Originally posted by blprice61:

You aren't missing much if you skip root armor ; the helm might be useful for the poison resist in the bonemass fight, and the chest against archers and such. The set bonus isn't of much use and any piece comes with vulnerability to fire making it worse than troll armor in more than a few situations.

Both the poison resistance and pierce resistance are extremely good imo. Poison just for convenience and pierce for plains enemies like deathsquittors or the fuling spear chuckers which both do a ton of damage.