Disclaimer: I have no personal practical experience.
Something important to note that I cannot stress enough: armor is a HUGE advantage.
As a roleplayer writing for an in-fighter with extensive experience in knife-fighting, armor is hell. Yes, there are weaknesses that can be taken advantage of - joints, exposed points like the underarms, chainmail intended to cushion crushing blows from maces but not stop the piercing action of a rondel dagger - but by and large, in a one-on-one, the individual without armor is going to have a hell of a time because each opening that results in an exchange of strike and counterstrike is far more likely than not to leave the less-armored individual with more "damage" than his or her foe. The fantasy setting of XIV mitigates this disadvantage somewhat if your character is, say, a ninja or a monk, but there's still some serious difficulty in selling a victory and that difficulty lies in execution.
My character recently came up against not one but two armored individuals. My character and I had to immediately adapt - it was a big "nope" moment - and even a shift in tactics to engage them separately instead of together still resulted in massive injury to my character, because armor is JUST. THAT. GOOD.
Something important to note that I cannot stress enough: armor is a HUGE advantage.
As a roleplayer writing for an in-fighter with extensive experience in knife-fighting, armor is hell. Yes, there are weaknesses that can be taken advantage of - joints, exposed points like the underarms, chainmail intended to cushion crushing blows from maces but not stop the piercing action of a rondel dagger - but by and large, in a one-on-one, the individual without armor is going to have a hell of a time because each opening that results in an exchange of strike and counterstrike is far more likely than not to leave the less-armored individual with more "damage" than his or her foe. The fantasy setting of XIV mitigates this disadvantage somewhat if your character is, say, a ninja or a monk, but there's still some serious difficulty in selling a victory and that difficulty lies in execution.
My character recently came up against not one but two armored individuals. My character and I had to immediately adapt - it was a big "nope" moment - and even a shift in tactics to engage them separately instead of together still resulted in massive injury to my character, because armor is JUST. THAT. GOOD.
![[Image: 1qVSsTp.png]](http://i.imgur.com/1qVSsTp.png)
