Armour efficiency

Two numbers, two different jobs

Equipment with high armour but low efficiency blocks very large hits better: its ceiling is higher, even though it only catches a small share of each hit. Assuming you survive a hit that size.

Equipment with lower armour but higher efficiency blocks a smaller amount more consistently. It reaches its ceiling sooner, but it takes a bigger bite out of everything below that.

High armour and high efficiency together is of course the best protection there is.

A worked example

A suit with 40 armour and 60% efficiency. An enemy hits your body for 100 damage.

1. 100 × 60%60 damage could be blocked
2. but armour is 40so only 40 of it actually is
3. 60 − 4020 damage passes through

Those 20 then go on to the rest of the calculation — resistances, energy shield and so on — before anything reaches your health.

Which piece actually takes the hit

Your armour is not one pool. Every incoming hit is resolved against a single piece, and the numbers above are that piece's numbers — not your set's total.

• One piece per hit, picked at randomThe body is drawn twice as often as the rest: two chances in five for the chest piece, one in five each for the helmet, gloves and boots.
• Headshots always go to the helmetA hit flagged as a headshot skips the draw entirely and is resolved against your helmet — and a shield contributes nothing to it.
• Efficiency comes from the piece that was struckNot from an average of your gear. A mismatched set gives you a different efficiency depending on where the hit lands.
• A shield adds its armour to every hitNot only while you are blocking. As long as a shield sits in an active weapon slot, its armour is added on top — which is why shields lose durability even on hits you never blocked.
• Armour is per damage typeA piece only counts against the damage types it lists. Heavy plate that lists no protection against Fire does nothing at all against Fire.
• Worn gear protects lessAt 30% durability or below, a piece contributes 70% of its armour. At zero it contributes 30%. The same reduction applies to a shield's block value.
• Fatal attacks mostly ignore armourAn attack flagged as fatal counts your armour at one fifth, and cannot be blocked at all.
• Damage never drops below 1However well armoured you are, a hit that lands takes at least one point.

The armour value that goes into the formula is not the struck piece alone: it is averaged with the armour the rest of your equipment provides against that damage type. Covering every damage type across the set therefore still matters, even though only one piece is drawn.

One exception sits outside all of this: while you are petrified, elemental damage is ignored outright and shows as Ignored instead of a number.