Looking for experienced advice pertaining to Armor options

Hi and thanks for reading first of all.

I'm looking for some advice on some armor options in a build I will try in the future.

Basically what I am looking for is if you have experience with end game (map farming) with either of these armor setups please chime in with your experience vs basic physical attacks.

The path I take is required and cannot be altered. Picking up more armor nodes is not possible with the rest of the tree I will be choosing. I'm only looking for end game experience with armor values related to 6 armor nodes vs iron reflexes + grace. The iron reflexes build will include (in the end) at least 2 +30 dex nodes on top of the dexterity required to get to iron reflexes fyi.

How does the total armor from str/armor gear add up and compare to evasion+IR+grace (70+)?

First option, Armor nodes and str/armor only gear:


Second option, Iron reflexes (+grace) and evasion gear:


A few notes:
With the IR version I would be getting Golems blood, the 8x8x12 hp nodes, and diamond skin.

Thanks for any and all experience you can share that would shed some light on comparing these two options.

Honestly, I'd recommend the second route, but also including the 3 armor nodes at the marauder starting area. I've done all kind of different builds, and the IR+Armor nodes version has always been more successful.

A few stages of armor that I've tried and how i experienced them

* 1000 AR - This has always felt way too low. Unless you play a pure ranged (totem) class with friends and being able to always stay in the back, this is suicide.

* 5000 AR - Things start to shape up here. I've even done melee builds with this and it has worked, but it's been very risky at times.

* 10,000 AR - This to me is the 'sweet spot'. You can relax a lot more here and you don't have to worry about the fast hitting mobs like monkeys. (pesky monkeys!)

* 15,000 AR - Not a huge difference here, but it did help if you are a heavy physical build. (EK for example)

* 20,000 and 25,000 AR - This to me was over kill. It definitely helped as an EK user against physical reflect, but so many other stats were sacrificed.


Conclusion, i would recommend 5-10k for everyone doing end game maps at a higher pace. Even if you are ranged, armor does help a lot. I wouldn't go above 15k unless you are either EK or in very good gear and can afford the stats.

Thank you very much, I feel around 10k is nice aswell. I have more than this on my IR characters.

To be more clear on what I am looking for though, lets assume that I don't have enough points to take both options. I have not tried an armor node+str/armor only geared character so I don't know what the armor values are like at 70+.

The whole point is I can save 3 points in my build if I used the armor only version, with str/armor gear, but I have never tried such a build and thus have no idea what end game armor gear values look like.

Its really just minor tweaking and to be honest I also was considering taking both as you suggested (and thank you very much for providing information on that!) but I would have to sacrifice points elsewhere, or save the armor only nodes until 70+ (my builds plan for level 70 as a starting point - so I could technically get 6 more points after filling the build nodes out).

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toazd wrote:

Thank you very much, I feel around 10k is nice aswell. I have more than this on my IR characters.

To be more clear on what I am looking for though, lets assume that I don't have enough points to take both options. I have not tried an armor node+str/armor only geared character so I don't know what the armor values are like at 70+.

The whole point is I can save 3 points in my build if I used the armor only version, with str/armor gear, but I have never tried such a build and thus have no idea what end game armor values look like.

Its really just minor tweaking and to be honest I also was considering taking both as you suggested (and thank you very much for providing information on that!) but I would have to sacrifice points elsewhere, or save the armor only nodes until 70+ (my builds plan for level 70 as a starting point - so I could technically get 6 more points after filling the build nodes out).

Ah, i understand what you mean. This is possible if you have gear waiting for you. You would need very high armor gear or even a high armor shield. But that all depends on your build. As you are most likely aware, high armor pieces tend to limit your colors quite a bit.

If you are on a strict point diet, then the first build becomes a much better option though. Having a mix of both armor and evasion never really hurts either!

Further notes to help the discussion:

-I do not have armor gear waiting for me, I do however have decent evasion gear waiting for me (the difficulty will be getting 3 reds on my evasion chest 5L - but I can handle it) Also a 5L is not required so I do not need to worry about colors at all if it comes down to it.

-I do not have a problem crafting/trading/farming for new gear

-I will be dual wielding one handers (for the multiplicative attack speed increase), so yes I will lose the option of all the sweet defenses a shield can provide.

Thanks for the help so far! I will be able to use both options if I decide to take the character to at least level 76.