No, Resilient or Warcaster are overall still better because of Concentration. Lightly Armored just gives you another option instead of going for a multiclass dip for obtaining armor proficiency as certain casters like Wizard and Sorcerer. You can still do a multiclass dip if you want to grab another first level feat, but optimization wise you will probably be taking Resilient and/or warcaster at one point or another.
For wizard in particular, if comparing to current options, an artificer dip is still highly optimal because it grants those armor proficiencies, additional tool proficiencies, and con proficiency. Of course, artificer doesn't seem like it will be in One D&D's at launch, so this may be a bad example.
Also, with Warcaster being a half feat now, it is a lot easier to fit it into caster builds. Just have a 17 in int, wis, or charisma and you can grab it pretty easily.
Both of which are 4th level feats. This thread should really ask "is lightly armored the best FIRST level feat for a caster?" And anyone who says no is either lying or delusional for FIRST level feats. Later feats are not relevant to the point, but of course the thread misses that entirely. Even I agree that there are 4th level feats that are better for casters.
Still going to say no and I am neither lying nor delusional. Dips have additional benefits in addition to the armor and shield proficiencies. For example, a cleric dip for wizards not only grants them those armor proficiencies, but also first level cleric spells and cantrips. The wizard gains access to spells like Bless. An artificer dip grants access to con save proficiency. Hexblade for Sword Bards grants them Cha based attacks, Hexblade's curse, eldritch blast, etc.
You shouldn't be comparing Lightly Armored to just other first level feats, but those feats plus 1st level dips. The benefit of taking Lightly Armored is not delaying your spell progression by a level, but it involves essentially giving up your first level feat.
Lightly Armored: + No delay in spell progression (this is a pretty decent pro actually). - Uses 1st level feat - Doesn't come with the additional versatility and features that a dip offers.
1st Level Dip: +More HP if the dip has a larger hit die. +The 1st level features and spells of the class you are dipping into. +You can grab a different 1st level feat. +Can come with additional proficiencies. -Your spell progression is delayed by a level.
Do note that the spell progression is a huge pro, so despite the 1st level dip having more potential pros, they are weighted about the same.
If you think any of the other first level feats even compete with this for wizards or sorcerers you are either lying, delusional, or just can't do math.
This does nothing for supporting your arguments and everything to support ignoring it as anything except the usual overblown sensationalist sky is falling rhetoric that comes with every new iteration.
Without Warcaster, I wouldn't want to hold a shield as a spell caster, if you hold a focus in your other hand (such as a staff), you may leave yourself unable to cast spells that have a somatic component but not a material one (such as the shield spell), additionally you can't cast spells with a material component that have a GP value.
Not how the game works. You can have a shield and an empty hand with your arcane focus strapped to your person. You only need to touch M components during the cast, which doesn't require freeing them (otherwise component pouches wouldn't work at all).
It's not the case if that focus is a staff or wand you want to use, like a wand of magic missiles, which still counts as a focus and that you'd need to hold if you wanted to use it, note that I said "such as a staff", since there are many magical staves.
No, Resilient or Warcaster are overall still better because of Concentration. Lightly Armored just gives you another option instead of going for a multiclass dip for obtaining armor proficiency as certain casters like Wizard and Sorcerer. You can still do a multiclass dip if you want to grab another first level feat, but optimization wise you will probably be taking Resilient and/or warcaster at one point or another.
For wizard in particular, if comparing to current options, an artificer dip is still highly optimal because it grants those armor proficiencies, additional tool proficiencies, and con proficiency. Of course, artificer doesn't seem like it will be in One D&D's at launch, so this may be a bad example.
Also, with Warcaster being a half feat now, it is a lot easier to fit it into caster builds. Just have a 17 in int, wis, or charisma and you can grab it pretty easily.
Both of which are 4th level feats. This thread should really ask "is lightly armored the best FIRST level feat for a caster?" And anyone who says no is either lying or delusional for FIRST level feats. Later feats are not relevant to the point, but of course the thread misses that entirely. Even I agree that there are 4th level feats that are better for casters.
