About that… I can’t find a bsuperior mage plate nor one with sockets… so if I do find one without sockets, do I cross my fingers and cube recipe it hoping for 3 sockets? If it doesnt roll 3, can I retry? I saw someone trade for one and he paid an arm and a leg just for the base of Enigma
Sadly there is no way to retry sockets on an item. Once it has sockets that’s it.
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Yeah you can only cube a white or eth armor with no sockets in order to gamble on sockets. And can only roll it once.
Charsi can sell superior breast plates, right? XD but doesn’t faster run/walk gear help with that problem? Like I use war travellers because I hate how slow I am without some faster r/w
in normal she does. You can’t use cube recipe on a superior item though. Larzuk will still do that for you.
You can also just shop for a 3 socket breastplate from fara, they are fairly common if that’s the base you want.
Edit: actually breast plate specifically I don’t think charsi can sell.
So the reason why I’m running so slow w/o war travellers faster r/w is because Tal’s chest is so heavy? Wow… this game has way more sophisticated elements than I thought it did decades ago
Medium armor (which is what lacquered plate counts as) is 50% slower stamina regen and 5% slower move speed.
It’s not a massive amount.
Put your Enigma in a Mage Plate. I feel like you’re going to feel scammed later on if you use a Breast Plate. Breast Plate is a pretty niche base to use and it’s only for those who are super anal about their strength.
And Mage Plate at Larzuk gives 3 sockets (max it can have), so you don’t have to gamble with the cube.
Well as I mentioned earlier you can just get a 3 socket breastplate straight from Fara but yeah, I’d agree its probably better to go for a mage plate or dusk shroud base. It will be much easier to trade an enigma using those, and while the armor is not overly important, it is not completely worthless either.
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Superior is kind of a waste as well because all you’re doing is making it cost more to repair.
I retracted my Breast Plate suggestion because OP seems kind of new to the game and is having a hard time swallowing the Breast Plate idea. I’d rather he didn’t feel nervous, and just put the thing in something else and called it a day.
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Yeah I’m just going to say dusk shroud. Easy peasy lemon squeezey.
I believe it’s really about application. Any melee class benefits from defense allot. It’s only the Caster crowd that thinks Defense is bad, and makes sense: you have to sacrifice too much to get enough to make it worth it.
And some people do walk places. I never run in HC. ever. My barb rarely needs to run, same with my pally. I appreciate Maxrolls writeup, but my in game experience tells me otherwise. Unless I’m a caster or ranged character. or in HC.
Well because of level differences between you and mobs, defense doesn’t even do anything for even a buffed barb. It’s negligible. Unless you are constantly in walk mode.
i think its more about saving points to get more vit. i dont think ppl care about run speed once they move exclusively with teleport 
thats why cannnot be frozen has very low value on any teleporting caster - doesnt slow casting, still moving freely.
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People misunderstand walk mode vs run mode. You don’t permanently lose your Defense when your in run mode, only when your in motion. The second you stop to hit something, your defense is there.
Again, for a melee class it matters, because your almost always NOT in motion when your hitting something. My IK Barb has a roughly 18% chance to get hit. I can face tank anything in the game. And I have.
You only lose your defense when you get hit WHILE you are running. This happens allot on a sorc because, well, they run around allot. My barb sits there and hits stuff, as does my paladin. And I can see the effect.
I’m not saying that SC players who don’t care about dying and are paying a ranged character in the game should start stacking defense. I’m just saying that it’s not correct to say that “defense is garbage” when in the right scenarios it isn’t. And yeah, plenty of people walk in D2. Even in SC I still do it, old habits from HC.
Ahh ok I see what it makes more sense for melee now, thanks.
Exactly. on the flip side, Melee characters consider it a mandatory stat 
Oh right, sorry, on the topic: any light armor. Mage plate is popular because of misunderstood concepts of defense. But it is still light armor so perfectly viable for the situation. It’s just more expensive due to perception, thus breastplate and it’s higher tier versions are simply cheaper and do the job.
Any light armor that isn’t mage plate is cheaper and easier to get to be honest, and works just fine. For a mage in SC, defense is irrelevant. But there’s also no reason not to get as much as you can, just don’t sacrifice any other stats for it. Honestly, I tend to choose the light armor that I like the looks of on my sorc the most
So ideally you want to equip an enigma without putting points into strength. So take your base characters stats, add a theoretical 20-40 strength from Anni and Torch, and you want the best light armor that can be equipped within that range.
As most people say, defense isn’t a very good stat, and is negligible in the difference between a Brest plate and an archon plate.
Defense doesn’t act like mitigation, it increases the chance monsters will miss. But again, it’s a negligible amount compared to the vitality you get by not putting points into strength for gear.
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3os Superior Duskshroud is the bomb for any caster.
One ladder and in legacy, I even used an upped eth non-Superior Duskshroud on my sorc and the armour’s durability never lowered as I kept a safe distance. It was my fave. Risky, but fave. 