Armor

Blooded Honor The Northern Pass — Blooded Honor full set, Northern Pass north of City of the Lost, facing East towards Archosaur

Armor can be equipped on the character from the Inventory screen to provide physical and magical protection for the player's character. The armor that a character wears actually shows up on the character's body (unless they have the Fashion tab turned on), and each style of armor has a different look to it. There are six different articles of armor: chest, legs, boots, head, arms, and robe. The chest, legs, boots, and arms articles come in three different types: heavy, light, and arcane. Magical and other higher quality armor has other bonuses, usually additional HP or Attributes. Armor, along with the other wearable items, can be Refined.

Armor has a primary and a secondary attribute requirement. Heavy is Strength/Dex, Light is Dexterity/Str, and Arcane is Magic/str. The secondary requirement is very important, as it is always a limiting factor on a character's damage-dealing stat. This is why hybrids suffer so greatly in damage potential, because they are making a much higher drain of Primary armor requirements against their primary damage, instead of a secondary. Even the Venomancer class, which is designed to do damage with physical attacks, severely limit its spell damage with Heavy armor.

MinisterArcane — Minister Arcane armor, Level Gear, with the same design as Redflame Cloud Robe Dungeon Gear and Robe of Twilight Morai armor

Mountcrasher Twilight Heavy — Mountcrasher (Lv90 Twilight Temple). Same texture as Solemnlight (Lunar Glade L95), Supreme Power (L100 crafted/NPC), and precursors to Rank 8. This replication of design is quite common; PW's status as a pay-to-style game puts creative emphasis on Fashion

Arcane armor strength requirements are the lowest, at .5, or one point of strength required every two levels
Light armor strength requirements work out to about one point of strength every level
Heavy armor requires the most strength, at 2.5, or five points needed every two levels

Heavy armor has the highest physical defense and the lowest magic defense, and has the most overall protection (magic and physical added together). Arcane armor has the lowest physical defense and the highest magic defense, and is just a fraction higher than Light armor in overall protection. Light armor is in between the two, with a roughly 2 to 3 ratio of physical to magical protection.

Spell-casting classes overwhelmingly choose arcane, with its high magic requirement. Heavy armor gives protection for tanks who keep aggression (Aggro) from monsters away from the arcane classes, and light armor wearers with their limited defense and high damage must, like casters, take care to not steal away Aggro when in teams.

Head armor comes in two types: helmet and arcane headgear. Helmets add to the character's maximum HP, and arcane headgears add to the character's maximum MP. Robes add to a character's evasion, which increases the chance that a monster's attack will miss.

Armor can have buffs that add to the character's attributes, give additional magic defense to certain elements, add to the character's maximum HP or MP, and other kinds of buffs.

There are numerous repetitions of armor design. This is not as bad as it sounds; characters only stay a level for a short time, so there is less to be gained from making different designs for low level armor, and in fact, something to be lost, as players would be unable to access the "look" of the different low-level armor.

Endgame[]

The ultimate armor is still level 16, unless the database is missing information. The introduction of the Homestead has enabled level 17 weapons. The availability of level 16 armor, is much improved; it can now be bought in Player Shops for around 24 million to 26 million each piece.

The process normally goes something like this:

Level 90 Twilight Temple armor Decomposed to make a Souledge, combined with Twilight Temple ingredients costing about half a million each piece, plus Ultimate Substances which would cost about a million and a half (unless the Resource ingredients were farmed), to make Archangel's, Lionheart, or Ashura's armor. This is used in two further recipes, using 100 and then 150 Rapture Crystals, to make the once-penultimate level 15 armor. The final transformation to Awakened Level 16 armor requires a mold, eg Mold:★Awake. Archangel Sleeves, an Essence of Defense, and 30 Basic Badges
Level 95 Lunar Glade armor decomposed to create L95 Gold armor, then as above with the 100 then 150 Rapture, except the products are different. This in turn makes the final process slightly different, but only because the armor piece is different; the mold, EoD, and Badges are the same and same quantity.

Requirements:ghe

Awakened Archangel's Tunic body. The requirements for pieces in the set do not exceed 54 Strength, 153 Magic. Strength requirements for level 16 Magic weapons are lower.
Awakened Lionheart Armor body. The requirements for pieces in the set do not exceed 252 Strength, 54 Agility. Strength requirements for level 16 Axe weapons are higher.
Awakened Ashura's Armor body. The requirements for pieces in the set do not exceed 104 Strength, 104 Agility. Strength requirements for level 16 Dagger weapons are much lower.

Army Commander - Might — Army Commander: body, and Might: other pieces (same set). Counterstream (Crystal Token), generic Mail of Antiquity, level 90 Rank armor - Destroyer: Blademaster, Berserker: Barbarian.

Armor and tactics[]

Noble Heavy 2 — Noble / Rank 8 Heavy armor, female Blademaster

Comparison of Tier 1 free armor :

Corona Heavy Plate Physical Defense +412, Magic Defence +175. Sum of the two = 587
Halo Breastplate Light Physical Defense +177, Magic Defence +275. Sum of the two = 452
Sirius Arcane Robe Physical Defense +46, Magic Defence +415. Sum of the two = 458

This is typical. The Heavy armor is not merely best against physical, it is best overall. This is well balanced, serving the role of the Tank as heavily armored and defended against all damage, with lots of Health, and no magic at all, and not even as many combat tricks, outside of those that maintain the direction of enemy aggression towards themselves rather than their more lightly armored team members.

Steppenwolf Lord's Robe, level 77 arcane armor made from a Mold dropped in the Hallucinatory Trench, is rare in that no other armor looks exactly like it; Phoenix Robe, Moonshade Robe and the NPC/crafted Dialectician's Smoking Jacket all look similar to this, but they have silver highlights rather than gold. Steppenwolf compares very favorably to the Intangible Robe; all the more surprising for a Mold armor since it is also three levels lower

The light armor is interesting. It is very much, Jack of All Trades, Master of None. Light Armor wearers WILL be using potions when they do not evade damage altogether; their Physical Defense is only a sliver better than the Tank's Magic Defence and their Magic Defence is nothing special. On the other hand, their survivability is very high; nothing is going to be a Nemesis to them, to be avoided at all costs, except large numbers of things, where for the other two armor types, it would be 50/50 in any case.

Duke Heavy15 — Duke / Awakened Lionheart Heavy

Arcane armor is easy to read at first. Physical attacks = Dead. This is no different than any other MMO. But to players not used to PWI's system, the concept of the Magic Tank is utterly unfamiliar. Mages are often chosen as Tank against bosses that never use Physical attacks, on the principle that they have are armored against magic damage, just as a normal tank is armored against physical damage. There are two other considerations : One, a potentially a lethal one-shot kill; Barbarians are exceptional tanks not only in their armor but their HP, and there is conceivably a situation which would favor them over mages as Tanks where the damage spike is too high. Two, damage is an amount that needs to be healed over time; Mages are better than Tanks against magic damage, because they incur less damage and thus save on healing.