DT armors

[metalworker]

Hi, once again, prepping my gear, and I've read a couple of builds/gear (including shades)

A couple of good ones that Shade mentions:
+5 resist, crushing wave, destruction.

I am just wondering, from experience that crushing wave seems to be awesome, but against raids such as VoD and ToD, it seems fairly weak. I've seen recent discussions about enervation being good since there is no save, and a drop in elite orthon levels is in fact much more 'dps' and allows your group members to work on them much easier.

So I'm considering perhaps the best offensive armor would be:
+5 Resistance, crushing wave, enervation guard or should I go: +5 Resistance, 20% heal amp, enervation guard so that I can just smash things and get healed better in raids.

How useful is destruction? Im assuming that most raids will see characters carrying destruction abilities, so do multiple destruction stack?

Other questions that I have with DT armors:
- Is Deathblock a waste on a barb with a super high fort save?
- Is incite any good?
- Is GFL on eldritch a waste since SFL on epic items are available now?
- Is SR 22 on tempest rune a waste?
- is exceptional stat for tempest runes worth it or gimped since you can get those bonus on ToD gear setup
- which is better: enervation or earthgrab guard?

Here are my thoughts:
ELDRITCH (useless due to other slots on items):
- striding
- feather falling
- fearsome
- heavy fort
- lion heart
- stat skills
- IFL/GFL
- Greater resists (too specific an armor)

ELDRITCH (useful):
- Deathblock (possible useless but very safe bet just to be safe)
- Heavy Fort (maybe depending on setup)
- Resistance +5 (probably the best one)

TEMPEST (useless due to other slots on items):
- 5% Arcane failure
- +6 Stats
- Magic craps
- Protection +5
- True Seeing (Tharnes Goggles takes this up)
- SR 22 (too low to be useful, and clerics?)

TEMPEST (useful):
- Crushing Wave Guard (good damaging guard)
- Corrosive Salt/Magma Surge (less than Crushing Waves)
- Heal Amp 20% (good if no other item slots for healing, Hound bracers make this useless?)
- +1 Excep Stat (good until ToD setup)


SOVEREIGN RUNES (useless due to other slots on items):
- Magic ****
- Crippling
- Heightened Awareness (is this any good? I'm assuming Levik's Defender set is much better if one needs insight AC)
- Natural Armor +4 (doubt we need AC but in general, is this a good rune for an AC class?)

SOVEREIGN RUNES (useful):
- most guards (I need advice in general which are good, I know that eartgrab and enervation are good, what about Freezing and Radiance?)
- Smite (Good situational armor)
- Destruct (assuming good with raids/epics, but does it stack with other destruct abilities?)

[Shade]

I'll steal your list and give my thoughts on it:
ELDRITCH (useless due to other slots on items):
- striding
- feather falling
- fearsome
- heavy fort
- lion heart
- stat skills
- IFL/GFL
- Greater resists (too specific an armor)
Pretty much agree on these, tho arguements can be made for GFL depending on your setup (Ravager belt comes to mind, no gfl but slightly more dps then the Berserker)

ELDRITCH (useful):
- Deathblock (possible useless but very safe bet just to be safe)
- Heavy Fort (maybe depending on setup)
- Resistance +5 (probably the best one)
I'd move Deathblock up to the top list. I've had a set wit hit for ages and never took it outa the bank.. Because the silver flame talisman is just a plain better slot and easiest to swap and use when appropriate.
Heavy Fort: Eh also move it up, very hard to drop the minos legens on 99% of setups. Maybe if you got some epic item with toughness to replace it.

Missing:
10% healing amp. There's no where else in the game to get this effect, while getting resist +5 in other slots is possible.. So I highly recommend this. Healing amp can help a hell of a lot more then +1 save if all you have is a +4 resist cloak anyways. I have it on pretty much all my sets, and use +5 resist cloak when i need it.

TEMPEST (useless due to other slots on items):
- 5% Arcane failure
- +6 Stats
- Magic craps
- Protection +5
- True Seeing (Tharnes Goggles takes this up)
- SR 22 (too low to be useful, and clerics?)
Yea all pretty useless.

