Plate armor does in fact reduce our avoidance when equipped. When I craft, I take of my weapon, shield, greaves, curiass and gloves. Without my weapon or shield, with all of my armor on, my avoidance is 23.3%. When I unequip chest, legs and gloves, it goes up to 26.3%. 3 pieces of pristine ebon vangaurd amor cost me 3% avoidance. A full suit of plate armor will cost us about 7-8% avoidance. That is a significant hit. Our armor does in fact reduce our avoidance. The mitigation it adds is not sufficient to compensate for the loss of avoidance as our mitigation is capped (which effectively makes it go down as we level up) for each teir and armor type. Avoidance on the other hand is always a percentage and remains constant as we level up.
Whether or not our armor is a liability or a benefit depends on the strength of the mob we are fighting and the type of attacks it is using. Against a sufficiently strong mob, our mitigation becomes ineffective. There are certain attacks that ignore our mitigation. The advantage of avoidance is that it depends only on the level of the mob and works to some extent on all types of attacks and all types of mobs. The big problem with our avoidance is it is frontal only. On the other hand, brawler avoidance is 360 degrees. We must mitigate all damage from behind. It is sad but true that against certain types of mobs in certain situations, we would be better off without any armor on. Another big advantage that brawlers have is that their leather armor gives them the stats and resists they need without significantly reducing their avoidance. Our avoidance is capped lower than theirs so there is no point in our wearing cloth or leather armor to compensate. Our avoidance will never be as high as theirs.
No matter how you look at it, brawlers are in fact the uber tanks in eq2 
Message Edited by Rochir on 10-06-2005 12:23 PM