Explaining Armor
While Valheim is filled to the brim with fun and excitement, it’s also filled with dangerous encounters, and punishing survival elements. Being prepared for a good fight includes wearing some good armor pieces.
In this guide, we will reveal the best armor piece combinations in Valheim, and also explain in-depth how damage reduction calculations, based on armor, are done.
We continuously aim to give our readers tips and tricks, and with this armor guide, you will hopefully be able to withstand some hits from even the most deadly weapons, regardless of its weapon class.
Equipment slots, armor sets, and core resources
There are four different pieces of armor in Valheim; chest, legs, helmet, and cape. These are the equipment slots.
Armor is also divided into armor sets, and these armor sets are divided into tiers. A progressive trend in Valheim is that each armor set requires a core resource to be crafted; a core resource that becomes progressively available as you delve deeper into the game.
In short, this means that there is a natural progression in how you obtain better armor, as you progress in Valheim, and obtain core resources.
Some examples of this include unlocking Silver Armor once you are able to mine Silver in the Mountain biome, crafting Iron Armor once you gather Iron from the Sunken Crypts in the Swamp biome, or even obtaining Linen Thread from the Plains biome, which in turn unlocks the Padded Armor set.
What is the best armor in Valheim?
The absolute best armor piece combinations in Valheim include a full Padded Armor set, including the Padded Cuirass, Greaves, and Helmet, paired with either a Wolf Fur Cape or a Lox Cape.
The reason for the armor is obvious; it gives you the greatest amount of armor, which in turn gives you the greatest amount of damage reduction.
As for capes, it all comes down to Frost Resistance, as both the Wolf Fur Cape, and the Lox Cape, give Frost Protection, allowing you to traverse the Mountain biome without the need for a Frost Protection potion.
This combination of armor pieces will give you exactly 100 armor rating, at the cost of 10% movement speed reduction, at maximum upgrades.
Sneaky Viking Armor
However, there are definitely some players that would argue that the Troll Armor set can compete with this armor piece combination.
The reason being that a full Troll Armor set nets you 46 armor rating, with 0% movement speed reduction, and the added effect of 25% bonus to the Sneak skill, at maximum upgrades.
If you pair the Troll Armor set with a good knife, you’ve got yourself a fast-moving stealthy assassin of a Viking, capable of delivering fatal blows from out of the shadows, with very little effort.
Obviously, it’s debatable whether or not the 25% Sneak skill bonus, along with the lack of movement penalty, is worth the trade-off of over half of your potential armor rating.
Presumably, this comes down to playstyle and situational gameplay.
How does damage reduction work in Valheim?
There are two different scenarios for calculating damage reduction in Valheim:
If your armor rating is less than half of that of the incoming damage, damage is reduced by 1 for each point of Armor Rating.
This means that if you have 12 armor rating, and you are hit by an attack that deals 30 damage, you’ll end up taking 30 (damage dealt to you) minus 12 (your armor rating), which equals 18 damage. (30 – 12 = 18)
However, if your armor rating is more than half of that of the incoming damage, then damage is calculated based on this formula: Damage² / (4 * Armor Rating)
An example would be if you have 16 armor rating, instead of 12, and you are hit with the same amount of damage as in the former example, 30 damage, the calculation would be:
30 damage² / (4 * 16), which equals 900 / 64 = 14 damage, or 14,0625 to be exact.
