Ultimate Guide to Armor in Minecraft (2025 Edition)

If you have survived in Minecraft long enough, you might remember every encounter with the mobs that almost killed you. Whether it was Creeper that blew you off a cliff while you were wearing full diamond gear, or when you fell into lava seconds before reaching safety because your boots didn’t have Feather Falling.

After thousands of in-game days, multiple hardcore worlds, and too many gear losses to count, we’ve learned one simple truth: you don’t just wear armor in Minecraft, you build it, refine it, and depend on it.

SThe armor in Minecraft serves not only as protective gear but also has much deeper mechanics. At the surface, it’s simple: craft pieces, wear them, survive. But behind that, there’s a complex network of hidden stats, protection scaling, toughness values, enchantment interactions, and even attack-type multipliers that determine exactly how much damage you take from each hit.

In this guide, we will learn all these mechanics related to armor and which enchantments you can pair with them for the best results.

Let’s Understand How Armor Works in Minecraft

The mechanics behind how the armor protects you can be a bit complicated. There are a lot of metrics and calculations that go behind each armor piece and the entire set. A lot of players are always confused about choosing between Diamond vs Netherite armor, which is the best?

Let’s learn more about how different armors protect you and decide for yourself which works the best.

1. Armor or Defense Points

This is pretty basic and something you might see upfront, the moment you wear any piece of armor. Armor points or defense points are those tiny chestplate icons above your heart bar and are considered to be your first line of defense.

Each full armor icon equals 2 armor points, and each point reduces incoming damage by roughly 4%, up to a cap of 80% total reduction with a full Netherite or Diamond set.

Here is a complete list of all the armor sets and where they sit among each other in terms of armor points.

To do a quick recap, based on the above points table, without a doubt, Diamond and Netherite are the winners, while Leather is the worst. Copper armor has recently been added to the game, and it sits right above Gold.

A full set of Diamond or Netherite armor gives you the maximum base protection of 80%, meaning, if a skeleton hits you for 10 hearts of damage, you only take 2. But that’s before enchantments, toughness, and special resistances come into play.

But this particular metric isn’t the only measurement of how good the armor is during combat and how many hits it can endure. There is so much more to this.

2. Armor Toughness

The most underrated and hidden component that many players remain unaware of is the Armor Toughness. Toughness reduces how much damage “pierces” your armor when you take high-damage hits, like Creeper explosions, Enderman hits, or the Warden’s shockwaves.

This particular metric is what separates mid-game armor from true endgame defense. Anyone who had any doubt whether or not they should upgrade to Netherite, this is your answer. This is the difference that makes Netherite the ultimate armor set for everyone in the late game.

It is also important to note here that only Diamond and Netherite possess Toughness, while all the others do not. Let’s see a table below.

Let’s see what the above points actually indicate:

• All the armor with no toughness will break easily when you are hit by something powerful; it basically means more damage goes through.
• Diamond at 8 in Toughness is great at absorbing strong hits.
• Netherite’s 22 toughness gives it unmatched consistency against both weak and heavy attacks.

You can experiment while comparing both Netherite and Diamond Armor under heavy attacks. You will notice how the former can take damage much better, and the armor points drop very slowly compared to Diamond.

3. Durability

Another component that determines the effectiveness of the armor is Durability- how many hits it can absorb before breaking. Every time you take damage, your armor’s durability decreases slightly, and when it reaches zero, that piece is gone forever.

Here is a chart that can help you understand the durability of each armor. Each piece of armor has a different durability value than the others.

Based on the chart, you can clearly understand how Netherite has about 2.5 times the durability of an Iron armor, which means it can take more than twice hits before breaking.

Furthermore, all of these metrics become increasingly higher when you apply enchantments like Unbreaking III.

Armor Types, Crafting, and Progression

Now that we know how the armor system works and how it protects you from the hits, let’s learn about each armor set.

Each armor tier offers a distinct balance of defense, durability, enchantability, and accessibility, making it important to know when to invest resources and when to move on.

