Armor



Armor is a category of items that provide players and certain mobs with varying levels of protection from common damage types, and appear graphically on the wearer. These items include several different classes of helmets, chestplates, leggings, and boots, which can each be placed in designated armor slots of a player's inventory for use.

Crafting
It takes 24 units of a given material to make a full set of armor. Chain armor cannot be crafted.

Armor can be repaired by placing two pieces of the same type (e.g., iron helmets) in a crafting grid. The resulting item will have slightly more durability left than the original items combined, but any enchantments will be lost. Repairing armor with an anvil will preserve and combine the enchantments. Chain armor can be repaired with anvils by combining iron ingots with it.

Drops
Zombies and skeletons that spawn with armor have a small chance to drop their armor when killed by the player. Zombies, skeletons, zombie pigmen and wither skeletons upon death will always drop armor that they picked up and equipped.

Trading
Leather pants and enchanted leather tunics can be bought from leatherworker villagers.

Iron helmets, iron chestplates, enchanted diamond chestplates, chainmail helmets, chainmail chestplates, chainmail leggings and chainmail boots can be bought from armorer villagers.

Usage
Chestplates provide the most protection per unit of material, followed by leggings. For leather, iron, and diamond armor, boots are followed by helmets, but for chainmail and gold, the helmet is more efficient. However, boots are always the most durable.

Duplicate armor pieces are not stackable in inventory slots.

Tiers


Armor classes include (from weakest/least durable to strongest/most durable):
 * Chain
 * Chain
 * Chain

Other
Pumpkins can be worn as a helmet. This will not provide any protection, and it will partially block the player's view, but it does prevent endermen from becoming aggressive when players look at them. Mob heads can also be worn as a helmet. They are merely for cosmetic use and have no other functions.

Mechanics
Whenever a piece of armor absorbs damage for the player, the armor itself is damaged, reducing its durability. After taking enough damage, the armor piece is destroyed.

Damage types
The following types of damage are reduced by armor and, consequently, damage the armor itself:
 * Direct attacks from mobs and players
 * Getting hit with an arrow
 * Getting hit with a fireball from a ghast or blaze, a fire charge, or an ender acid ball
 * Touching fire, lava or cacti
 * Explosions
 * Getting struck by lightning
 * Getting hit with a falling anvil
 * Getting hit by chicken eggs
 * Getting hit with a fishing rod lure

The following types of damage are not reduced by armor and have no effect on the armor itself:
 * Ongoing damage from being on fire
 * Suffocating inside a block
 * Drowning in water
 * Starvation
 * Falling (including Ender pearls)
 * Falling to the Void
 * Status effects
 * Instant damage from a potion of harming
 * Standing next to where lightning strikes.
 * Getting hit by snowballs.
 * Getting hit by snowballs.

All sources of damage will damage all armor pieces worn in Pocket Edition, however.

Defense points
The player's current protection level is represented visually by the armor bar. Each defense point represent 4% damage reduction. With all 20 shown full, the player has a total of 80% damage reduction. The armor meter is affected by the particular pieces that are worn, as well as the tier of the armor. Different combinations of armor provide different levels of defense.

The following table shows the amount of defense points added by each individual piece of armor, as well as the total points added by a full set of armor for each material.

Enchantments
Armor can be enchanted to provide various enchantments. Enchantments can provide more protection or allow armors to protect certain types of damage that armor doesn't normally protect against, such as fall damage or fire. Damage reduction from enchantments do not decrease the armor's durability. Armor enchantments do not appear on the armor bar.

An armor's material determines how enchantable it is. The higher a material's enchantability, the greater the chances of getting multiple and high-level enchantments (see enchantment mechanics for details).

As with several enchantments, several different levels of protection are possible. The maximum level of a protection enchantment is currently IV (4). Protection enchantments from multiple pieces of armor stack together, up to a calculated maximum.

Each protection enchantment protects against specific types of damage. The amount of damage reduction depends on the Enchantment Protection Factor (EPF) provided by that enchantment.

