So on an improved armor bench which currently has Ogrus Iron Eater (t4 armorer) I need a heavy padding + iron bars + leather to make a piece of barbarian armor (heavy armor). It’s pretty close to the same just to repair it. To repair vs make new armor I am saving only 6 iron bars and 2 leather on lets say the helmet for example. If you are like me and like to keep your armor fully repaired in good condition there is next to no incentive to repair something. This does not seem very balanced to me. I’m just wearing down my armor killing elephants in order to maintain my armor. As the heavy padding costs me 30 thick leather doesnt matter wether or nor not I repair or remake it’s 30 thick leather either way even if your armor is only slightly damaged. This is not an “economical” or balanced way of doing things. I do not like this particular change, just sayin.
Anyone out there maybe have a different setup than me that is maybe getting them some more favourable results as far as repair vs remake?
Just throw your used armor in the dismantling bench, you will get the padding back, but yeah there’s no economy in repairing armor anymore 
Have you tried repair kits?
That’s my tactic to keep the cost of armor repair low.
You need to find the durability T4 armorers. They make the legendary repair kits. They have the hammer icon.
Awesome, never thought of that. thanks!
Holy hell this is NOT the way to go…
Just use Master Armor Patch kits people. It is more cost effective than dismantling your epic heavy armor plus you dont have to remake the armor mods.
I agree that Master/Legendary Armor Patch kit is slightly cheaper than manually repairing armor, but only Legendary will repair to 100%, and OP want to repair a non-epic heavy armor to 100%, maybe he doesn’t have access to any of the high end repair kits or just want to have a 100% fully repaired armor.
My suggestion with the dismantling bench is a lot cheaper than repairing armor in the armor bench unless off course there have been applied kits to the armor pieces
Just as an experiment I put a Epic heavy Pictish Warchief Boots in the Dismantling bench and got 1 Perfected heavy padding, 4 Hardened steel bars and 1 Steel Reinforcement in return, had I put the the same pair of boots in the improved armor bench to fully repair it, I would have to add a new Perfected heavy padding, 18 Hardened steel bars and 3 Steel Reinforcement, a Perfected heavy padding cost 31 Hardened leather, 10 Elephant hide and 5 rope, so between these to options, my suggestion with the dismantling Bench is actually a good solution.
Again OP specifically wanted information to manually repair an ordinary heavy armor to 100%, suggestions like use Master or Legendary patch kits may not be an option they have, it is so easy give advice based on things you can only get a good while after having reached level 60, but the person may be at a lower level or simply don’t have access to certain high end stuff
And no one is upset with that?
In no game I ever played, was repairing near the same like creating new. Or needed a temp-workaround like destryoing it, to get some resources back.
I have an idea, Funcom fixes it so its not as expensive to maintain as it is to make. Yea lets let Funcom fix their error. Might have to wait 10 years as it will go on the list that gets sent to be looked at and that list I really think goes in the waste bin but maybe not either way this is their mistake, keep with the bug reports and sooner or later they will have to look at it and fix it.
I think a lot are, I also find it weird that the repair cost in an armor bench has become so high that dismantling it in many cases are a cheaper option, hopefully it is something they will balance out, but I fear that they might remove the giving back of padding from the dismantling bench again making it an obsolete station 
Yup It’s just regular heavy armor. I don’t yet have repair kits and I always like to keep my armor at 100% so I like the dismantling bench idea precisely because I get the padding back. You are correct though I don’t much like the change they have made here but still it’s the best option for me right now. Little off topic maybe but I think one of the major draws to the whole game itself was going out thralling (at least for me anyway). I like going out and try to get only named thralls right from the start even with the wood and leather truncheon, sometimes you fight em for 15 minutes and go through a couple truncheons when you are low level, that was half the fun of the game. Sadly now it’s a bit pointless (thralling not the game).
According to the patch notes in today’s update, repairing armor no longer requires padding. 
Gigitty.
Except it still does. Unless we need to craft a new one before that takes effect.
Just tried, it still takes a padding even though patch notes says it is fixed 
Wow that sucks, they really had my hopes up with that one.
It’s probably the same as “we fixed the underwater dungeon glare”. It’ll probably get fixed eventually, just maybe not in the first couple of hotfixes that claim to include the fix 
Still i’m gonna update and restart my server and see if that does anything.
My surge thrall is still in there making legny kits since day one. Musta lucked out that she turned the right specialty.
When I tried it still required a padding to repair. This is not fixed yet…
Until the actual patch takes effect and armor repair stops needing padding anymore, I have an idea (mostly for Exiled Lands players, don’t know about Siptah): go murder Cimmerians. Then loot their Cimmerian heavy armors and dismantle those - you’re not likely to wear the regular-quality armors anyway.
I don’t know if Cimmerian heavy gives the heavy padding when dismantled, these days. Used to give only hardened leather and stuff - but since I’m using the Mounds as my main training ground for thralls, I always end up with lots of spare Cimmerian armor pieces for dismantling.