your weapons/armor only get damage if you fight monster that is higher than 19 of your current level.
Things that cant break are rank 1 items such as your rb cape and your pet's rb weapons.
Saddles won't break if you use it to ride only. But in my past experience i forgot to unequip my ride's saddle and fought monster above +19 lvls of my pet and it broke =(. Be careful.

Only way to repair your armor is to buy the Repair potion from the Item Mall but i made enough gold to get them without spending real money

When you die you only lose exp but if you take a lot of damage you will most likely respawn.

Heres a link on the best sets of matk, dmg, speed etc
http://forum.wl.igg.com/viewthread.php?tid=9099...