[renowner]

Cloak of Many Colors is a very good item, but it doesn't invalidate all other item choices by existing. Its useless completely against people who don't use those elements, and also doesn't have any fp boosts, stat boosts, or special effects. Unarmored torsos have a wide variety of useful armor they can utilize and none completely invalidate the others. . . For the most part. Embroidered gis are just better. And there's some unarmored equipment pieces like animal pelt that are just useless.

This armor invalidates pretty much all other heavy armor ,and is still extremely good even against people who don't trigger its main effect. And has very low weight.
Heavy armor already has a lot less worthwhile choices than unarmored to begin with.

[Infernalis]

If we dont have many good options for heavy armor as it is, why do we need to bring one down when one comes out? wouldn't it be better to just go back and help out previous heavy armors instead?

I'm not sure if I'm really fond of just nerfing everything that begins to be good, kind've feels like its why certain things get put in the position of "people will just use this one thing" in the first place.

[Miller]

The OP of the thread is simply suggesting that you have to commit to the effect instead of it being a freebie for anyone to take. I wouldn't go as far to call this the heavy armor that trumps everything else; but its a torso item that actively targets a specific set of crit damage builds and slaps them with another 15% ~ 20% DR while also having a similar base stat line to Terrasque Shell and providing +25 HP/FP in the process.

Terrasque is one of the most popular heavy armors alongside body guard as is and tends to be rarer by virtue of being in the inflated 9 star pool. The Akmedis is much more available and would be widely used to great effect to neuter a large amount of duelist builds by existing, seeing as most of them only range in the 130-150% critical mod, putting this as an additional 16-19% DR against these builds for free.

If you want to argue that Cloak of Many Color is a strong item that hasn't been nerfed, there was definitely a time where it needed a nerf; but with the existence of indignant idol and a fair amount of nerfs to the overbearing SAN races barring liches and dullahans, it's a lot more tame than it was in the past, where omni-res was extremely present.

I don't really mind if this equipment gets changed or not, I just think it's honestly way too strong of an effect to not have a condition attached to it. But the idea of it requiring a shield sounds a lot more appealing and thematic to the item itself, considering the Hero's Shield was seemingly made to pair with it. One suggestion I saw in a conversation regarding this was to make the effect a set effect with the Hero's Shield and I'm honestly quite fond of that idea. It could lose the condition that it requires a low base power or have the base power requirement risen further in exchange, while providing an additional effect of some sort to make up for having to run both items.

[caliaca]

Also to the comparison of CoMC, the high end of it is kind of close to the low end of this.

Also it doesn't have the same armor/magic armor stats.

Also it can't be bouldered.

Also it doesn't give 25/25.

So yea. Not really a good comparison.

[Snake]

My dude.

[renowner]

I personally think it'd be completely fine if it didn't randomly also give 25 hp and FP. The effect is powerful but like Cloak of Many Colors, Wyvern Rider's Plate, and many other armors that exist it would only work on certain foes. Its the addition of powerful effects that are always active that makes it too pushed. Even making it require a shield doesn't really fix it in my opinion. Its still +25 fp on heavy armor, and +25 hp on heavy armor. Which on its own is pretty damn good.

I also believe that FP on armor is worth more than HP on armor, personally. But i'm not sure if others agree with me there. You just about always end up with much lower fp than HP, and a lot of people using heavy armor end up with fairly low fp pools anyway. I weigh +25 fp and +25 hp as worth more than the +50 hp Terrasque Shell provides. Just with those things alone. (Terrasque shell eventually being better by virtue of its hp regeneration effect. But that's only discounting the critical mitigation of medis.)