Veteran's Belt is superior to Colossus Belt, especially for a high armor mage.
Agree.
Also, the fact that tempered faulds are in the game makes stacking tough a bit unnecessary, especially since its already difficult to hit anvil throne with them.
I disagree. Tempered Faulds is to be used as well as Tough, not instead of it.
A tough -4 Dwarf Warlord from the above combo with an elemental cloak, and a raincloud will make a fireball -4 dice and -8 to the effect dice. This is more likely than anyone thinks with a Battle Forge and Gear Up in existence.
This makes the adjusted attack bar [Ranged] [Flame] [Dice=2] [Effect= [12=1 Burn]
From here you have 8.33(r)% chance of hitting a burn. Not amazing but doable. Lets represent this mathematically, where the defender has the re-roll active and will use it to re-roll a result when it is successful.
The initial chance for the attacker of scoring a burn P(A) = 1/12 = 8.3(r) %
However on a reroll is becomes 1/114, as the initial 12 is ignored due to the triggered reroll. This equals 0.00694444 or 0.7%.
Versus without extra tough or Flame minus, as this a reasonable extension of your argument, adjusts a Fireball to:
[Ranged] [Flame] [Dice=6] [Effect= [8-12=1 Burn] ]
P(A) = 76.39 %
P(B) = 8/114 = 0.0701754 or 7.01754 %
This is not only 10 times more likely to occur but is very close 1/12 chance not re-rolled. I know which I prefer!