Still going to say no and I am neither lying nor delusional. Dips have additional benefits in addition to the armor and shield proficiencies. For example, a cleric dip for wizards not only grants them those armor proficiencies, but also first level cleric spells and cantrips. The wizard gains access to spells like Bless. An artificer dip grants access to con save proficiency. Hexblade for Sword Bards grants them Cha based attacks, Hexblade's curse, eldritch blast, etc.
You shouldn't be comparing Lightly Armored to just other first level feats, but those feats plus 1st level dips. The benefit of taking Lightly Armored is not delaying your spell progression by a level, but it involves essentially giving up your first level feat.
Lightly Armored: + No delay in spell progression (this is a pretty decent pro actually). - Uses 1st level feat - Doesn't come with the additional versatility and features that a dip offers.
1st Level Dip: +More HP if the dip has a larger hit die. +The 1st level features and spells of the class you are dipping into. +You can grab a different 1st level feat. +Can come with additional proficiencies. -Your spell progression is delayed by a level.
Do note that the spell progression is a huge pro, so despite the 1st level dip having more potential pros, they are weighted about the same.
You don't get extra feats for dips (unless the class specifically says you do like with the fighting style feats at lvl 2 for ranger). You just get to pick one during character creation.
You don't get extra feats for dips (unless the class specifically says you do like with the fighting style feats at lvl 2 for ranger). You just get to pick one during character creation.
You are misinterpreting my statement, with dipping you effectively get an extra feat by virtue of not having to pick Lightly Armored by dipping. For example, you can't get both Lucky and Lightly Armored (unless you're human, but that is a different story), but you can pick Lucky and do a dip.
The base criteria we are looking to fulfill is giving a caster that normally does not have medium armor and shield proficiency, those proficiency (e.g. a wizard with medium armor and shield proficiency). So if we can get those proficiencies with a dip, we now can pick whatever we want for the 1st level feat. If we don't do a dip, we would need to use the 1st level feat to grab lightly armored.
You don't get extra feats for dips (unless the class specifically says you do like with the fighting style feats at lvl 2 for ranger). You just get to pick one during character creation.
You are misinterpreting my statement, with dipping you effectively get an extra feat by virtue of not having to pick Lightly Armored by dipping. For example, you can't get both Lucky and Lightly Armored (unless you're human, but that is a different story), but you can pick Lucky and do a dip.
The base criteria we are looking to fulfill is giving a caster that normally does not have medium armor and shield proficiency, those proficiency (e.g. a wizard with medium armor and shield proficiency). So if we can get those proficiencies with a dip, we now can pick whatever we want for the 1st level feat. If we don't do a dip, we would need to use the 1st level feat to grab lightly armored.
Ahh ok. So proficiency via the proficiencies you get with a dip not via an extra feat you pick up. Yeah I was reading that differently.
In 5e, armor is so bad. Like you get some AC from armor, but it is so quickly blown away by enemy attack bonuses. A 20 AC used to be impressive in older editions, but in 5e there's enemies coming with multiple attacks at +7 or more before long. You really need an AC above 20 before it really matters in 5e.
Thinking at a party level rather than an individual character is another consideration. Going by the backgrounds, a starting character gets 50gp to buy equipment with, right? We haven't seen any equipment tables for this UA yet, but that's barely enough to buy medium armor at all. 10gp for a shield, 10gp for Hide, +2 AC from Dex, to get 16 AC against enemies with a default +2 to hit. So a 30% chance of being hit, vs a naked character with AC 12 that has a 50% chance of being hit. That's 20gp that wasn't spent on equipment, spell components, pooled for the front liners to get better starting armor, etc. In exchange for dodging 20% of the attacks on you. Which is what percentage of the attacks on the party? I'm thinking I'd rather help a front liner get +1 AC at level 1 than the backline getting +4 with needing to use a feat to do it.
