Being an efficiency analyst, I finally got off my ass and analyzed the different options for metal armor suits.

I, as most of us, am on a somewhat limited schedule as far as time available for harvesting, so I like to get the most out of what I've harvested. With that in mind, I built the following excel/google doc to crunch the numbers as far as what protection I'm actually getting out of the various suits of armor that are feasable at this point in the game. The google doc is located here:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=rYjnA2RYBLitB_ZuAhPvnlg&hl=en

After taking the various suits into consideration, I've come to the following conclusions:

1. Always fill in your banded suits with scale gloves and boots (scale fillers). For 10 ingots (36 -> 46) you're upping your banded suit from about 16 to 19 points of total protection. While that doesn't seem very nice at all, what it does is keep the prot / ingot ratio fairly high (banded is 0.45 | banded w/scale fillers is 0.43).

2. Scale is a really good bang for your buck. Banded w/Scale fillers, cuirass, and helm ups the total protection 1.25 points over banded w/scale fillers (19.26 -> 20.47) and only costs another 12 ingots (46 -> 58) while going full scale ups the total protection another point (20.47 -> 21.55) which will cost you another 12 ingots (58 -> 70).

3. Armor sets above full scale are not really much better, but cost a LOT more. From full scale to scale w/plate chest and helm you get 1 more point of total protection (21.55 -> 22.68) but at the cost of 30 additional ingots (70 -> 100). If you go to all plate w/scale fillers you again only gain 1 point of total protection (22.68 -> 23.56) but again it costs you another 36 ingots (100 -> 136). Not worth it IMO.

IMO banded with scale fillers, cuirass, and helmet is probably what people should be shooting for, but full scale is really a great set for its cost. Anything above that, IMO, is not worth the extra ingots.

https://www.youtube.com/user/dungeongurunet