Just wondering if a highly upgraded scale armor can carry through the metropolis or if I'm just effed if I don't find a plate armor. If so, what should I be looking to upgrade the scale armor to? Thanks.
Scale is absolutely fine. Scale gets +1/+4 with each upgrade and plate gets +1/+5 and starts a little higher. You're much better off not throwing away upgrades you put into scale in order to make the switch. Now, if you have scale +4 and find plate +3, and you have upgrades to burn, sure, make the switch. Those armors at that point are about the same, and putting upgrades into plate is better.
With a ranged class, I sometimes beat that game with just chain mail. With melee, you can beat the game with only +4 scale. You just put more upgrades into weapons and wands so you kill things faster or have good utility. "The best defense is a strong offense." (Unless you're playing berserker, which you should not do except to get the badge maybe.)
Playing berserker is like not having a subclass at all. It doesn't do anything unless you dump a million upgrades into armor and intentionally get hit in order to increase your meager damage by... 50%. Meager damage because you dumped your upgrades into armor instead of a weapon.
Even when you're trying to get hit, you just dodge a bunch anyway. You have to literally just stand there passing turns and getting hit to build any significant amount of rage. And you have to be dangerously low in HP or it just evaporates away by the time you find the next enemy. Maybe not completely, but certainly under 100, so now you have low HP and not enough rage to save you from dying.
Meanwhile, you could have just upgraded your weapon instead of armor and killed things faster and be safer because there would be no reason to maintain low HP.
And If you do somehow die while at 100 rage, the whole subclass shuts down for 3 character levels. Wow.
The anti-death thing doesn't trigger unless you have exactly 100 rage. If you have 99 and get blasted by an evil eye... sorry, you just die. It makes the talent that gives you a limit of 150 rage required to get any benefit from the anti-death feature.
If you are a berserker and play the game normally, you will literally never build 100 rage. Hell, you will rarely hit 50 rage. It's like not even having a subclass. It's entirely useless.
In summary, trying to actually utilize the subclass brings about your death. In a subclass that's about not dying. And in exchange you get a tiny boost to your meager damage.
Both work very well for the entire journey there and back. I use the first I get my hands on (typically scale armour) and upgrade it to +8. But if it's plate armour, you might have to start using it before gaining the necessary strength, so be ready to spend more time and food on a few levels in the prison area.