Compare this to let's say a character with heavy armor proficiency buying ring mail and a shield. That's the same 16 AC for twice the price - a steep 40gp out of 50gp, but that's the cost of not being dexterous - and it's a pretty cheap as a substitute for stat mods. My point here is to say Light Armor Proficiency (UA) isn't any better than heavy armor proficiency from the gate and money matters. As you go down the line, is the party going to pool their gold to buy the wizard half-plate in time to keep pace with the to hit modifiers of enemies? When your party hits the point where you need an artificer infusion/a magic item to improve your AC, are you going to use that up on a wizard? By which I mean, is the magic armor and magic shields your party gets going to go to the backline? And is a wizard choosing a magic item of choice going to chose armor or a shield over literally anything else? No, not unless that is the character's key focus or until there's nothing better to spend the money / magic item on.
20 ac or its equivalent has never been all that impressive in older editions; getting your AC regardless of class to 20 (0 in the THAC0 days) was just a matter of time and gold. AC 30 (-10 in the THAC0 days) now that was impressive. That required wearing enough magic items that the character practically glowed in the dark. Obtaining said items meant jumping through numerous very specific hoops.
I mean impressive in the sense of being a good defense (and not just in the early levels.) It has been a long while, but in my memory an 18-20 AC was a good base, 16-17 was still decent enough. In 5e, 18-20 is decent enough, but not good. imo
I mean impressive in the sense of being a good defense (and not just in the early levels.) It has been a long while, but in my memory an 18-20 AC was a good base, 16-17 was still decent enough. In 5e, 18-20 is decent enough, but not good. imo
Yeah a 18-20 (1 to 0) was good against the mooks but by the time you were looking at numbers like that the monsters THAC0 had scaled to match. Like I said; AC didnt offset that until you managed to drop into the negative numbers.
You'd be kind of a fool not to take magic initiate as your background feat for any full caster. First level casters can only prepare 2 leveled spells and two cantrips. That's pretty restricting when you get down to it. Magic initiate is a 50% increase to the first and a 100% increase to the second; plus casting out of school; plus changing out of school spell stats to match your own primary caster stat. Wise firebolts and intelligent shillelaghs for example. Honestly for humans take magic initiate twice but if you don't tough and lucky are both better 1st level picks than lightly armored.
If I'm making my wizard durable, I'd probably go for Tough. Lightly Armored is probably more durability at low level, but by mid level there's a lot of damage that doesn't go vs AC and you have the spell slots to always have mage armor active so the AC boost is smaller.
In 5e, armor is so bad. Like you get some AC from armor, but it is so quickly blown away by enemy attack bonuses. A 20 AC used to be impressive in older editions, but in 5e there's enemies coming with multiple attacks at +7 or more before long. You really need an AC above 20 before it really matters in 5e.
What edition are you talking about, some people have already gone into the old THAC0 above, in 3.5 BAB would quickly out scale 20AC, A fighter would have +20/+15/+10/+5 at level 20, so 20 AC, you're expecting to take almost 2.5 attacks a round from a fighter if you had an AC of 20, with full plate and a heavy shield you could be pushing 21 AC, or if you went with tower shield an AC of 23. There were then bonuses for Enhancement Bonus, Deflection Bonus, Natural Armor and Dodge bonuses on top of that, enchanted armors and shields were far more common too, If you were pushing an AC of 20 at level 10, you're probably a spell caster without much real armour or dexterity in 3.5.
If anything 5E has some of the smallest change in AC from levels 1 to 20 compared to previous editions.
I mean, all bards are fools of one sort or another. Seriously tho you're leaning into expert more than caster with that feat which kinda pulls away from the premise of best feat for spellcasters.
If there had been an option, I would have voted: We don’t have any idea, since we haven’t seen the classes most likely to benefit from it, or all the other feat options. It unquestionably strong, but calling it game-breakingly too good when we only have a fairly small part of the puzzle seems like quite a leap. I love a good internet argument without all the facts, and therefore just mostly speculation, as much as the next guy, but maybe wait to see something in its full context. Could be there’s half a dozen other feats that are just as good.
I’m not trying to say it’s not worth discussing. More like, maybe wait until we know more before going to the extreme end of the conversation.
No, Resilient or Warcaster are overall still better because of Concentration. Lightly Armored just gives you another option instead of going for a multiclass dip for obtaining armor proficiency as certain casters like Wizard and Sorcerer. You can still do a multiclass dip if you want to grab another first level feat, but optimization wise you will probably be taking Resilient and/or warcaster at one point or another.
