Beak Mantle+1 or Gaia Mantle?

[Loial]

Beak Mantle+1: Lvl 58 Def 9, Vit+2 Earth+7
Gaia Mantle: Lvl 51 def 7, Vit+1 Earth+10 Thunder+10

From a purely statistical point of view, it all boiled down to "Does that Thunder+10 actually make a real dent in magic damage taken?" Considering that the effect of Vit+1 will "kick in" every time I get hit...and I get hit very often It seems like a no-brainer that unless every mob I fought from now on only casted Thunder on me... would this seem like a bad idea.

From a slightly financial point of view... I bought my Gaia Mantle for 20k a month ago...and now its more than doubled in price and there are none up and they sell about once a week (so I can stand to profit highly from this).

The Beak Mantle+1 is < 10k.

Gil really isn't an issue if it comes to keeping the Gaia Mantle... but it is merely an added incentive.

Looking down the road... will that Thunder+10 come back to bite me in the ass? Is there another mantle I should use instead (Note: I do not have 32k CP to buy the Bastok Mantle).

[Rhayn]

I'm still a bit uncertain regarding this topic myself, but as far as I can tell, Beak Mantle+1 is better. While the differences other than lightning resistance aren't huge, they are not insignificant. When I was comparing these, I was also trying to take into account which status ailments were associated with each element. I've been meaning to go talk to the NPC that describes the elements again to check if any other ailements are lightning associated, but as far as I can tell, Thunder resistance would only serve to decrease the effects of Shock (which lowers MND). While this is moderately annoying, I almost never have had to worry about shock or even had it cast on me.

Shortly our static party will be migrating from Valley of Sorrow fighting Raptors and Big Birds to Labyrinth of Onzozo to fight Torama though, so elemental resistance might become more important soon. Until level now (level 61) though Lightning resistance hasn't played a significant role, although I did get hit with Burst while tanking the Boreal Coeurl for some friend's genkai 2. Sadly, none of the 3 DRKs or 4 BLMs decided Stun would be a good idea and Shield Bash was down. That's about the only time that comes to mind where I've wished I had more lightning resistance. >.<