Armor

Armor adds extra protection via a separate health bar that reaches 10 armor points.

Player armor
Since Indev, helmets, chestplates, leggings, and boots can be crafted by players out of leather, gold, iron, or diamond (in order of increasing durability). This armor prevents part of the damage dealt to the player, including falling, drowning and fire based damage.

All incoming damage is reduced to a certain percentage based upon the effective armor points of the player (effective armor points are described in detail in Item Durability). Each point of armor reduces the damage you take by 8%, up to the maximum reduction of 80%.

Every time the player takes damage the armor loses durability, and its protective capabilities quickly diminish as it loses durability. See Item Durability for more explanation of how armor's durability affects its protective abilities. Materials such as diamond makes a strong armor that withstands quite a bit of punishment, while leather armor barely survives 20 hits. While durability is different, they all have the same efficiency. For example if you wear a leather helmet it will give you the same amount of protection as a diamond helmet.

Chainmail armor can also be hacked into the game, or crafted with edited-in fire blocks. It has the same durability as gold armor.

Before version 1.0.8, wool was used instead of leather as the lowest tier of armor in Alpha.

Armor crafting
It takes 24 units of material to make a full set of armor. Although it is not necessary that all of your armor is the same material, each individual piece must consist of only one material.

Note that it is most efficient to craft boots before a helmet because, while they both provide 1.5 armor points, boots require less material.

Chain mail armor has the same durability as gold armor and is no different than any other armor sets, except for the fact that it is only obtainable through inventory hacking. There is a popular rumor that states chain mail armor absorbs all damage done (so instead of losing .5 armor and .5 hearts you lose 1.0 armor) but this is purely that - a rumor, and nothing more. Since chain mail armor is as good as gold in durability, and has no other redeeming qualities, Notch never implemented chain mail armor into the game.

Mob armor
In Survival Test, certain Zombies could be found wearing armor; a chestplate and/or a helmet. Zombies had the potential, although extremely unlikely, to wear both a chestplate and a helmet at the same time. Skeletons could also be found wearing armor, albeit extremely infrequently. Mob armor was purely cosmetic, however, although it is possible that it was a planned feature to increase mob difficulty.

Trivia

 * The head, chest and leg slot armor pieces have different names for armor pieces made of leather than that of armor pieces created by ore. The pieces are named caps, tunics, and pants.
 * If you look in the armor folder inside Minecraft.jar, leather armor is still called cloth armor. See Cows for more info.
 * There is a new texture file for armor labeled "Power". Its look is an indiscernible blue energy of some sort. It appears to be the blue energy that appears on a creeper when it is struck by lightning.

Glitches

 * If the player enters a minecart or a boat and looks into their inventory, the player's legs stick out of the leggings and their boots are on their legs.

Rüstung Zbroja