the Knight set provides an average of about 22% damage negation for a weight of 25.6. Meanwhile the Bull Goat's set, which is the strongest armor in the game, provides an average of about 33% at a weight of 63. So you get around 11% more protection at OVER DOUBLE THE WEIGHT. And then in terms of Endurance and Equip Load, you can comfortably wear the Knight set and use some reasonably heavy weapons/talismans with only 20-25 Endurance. For the Bull Goat's set, if you're wearing JUST THE ARMOR and you want to be in medium load, you need 41 Endurance. That's before considering any weapons or talismans. More realistically you'd need 50-60 Endurance to be able to wear that set and have the gear you want.
You can consider wearing armor and increasing your damage negation to be an increase of your effective hp, right? So if you have 1000hp, and you have 30% damage negation, then you effectively have 1300hp.
At 10 Vigor you have 414hp. At 31 Vigor you have 1031hp. At 40 Vigor you have 1450hp. At 60 Vigor you have 1900hp.
Let's do some math. We'll assume you start as a Wretch and start off with 10 in all of your stats.
Scenario A: If you spent 61 points to get Endurance to 50 and Vigor to 31, then you would have 1031 base hp and 33% damage negation. That brings your effective hp to (1031 * 1.33) = 1372hp. So that's about a 330% increase in your effective hp compared to having 10 Vigor and no armor. If you want to consider how efficiently you're spending your stat points, it's (330 / 61) = 5.5 (I'm not a math guy but I can tell you that the higher this number is, the better).
Scenario B: Meanwhile at 40 Vigor and 20 Endurance, you've spent only 40 points between Vigor and Endurance. You'd have 1450 base hp and 22% negation, for an effective (1450 * 1.22) = 1769hp. That's a 420% increase in your effective hp compared to having 10 Vigor and no armor. For efficiency, that's (420 / 40) = 10.5, so about twice as efficient as leveling Endurance so you can wear heavier armor.
Scenario C: And if you spend 50 points to go to 60 Vigor, which I strongly recommend all builds do (didn't do it in this one cuz I wanted more damage), then you'd have a base 1900hp. Even without putting any armor on at all, that's still a 450% INCREASE to your effective hp, compared to 10 Vigor and no armor. That's an efficiency of (450 / 50) = 9, still significantly more efficient than scenario A. But WAIT, we can still equip some armor, even without leveling Endurance past the base value of 10. You could easily put on something basic like the Sage set, which provides about 14% negation on average at a weight of 9.8. So now we've got (1900 * 1.14) = 2166hp, an increase of 523% over 10 Vigor, no armor. The efficiency then would be (523 / 50) = 10.46. And I just took a quick glance at light armor sets, I'm sure you'd still have plenty of equip load leftover for a slightly heavier set like the Depraved Perfumer set or something, for even MORE negation and efficiency.
Armor isn't important in this game, Vigor is.