For wizard in particular, if comparing to current options, an artificer dip is still highly optimal because it grants those armor proficiencies, additional tool proficiencies, and con proficiency. Of course, artificer doesn't seem like it will be in One D&D's at launch, so this may be a bad example.
Also, with Warcaster being a half feat now, it is a lot easier to fit it into caster builds. Just have a 17 in int, wis, or charisma and you can grab it pretty easily.
Both of which are 4th level feats. This thread should really ask "is lightly armored the best FIRST level feat for a caster?" And anyone who says no is either lying or delusional for FIRST level feats. Later feats are not relevant to the point, but of course the thread misses that entirely. Even I agree that there are 4th level feats that are better for casters.
I'd even say if the other feats were first level lightly armored would still be the better choice as you aren't concentrating on that many spells levels 1-3, and almost all attacks you face will be AC based. And while at 4th I'd probably give the edge to either warcaster or resilient con for a wizard I'd point out a sorcerer already has proficiency in con saves so for them it would still be better. I know some people feel the need to double down on concentration check protection but not being dead is probably a better option at that point. And even for the wizard its not that far off and I'd say in rougher campaigns where the wizard gets targeted more aggressively than some are used to it may be the better choice.
Yeah making your con save is important, not having to make it in the first place helps with that. For a wizard/sor we are really looking at a 24 AC pretty quickly depending on campaign cash with this. You can still get hit with a 24 AC at level 4, but casting shield with a base 19 AC will likely drop quite a few hits into misses and just as importantly require a lot less shield casts to stay up. At even higher levels when area of effect attacks, breath weapons etc become more common the Ac isn't as important but levels 4-7 its not that clear cut to me which is better. But there is a decent chance in many campaigns the armor and shield are now magical so you may be looking at a 21-23 base AC. I can say as a DM dealing with a sword and board eldritch knight hitting them was pretty dang rare even up to level 13/14 when the campaign ended. Spells etc sure, but they almost never got hit from AC based attacks.
The AC on its own isn't terrible but high ACs get insanely good in the hands of a characters with spells like mirror image, protection vs evil, shield etc. Disadvantage helps that AC 16 wiz survive, it makes that AC 22 wizard with a shield spell in their pocked almost impossible to hit. All those spells everyone was bragging about for why their wizard does not need armor as magic and positioning is enough do provide a good level of defense. IMO not as good as other characters when combined with the wizards HP. But when the base AC is as good or better than the fighters AC those spells make them darn near impregnable without cheesing things to specifically counter their insane defense. And while I will have enemies fight tactically and target the wizard pretty hard when they make a target of themselves I wont make things to specifically counter the wizard anymore than I'll start tossing piles of super high Ac enemies at the party to counter GWM.
I'd have to point out that while Sorcerer does indeed get con save, dragonic sorcerer gets passive non-magical mage armor as well as more HP, so they really have enough that getting lightly armored does not add that much. Also at levels 1-3, what armor is your DM letting you get? Scale Mail is about the only +AC you'd reasonably expect to see at those levels (assuming dex mod of 2 or lower), and that disadvantages your stealth.
If you are looking to increase your ability to survive, I'd go with Tough being a better option, Lightly armored is limited to the type of damage you are least likely to take, while having tough improves your chances against the AoE damage you are more likely to take.
In 5e, armor is so bad. Like you get some AC from armor, but it is so quickly blown away by enemy attack bonuses. A 20 AC used to be impressive in older editions, but in 5e there's enemies coming with multiple attacks at +7 or more before long. You really need an AC above 20 before it really matters in 5e.
What edition are you talking about, some people have already gone into the old THAC0 above, in 3.5 BAB would quickly out scale 20AC, A fighter would have +20/+15/+10/+5 at level 20, so 20 AC, you're expecting to take almost 2.5 attacks a round from a fighter if you had an AC of 20, with full plate and a heavy shield you could be pushing 21 AC, or if you went with tower shield an AC of 23. There were then bonuses for Enhancement Bonus, Deflection Bonus, Natural Armor and Dodge bonuses on top of that, enchanted armors and shields were far more common too, If you were pushing an AC of 20 at level 10, you're probably a spell caster without much real armour or dexterity in 3.5.
