If you equip one piece of Ancient Plate and check your overall at the bottom of your inspect window, you'll see that the Normal defense bar is as strong as an armor set's defense worth.

i.e.
Vog Cub Cap = +5 Normal defense
Vog Cub Coat = +5 Normal defense
Set = +10

Divine Veil = +5 Shadow Defense
Divine Mantle = +5 Shadow Defense
Set = +10

Ancient Plate Helm = +10 Normal defense

The ancient plate is one of those outdated equipments. Back in the days when pretty much everything did normal even in T3 it was pretty godly

What if you used Ancient Plate Mail and something like Dragon Scale Helm or Divine Veil, you'd cover 3/4 of the regular defenses...

Used in conjunction with one Dragon Scale Helm, for example, you'd end up with a lot of Normal defense, Piercing and Elemental defenses, DMG vs Beasts, and resists to Fire and Stun.

With Divine Veil, you'd end up with a lot of Normal defense, Elemental and Shadow defenses, DMG vs Fiends, and resists to Fire, Shock, Curse, and Stun...

Of course you'd have a small penalty to Sleep in both cases... but when was the last time you saw a mob that could put you to sleep? Never!
And I'd venture to say that a decrease of low in ASI and MS isn't too noticeable...

Also, things in T3 do in fact deal normal damage... Check out RangerWill's thread with a list of Normal damage dealers in the game...

Just a thought... but does anyone else find these armor pieces to be somewhat viable?

One single 4* ASI trinket will negate the ASI decrease, and using a 5* trinket would net a low ASI increase. Tacking on a second ASI trinket would yield a high ASI increase so slow swords are still very viable. And by that logic the only people that should run with slow swords are Vog Cub clones, but that's apparently not the case as everyone and their grandmothers has a Divine Avenger or that purple sword that looks like the DA and utters harsh sounding expletives every now and then. Point is, there are heaps of people running around without any ASI increases swinging their Sealed Sword (and upgrades) around and they seem perfectly content.

As for the movement speed decrease, if that low MS was a huge difference, then that would mean that the med increase from using Mercurial set is godly. And if so, a lot more people than currently do would use that armor set for more than just costume sets. I welcome this situation (one in which more people wore the Mercurial Set or other sets at that), however, as it's sometimes difficult to point people out in Haven: "You wearing the Vog Cub Cap!" yells Breedlove. "What's up?" replies everyone else.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'd be willing to wager on the fact that a MS decrease of low would not be very noticeable at all, let alone be anywhere near the movement speed decrease while stunned. Of course this is just based on what I've seen from the low MS increase of a single piece of the Mercurial set. If someone is going to die because of a decrease of MS low, then I'm pretty sure they would have died without that decrease as well.

And I'm not sure how comparing Volcanic Plate would be relevant as they fit two separate defense niches... One being tons of Normal (two armor pieces worth of it), and the other being Normal/Elemental. If you're going to compare it based on the number of statuses resisted, then should one ignore all armor sets save for some of the Magic Set lines?

Also considering the highest vita-pod is 15, one piece of Ancient Plate might put you near, but will not push you over the 40 health bar limit except in the rare case that you happen to have one of those lovely trinkets from the Love Puppy.

But of course, these are just my speculations. I could just be pulling these theories out of my behind; I do enjoy intimidating people with the Great Wall of Text.

http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/33594

Normal defense is hardly useless. And my point was wearing one piece with something else, not wearing both pieces.

If I have time I will test Ancient Set vs Skolver + Vog for normal damage and shadow damage.

From trojan:
Full Ancient set: 3.5-4 bars of damage,
Skolver+Vog: 8-9 bars

From zombies:
Full ancient set: 7-8 bars of damage(not counting probability of getting fire status),
Skolver+Vog: 8 bars.

From spikes:
Full ancient set: 8 bars of damage.

So if you always get hit by monsters that do pure normal damage, than it is good, but I won't recommend it in FSC or arenas.

Moreover I died having 16 health bars with Ancient Set when walked into shadow fire(8-9 from elemental 3*2.5 from fire status)