Armor

Armor is the general term in the Diablo series for items worn on the body, mainly for protection. In fact, all equippable items except Rings, Amulets and Weapons are classified as Armor for gameplay purposes. Most types of Armor equipment increase the character's Defense, although most off-hand non-Shield equipment does not, despite falling into the general "armor" item category.

Armor may also refer to Chest Armor, Body Armor or Torso Armor, the type of items worn on the character's chest: i.e. Capes, Cloaks, Chain Mails, Breast Plates, and other types of torso protection.

In Diablo III, Armor is also a secondary character attribute which reduces overall damage taken, the equivalent to "Defense" in Diablo II or "Armor Class" in Diablo I.

In addition, mutually-exclusive Sorceress Spells (Frozen Armor, Shiver Armor and Chilling Armor), Druid Cyclone Armor and Wizard conjuration spells (Ice Armor, Storm Armor and Energy Armor) are commonly also known as Armors.

Diablo I[]

Armor was composed of Body Armor, Helms and Shields.

Diablo II[]

Armor got several additions: Belts, Circlets, Boots, Gloves and Class-specific Items, which are variants of regular armor: Barbarian Helms, Druid Pelts, Paladin Shields and Necromancer Shrunken Heads.

Diablo III[]

Diablo III added three more armor slots: Pauldrons, Pants and Bracers, as well as many class-specific variants of already existing Armor types: Cloaks, Quivers, Crusader Shields, Mighty Belts, Spirit Stones, Voodoo Masks and Wizard Hats. In addition, for Socketing purposes, all items (including off-hand items) except Helms and Weapons, count as Armor.

Diablo IV[]

Diablo IV has five armor slots—helms, chest, pants, boots, and gloves.^[1] Armor mitigates incoming physical damage. The level of damage reduction varies in accordance with the type of armor that's being equipped—chest and leg armor provide the highest armor stats, boots and gloves provide the lowest armor stats.

The armor value of an item depends on the item power, which in turn derives from the monster item power. If a player wants to increase their item power, one should kill monsters at a higher level than their character. The higher the item power, the higher the armor stats it provides. There is a baseline for how much damage mitigation a player has.

As mentioned above, the armor stat mitigates physical damage. However, in Diablo IV, it also mitigates a percentage of non-physical damage. For example, if an item provides 60% physical damage mitigation, it will also provide 30% all non-physical mitigation.^[2]