I was thinking of AD&D 2e , specifically of a paladin with a full plate+shield being an AC of 20 (0) and 2 attacks at +8 to hit (18/00 STR = +3, +5 weapon) versus a Death Knight with an AC of 20 (0) and 1(?) attack at roughly +11 to hit (THAC0 11, variable magic weapon bonus, I'm assuming +2). In my dusty memory, an AC of 20 (0) seems pretty darn good because these are iconic benchmarks for me.
In 5e, the Death Knight is 20 AC with 3 attacks at +11 to hit and CR 17. A lvl 17 5e paladin (assuming nothing else besides max STR and max magic weapon bonus) would be 2 attacks around +14 to hit at lvl 17 (+6 pb, +5 STR mod, +3 weapon). I think AC is noticeably weaker in 5e on both sides in this admittedly limited example.
For those arguing that the synergy from higher ac and spells is too strong, i feel like maybe it doesn't make those spells any stronger than other spells. Would you always cast those spells over any other spell?
Another point is that of RP decisions. Feats are at the heart of a character. Some wizardly folks will make sense in armor, some won't.
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Still going to say no and I am neither lying nor delusional. Dips have additional benefits in addition to the armor and shield proficiencies. For example, a cleric dip for wizards not only grants them those armor proficiencies, but also first level cleric spells and cantrips. The wizard gains access to spells like Bless. An artificer dip grants access to con save proficiency. Hexblade for Sword Bards grants them Cha based attacks, Hexblade's curse, eldritch blast, etc.
You shouldn't be comparing Lightly Armored to just other first level feats, but those feats plus 1st level dips. The benefit of taking Lightly Armored is not delaying your spell progression by a level, but it involves essentially giving up your first level feat.
Lightly Armored:
+ No delay in spell progression (this is a pretty decent pro actually).
- Uses 1st level feat
- Doesn't come with the additional versatility and features that a dip offers.
1st Level Dip:
+More HP if the dip has a larger hit die.
+The 1st level features and spells of the class you are dipping into.
+You can grab a different 1st level feat.
+Can come with additional proficiencies.
-Your spell progression is delayed by a level.
Do note that the spell progression is a huge pro, so despite the 1st level dip having more potential pros, they are weighted about the same.
This does nothing for supporting your arguments and everything to support ignoring it as anything except the usual overblown sensationalist sky is falling rhetoric that comes with every new iteration.
It's not the case if that focus is a staff or wand you want to use, like a wand of magic missiles, which still counts as a focus and that you'd need to hold if you wanted to use it, note that I said "such as a staff", since there are many magical staves.
You don't get extra feats for dips (unless the class specifically says you do like with the fighting style feats at lvl 2 for ranger). You just get to pick one during character creation.
You are misinterpreting my statement, with dipping you effectively get an extra feat by virtue of not having to pick Lightly Armored by dipping. For example, you can't get both Lucky and Lightly Armored (unless you're human, but that is a different story), but you can pick Lucky and do a dip.
The base criteria we are looking to fulfill is giving a caster that normally does not have medium armor and shield proficiency, those proficiency (e.g. a wizard with medium armor and shield proficiency). So if we can get those proficiencies with a dip, we now can pick whatever we want for the 1st level feat. If we don't do a dip, we would need to use the 1st level feat to grab lightly armored.
I voted no. Anything that expands spellcasting, like magic in initiate, is better.
Ahh ok. So proficiency via the proficiencies you get with a dip not via an extra feat you pick up. Yeah I was reading that differently.
In 5e, armor is so bad. Like you get some AC from armor, but it is so quickly blown away by enemy attack bonuses. A 20 AC used to be impressive in older editions, but in 5e there's enemies coming with multiple attacks at +7 or more before long. You really need an AC above 20 before it really matters in 5e.
