Another option, rather than upgrading to AotF, is to get a second armor set such as the magic line (which is also useful for Roarmulus. Not great for the direct payout, but awesome for the token rewards). You'll probably wish you had a Valkyrie set rather than AotF once certain guilds organize again to put fiends in front of FSC.

Basically your flammability should be your first concern, followed by elemental and/or shadow defence. I'm personally working towards a Grey Feather Mantle and Volcanic Demo Helm. Other options might be: Divine Veil and Volcanic Plate Mail (you'll get a mix of a fiend buff and an attack speed decrease), Pure Grey Feather (stun weakness can be annoying, you'll get stun from trolljans, mace hits and falling debris), Vog Cub (if you're the furry sort), Arcane Salamander (hard to get and beast and slime buffs aren't very useful), Volcanic Salamander (slime buff again isn't too useful, but can come in handy with the odd super blast cube and oiler). If you don't mind neutral flammability, the deadshot set gives a good undead buff, but is otherwise useless to a non-gunner until its 5* form.

And yes, you'll want elemental and piercing weapons.