should I buy the highest lv armor at NPC?

For the armor, the clear choice is the Robe of Sacred Tortoise. With the shards added, you have 469 magic resistance for each stat. Compare that to 690.
As for the hat, I'd think that unless you were going to imbue the Yeti Scalp with Citrines or Garnets, go with the Raintaker.

Armour from NPCs is plain - no blue magic bonuses, no sockets.

So - just compare the defence numbers on it to the numbers on your current item (including the boost from shards etc.) and see which is higher.

It's not rocket science.

along the way to level 70, you'll get plenty of quest reward armors and mob drop armors that are much better than NPC-bought stuff. you may also decide to level up your tailoring skill at some point, which would generate more potentially wearable kit. do use those whenever they happen to be better than what NPCs sell.

many of the shards you earn in the lower levels aren't good for much, and not really worth much either. might as well stick them in an empty socket rather than just leave it empty. in the OP's case, a couple averages and a blemished --- that's not even 120k coin all together, maybe 125 after the imbuing fee. no big deal.

i see people using the rank armor long, long past level 30 --- and i sort of question just how long it's worth sticking to. at level 30, yeah, it's pretty nice. but when you're past 50...?

I'd say go for the highest level armor. If you can make your own, their stats are always better than NPC ones. Also Hat 1 is better with PHY RES

I would recommend just sticking with quest reward equips or drops. They tend to be much better than the npc equips due to added stats and potential to be 2 or 3 star equipment.

Where it comes from does not matter.

Look at your current armour. What is its defence? Remember to include the bonuses from blue added stats and from shards.

Do the same for the new armour you propose to put on.

Which has the higher number? That is the better armour.

After THAT you need to decide "Ok, this one is worse, but it ALSO has a magical bonus of +3 dex" (or whatever) and then you have to decide based on how you play which one you prefer.

But the name of the armour, where you go it from - NONE of that matters to the game. All that matters for its effectiveness is the numbers.

How many times and ways do I need to say this?


How come you've not been doing this all along every five minutes when a monster drops a piece of gear?

shiaaa333 wrote: »

I kno my current armor has less phy. and five element res. than the one from NPC, alot less. But it's imbued and has mag def about 21+21+12=54. The one from NPC doesn't have sockets to be further improve... should I go with the one has higher phy. and five element res. or go with the one has higher mag def??

*sigh*. let's do the math one more time.

PHYS RES:
level 50 sacred tortoise -- 77.
level 30 sunsprite's warmth -- 46.
the level-50 robe wins.

MAG DEF:
level 50 sacred tortoise -- 690.
level 30 sunsprite's warmth -- 415+21+21+12 = 469.
the level-50 one wins again, EVEN AFTER you consider the shards.

there's just no contest here; the NPC-bought, no-socket, unrefined, level-50 robe is the better of these two.

shards only matter if the baseline, unsharded, stats are at least vaguely comparable. otherwise they just can't make up the difference. add up the numbers and compare, that really shouldn't be hard.