Padding or enchant?

[Dendum]

So, thanks to the kindness of strange people, I found my old armor that was enchanted up to 6x....but I also have some 5x dcp...

In this kind of scenario which one would be more likely to reduce the risk of sudden death via dying or would they be similar? If I remember on the higher ends...plate and such...padding normally trumped enchant value but does that hold true, if it is true, for the lower AS types of armor? The armor in question is Brig.

[Cereal Killer]

I think you have it reversed in your head. Critical padding is MORE important the lighter the armor gets. I would go with dcp over +5 ds, especially as a ranger (who generally have pretty monstrous DS).

[Donquix]

I don't know what the highest DF is against brig, but a lance, for instance, has to be pretty close and is a .55 DF. Thus, you would need ~13 enchant to make up for the reduction in crit rank basically. And that isn't even taking into account the value of crit padding against things AS/DS aren't involved in (maneuvers)

A single enchant is no where near as helpful as DCP+, unless you're like...getting hit with sub 20 endrolls like...constantly.

[everan]

Like Cereal Killer above, I'd take crit padding over enchant any day. When Forest Green Brig came out, my world changed. I had no idea life could be so much easier.

[Dendum]

Awesome...good to know...now I just need to sell this 6x racially zested brig

[Geijon Khyree]

At 5x vs 6x the padding is going to be more beneficial since at DCP you are getting 7-8 points of padding and about a rank reduction on the critical divisor table (My math is a guess) vs +5 DS. At 7-8 it's not randomized yet. Heavy padding or HCP at a value of 20 million at 10 points is usually a good evaluation. DCP tends to get 5-8 million on the armor at 5x.

So while the value isn't the same, 6x is worth about 2-3 million vs. 5x at 500K-1 million base, you mechanically have an advantage in the DCP 5x in this instance.

[everan]

I actually just use +18 armor but with temporary exceptional crit padding. The extra padding seems to easily make up for the low enchant. I usually die because of maneuvers much more than because I don't have enough defense. They have to knock me down (or throw arrows at me) to give me much trouble, and once I'm down, the extra +20 or so defense doesn't make up for it anyway.

[gilchristr]

Well the crit padding will apply in a super set of the attacks in which the DS benefit will apply.

For that reason alone, padding. On top of that, you can do the various calculations and the padding probably beats in the cases in all cases in which the enchant applies.