1. Leather Armor

The first set of armor you will ever get super easily is the Leather armor. It’s made from cow or horse hide, often overlooked because it feels weak compared to iron, but it actually plays a valuable role in the first 2–3 in-game days.

Leather armor is made using Leather, which can be obtained by killing cows, horses, donkeys, llamas or by trading with leatherworker villagers.

• Helmet: 5 Leather
• Chestplate: 8 Leather
• Leggings: 7 Leather
• Boots: 4 Leather

Pros

• Leather armor is pretty easy to obtain since there are cows everywhere. Perfect as your first armor set.
• You can also dye this armor in any color available in the game, making it highly customizable.
• Leather boots are the only armor type that allows you to walk on snow, and the entire armor set prevents freezing in powdered snow, making it easy to explore mountains by keeping you warm.

 Cons

• Extremely low durability and only gives 7 armor points.
• Not suitable beyond early survival.

Most players tend to skip using this armor type completely since it is pretty useless in the long run. But as a beginner, you can start out with this and gradually upgrade to anything better that comes along.

2. Copper Armor

Minecraft has recently added copper tools and armor in its new update. It does look pretty stunning with decent stats. This was done to make use of copper, since you can find it in abundance, and there hasn’t been much use of it since Minecraft came into existence.

Let’s see how you can craft it:

Copper armor is crafted using Copper Ingots, obtained by smelting Raw Copper in a furnace or blast furnace. Here is how you can craft them:

• Helmet: 5 Copper Ingots
• Chestplate: 8 Copper Ingots
• Leggings: 7 Copper Ingots
• Boots: 4 Copper Ingots

Pros

• Copper Armor gives much better protection than leather, and it could be a perfect early-game armor set. Perfect for players who simply skip leather armor.
• Durability may not be the best as compared to iron, but better than gold and leather.
• Copper is extremely abundant, making full sets easy to craft early on.

Cons

• Developers could have added a special function like gold does for avoiding piglins.
• Still not suitable for mid or late-game combat.

It's difficult to find iron while exploring caves in the early games, while copper is everywhere and easily available. This seems to be a game-changer since players can now craft iron armor a bit later than they would have chosen.

3. Gold Armor

No one actually uses this for protection. If you have played the game enough or even have watched others play, you will know this very fact. Gold armor gives slightly better protection than leather, but its durability is one of the lowest in the entire game.

Surely, it looks all shiny and attractive, but it adds no value whatsoever. There is only one crucial use of this armor set, and that is to keep Piglins away from attacking you.

Craft gold armor using Gold Ingots, which are smelted from Raw Gold, or found in Nether Bastions, Ruined Portals, or by bartering. Let’s see how you can craft them:

• Helmet: 5 Gold Ingots
• Chestplate: 8 Gold Ingots
• Leggings: 7 Gold Ingots
• Boots: 4 Gold Ingots

Pros

• Prevents Piglins from attacking you in the Nether (as long as you wear at least one gold piece).
• Highly enchantable, often yields better early enchantments than iron or diamond.

Cons

• Poor durability (breaks very quickly).
• Weak protection in combat.

Overall, you should have at least a single piece of Gold armor when you are visiting Nether. You can even find this in different chests in the Nether, so you may not have to craft it by yourself.

4. Chainmail Armor

This particular item is the only one in the list that cannot be crafted and is somewhat rare in Minecraft. Most players encounter it through loot or mob drops rather than crafting, which makes it more of a collectible or temporary backup than a long-term armor option.

There are multiple ways you can get this armor:

• Mob Drops: Skeletons, Zombies, and other mobs sometimes spawn wearing chainmail armor. Once you defeat them, they drop that armor, and you can then collect it.
• Loot Chests: It is occasionally found in chests inside strongholds, dungeons, or bastions (rare).
• Villager Trades: High-level Armorer Villagers may sell chainmail pieces for emeralds.

It can be useful in your mid-game, but honestly, it is not something any player would recommend because Iron armor is considered the best from the start until you get Diamond armor.