Thinking at a party level rather than an individual character is another consideration. Going by the backgrounds, a starting character gets 50gp to buy equipment with, right? We haven't seen any equipment tables for this UA yet, but that's barely enough to buy medium armor at all. 10gp for a shield, 10gp for Hide, +2 AC from Dex, to get 16 AC against enemies with a default +2 to hit. So a 30% chance of being hit, vs a naked character with AC 12 that has a 50% chance of being hit. That's 20gp that wasn't spent on equipment, spell components, pooled for the front liners to get better starting armor, etc. In exchange for dodging 20% of the attacks on you. Which is what percentage of the attacks on the party? I'm thinking I'd rather help a front liner get +1 AC at level 1 than the backline getting +4 with needing to use a feat to do it.
Compare this to let's say a character with heavy armor proficiency buying ring mail and a shield. That's the same 16 AC for twice the price - a steep 40gp out of 50gp, but that's the cost of not being dexterous - and it's a pretty cheap as a substitute for stat mods. My point here is to say Light Armor Proficiency (UA) isn't any better than heavy armor proficiency from the gate and money matters. As you go down the line, is the party going to pool their gold to buy the wizard half-plate in time to keep pace with the to hit modifiers of enemies? When your party hits the point where you need an artificer infusion/a magic item to improve your AC, are you going to use that up on a wizard? By which I mean, is the magic armor and magic shields your party gets going to go to the backline? And is a wizard choosing a magic item of choice going to chose armor or a shield over literally anything else? No, not unless that is the character's key focus or until there's nothing better to spend the money / magic item on.
20 ac or its equivalent has never been all that impressive in older editions; getting your AC regardless of class to 20 (0 in the THAC0 days) was just a matter of time and gold.
AC 30 (-10 in the THAC0 days) now that was impressive. That required wearing enough magic items that the character practically glowed in the dark.
Obtaining said items meant jumping through numerous very specific hoops.
I mean impressive in the sense of being a good defense (and not just in the early levels.) It has been a long while, but in my memory an 18-20 AC was a good base, 16-17 was still decent enough. In 5e, 18-20 is decent enough, but not good. imo
Yeah a 18-20 (1 to 0) was good against the mooks but by the time you were looking at numbers like that the monsters THAC0 had scaled to match.
Like I said; AC didnt offset that until you managed to drop into the negative numbers.
You'd be kind of a fool not to take magic initiate as your background feat for any full caster. First level casters can only prepare 2 leveled spells and two cantrips. That's pretty restricting when you get down to it. Magic initiate is a 50% increase to the first and a 100% increase to the second; plus casting out of school; plus changing out of school spell stats to match your own primary caster stat. Wise firebolts and intelligent shillelaghs for example. Honestly for humans take magic initiate twice but if you don't tough and lucky are both better 1st level picks than lightly armored.
If I'm making my wizard durable, I'd probably go for Tough. Lightly Armored is probably more durability at low level, but by mid level there's a lot of damage that doesn't go vs AC and you have the spell slots to always have mage armor active so the AC boost is smaller.
What edition are you talking about, some people have already gone into the old THAC0 above, in 3.5 BAB would quickly out scale 20AC, A fighter would have +20/+15/+10/+5 at level 20, so 20 AC, you're expecting to take almost 2.5 attacks a round from a fighter if you had an AC of 20, with full plate and a heavy shield you could be pushing 21 AC, or if you went with tower shield an AC of 23. There were then bonuses for Enhancement Bonus, Deflection Bonus, Natural Armor and Dodge bonuses on top of that, enchanted armors and shields were far more common too, If you were pushing an AC of 20 at level 10, you're probably a spell caster without much real armour or dexterity in 3.5.
If anything 5E has some of the smallest change in AC from levels 1 to 20 compared to previous editions.
I'm the fool that took Musician instead of Magic Initiate as a bard. So, ymmv.
I mean, all bards are fools of one sort or another. Seriously tho you're leaning into expert more than caster with that feat which kinda pulls away from the premise of best feat for spellcasters.
If there had been an option, I would have voted: We don’t have any idea, since we haven’t seen the classes most likely to benefit from it, or all the other feat options.
