When analyzing the encounters, both Festergut and Rotface clearly have a lot of magic damage to dole out, but does that really matter?

A bit. Not a lot.

What you give up for Bonus Armor

I’ve been raving about Bonus Armor and the often counter argument is it does nothing against magic damage.

Which is true.

However, what does Avoidance do against magic damage? What does Expertise and Hit rating do? How about Block?

Nothing.

Which is what you give up to get Bonus Armor.

You give up Nothing to get Bonus Armor

So, don’t kid yourself. There really is no reason not to pick up all those fancy high armor pieces. Ultimately, even the magic heavy fights like Festergut and Rotface have an angry boss swinging at you with physical attacks. Utilizing Bonus Armor is stating, I’d rather take less damage than get hit less often. I’d rather increase my chances of surviving a melee swing that lands plus a magical attack combination.

Armor is always useful because you never die to just magic damage. (and if you do, something has clearly gone terribly wrong)

Okay, I’m half sold… what about trinkets?

You got me. Trinkets are a whole new ballgame. If we want Bonus Armor in the trinket slot, we’ll have to give up Stamina. This suddenly isn’t such a sexy trade-off. Which means that we’ll be using 2 Stamina trinkets for these encounters, right?

Wrong.

We absolutely will for Festergut. We won’t for Rotface. The Rotface encounter really doesn’t do the Main tank that much magic damage. It always pays to know the encounter ahead of time. That’s why I linked the research for you at the start of this post.

Finally, I can’t emphasize enough, that even in the most magical intensive of fights, you’ll die not to a magical attack, but to the combination of a melee swing landing in conjunction with a magical attack. So, a straight Stamina trinket isn’t necessarily better than one with a really strong usage. In fact, you’ll find I always prefer the latter.

Read up. Ready up. And best of luck!