On normal PWI I played a LA venomancer as my main for 3+ years, and for a long time on my server I was in the top 10 for kill to death ratio because of my 2+ years of Territory Wars. Light Armor worked for me, very well in fact, and as much as low levels teased me, my ability to survive and work in a team with that build in TW more than shut up the haters. That being said, the balance on this server is off compared to normal server (not that it is in fact balanced there either, its worse by far than here), but what I don't like is that whereas Nirvana gear was at least comparable to Rank 9 on the normal server (I lasted just fine against those with rank9 and rank9recast), Dragon gear LA is not in any way comparable to rank 8 here, so that if you do want an alternative build such as LA (which will always hold a place in my heart and I'd switch to in an instant if this was fixed), then you are stuck with gear that is less than comparable. Just my two cents, I could be wrong.
