Armor

All characters have 6 slots to equip protective equipment: 4 slots for **Armor** (Chest Armor, Helm, Gloves & Boots) and 2 slots for **Accessories**. These contribute to the survivability of characters by increasing their Defense, Health and Character Statistics; as well as providing damage type resistances, damage reduction, speed and other miscellaneous effects. Armor can be acquired as mission rewards, loot drops, purchased from the Guild or Arena stores, or constructed from Blueprints in the Workshop.

Armor and Accessories come in 4 different rarities: **Uncommon**, **Rare**, **Epic** and **Legendary**. Higher rarity equipment provides better stats and more modifiers. Epic and Legendary equipment can also form *Armor Sets*, providing special bonuses for having multiple items in the same Set equipped.

## Armor Attributes

### Defense

**Defense** directly reduces the damage a character receives. Both Armor and Accessories increase this at the same rate, which is defined by the rarity, Upgrade level and Advancement level. The Defense value is calculated as per the below formula:

(4 + Level) \* **R** \* (1 + 0.1\*Advancement)

The value of R depends on the rarity: Rare = 8, Epic = 9, Legendary = 10

Each level of Advancement increases the base Defense value by 10%.

### Health

Armor pieces also increase a character's maximum **Health**. As with Defense, the Armor's Health value is defined by the rarity, Upgrade level and Advancement level. The final Health value is double the Defense value (see the calculation in the Defense section above).

### Character Statistics

All Armor and Accessories provide increases to **Character Statistics** - see the Character Statistics page for more detailed information on what benefits each statistic provides.

Accessories provide a large increase to a single main Character Statistic (STR/AGI/INT) instead of the Health increase provided by armor pieces. The final Statistic value is half of the Defense value (see the calculation under the Defense section above).

Armor pieces provide an increase to two of the main Character Statistics (STR/AGI/INT). They have a “Major” attribute bonus and a “Minor” attribute bonus. For example, those armor pieces from the Brutalizer/Apostle set give a major boost to Intelligence & a minor boost to Agility.

Armor pieces also provide an increase to one of the minor Character Statistics (ACC/CRIT/DEX/RSL). Helms provide an increase to ACC, Gloves provide an increase to CRIT, Boots provide an increase to DEX, and Chest Armor provides an increase to RSL.

### Damage type resistances

Armor and Accessories all modify a character’s **resistance** to the 4 damage types: **Kinetic** (KRES), **Heat** (HRES), **Electro** (ERES), and **Mental** (MRES). All armor and accessory items affect each resistance differently - some Armor pieces provide a small increase to one or two resistances, whilst some Armor pieces provide large increases to some resistances and offset this with large penalties to other resistances. This can dramatically affect the amount of damage you receive from each damage type. The cumulative value of your character’s resistances is listed on the character info sheet.

See the Resistances section in the Armor Guide below.

### Modifiers

Armor and Accessories also have customizable **Modifiers**. These can be changed through the use of a consumable Reforger. Gear of Rare & Epic rarity have 2 Modifiers, whilst Legendary gear has 3 Modifiers.

Armor pieces can roll mods that increase Character Statistics, as well as other miscellaneous mods such as avoiding or reducing the duration of status effects. Accessories can only roll Character Statistic modifiers. See the Reforge page for more detailed information.

### Modules

Armor pieces also have a slot to attach a **Module**, providing additional defensive and offensive benefits. See the Module page for more detailed information.

## Armor Sets

Almost all of the armor pieces of Epic and Legendary rarity belong to an **Armor Set**. These sets give your character additional bonuses that are based on the number of set items equipped. This is listed at the bottom of the item’s information screen. The set name is listed on the left, followed by a number that shows how many of those items you currently have equipped. The “Inspect” button on the right will bring up a new window which shows all of the item names in the set, and will list the set bonuses given at each threshold. Items listed in green text are currently equipped, and bonuses in green text are currently being applied.

### Unreleased Armor Sets

There are several Armor Sets that are listed in the Achievements section of the game, but are not yet available. These are listed below:

* Change
* Confliction
* Energy Focus
* Eternium
* Guard
* Guardian
* Hardened
* Ironforge
* Leadership
* Link
* Solitary
* Sunfire
* Weakened

## Armor Guide

When choosing which armor pieces and sets to equip to each character, there are a few things to consider:

1. Attributes
2. Set bonuses
3. Damage reduction vs Speed
4. Resistances

### Attributes

This is the first criteria you should consider when selecting what armor to equip to your characters. Attributes define a character’s ability to perform in every situation – front-line units generally need high Strength to boost their survivability, attack-based characters generally need high Agility to boost their weapon damage, and casters generally need high Intelligence to boost their skill damage and healing.

Even though the Brutalizer/Apostle full set bonus for equipping all 6 Apostle items (*Single target attacks deal 50% splash damage*) would be very beneficial for some high damage front-line units, the lack of any Strength in this set would leave your front-line unit with a much reduced HP pool and low survivability.

### Damage reduction vs Speed

In addition to increasing main character attributes, each armor piece also has bonuses to damage reduction and/or speed. Consider which of these would be more beneficial for the playstyle you want for your Character class. For example, high speed will enable your healer to cast their spells more often - improving the team’s survivability at the cost of their own: a dead healer casts no spells.

### Resistances

Some armor sets give a minor increase to one or two resistances and minor reductions to the other types, but some full armor sets give large penalties to one damage type. For example, having all 6 of the Brutalizer/Apostle armor pieces equipped gives a Kinetic resistance of -18, which increases Kinetic damage taken by 22%. For this reason, it can be beneficial to balance the armor pieces equipped to offset these large resistances penalties. Keep this in mind when selecting an Armor Set and consider what types of damage you will generally be encountering.

The table below lists all of the resistances given by having the full set equipped – for more specific information on each armor piece, see each armor set page.

## Non-Armor Set pieces

There are a few unique Epic pieces of armor that do not belong to a particular armor set. Rare armor pieces also do not have Armor Sets even though they may share the same name. The Ranger (Standard) set is the one exception to this.