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Added info on calculating damage mitigation, and removed a false entry from the examples.
==Armor's Function in Diablo 3==
The armor stat works much like a resistance in Diablo 3. Higher Armor means that more of the damage from attacks is absorbed or mitigated. This is not how armor (defense) worked in Diablo 2; in that game higher armor worked against monster to/hit and made it less likely that they would strike your character with an attack. This design choice forced the developers to make monsters hit for very high damage since they so seldom connected, which lead to a boom or bust sort of combat.
Diablo 3 uses the resistance-like form of Armor to create a steady flow of damage that players can learn to mitigate with more Armor, higher hit points, blocking, life regeneration, life on hit/life leech, or other options.
==Armor Damage Mitigation==
[[File:Armor-tooltip.jpg|thumb|400px|Armor tooltip shows damage reduction.]]
Every piece of armor (equipment) has an Armor value in Diablo III. These add up with Strength and may be modified by various skills and passives to arrive at a total Armor value which grants a substantial damage reduction. This figure is a key source of damage mitigation in Diablo 3 and has a major effect on a character's survival ability.
Higher Armor values make a clear difference in the damage taken. Some stats, all for a level 60 character vs. level 60 monsters:
* 1987 Armor = 39.84% Damage Reduction
* 3059 Armor = 50.49% Damage Reduction
* 4024 Armor = 57.29% Damage Reduction
* 4512 Armor = 60.06% Damage Reduction
* 4963 Armor = 62.33% Damage Reduction
* 5499 Armor = 64.70% Damage Reduction
As with [[resistances]] (which function very similarly) there are diminishing returns on the benefit from higher amounts of Armor. The first thousand points of Armor effect a damage reduction of about 25%, while moving from 4500 to 5500 only yields about 4.5% damage reduction. That 4.5% might be of huge importance to a high level character taking on a dozen enemies at once, but it's clearly a lot less of a total change than the first couple of thousand points of Armor provide.
The formula for calculating damage reduction against equal level enemies is: 100 * armor / ( armor + 50 * character level ).
In terms of effective HP for a lvl 60 character, every 3000 armor you have increase your EHP by 100%. For lvl 70 characters, 3500 armor does the same.
==Strength==
The [[Strength]] attribute adds directly to the Armor total, in simple arithmetic fashion. More strength = higher Armor = more damage reduction. This is very handy for Barbarians and makes them take much less damage from melee combat. Other characters get less benefit from it; the screenshot below shows a [[Paragon]] 49 Monk who has virtually no Strength on her equipment and thus gains very little additional armor that way.
[[File:Str-tooltip.jpg|center|frame]]
==Equipment==
The items (armor) worn by characters in Diablo 3 are hugely-varied and individually-designed. All pieces of equipment look different on all classes, and often vary between the genders of each class as well. This required a huge amount of artwork and animation, but is part of the fine polish Blizzard puts on all the components of their video games.
[[File:Blacksmith-armor1.jpg|thumb|200px|Various pieces of armor, by a master [[blacksmith]].]]
There are more types of armor to be worn in Diablo III. All the item slots return from Diablo II, plus several new ones; shoulders, pants, and bracers.
* [[Belts]] -- These do not hold potions as in Diablo II. They're purely another piece of armor.
** [[PantsMighty Belts]] -- A new type of armor added in Diablo III.(Barbarian only)* [[Boots|Boots]]
* [[Rings]]
* [[Amulets]]
==Class-Specific Armor==
[[Weapons]] are much the same, with a few types that are class-specific, and others that can only be used by some, but more than one, class.
==Individual Armor Appearance==
The same piece of Armor in Diablo III will look looks very different depending on which class is wearing it, and often by the gender as well. This was also true in Diablo II, in most cases, but system expands on the designs have been made radically more varied in Diablo III. Another change is that there are no normal/exceptional/elite item types basic component looks in Diablo III. In Diablo II the same piece of equipment existed in two different types2, with a third (elite) added in the expansion. This meant that characters could find elite armor in Hell difficulty, and armor that looked like cloth would have far radically more defense than the normal or exceptional version of full plate mail. The Diablo III team didn't like this, variety and now there are 18 levels of armor to be found, stretching throughout all three difficulty levels. Each of these levels looks quite a bit different from the others. Though there's alot of variety, there are consistent appearance themes.[http://diablo.incgamersdesign depth.com/blog/comments/wds-wont-just-wear-leaves-after-all/]
===Gear Sets===
[[Gear sets]] are the term the [[D3 Team]] uses for the 18 different armor sets. These items look very different on each classSee the gear sets article for full details. A few sample sets, and revealed by Blizzard showed off six of them prior to Blizzcon 2010. They did not identify the precise number of any of the gear sets, or let us known if any of the classes were wearing the same sets, but they did say that these were all fairly low level sets, somewhere around 4-7, in the 1-18 scale from light cloth to the heaviest plate mailcan be seen below.
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* Armor is a value on all types of armor items. More armor = more damage reduction, but a lot of Armor is required to see significant improvements.
* Defense is one of the four core character attributes/stats. It grows as your character levels up, and can be added as a bonus from items, gems, skills, and more.
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[[Category:Basics]]
[[Category:Items]]
[[category:armorArmor]][[category:statistics]]