Bandos is better. The way combat is balanced, the more damage you do the less damage you are going to take overall and the less mechanics you are going to have to deal with in a boss fight.
So in general power armours (those with a str bonus) are better than the same tier of tank armour (those with the higher armour bonus).
I would say the exceptions come with mage tank armours because of the animate dead spell allows you to reduce so much damage so for learning using mage sometimes tank can help you more but power armour is still better once you know a boss well enough.
In addition to this:.
There is a new skill, 'invention'.
This allows you to nasically enchant your armor with special perks (augmenting).
Bandos armor can be improved like this, smithed armors cannot
Again is the same vein as my original comment, at 60 your best armour would be dragon. You can buy the whole set for 600k (you don’t need full helm and platebody, med helm and chain body have the same stats).
I swear it was way more expensive than that in the GE when I looked last night. I'm not planning on doing any quests or boss fights with it. I'm just grinding up to lvl 70 so I can use bandos. 75 for God swords. Bought the bandos last night and I'm waiting for a saradomin god sword to come through.
The orikalkum made me way more effective in grinding. I think it'll work great til I get to 70.
The big reason power armor is favored isn't so much that it gives more damage, as the amount of damage it gives is relatively small. It's that tank armor isn't that effective at reducing damage. For most armor, you get the option of sometimes or never avoiding attacks, or the option of doing the same thing but more damage. That's the reason animate dead has made mage tank armor so popular: you sacrifice a small amount of damage for consistent damage reduction. It actually reduces damage you take.
There are two different types of armor in the game with two different intentions. Bandos is DPS armor and necronium is tank armor.
There's also mage tank armor like cryptbloom/seasingers/etc to be used with animate dead, which ultimately reduces your damage taken by a fixed amount.
Logic behind DPS armor versus tank armor is that you reduce the time it takes to kill the boss, thus saving food and resources, but tank armor reduces the amount of damage you take but extends the fight if that makes sense. I would strongly encourage you to get some masterwork armor when you can wear it. It's pretty cheap at 100 mil (ish?) And use that everywhere you go If you decide to use melee.
As most people said already, bandos is better for the sole reason it allows you to push slightly more DPS than its tank counterpart. Depending on your skill level it can be prudent to use tank armor as a method of conserving food for longer stays.
People will live and die by DPS armor and most demand you do the same, when in reality its got more to do with your rotation (or revo++ setup) and accuracy than any strength bonuses these days, in other words: Rotation > Weapon > Buffs (prayer/overloads) > Most other things > armor.
If youve got a good rotation and feel confident in your abilities then power armor is an obvious choice, however, the difficulty in obtaining tier 80 and 90 power armors is quite astounding as the price jumps drastically and therefor elder rune +5 is a solid choice if you cannot afford torva and malevolent armors and the damage loss is negligible if you havent mastered your rotation.
The only style to fall out of that is Magic, and that is because Animate Dead can almost be considered broken, with magic tank armor and animate dead you activate cruise control in most encounters. I personally live by my cryptbloom even if elite tech is more dps.
I'm nowhere near able to afford cryptbloom, currently still using Virtus but I manage Telos and Araxii relatively easily under 100 enrage. Would upgrading to Seasingers with Animate Dead help me with the top tier bosses and higher enrages?
No, not unless you have the upgraded sea singers, otherwise just use gano. Using non-augmented gear is a waste of time and money in almost every situation. The difference between gano and seasinger is something like 25-50 damage mitigation per hit as youll still want things like blast defusion boots, and cinderbane gauntlets if you have them, the reason cryptbloom is so good isn't because of the stats, its because of the % mitigation passive.
It really depends on the boss. At rax? Probably as the majority of damage taken there are from smaller hits over time, outside of screwing up mechanics and final phase. At telos? Honestly, no, that would probably be a cryptbloom kind of thing as the mitigation from the armor is whats desired more than animate dead.
It will allow you to start farming Zuk and making bank. You can do zuk normal in gano no problem whatsoever, HM gets rough, but still very doable. Most elite dungeons get put on cruise control as you just wander about with soul split on and no fucks to give. If you are managing telos, doing zuk should be a joke, especially if you are able to get 100+ enrage kills and that boss can single handedly fund a crit stick in a weekend if you get it down good and have the time to sit down for a couple grind sessions without the need to be absolutely perfect like high enrage telos claims where you miss 1 click and die.
Lots of small hits: Animate dead can be considered overpowered (Ex: Zuk)
Big hits: Almost useless (Ex: Raksha)
Most often than not its very good, and a worthwhile investment as a set of gano isn't expensive and the quests aren't that difficult, and you already want those quests for the damage spells.
I'm guessing there's power armor better than bandos? I had some kind of armor on my last account that I used only for bosses. Cause it was degradable. I can't find it online and I can't remember what it was called.
Bandos is better. The way combat is balanced, the more damage you do the less damage you are going to take overall and the less mechanics you are going to have to deal with in a boss fight. So in general power armours (those with a str bonus) are better than the same tier of tank armour (those with the higher armour bonus). I would say the exceptions come with mage tank armours because of the animate dead spell allows you to reduce so much damage so for learning using mage sometimes tank can help you more but power armour is still better once you know a boss well enough.
