I plan on getting darkfall in a couple months, and was wondering if healing and/or buffing in plate with sword and board was effective or not.

Yea just have to switch to your staff to cast.

Originally posted by js43017

I plan on getting darkfall in a couple months, and was wondering if healing and/or buffing in plate with sword and board was effective or not.

ask after the next patch. right now, not really. Also, 1h sword and shield isn't a good combo to use because you can't out dps 2h atm because they have range on you, blocking sometimes help but not really.

I use scale armour when soloing hard mobs which use mele/archery. I still use buffs and heals.  in heavy armour even with 100 armoured casting skill there is still a massive magic armour penalty. it reduces the effect of spells and makes them take longer to cast, also means a high chance for spells to fail. you can get over some of the speed problem by using some staffs like blackbolt which cast faster than other staffs but are less effective. this means casting in heavy armour while still useful is extremely less effective.

for example there is a spell called stone skin which increase resistances to mele and range. when cast in bone (low magic penalty) with a good normal speed staff I could get like 2+ extra resistances, whereas with my scale armour and blackbolt staff I can cast nearly as fast but will only get +1 resistances and high chance to fail the spell.

because of this heavy armour is very useless in the game right now (they are buffing it soon so who knows?). all this may change in the upcoming xpac. bone is MUCH cheaper and has better magic resists, better buffs so almost as high mele/range resists, plus you can cast spells like heal etc. more effectively. therefor even if you are not primarily a caster mele/range users are best off using some spells and buffs and are better off in bone.

for pve however I do use heavy armour especially for mele training and fighting non caster mobs which chew through bone/leather.

There will be "rage" skill which will heal you while buffing elemental protections at the same time.

forums.darkfallonline.com/showthread.php

You can also use pots.

 Just carry around a robe with you.  when you need to buff, equip the robe (which un-equips all armor slots, hence removing casting penalty), take out your staff, buff the hell up, re-equip heavy armor.

APEist has the right way, Unburden is a skill you can cast, but it doesn't last long enough to fully buff.

I like to carry a bag that's just for armor so that re-armoring goes a bit quicker without worrying about double clicking my food or another item when I'm wanting to add armor.