Intruder: Heavy Armor Guide

The introduction of the Heavy Armor item was in update 2247, the creatively named “Armor Update”, and as of the writting of this guide, this is pretty much how the armor was released.

The Heavy Armor is an item that uses space in your inventory, so you MUST have at least one free space for it. Heavy Armor works passively, as long as you have the Heavy Armor item in your inventory you’ll have the effects that the Heavy Armor gives.

Heavy Armor changes you appereance (check the following section!), creates additional noise as you move, reduces your running speed and gives you a bunch of resistances to damages. This resistances are applied to ALL body parts, even if they’re not visually protected by the armor.

On official maps, Heavy Armor is usually located on the Defender’s side of the map, ranging from two to three armor pieces in total.

Heavy Armor does NOT resist the following:

• Explosions – No damages reductions
• Tear gas – No inmunity to ANY effects of the tear gas
• The shotgun (Hammerhead) – No resistance to balance damage

Armor changes your appearance to match the title of Heavy Armor. It has two, distinct models for Defender’s and Attacker’s, so it doesn’t make it harder to distinguish between ally and foe.

Defender’s model with highlighted Heavy Armor parts.

Defender’s acquire heavy armor in the chest, arms and thighs. They also get a crotch plate and a new helmet with a face plate.

Attacker’s model with highlighted Heavy Armor parts.

Attacker’s acquire heavy armor in the chest, arms, and thighs. They get a helmet with white border visors. The armor makes them much more noticeable in dark places, as the grey of the armor might give away their place in the dark, even if perfectly quiet.

Hitting an armored opponent will have a different sound and the hit effect will be a spark. Armor is purely cosmetic and does NOT represent what parts are protected and what others are exposed. Armor protects ALL the body, even if it doesn’t have an armor piece.

Now let’s see how serious is this serious protection! The update post claims that the armor reduces health damage by 40%, and balance damage to 65%, that’s quite a big difference at a glance, but how big of a difference maker in a gunfight?

Let’s crunch some number…

Pistols: – About 450 RPM, or 15 rounds every 2 seconds.

• Health Damage vs Unarmored: 25 (4-hits KO, 1 headshot KO)
• Balance Damage vs Unarmored: 40 (2-hits to topple crouch/standing still, 1 running)
• Health Damage vs Armored: 15 (6-hits KO, 2 headshots KO)
• Balance Damage vs Armored: 14 (4-hits to topple standing, 6 crouching, 2 running)

Now THAT’S some serious protection! In a 1v1 scenario, this gives you a really big advantage over your opponent, making you much harder to bring down, now let’s go over the Vector.

SMG, Vector: – About 600 RPM, or 30 rounds every 3 seconds.

• Health Damage vs Unarmored: 20 (5-hits KO, 1 headshot KO)
• Balance Damage vs Unarmored: 32 (2-hits topple standing, 3 crouching, 1 running)
• Health Damage vs Armored: 12 (10-hits KO, headshot KO)
• Balance Damage vs Armored: 11 (5-hits topple standing, 9 crouched, 3 running)

That’s… a lot of difference. Even keeping in mind the rate of fire of the SMG, the aim wobbles a lot even when crouching.

Shotgun, Hammerhead: – About 72 RPM, or 6 shells every 5 seconds.

• Health Damage vs Unarmored: No data… (80 or more)
• Balance Damage vs Unarmored: No data… (but nearly always topples)
• Health Damage vs Armored: No data… (48 or more)
• Balance Damage vs Armored: No data… (but nearly always topples)

That was to be expected, shotgun was elected as the poster boy for bringing down the giants. Make sure to search for shotguns if you know that the map has Heavy Armor, as this will make Armor users really vulnerable.

Sniper: – About 150 RPM, or 5 rounds every 2 seconds.

• Health Damage vs Unarmored: 90 (2-hit KO, 1 headshot KO)
• Balance Damage vs Unarmored: 85 (1-hit topple standing/crouching/running)
• Health Damage vs Armored: 54 (2-hit KO, 1 headshot KO)
• Balance Damage vs Armored: 30 (2-hit topple standing, 3 crouching, 1 running)

I was surprised that the Sniper was NOT an instant death sentence against armor, in fact, armor makes it so getting hit by a sniper no longer equals to your death by not being toppled. This has saved me in matches, allowing me to counter-snipe the sniper with my SMG after withstanding a sniper shot. However, a good sniper that can shoot you twice will still kill you, no big surprise.

Now let’s go over some miscellaneous facts that either don’t fit any section of the guide or aren’t that important to mention:

• Explosions, tear gas, environmental damage or Hammerhead’s balance damage are completely unaffected by the Heavy Armor’s resistances.
• Heavy Armor reduces your running speed by 25%.
• Heavy Armor causes your jumps to be shorter and also makes them cost double the energy.
• You can drop your armor from your inventory.
• When Heavy Armor is active, an icon will apear on the bottom left corner, below your HP, energy and balance.
• The sound created by Heavy Armor is another sound on top of any existing.
• This sound is NOT played when you are crawling.
• The sound created by Heavy Armor is faster if you’re running.
• The sound effect and particles when you shoot an armored enemy are different to the ones that are unarmored.
• Heavy Armor covers your patches.
• This also causes a lot of hats to clip through.
• This guide is PURE theory, so take it with a bit of salt!
• I decided against adding crawling to the balance damage section because it’s very hard to topple enemies crawling even without armor, so it’s pointless to add it.

The new armor is some serious protection, and it WILL be a game changer once people learn to use it. You NEED to be more careful when you approach an armored opponent, as a 1 on 1 will highly favour the armored, as the two most common weapons (pistols and SMGs) are not an effective way to kill an armored opponent.

The best ways to counter an armored opponent that I can think of are thus: Explosives and traps; because they’re just as vulnerable as a normal enemy, the Shotgun; They go through balance resistance, one pump and they’re highly vulnerable to another shot or an arrest, and Tear Gas; people often sleep on this thing, but it’s very damn good, it has a huge area of effect, it heavily affects aiming (it blurries vision and inverts mouse controls) and you’re inmune to it.

The armor addition makes the game greatly in favour of the Defender’s, which I like, but I would like that the armor could be lootable, to further disencourage the Defender’s just running out on enemy territory, because then it would give the armor to the enemies.