Query on use of Harness card

Harness seems really useful in combination with armor. BUT harness mostly appear on armor pieces, meaning I have to find helmets and boots with armor cards. Am I doing it right?

Also the harness add 1 to armor rolls is a keep. Took me a while to figure that one out

 

That is pretty much how I use such items.

Finding a single Heavy (or Divine) Armor item that has a good harness and a good Armor card is particularly nice (and, you know, an Armor you'd WANT to see succeed, unlike Frenzy Aura on the Opaline Armor). There are a bunch of such "synergy" items for different sorts of things. However, I imagine that the very fact they give you "a combo in a single item" prompted the creators to make relatively few of them, thus quite deliberately forcing you to build the rest of your gear around it.

 

Boots, helms, and armour can each have either armour cards or harness cards. So good combos can be built. But in my experience there isn't much to be gained from it anyway. Adding +1 to armour is helpful for sure, but even with that synergy the harness cards generally aren't better than just having another normal armour card.

For example, consider the value of Chain Harness assuming that you also have Enchanted Mail. Chain Harness gives a 50% chance to block 2 damage, and adds a 1/6 chance to block 5 damage with the Enchanted Mail. Adding those together gives an expected damage reduction of 1.8 - which is pretty good, but that's about as good as it gets, and it's still not as good as Reliable Mail.

So although it is a nice synergy, it probably isn't going to be a deciding factor in winning a game. (Enchanted Harness is a whole different story though. The synergy from that card is obviously much stronger.)

 

This has been my experience as well, I would add one additional point. When you do try to use this combination you're still limited to keeping two cards per turn, and you need to save both your armor cards at this point. That was the point that really bothered me, you get a small bonus, but end up in a lot of situations where you have to pitch other strong cards (usually attacks) to keep the harness.

This is why I learned to like Officer's Harness , it is a relatively weak armor card, but it's value is in allowing you to stack them in your hand.

 

Now that you mention it, I plan for this. So I've got a "boost all Armor rolls" card that I have to lug around: yay, only one more card to spare. Thus I aim for:

1). Spiked Mail. If I'm admitting my strategy revolves around melee, then I highly value this Armor (and am willing to discard other cards), and a successful melee run means I'm less likely to have to discard anyway.
2). Holy Armor. Similar situation, just for a healing Priest.
3). Another Harness. I now have a setup close to "Reliable" Armor, AND I'll boost any other Armor I happen to draw next round.
4). Rusty Armor. Low priority, obviously, but if you MUST carry one of these then you'd like it to succeed and get the heck out of your hand.

Warrior example: Juniper's Jumper, plus Shiny Chain Coif, plus Good Spiked Boots. If I were stuck with Rusty Spiked Helmet as my source for Spiked Mail, I'd take it, since I could likely survive the Ouch! now.

 

I think it'd be nice if some of the harnesses gave less (or even no) armor, but didn't count towards your end of turn card limit. Officer's harness would probably have to be changed, but it would allow more armor to actually be a good alternative to team moves/sprints (in mp anyway, not as important in sp). And it would make penetrating more valuable.

Reliable mail is just so much easier than trying to get a good harness/armor combo, and it can be gotten pretty easily without tokens.

(Edit: I agree with what oberon said about the 2 card end of turn limit being the problem with harnesses)

 

It's good in SP, with this you can tank and spank large mobs. In MP however, pulling this stunt will most likely get you killed.

 

That's a good point, I could see it being viable in SP. I'll have to give it a try.

 

Yeah, on my warrior I aim for Reliable Mail. But on my wizard I try to get Officer's Harness + Enchanted Harness. Really wish that Wizards could use a helmet for General Jelom's Helm.

Nasrum's Moccasins + Hylithia's Robes can make for a VERY robust Wizard (haven't ever had two Enchanted Harness at once, but I assume they work on each other and stack on anything else. So with 2x Enchanted Harness as your keep cards and 2 Officer's Harness, you have Armor 1 twice guaranteed, and Armor 2 twice on a roll 3. So double Reliable Hide, double Hardy Mail equivalent, that you keep every turn.