Originally posted by MythN7:

i know one would have less armor, but is the root better than the iron cause of the bow set and move speed?

Root armor is far superior to iron Armor for a number of reasons. Which you choose depends more on your play style and your ability to dodge vs tank damage.

With that said, you will experience far greater protection from damage resists on Root armor than Iron armor. Using base values, here are some numbers:

Base Iron Armor value = 42
Base Root Armor value = 24

That means, if an enemy attacks with 100 Piercing damage, you'll take 58 if you're wearing armor, and you'll take 76 if you're wearing Root. Iron is protecting you from a whopping 18 damage, so Iron is better, right? WRONG!

In the Root set, the Root Harnesk (chest piece) provides Resistance vs. Pierce. Resistance provides 50% damage reduction for the damage type it resists. So with this new information:

Enemy attacks with 100 Piercing Damage

Base Iron Armor value = 42 : 100 - 42 = 58 damage received

Base Root Armor value = 24 w/ 50% damage reduction : 100 * .5 [damage reduction is applied FIRST] = 50 - 24 = only *26* damage received!!

So not only do you take less damage from Piercing / Poison, you also gain +6% movement speed (because iron is -10% and root is only -4%) and a +15 to bow skills.

Now, the biggest trade off for me is fire wielders (cultists in particular) will melt your freaking face off. You do NOT like fire, at all. Make fire resist potions and drink 'em, and keep drinkin` em.

TL;DR - the only drawback to Root armor is that the mats are a little more difficult to gather and you're exceptionally weak to Fire damage. Otherwise, Root armor is far superior to Iron against most enemies (especially deathsquitos and wolves as they both do piercing damage)