Yes, frist of all u can have people kill and let u loot the armor. I so happened to luck out with my lvl 5 warrior there the other day and a group was twinking out a friend when he got his gloves and boots i got mine shortly after. However i have known of people going weeks there without getting anything extra to loot, i lucked out and got mine with a total time of about 20 mins or less in the zone. Well gud luck on yur lewtz! =)
These guys have some really sweet loot. - Rare/Uncommon - Royal Velium, melee classes. Very good AC, go get these, SK friend says they're a bit better than planar armor. (says, don't get me wrong) - Always - Velium Ice Shield, this thing is 15AC I believe, but for it's looks, is occasionally tradeable for a clay guardian shield(SK friend got his guardian shield through one of these)
For hybrids, RVF is a tad better than planiar and not too horrible (though noticably weaker) compared to kunark armor. The gaunts are especially nice IMHO. For warriors, planiar armor is slightly better than RVF. RVF is ALOT easier to aquire, however. My guild is attempting to provide all tanks/bards/clerics with RVF or better for every slot, in addition to the other items we're persuing.
I can stick taps on 'em NP at all. I debuff ac/atk/str on every pull, helps with aggro and makes kills a bit easier. I remember when I was jacking around with some friends back in my 40s they were resisted, however, because of lvl difference.
Killing one of these things will not make you KOS. I'm a 42 SK, and my group took down about 20 of these last night. I've killed a few giants (maybe the same amount) and I've never been anything but apprehensive to the dorfs in Thurgadin.
My advice, though: pop into icewell and hope there's someone killing these. Many times groups will be glad to let you loot a shield since they're lore. We had around 5 of them sitting on the ground at one point cause we all already had one.
If you haven't figured it out by now, you either like the dwarves and hate the giants, or hate the giants and like the dwarves.. and you can't easily switch between the two, which you basically get you kos by both...
Makes me glad I went with the giants.. seem to be better quests and armour than being friendly with these dorfs...
I've been ally to ALL 3 FACTIONS at least once. I'm currently in transition between dorf and giant (working on giant). I'll probably get back on dorf faction when we start killing vindi and statue, however. I don't committ to a faction, I simply ally myself with the enemy of whatever I feel like killing. (i.e. I've been killing in Icewell to get RVF for guildies, so I'm natually working with the giants, and working to improve giant faction). Its not that hard to switch factions. Just murder whatever in GD (depending on what your raising) and turn in coldain heads for giant faction or giant helms/toes for coldain or CoV faction (different questgivers for each faction). Can go from max KoS to max ally in a few good days.
I did the major shift change went from ally with the coldain to amiable with the frost giants was a major job to switch there were a couple weeks inbetween I was KOS to both made shopping hard and travel just as dificult.. But now I have some good loot from thurg and better loot from KD. plus now when I need to sneak in and assassinate a dwarf it is real easy since I know my way around thurg so well. But becoming ally with the kromzek ruined my faction with claws of veeshen personally imo KD has better quest
My ogre war is dubious to both giants and dwarves... I was KOS to giants so I killed about 5 or 6 guards in Thurg.. made me dubious to them but also dubious to giants.. so it can be done ;)