5. Iron Armor

Iron armor is the best out there, right before you Diamond and Nether. A lot of players skip everything that comes above this and directly choose Iron for their first armor set. It is easy to craft and offers strong enough protection to handle caves, dungeons, and even the Nether (with caution).

Iron armor is crafted using Iron Ingots, which you can smelt from Raw Iron or collect via an iron farm.

Here is how you can craft them:

• Helmet: 5 Iron Ingots
• Chestplate: 8 Iron Ingots
• Leggings: 7 Iron Ingots
• Boots: 4 Iron Ingots

Pros

• It offers an excellent balance between durability, cost, and protection.
• You can set up an iron farm to easily mass-produce this armor set.
• Ideal for experimenting with early enchantments like Protection, Unbreaking, and Mending.

Cons

• Many players are often unable to find iron early on in the game.
• It lacks toughness (still vulnerable to strong mob hits).
• Not resistant to knockback or fire damage.

Iron armor is your actual line of defense against any cave or biome you explore. You can keep Diamond or Netherite for actual battles, such as Ender Dragon, Nether biomes, Wither, etc.

6. Diamond Armor

We are entering the god tier of the armor family. It has always been the pinnacle of Minecraft’s defense system, and it still is. Any player you might come across will tell you how many times diamond armor has saved them from the worst battles.

If you’ve spent enough time mining deep-slate caverns, you know that the first full set of diamond gear feels like a true milestone, the moment you realize you’ve made it.

Diamond Armor is made with Diamonds, found most commonly between Y= -59 and Y= -53 (deep-slate layers). Branch mining or strip mining with Fortune-enchanted pickaxes is the most efficient way to collect them. Here is how you can craft them:

The above crafting recipe is basically used to craft any armor you would need and works for all except Chainmail.

Pros

• Diamond Armor offers the best balance of protection, toughness, and enchantment potential in the game.
• It has a special stat called Toughness that lets you take multiple heavy hits without your health dropping drastically.
• This also offers high durability, over 500 hits per piece.
• Enchants well and holds enchantments through upgrades.

Cons

• Diamond armor is highly resource-intensive. You need 24 diamonds for a full armor set, which means extensive mining, durability loss on your tools, and plenty of time spent in deep-slate caves (Y -59 to -53).
• Unlike Netherite, Diamond Armor burns in lava and fire.
• Does not provide any Knockback resistance.

Despite some of its weaknesses, it still remains the most balanced armor set in the game. The key is to manage its risks; you must always carry Fire Resistance potions, use Mending early, and upgrade only after your enchantments are perfect.

7. Nethrite Armor

We have been saving the best for last. Netherite Armor is the final step in Minecraft’s armor progression, the best you can get in terms of durability, protection, and resistance.

There is something important you need to know about this particular armor set: you cannot craft it from scratch; it’s an upgrade to Diamond. After you’ve spent hours deep-mining diamonds, grinding XP, and enchanting your perfect gear, Netherite is what you do after you’ve already optimized everything else.

Here is what you will need to upgrade it:

• Diamond Armor Piece: This is the base item for all the armor pieces.
• Netherite Ingot: Another major item that can be crafted using 4 Netherite Scraps + 4 Gold Ingots.
• Netherite Upgrade Smithing Template: Lastly, you will need a template, which is found in Bastion Remnants, usually 1 per structure. You’ll need 7 Diamonds + 1 Template to duplicate more.

Once you have collected all of the above, you can follow the steps below to craft the Netherite armor set.

1. Place the Smithing Table.
2. Put your Diamond Armor piece in the left slot.
3. Add 1 Netherite Ingot and 1 Netherite Upgrade Template.
4. Take out your newly upgraded Netherite Armor piece; all enchantments, names, and trims are preserved.

Pros

• Similar to Diamond, this too has the hidden stat +12 Toughness, the highest among all the armors.
• If you die in lava wearing Netherite gear, your armor will not burn. This is what you will need: Netherite armor.
• It has the highest durability in the game, roughly 7% stronger than Diamond.
• Each Netherite armor piece adds 2.5% knockback resistance, totaling 10% when wearing a full set.
• Retains enchantments from Diamond

Cons

• This, too, is resource-intensive and requires some rare items that can be difficult to find.
• It cannot be repaired directly with Netherite Ingots.

