Essential Equipment to Hunt

[Namine]

Welcome to playing one of the most expensive classes in the game!

Horn card still helps for the dungeons where even the tank isn't supposed to tank. You are just trying to mob but not really tank physically in places like thor. Since defender doesn't work for breath attacks (but does work on bow guardian and sword guardian's spear boom), Horn still applies for you against Kasa fire breath.

I would just save up zeny and buy penomena. Don't hunt for them. Bathory though, you definitely need it. It's sought after and pricy enough that I'll suggest hunting it in person.

As sader/pally, you can get away from having gears that the mobs that the hwiz and snipers will annihilate anyway. This makes teddy bear lower priority. Muspel floor 1 needs no tanks cause the casters will plow through them.

Don't hunt for it, but if you see it for cheap or someone has it, get a dragon's breath to help you against Fafnir. You just need to tank for like maybe 5 seconds to buy enough time for the creator to go nuts. Grab every cheap dragon defensive gear you can, yet don't go crazy on zeny about it. Look for them "passively".

Surtur is the only justification for teddy bear: 4 Eyes of Surtur will wreck anyone. The slave version uses Surtur's movement speed so it's extremely painful. I personally think that gearing to resist the 4 eyes of surtur is better than gearing for Surtur himself. Nameless Island is no longer a thing, so unless you are going to GC to level up yourself there, you really don't need undead resist anymore... In the rare event of nameless party, the banshees is what you need to deal with, not the necros or zombies. Those melt to storm gust anyway.

You can add stone buckler (or imperial guard) and cross shield on your list if you are using rapid smiting. Most threatening monsters are also conveniently Large size, so the 5% reduction helps. Imperial guard is even heavier, but the higher def is not as good as 5% large reduction to me. They're valid option though. Cross Shield is best shield for rapid smiting damage, but looking at who drops it......

If you're going devotion route, then obviously you want HP boosting gears so you can last longer. Ebony armor becomes your best armor for raw HP, but the class restriction is harsh compare to more trans-locked generic stuff. Death Knight is also locked away in WoE dungeons normally, but currently the glast heim event allows easy access to death knights (and by "easy", I mean 10 on a map.)

Legion Plate is old and restrictive, but that's exactly why that armor is much cheaper. I would "passively" look for it and buy it when I see it. It still has its place due to the high def.

Stylish Hat is the best HP headgear so it's worth the investment in that regards, if you don't go insane from the weapon-hunt portion of army supply. I don't think anything gives 700 HP in headgear, so it has value even if the 15 atk doesn't contribute to anything. Honestly I'll get the +4 for 400 HP, then worry about other slots first before you waste hours and hours for the 300 HP boost from +4 to +7. If you are tanking and not being devote/gospel slave, you need Def and not just HP (in which case, luxury hat). The much rarer, valentine gent trooper will give 1000 HP flat out though and it's still refineable, so for your purposes, it's the "1% headgear" to aim for eventually. But good luck on that one unless fairy auction or vday quest repeats the headgear.

Vital tree shoes deserve a mention for devotion: while it has less raw hp available, the heal boost may justify it. If your tank is getting bursted down really fast, you need to heal as fast as possible to keep him up. The 5% boost for all healing you receive may warrant the HP loss compare to other footgear. It also has innate 10% HP already, so the HP loss shouldn't be too significant. Sprint Mail, regardless of item description, also has bAddItemHealRate effect. It actually boosts item as well. The 2 together is 8%. Again, if you are just devotion and not actually tanking, it's worth considering just having it at safe refine for the heal power. The same logic applies for items that boost specific heal rate of particular items as well, if they aren't in the way of your HP boost.

Now you can also add safety ring (budget option) and glorious ring (the real gear) to your items to aim for as well since you are playing tank classes. Have fun in the endless torment of BG saving up to 2 glorious rings.