Armor adds extra protection via a separate health bar that reaches 10 armor points. Armor can be made with leather, gold, iron, diamonds and fire (fire is unavailable without the use of hacking or modding) and consists of chestplates, helmets, boots and leggings. Each armor point gives 8% damage reduction, with a maximum of 80% damage reduction with 10 armor points.
History
Before Alpha 1.0.8, wool was used instead of leather as the lowest tier of armor.
Before 1.9 Prerelease 1, all helmets gave 
(0.30 efficiency), all chest armor gave (0.50 efficiency), all leg armor gave (0.43 efficiency), and all boots gave (0.38 efficiency). Armor's effectiveness was linked to durability, with lower tier materials less durable than higher tier materials. Leather armor was as protective as diamond armor when undamaged, but leather armor quickly lost durability to attacks, thus its defense power would more rapidly diminish. Likewise, if you put on almost fully decreased boots when you had other armor on, it lowered your armor protection.
Also before 1.9 Prerelease 1, specific types of damage were reduced by a certain amount based upon the effective armor points of the player. Each point of armor reduced the damage you took by 8%, up to the maximum reduction of 80%.
As of 1.1, iron armor naturally generates in NPC village Furnaces.
Minecraft 1.0 had a bug that caused all armor to be twice as effective at reducing damage as intended. This was fixed in Minecraft 1.1.
As of 1.2, Zombies can drop iron helmets on rare occasions, and Zombie Pigmen can drop golden helmets.
Mob armor
In Survival Test, certain Zombies and Skeletons could be found wearing armor; a chestplate 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.
Leather-Chain armor
The leather-chain armor is just a sprite from Indev 0.31's items.png file. Diamond and gold armor are missing. File:Indev031itemspng.png
Player armor
Player armor (not including Chainmail Armor)
Helmets, chestplates, leggings, and boots can be crafted out of leather, gold, iron, or diamond. Chainmail armor also exists but is not legitimately attainable in Survival mode or Hardcore mode.
While worn, each piece of armor adds to the player's total defense points, which serve to reduce certain kinds of damage to the player. Whenever a piece of armor absorbs damage for the player, the armor itself is damaged. After taking enough damage, the armor piece is destroyed. Each individual combination of armor type and material gives a different amount of defense points and has a different level of durability. Diamond gives the highest defense along with the most durability, and leather gives the least defense and least durability.
When the player takes damage of a sort that is not affected by armor, any armor they are wearing does not take damage. See the effects section below for more information.
Players can also wear a Pumpkin as their helmet. Although this will block the player's view and not provide protection from attacks, it will prevent Endermen from attacking the player when the player stops looking at them. The player will still be attacked if they physically attack the Enderman.
Effects
The following types of damage are reduced by armor and, consequently, damage the armor itself:
- Direct attacks from mobs
- Direct attacks from other players
- Getting hit with an arrow
- Getting hit with a fireball from a Ghast or Blaze
- Touching a block of fire or lava
- Touching a cactus
- Explosions
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
- Fall damage
- Falling into the Void
- Poisoning; e.g., from a Cave Spider bite or a Potion of Poison
- Instant damage from a Potion of Harming
- /Kill command
Protection enchantments protect from types of damage that armor doesn't protect against without an enchantment, like falling damage. Armor durability still doesn't decrease when protection-enchanted armor takes environmental damage.
Defense points
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.
| Material | Full set | Helmet | Chestplate | Leggings | Boots |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Leather |
|
|
|
|
|
| Gold |
|
|
|
|
|
| Chainmail |
|
|
|
|
|
| Iron |
|
|
|
|
|
| Diamond |
|
|
|
|
|
Durability
The following table shows the amount of damage each piece of armor can absorb before being destroyed.
Any "hit" dealt by a mob (including creeper explosions) will remove 2 durability points to the armor.
Other damage sources usually remove 3 durability points to the armor, except cacti (only one point).
Damage taken that armor doesn't protect (such as falling or drowning) will not damage the armor.
| Material | Helmet | Chestplate | Leggings | Boots |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Leather | 56 | 81 | 76 | 66 |
| Gold | 78 | 113 | 106 | 92 |
| Chainmail/Iron | 166 | 241 | 226 | 196 |
| Diamond | 364 | 529 | 496 | 430 |
Enchantability
Armor can be enchanted, and the material it's made of determines how enchantable it is, according to the following factors.
| Leather | 15 |
|---|---|
| Gold | 25 |
| Chainmail | 12 |
| Iron | 9 |
| Diamond | 10 |
Notice that golden armor is highly enchantable, compensating somewhat for its poor defensive properties. See the enchanting page for the exact details of how this works.
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. This means that you could wear a leather cap with an iron chestplate, but you cannot craft leggings out of both iron and gold.
Note that chestplates provide the most protection per unit of material, followed by leggings, followed by helmets, followed by boots. The exact ratio varies between different materials, however, and golden helmets are actually more cost-effective than golden boots.
As with other items with durability, 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.
Armor is not stackable.
Template:Armor Crafting
Data Values
The following are the data values for each armor piece:
| Leather | Chain | Iron | Diamond | Gold | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dec | Hex | Dec | Hex | Dec | Hex | Dec | Hex | Dec | Hex | |
| Cap/Helmets | 298 | 12A | 302 | 12E | 306 | 132 | 310 | 136 | 314 | 13A |
| Tunic/Chestplates | 299 | 12B | 303 | 12F | 307 | 133 | 311 | 137 | 315 | 13B |
| Pants/Leggings | 300 | 12C | 304 | 130 | 308 | 134 | 312 | 138 | 316 | 13C |
| Boots | 301 | 12D | 305 | 131 | 309 | 135 | 313 | 139 | 317 | 13D |
Gallery
The armor sprite as it appeared in one of Notch's previous project, Legend of Chambered.
A Zombie wearing a chestplate.
A Zombie wearing a helmet in the Survival Test.
A Zombie wearing both a chestplate and a helmet.
Video
Armor/video
Bugs
- The armor breaking animation and sounds only play in singleplayer.
Trivia
- Helmets, chestplates and leggings have different names when they are made of leather than when they are made of other materials. Helmets are named caps, chestplates are called tunics, and leggings are termed pants. Boots are still called boots.
- If you look in the armor folder inside Minecraft.jar, leather armor is still called cloth armor. This is because, as listed above, before the addition of Cows this armor was made from Wool.
- There is a texture file for armor labeled "Power", a indiscernible blue energy used by Creepers when struck by lightning (becoming a charged creeper).
- The chainmail chestplate has slightly longer sleeves than all other chestplates.
- The Leather Armor design comes from an old game Notch never finished "Legend of the Chambered".
- If you are sitting in a minecart with armor leggings on, and press E (for your Inventory), or pressing F5 (for third person view), your legs will be in a sitting position, but your armor will be a standing position. However this can be fixed by removing any bottom piece of armor and then replacing them.
- There was a popular rumor that stated chain mail armor absorbs all damage done (so instead of losing .5 armor and .5 hearts you lose 1.0 armor), but this is not true.
- On April 5th, 2012, Jeb mentioned that shift-clicking armor into armor slots was "on the list of things to do."[1]
- It takes 24 leather, iron, gold, diamonds to make a full set of armor.