Although Netherite armor is the best out there, it still does not guarantee or save you from death. Make sure you have a backup diamond armor set if needed, and always carry a fire resistance potion when exploring the Nether.

Armor Trims: Make Your Gear Unique

Since forever, armors have looked the same for every other player out there. In fact, it was even difficult to distinguish each other in multiplayer gaming mode until Minecraft added Armor Trims. This is a cosmetic customization system introduced in Minecraft 1.20 (Trails & Tales Update) that lets players change the visual design of their armor.

They don’t add extra protection, durability, or special powers; they purely change how your armor looks. Each Trim has a specific design (pattern) and a color accent, which depends on the material you use when applying it (like Gold, Copper, or Amethyst).

This adds an entire new layer to the game, allowing players to create their own personalized version of the armor. Let’s learn more about it below.

How Armor Trims Work

Before we can learn about the different Armor Trims available, let’s first see how it actually works and how you can create them. To apply one, you need three components:

• Armor Trim Smithing Template: This defines the pattern applied to the armor.
• Armor Piece: The item you want to decorate (helmet, chestplate, leggings, boots).
• Material: Determines the color and accent of the pattern. It can be a mineral, gem, or metal.

When you combine these three in a Smithing Table, the Trim is permanently added to that armor piece.

All Types of Armor Trims and Materials

There are a total of 16 Trims in the game. Finding them all is part exploration, part challenge, and entirely worth it if you care about visual customization.

The best yet the most difficult trim to find is the Silence Armor Trim. There is about 1% chance for this to spawn in the chests in Ancient City.

Furthermore, you will need a third item to create the Armor Trims: the material. These materials add color to the trim, making it aesthetically pleasing and unique. Here are all the items you can add to give it color: Iron Ingot, Copper Ingot, Gold Ingot, Lapis Lazuli, Emerald, Diamond, Netherite Ingot, Redstone Dust, Quartz, and Amethyst Shard.

How To Duplicate Armor Trim Template

The biggest challenge with these Armor trims is that they are super rare to find, and it almost feels not worth looking for them. But there is a way you can duplicate each of these templates. Here is the recipe for it.

• 1 × Armor Trim Template
• 7 × Diamonds
• 1 × Block (specific to where it was found)

 For example:

• Sentry Trim: combine with a Cobblestone block.
• Snout Trim: combine with a Blackstone block.
• Ward Trim: combine with a Deepslate block.

Overall, trims have become a huge part of the game since they give the gears an identity of their own. Surely, they do not have any actual benefit, but you will agree they look stunning.

Armor Enchantments in Minecraft (Complete Breakdown)

Enchantments turn every single gear into its best version. Even Netherite armor might feel pretty basic at some point without enchantments.

Each armor piece can hold specific enchantments that modify protection, movement, and durability, and combining the right ones is the difference between a temporary set and a true endgame build.

Before we discuss the different enchantments for each armor piece, there are a few that are absolutely mandatory for all of them. Here is a list.

1. Unbreaking + Mending

These two are the best ones so far for all your armor pieces. For Unbreaking, you can get to a maximum level III, while for Mending, there is only Level I.

Unbreaking gives armor a chance to not lose durability when hit (up to 70% chance at level III). Whenever you’re hit, Minecraft runs a simple durability check in the background. If Unbreaking triggers successfully, that hit doesn’t cost you any durability. The higher the level, the higher the chance of skipping that loss.

What most players don’t realize, though, is that Unbreaking doesn’t affect all armor pieces equally. The chestplate and boots tend to degrade the fastest, since they absorb the majority of hits from most damage sources, especially explosions and fall damage. The helmet and leggings degrade more slowly because they’re hit less often in the calculation.

Speaking of Mending, it kind of gives the armor “infinite life”. It’s one of the few enchantments you can’t get from an Enchanting Table; you have to obtain it from enchanted books via trading with Librarian Villagers, fishing, loot chests, or raids.