It unquestionably strong, but calling it game-breakingly too good when we only have a fairly small part of the puzzle seems like quite a leap.
I love a good internet argument without all the facts, and therefore just mostly speculation, as much as the next guy, but maybe wait to see something in its full context. Could be there’s half a dozen other feats that are just as good.
I’m not trying to say it’s not worth discussing. More like, maybe wait until we know more before going to the extreme end of the conversation.
I'd even say if the other feats were first level lightly armored would still be the better choice as you aren't concentrating on that many spells levels 1-3, and almost all attacks you face will be AC based. And while at 4th I'd probably give the edge to either warcaster or resilient con for a wizard I'd point out a sorcerer already has proficiency in con saves so for them it would still be better. I know some people feel the need to double down on concentration check protection but not being dead is probably a better option at that point. And even for the wizard its not that far off and I'd say in rougher campaigns where the wizard gets targeted more aggressively than some are used to it may be the better choice.
Yeah making your con save is important, not having to make it in the first place helps with that. For a wizard/sor we are really looking at a 24 AC pretty quickly depending on campaign cash with this. You can still get hit with a 24 AC at level 4, but casting shield with a base 19 AC will likely drop quite a few hits into misses and just as importantly require a lot less shield casts to stay up. At even higher levels when area of effect attacks, breath weapons etc become more common the Ac isn't as important but levels 4-7 its not that clear cut to me which is better. But there is a decent chance in many campaigns the armor and shield are now magical so you may be looking at a 21-23 base AC. I can say as a DM dealing with a sword and board eldritch knight hitting them was pretty dang rare even up to level 13/14 when the campaign ended. Spells etc sure, but they almost never got hit from AC based attacks.
The AC on its own isn't terrible but high ACs get insanely good in the hands of a characters with spells like mirror image, protection vs evil, shield etc. Disadvantage helps that AC 16 wiz survive, it makes that AC 22 wizard with a shield spell in their pocked almost impossible to hit. All those spells everyone was bragging about for why their wizard does not need armor as magic and positioning is enough do provide a good level of defense. IMO not as good as other characters when combined with the wizards HP. But when the base AC is as good or better than the fighters AC those spells make them darn near impregnable without cheesing things to specifically counter their insane defense. And while I will have enemies fight tactically and target the wizard pretty hard when they make a target of themselves I wont make things to specifically counter the wizard anymore than I'll start tossing piles of super high Ac enemies at the party to counter GWM.
I'd have to point out that while Sorcerer does indeed get con save, dragonic sorcerer gets passive non-magical mage armor as well as more HP, so they really have enough that getting lightly armored does not add that much. Also at levels 1-3, what armor is your DM letting you get? Scale Mail is about the only +AC you'd reasonably expect to see at those levels (assuming dex mod of 2 or lower), and that disadvantages your stealth.
If you are looking to increase your ability to survive, I'd go with Tough being a better option, Lightly armored is limited to the type of damage you are least likely to take, while having tough improves your chances against the AoE damage you are more likely to take.
I was thinking of AD&D 2e , specifically of a paladin with a full plate+shield being an AC of 20 (0) and 2 attacks at +8 to hit (18/00 STR = +3, +5 weapon) versus a Death Knight with an AC of 20 (0) and 1(?) attack at roughly +11 to hit (THAC0 11, variable magic weapon bonus, I'm assuming +2). In my dusty memory, an AC of 20 (0) seems pretty darn good because these are iconic benchmarks for me.
In 5e, the Death Knight is 20 AC with 3 attacks at +11 to hit and CR 17. A lvl 17 5e paladin (assuming nothing else besides max STR and max magic weapon bonus) would be 2 attacks around +14 to hit at lvl 17 (+6 pb, +5 STR mod, +3 weapon). I think AC is noticeably weaker in 5e on both sides in this admittedly limited example.
For those arguing that the synergy from higher ac and spells is too strong, i feel like maybe it doesn't make those spells any stronger than other spells. Would you always cast those spells over any other spell?
Another point is that of RP decisions. Feats are at the heart of a character. Some wizardly folks will make sense in armor, some won't.