Armor

Armor refers to a set of items which increase the player's defensive abilities when worn. Armor can be made with leather, gold, iron and diamonds (and fire too, but fire is unavailable without the use of an inventory editor) and consists of chestplates, helmets, boots and leggings. The player's current protection is visually reflected by the armor meter, containing 10 total bars, with each armor bar giving 8% damage reduction for a total of 80% wearing the best armor.elmets, chestplates, leggings, and boots can be crafted out of leather, gold, iron, diamond or fire*. Chain armor also exists but is only obtainable in Creative Mode, or can only be obtained through trading with the villagers in survival mode, as of update 1.3.1 (first introduced in snapshot 12w21a).
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 looks at the Enderman. The player will still be attacked if they physically attack the Enderman.
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 fireor 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
• Falling into the Void
• Poisoning; e.g., from a cave spider attack or a Potion of Poison
• Instant damage from a Potion of Harming
• /kill command
• Wither potion effects

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.



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
Chain
Iron
Diamond

The following table shows the number of defense points () per unit of material. Thus, a pair of iron boots () provides 50% efficiency-4 ingots to 2 points of armor, whereas a diamond chestplate () provides 100% efficiency-8 diamonds to 8 points of armor.

Material	Full Set	Helmet	Chestplate	Leggings	Boots
Leather	29.2%	20%	37.5%	28.6%	25%
Gold	45.8%	40%	62.5%	42.9%	25%
Chain	50%	40%	62.5%	57.1%	25%
Iron	62.5%	40%	75%	71.4%	50%
Diamond	83.3%	60%	100%	85.7%	75%

Thus, a full set of diamond armor gives .833 defense points per diamond, whereas a full set of leather armor gives .292 (65% less) defense points.

Armor enchantment effect calculation

Armor can get protection enchantments such as "Protection III" or "Fire protection IV". The maximum level of a protection enchantment is IV (4). Protection enchantments stack (up to a cap). The type of protection enchantment determines whether the protection enchantment comes into effect, according to the following table:

Enchantment	Damage reduced for
Protection	All
Fire Protection	Fire, lava, and blaze fireballs
Blast Protection	Explosions
Projectile Protection	Arrows, ghast and blaze fireballs
Feather Falling	Fall damage (including ender pearls)

This means that "Protection" is always at least as good as for example "Fire protection", even against fire damage (with the exception of "Feather falling", see below).
The enchantment damage reduction is applied to the damage left after the armor's basic effect, and the base "enchantment protection factor" (EPF) of an enchanted item is

  floor ( (6 + level * level) / 2 )

Which gives the following EPF for enchantments of level I-IV:

Level	EPF
I	3
II	5
III	7
IV	11

For Feather falling, the EPF of the specific piece is doubled.
The total EPF is the sum for all armor pieces, and capped at 25. An EPF of 25 can be reached by two level III pieces and one level IV piece (2*7+11=25). This also means that Feather Falling is unnecessary to reduce fall damage if you can reach an EPF of 25 without Feather falling boots.
The actual EPF applied is randomized to between 50% and 100% of the EPF calculated above, rounded up, and capped at 20. Each level of the actual EPF reduces damage by 4%, for a maximum damage reduction of 80% from enchantments. Since this is applied after the base armor damage reduction (80% for diamond), you get a total 89.6% to 96% damage reduction for a diamond armor set with an EPF of 25, for damage which is mitigated by unenchanted armor (fx fall damage is not mitigated by unenchanted armor).^[1]

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. The following chart displays how many hits each piece of armor can endure. The numbers on this chart are subject to change by enchantments.

Material	Helmet	Chestplate	Leggings	Boots
Leather	56	81	76	66
Gold	78	113	106	92
Chain/Iron	166	241	226	196
Diamond	364	529	496	430

The following tables shows the durability per unit of material of each piece of armor, compared to that of the boots. Note that the durability per unit does not depend on the material.

	Helmet	Chestplate	Leggings	Boots
durability/unit	68%	61%	66%	100%

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 lesser durability per unit.

 rmor can be enchanted, and the material it's made of determines how enchantable it is, according to the following factors.

Leather	15
Gold	25
Chain	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.)


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 (tunics) provide the most protection per unit of material, followed by leggings (Pants), followed by boots, followed by helmets (caps). 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.

Name	Ingredients	Input � Output	[Collapse] Description
Helmets	Leather or Gold Ingotsor Fire* or Iron Ingots or Diamond Gems		Leather Cap gives Golden Helmet gives Chain Helmet gives Iron Helmet gives Diamond Helmet gives
Chestplates	Leather or Gold Ingotsor Fire* or Iron Ingots or Diamond Gems		Leather Tunic gives Golden Chestplate gives Chain Chestplate gives Iron Chestplate gives Diamond Chestplate gives
Leggings	Leather or Gold Ingotsor Fire* or Iron Ingots or Diamond Gems		Leather Pants give Golden Leggings give Chain Leggings give Iron Leggings give Diamond Leggings give
Boots	Leather or Gold Ingotsor Fire* or Iron Ingots or Diamond Gems		Leather Boots give Golden Boots give Chain Boots give Iron Boots give Diamond Boots give