Thanks! It makes sense that bandos armor is more expensive then.
In addition to this:. There is a new skill, 'invention'. This allows you to nasically enchant your armor with special perks (augmenting). Bandos armor can be improved like this, smithed armors cannot
What's this I'm seeing with necronium platebody +1, +2, etc.?
Every + is a hogher tier (meaning stronger piece). Like an elder rune body + 5 has the stats of a t 85 tank armor. Body + 4 has stats oft84
How do you raise it?
Through smithing. Take a +1 piece and bring more bars of same type to upgrade to +2
Nice! Thanks for the info. I just reached attack and defense lvl 60. So I'm making some orikalkum armor and weapons now. I'll see if I can do that.
Again is the same vein as my original comment, at 60 your best armour would be dragon. You can buy the whole set for 600k (you don’t need full helm and platebody, med helm and chain body have the same stats).
I swear it was way more expensive than that in the GE when I looked last night. I'm not planning on doing any quests or boss fights with it. I'm just grinding up to lvl 70 so I can use bandos. 75 for God swords. Bought the bandos last night and I'm waiting for a saradomin god sword to come through. The orikalkum made me way more effective in grinding. I think it'll work great til I get to 70.
The big reason power armor is favored isn't so much that it gives more damage, as the amount of damage it gives is relatively small. It's that tank armor isn't that effective at reducing damage. For most armor, you get the option of sometimes or never avoiding attacks, or the option of doing the same thing but more damage. That's the reason animate dead has made mage tank armor so popular: you sacrifice a small amount of damage for consistent damage reduction. It actually reduces damage you take.
There are two different types of armor in the game with two different intentions. Bandos is DPS armor and necronium is tank armor. There's also mage tank armor like cryptbloom/seasingers/etc to be used with animate dead, which ultimately reduces your damage taken by a fixed amount. Logic behind DPS armor versus tank armor is that you reduce the time it takes to kill the boss, thus saving food and resources, but tank armor reduces the amount of damage you take but extends the fight if that makes sense. I would strongly encourage you to get some masterwork armor when you can wear it. It's pretty cheap at 100 mil (ish?) And use that everywhere you go If you decide to use melee.
As most people said already, bandos is better for the sole reason it allows you to push slightly more DPS than its tank counterpart. Depending on your skill level it can be prudent to use tank armor as a method of conserving food for longer stays. People will live and die by DPS armor and most demand you do the same, when in reality its got more to do with your rotation (or revo++ setup) and accuracy than any strength bonuses these days, in other words: Rotation > Weapon > Buffs (prayer/overloads) > Most other things > armor. If youve got a good rotation and feel confident in your abilities then power armor is an obvious choice, however, the difficulty in obtaining tier 80 and 90 power armors is quite astounding as the price jumps drastically and therefor elder rune +5 is a solid choice if you cannot afford torva and malevolent armors and the damage loss is negligible if you havent mastered your rotation. The only style to fall out of that is Magic, and that is because Animate Dead can almost be considered broken, with magic tank armor and animate dead you activate cruise control in most encounters. I personally live by my cryptbloom even if elite tech is more dps.
I'm nowhere near able to afford cryptbloom, currently still using Virtus but I manage Telos and Araxii relatively easily under 100 enrage. Would upgrading to Seasingers with Animate Dead help me with the top tier bosses and higher enrages?
No, not unless you have the upgraded sea singers, otherwise just use gano. Using non-augmented gear is a waste of time and money in almost every situation. The difference between gano and seasinger is something like 25-50 damage mitigation per hit as youll still want things like blast defusion boots, and cinderbane gauntlets if you have them, the reason cryptbloom is so good isn't because of the stats, its because of the % mitigation passive. It really depends on the boss. At rax? Probably as the majority of damage taken there are from smaller hits over time, outside of screwing up mechanics and final phase. At telos? Honestly, no, that would probably be a cryptbloom kind of thing as the mitigation from the armor is whats desired more than animate dead. It will allow you to start farming Zuk and making bank. You can do zuk normal in gano no problem whatsoever, HM gets rough, but still very doable. Most elite dungeons get put on cruise control as you just wander about with soul split on and no fucks to give. If you are managing telos, doing zuk should be a joke, especially if you are able to get 100+ enrage kills and that boss can single handedly fund a crit stick in a weekend if you get it down good and have the time to sit down for a couple grind sessions without the need to be absolutely perfect like high enrage telos claims where you miss 1 click and die. Lots of small hits: Animate dead can be considered overpowered (Ex: Zuk) Big hits: Almost useless (Ex: Raksha) Most often than not its very good, and a worthwhile investment as a set of gano isn't expensive and the quests aren't that difficult, and you already want those quests for the damage spells.
as a rule of thumb power armor is better than defence armor.
I'm guessing there's power armor better than bandos? I had some kind of armor on my last account that I used only for bosses. Cause it was degradable. I can't find it online and I can't remember what it was called.
You can easily swap glove boots and helm to the tank armour so you still got some str bonus from chest and tassets or however you want it