TEMPEST (useful):
- Crushing Wave Guard (good damaging guard)
- Corrosive Salt/Magma Surge (less than Crushing Waves)
- Heal Amp 20% (good if no other item slots for healing, Hound bracers make this useless?)
- +1 Excep Stat (good until ToD setup)
Magma Surge id move up.. Me and friend tested it extensively and it just never worked, it's bugged on dt armor. Maybe fixed as that testing was months ago but I doubt it.
Heal Amp: Yea I'd stick to hound bracers if you have them. The only replacement I like for them currently are Epic Bracers of the hunter, and there rather difficult to get. Bascilly I use those as my resist item (dont need will or fort, they give reflex which is what i like) and put heal amp 10 and 20 on the armor.

SOVEREIGN RUNES (useless due to other slots on items):
- Magic ****
- Crippling
- Heightened Awareness (is this any good? I'm assuming Levik's Defender set is much better if one needs insight AC)
- Natural Armor +4 (doubt we need AC but in general, is this a good rune for an AC class?)
Crippling: Actually a fairly useful one in rare situations where it's best to kite mobs. Also a solid choice in quests where you have lots of fast moving monsters (Bearded Devils) and someone else otherwise has destruction armor or all party members are hitting fine anyways.
However you can use the crippling chain shirt from hound if your not a WF as a replacement.

SOVEREIGN RUNES (useful):
- most guards (I need advice in general which are good, I know that eartgrab and enervation are good, what about Freezing and Radiance?)
- Smite (Good situational armor)
- Destruct (assuming good with raids/epics, but does it stack with other destruct abilities?)[/QUOTE]
Personally not a big damage guard fan, as I avoid being hit as much as possible. So I'd pretty much only use enervate or earthgrab guard, and in generally I'd prefer those on a shroud acc instead.
Destruction does stack with improved destruction , so it's an awesome effect for all the hardest content in the game with high AC. I use my destruct set almost exclusively on what I mostly play (epic, occasonal raiding)
Smiting set is nice to have if you run certain non-epic raids and quests like VoN especially. I enjoyed it allot when I did that on my 2ndary barb working on his boots. Had a set and used a improved curspewing falchion, worked rather well.

Incite I found to be very useful on my newer lesser equiped barb. As I got it on my first set and otherwise did not have the Leviks set nor a mineral2.. So for tanking in ToD where other players did have min2, I had to keep my hate up.
Overall I think a Leviks 2 piece set is a bit better tho as it gives:
+20% hate (vs 10/15/20)
and a hidden effect: +1 will and fort save.

Really you seem to have a good graps of whats good.. Just work on the good effects, once you have one, keep it and try to combine it with another. If you have a rune of the same type to try, start a 2nd set. I carry I think 4 sets, and keep 2 in the bank.
Takes allot of work to get the perfect ones but there pretty sweet once you have them.

- which is better: enervation or earthgrab guard?
Depends on how often you land your stunning blow. If you use it lots and it lands ~70%+ of the time, an enervate proc can bring that to 95%. If you dont have the feat or rarely use it.. Earthgrab guard may be better. Via shroud accesories you could have best of both worlds ofcourse. I often wear enervate cloak.. But never did find a earthgrab DT rune on my barb.. Think I got like 3 on my sorc heh.

[metalworker]

Thanks a lot for the input shade, very valuable advice.

I happened to chance on the Incineration Guard and 450 damage with 2-3% proc rate seems to be the best dps guard due to untyped damage. I wont be needing Earthgrab since I have a GS Earthgrab guard although I'm curious if they trigger off independently. Looking to craft another one with enervation and another one with Smiting for other purposes.

I've been lucky with the Eldritch a week ago, got two 10% heal amps on both. It seems that besides Crushing Wave Guard, any other Tempest runes is redundant (i.e. used on another item) or crappy.

Here are the DT armors that I have so far:
- 10% heal amp, crushing wave, destruction (first armor then swap out after destroying AC of mobs)
- 10% heal amp, crushing wave, incineration guard (dps for mobs without stupid HP)

I am intending to craft the other following:
-10% heal amp, crushing wave, smiting
-10% heal amp, crushing wave, enervation ('dps' for mobs with stupid HP)

Radiance guard seems pretty nice as well but doubt its better than earthgrab/enervation.

Not sure whether there are more ideal setups but it seems that besides 20% heal amp from Tempest, there really isn't anything worth crafting, and I agree that with the Eldritch, everything is useless besides saves, which I am using on another slot.