Originally Posted by
Energizeric
Jay: First things first, I still like shanks better than bow!! haha
As Drgrimmy mentioned, armor works different in AL than in PL. I can't find the thread, but it was explained by a developer a while ago. Basically armor deducts a percentage of the hit rather than a flat amount. So unlike in PL, two hits of 200 dmg each is the same as one hit of 400 dmg. The percentage deduction depends on your level, your opponents level, and how much armor you have.
But you are correct that neither has much to do with skill damage, and as a mage you are clearly better off with high dmg than high dps. The only exception to this I have noticed is if you are farming mobs and don't want to spend much on mana pots then you can do just fine with high dps weapon (like a clever flamestrike rod) by spamming the attack, non-charged.
A lot of this also depends on your build. If you have 4 offensive skills like you do in your build, then of course you don't need to ever use the regular non-skill attack as you will always have another skill to go to. But for some who may have PvP builds with only 2 offensive skills (maybe they have shield & heal as their other 2 skills), then they are going to have time waiting for those skills to cool down, and they may be better off with the high dps weapon that they can spam attack at those times.