The EPFs for each enchantment and level are the result of the following formula:

floor ( (6 + level^2) * TypeModifier / 3 )

When a player or mob wearing armor is subjected to damage, the EPFs of all applicable enchantments are added together, capped at 25, multiplied by a random value between 50% and 100%, rounded up, and capped again at 20. The damage is then reduced by 4% per point of total effective EPF (for example, a total effective EPF of 20 reduces damage by 80%).

Because of the caps in the calculation, it's possible to max out protection against specific types of damage with only three pieces of armor. For example, two pieces of armor with Blast Protection IV (EPF 11 each) and a single piece with Protection III (EPF 3) would give a total EPF of 25 versus explosions (before the remainder of the calculation). Any additional EPF would be wasted against explosions (but might be useful against other types of damage, if applicable).

If the damage is of a type that armor protects against normally, this reduction applies only to the damage that got through the armor. For example, a full suit of diamond armor reduces damage from attacks by 80% -- if each piece of armor also had a Protection IV enchantment (EPF 5 each), the enchantments would further reduce damage by 40% to 80% each time, for a total damage reduction of 88% to 96% (i.e., 80%, plus 40%-80% of the remaining 20%).

It is possible, using the /give command, to obtain armor with an enchantment level higher than what is normally obtainable via normal survival. Using this method, a player could give themselves, for example, a full set of diamond armor with a Protection V enchantment on every piece. Following the algorithm above, we find that, since Protection V has an EPF of 7, only 3 pieces of the armor need to have Protection V in order to reach the maximum 25 EPF for all types of damage (with 3 pieces of armor with Protection V and one piece with Protection IV, one's EPF is still 26, but the step between Protection IV and Protection V is 2 EPF, so the cap would not be reached without the third piece of Protection V armor). Any higher Protection enchantments could be used to allow the cap to be reached with only one enchantment, rather than having a full set of enchanted armor, but would be wasted if all pieces shared the same level enchantment.

To calculate the average amount of extra protection given by a set of armor, use the following formula:

(100-(total defense points of armor set * 4))*(Total EPF of Armor Set)*(4%)*(0.0075)

To find the total protection of the armor set, simply add the extra protection to the standard percentage.

Durability
Any hit from a damage source that can be blocked by armor will remove one point of durability from each piece of armor worn, except with explosions.The following chart displays how many hits each piece of armor can endure.

The chart below shows the durability per unit of material for each piece of armor, compared to that of the boots. Note that the durability per unit does not depend on the tier of the armor.

This means that for the same number of leather/iron ingots/gold ingots/chain/diamond, boots can take 1.5 more damage than leggings. Thus, chestplate and leggings offer more defense points per unit, but have a less durability per unit.

Upcoming changes
In 1.9, armor will now show armor points in tooltips. These can be edited using the  attribute.

Mob armor


Certain mobs can spawn equipped with random armor pieces. Some mobs also spawn with the ability to pick up armor on the ground and equip them. The frequency of mobs spawning equipped with armor and higher tiered armor is dependent on the difficulty. Armor protects mobs the same way to players, and likewise with armor enchantments.

The following mobs can spawn with armor:



The following do not naturally spawn with armor, but will pick up any dropped pieces:



These mobs cannot wear armor through survival-mode means, but if equipped with commands, their armor will be visible:



Helmets can protect mobs from burning in sunlight, depleting its durability as it takes up the damage. Eventually, the helmet will lose all its durability and break. Pumpkins and mob heads also protect mobs from burning in sunlight.

Horse armor
Horse armor can be equipped on horses to protect them from damage.

Special mob armor
Other mobs do have armor values built in, but they do not provide damage protection and are used instead for aesthetics or other purposes.


 * Sheep's wool is considered as armor.
 * Pigs, horses, donkeys, and mules can wear saddles, which is considered as armor.
 * Snow golems have pumpkins worn on their heads as helmets.
 * Charged creepers have an electric glow around them, which is actually an armor value.
 * The wither develops a shield right during its initial stage. It will develop another shield when it is at low health, which deflects arrows.
 * A tamed wolf's collar is considered as armor.