armor, i only pick it up if it is 40-45 total. then i will enhance (break) it.
i only pick up jewelery if it has good mods that go together kinda like Unsupportable said.

I don't touch armor unless it has combined resist of 50 at least before enhancement. Warrior jewelry needs to have at least two usable modifiers (DCI/HCI/LMC) of 5% or greater _plus_ resist. I tend to grab most slayer weapons still..people will always use them if I don't. I grab LRC pieces for a friend who builds suits, but only 11% or higher and med. I'll grab luck pieces if they're 90 or higher and med, and leave them if they're not med.

Got a few million for a PvP mage ring a while back. I'll sell PvP jewelry here & there for a few hundred thousand gold. The problem is that it's all too easy for players these days to arty themselves out completely, and what we loot from monsters is so, so far below arties/marties/farties in power that there's no point in saving the stuff.

What a crafter can make or enhance from monster loot should be equal to or greater than all artifacts. The artifacts, even Gauntlet artifacts, should be there as a "booster" for players to use should they choose, but knowing that if they go out, hunt and adventure, they'll continuously get loot items all with different combinations of properties that are superior to the crapifacts.

I keep jewels with good skill combos if the skills total +15 or more. My list is a lot like thatdudenamedbo. FC/FCR jewels, 10+ LRC, 10+ HCI or DCI, 20+ DI. I'll also keep +5 dex jewels almost regardless of the other mods. (Dex junkie here!)

For armor, I keep any loot with 40+ resists, as well as armor with 10+ LRC (med or not - I assemble LRC suits and sell them), or 50+ luck (for enhancement purposes - I assemble and sell luck suits, too!)

I'm still learning what makes a good weapon. I've been keeping weapons with 40% or higher Hit Lightening or Hit Magic Arrow, as well as weapons that have 40%+ Hit Mana Leech or Hit Life Leech, or DCI/HCI, or DI 20+. I generally keep the more popular slayer weapons too. Some high luck weapons I'll try and enhance (read: break).

My stash of lucky weapons and armor depletes quickly after a round of enhancing That's how I clean out my chests when storage gets tight - just try and enhance my loot, and - voila! Empty chests!

What about weapons? Sorry if it was answered but all that talk was making me go cross eyed..

What is min Damage Increase you will keep & what are some great mods to have?
Is a weapon with no Damage Increase worth keeping if it has like 35 Life & Mana Leach etc?
What is a doplanger? I have all these talismen and I don't know what have their effects are

Sorry i'm a born again newb!

Don't worry about weapons, just stand behind Eowyna or Dip and watch them kill everything.

Any leech on a low damage weapon, like a dagger or a bokuto, is worthless now. The percentage listed on the weapon for leech effects is how much of the damage you do per strike will also be leeched from the target, up tp that number. So let's say you have a 50% life leech weapon. You deal 35 points to your target. Up to 50% of 35 will be leeched from them to you. It won't always be full 50%..sometimes it'll be 3% or 11% but the leech goes off everytime. At least that's how I understand it from Tact or Wilki's posts on Stratics about the new way in which leech effects work.

Basically, simply: Leech Effect = Pot Luck

So if you have a plinking weapon that's only doing 12 points of damage per hit to your opponent, and it has 35% life leech....well, don't count on the life leech amounting to anything through the course of the fight.

Damage increase..well, depends on the weapon. If it's a cleaver, and you're using to to bleed/poison, it can have a full 50% damage increase on it and it's still not going to do much damage. Unless you're factoring in huge amounts of swing speed increase, damage increase from jewelry, and more variables. The overall damage increase cap (weapon, ring, bracelet, et cetera) is 100%

What I look for in a weapon:
Useful special moves. Armor ignore, disarm, bleed. Whirlwind is great if you're fighting ratmen spawn or other such monster swarms but useless in PvP. Disarm is useless on an ogre slaying weapon. Et cetera. How you'll be using the weapon if the big factor.
Hit chance increase. You can never have too much since it's very hard to reach the cap (45%). Same with defense chance increase if you use it. Acceptable level is cap, and nothing less. If I cannot be at the hit chance cap with a particular weapon, in PvP, it doesn't go into my pack.
Swing speed increase. Always very desirable.
Hit lower defense, hit lower attack...egh. They're only really useable on a very fast weapon as the effects don't last that long.

I'll stop here, I'm not entirely sure I'm on the same train of thought here as what you're asking. But I'll give two examples of weapons you might find as loot.

Keep:
Broadsword, 33% damage increase, 20% swing speed increase, 47% hit fireball, 8% hit chance increase. Can be a decent PvP weapon. Not spectacular, but worth keeping.

Discard/Smelt:
No-Dachi, mage weapon -23 skill, 15% hit life leech, 32% hit lower defense, water elemental slayer.

One of the above is good loot to keep. The second is garbage.

Thank you Terrance that is really helpful! Do you have a min DI for your weapons though? Since everything is 35 now when you make it yourself.....I have a lot of smelting to do

Some weapons are worth keeping even with no damage increase. High swing speed with HCI and at least 2 high hit effects on a useful weapon will make it worth holding onto or selling. Especially if it's a PvP weapon with armor ignore and you intend to use the armor ignore regularly, as it's capped at a whole 35 points of damage so any lack of DI on the weapon itself is easily made up for on jewelry, or armor such as stormgripe. <--- Not a typo.

Man I have a Mace with Hit life Leach 49% and Mana Leach 38%. It makes me sad that its worthless!

Snuggs, dont allow another person to make you sad. If that weapon makes you happy, then its agreat weapon.