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 5% 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 of dropping 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.

Natural generation

 * Helmets
 * Chestplates
 * Leggings
 * Boots
 * Chestplates
 * Leggings
 * Boots
 * Leggings
 * Boots
 * Leggings
 * Boots
 * Boots
 * Boots
 * Boots

Usage
Chestplates provide the most protection per unit of material, followed by leggings. For leather, iron, and diamond armor, boots are more efficient than helmets, but for chainmail and gold armor the helmets are 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 cut a player's detection range by 50% for the corresponding mob type. This bonus stacks with potions of invisibility and sneaking.

Elytra can be worn as a chestplate. Like pumpkins they do not provide any defense, but they do allow the player to glide through the air.

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.

Defense points
Armor defense points are controlled by an attribute,. The player's current protection level is represented visually by the armor bar. The armor meter is affected by the particular pieces that are worn as well as the tier of the armor. The following table shows the amount of defense points added by default by each individual piece of armor, as well as the total points added by a full set of armor for each material.

Different combinations of armor provide different levels of defense.

Armor Toughness
Armor can further protect the player through a second attribute,. By default, only diamond armor provides toughness, with each piece granting +2 toughness.

Damage Protection
Damage taken depends on the number of defense points, the toughness of the armor worn, and the strength of the attack.

The damage formula is. Each defense point grants a maximum of 4% damage reduction; the more damage a given attack does, the lower the percentage reduced by the armor, down to a minimum of .8% per defense point. As toughness increases, the amount of defense reduction done by high-damaging attacks is diminished, and as toughness approaches a very high value (through commands), the defense reduction caused by high-damaging attacks becomes negligible.

In tabular form (with a toughness of 0), damages are:

Enchantments
Armor can be enchanted to provide various enchantments. Enchantments can provide more protection or allow armor 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.

When a player or mob wearing armor is subjected to damage, the EPFs of all applicable enchantments are added together, capped at 20, and then damage is reduced as, giving a maximum reduction of 80% at EPF 20.

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 8 each) and a single piece with Protection IV (EPF 4) would give a total EPF of 20 versus explosions. 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.

It is possible using 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 5, the armor will exactly reach the maximum EPF of 20 for all types of damage. 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.

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 for every of incoming damage (rounded down, but never below 1). 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.

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 probability of mobs spawning equipped with armor, whether the armor is enchanted, the level of enchantment of the armor, and how many pieces of armor a mob spawns with depend on the difficulty; if a mob spawns with armor, the tier of armor (leather, gold, etc.) has a fixed probability: Protection provided by armor and armor enchantments works the same with mobs as it does with players.

The following mobs can spawn with armor:



The following do not naturally spawn with armor except in the Pocket Edition, 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 absorbs 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 mob and player damage.

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