Armorsmith Archive

As a rule of thumb, add 400 to the stats on the core, and you'll get the stats of the final armor. You'll rarely find looted cores that are better than crafted ones, but they sure are cheaper. Battle cores would have to be 5600 or higher to cap. Same for the special protection on assault or recon cores.

I personally like looted cores when you start off as AS. Unless you have a ton of money, or are super lucky on every single resource within one month's time, or you were diligently stockpiling resources before you finished MAS you'd be hard pressed to beat out a really good looted Advanced core on resists with an unlayered core made from "good" resources. You pretty much need "awesome" resources to get a 6k cap and I don't think anyone can beat the condition of a looted core. I personally pass over any adv battle core that is less than 5400, the higher above 5400 the better. My armor has come out with 5800+ resists, which is 200 less than the cap. Now, again, unless you have the money or already have the fantastic resources, as a new AS it may be hard to beat that, so just think as you're experimenting away on all the resources and combines on your cores if you can beat 5800+, if so then looted cores aren't for you, if not then looted cores saves a lot of headache, and you only have to deal with the final combine. Personally, I've seen crafter made garabage that sells that have less resists and less condition than the armor I've made with looted cores. Also the high condition, while statsare not appropriate for PvP, is great grind armor.