The way Mending works is simple: whenever you collect XP orbs, that XP is automatically converted into durability restoration for any Mending-equipped item you’re currently wearing or holding.

Each XP orb restores 2 durability points for that item.

Here is how both of these work together:

• Unbreaking reduces how often you lose durability when hit.
• Mending then uses XP to restore the smaller amount of durability that’s actually lost.

2. Protection Types

Another super important set of enchantments that are often misunderstood, but are the core of armor enchantments. There are four main types of Protection enchantments, plus a fifth variant (Feather Falling) that applies only to boots.

Protection

The general or the basic protection type is what keeps you protected from all types of damage, such as physical, melee, projectile, explosion, fire, and magic, except void or hunger damage. Each level reduces incoming damage by 4% per armor piece, capped at 64% total when combined across a full armor set.

When you’re hit, Protection enchantments calculate their reduction after your base armor defense.

For example, if your armor absorbs 80% of a hit and your Protection IV enchantments collectively add another 64% reduction, your total effective protection can reach roughly 96%, the highest the game allows.

Fire Protection

Next, we have Fire Protection. The name speaks for itself; this protects from all fire-type sources such as fire, lava, magma blocks, blaze fireballs, and burning status effects.

As for the stats, this enchantment reduces fire and lava damage by 15% per level, and it also reduces burn time after being set on fire. At level IV, you get 60% total fire damage reduction.

Fire Protection doesn’t just lessen the damage you take from fire; it also shortens how long you burn.

For example, if you fall into lava wearing Fire Protection IV, you’ll take significantly less damage and stop burning about twice as fast once you get out. This is perfect for Nether exploration. You can keep a separate armor set with this enchantment for special purposes.

Blast Protection

Again, we have the Blast Protection enchantment that keeps you protected from explosions such as Creepers, TNT, End Crystals, Beds in Nether/End, and Ghast fireballs.

The stats look like this:

• Reduces explosion damage by 15% per level, up to 60% at level IV.
• Also reduces knockback from explosions.

Creeper explosions and bed detonations can easily throw you into lava or off cliffs. With Blast Protection IV, you not only take less damage but also stay more grounded.

Projectile Protection

Lastly, we have the Projectile Protection. It keeps you covered from all the projectile attacks, such as arrows, Ghast fireballs, Blaze fire charges, Shulker bullets, and Trident hits.

It reduces projectile damage by 8% per level, up to 32% per armor piece, and 64% total across the full set. This enhancement directly decreases the damage taken from long-range attacks and sometimes deflects part of the impact’s kinetic force (making projectiles feel “weaker”).

This enchantment is the most consistent defense against ranged mobs.

3. Thorns

This is one of the most underrated enchantments in the game, and not many players might be talking about this. Thorns is the only armor enchantment that turns your defense into offense.

When you’re attacked by a mob or player, Thorns gives you a chance to inflict damage back, automatically, without swinging your weapon. When you have Thorns on any armor piece and an enemy hits you (melee, projectile, or otherwise), this is how it works:

• If Thorns triggers, the attacker takes 1–4 hearts (0.5–2 hearts) of damage, depending on the Thorns level.
• If it doesn’t trigger, nothing happens, no damage reflection, just normal armor durability loss.

If you have Thorns III on all four armor pieces, your total activation chance can reach over 80–90% per hit. However, there is a tiny issue with this enchantment. This enchantment causes extra durability loss on your armor. So, you may have to rethink your strategy before using this enchantment on your armor.

4. Helmet Enchantments

Now, let's talk about all the enchantments that are specific to each armor type. We will be starting with helmets. So, helmets not only protect your head from attacks but also enhance underwater exploration and breathing.

You will need Protection, Unbreaking, Mending, and Thorns as the basic four enchantments for the helmet. Other than these, there are two more:

Respiration

This is a helmet-exclusive enchantment that extends how long you can stay underwater before running out of air. Normally, when you go underwater in Minecraft, your air bubbles last 15 seconds before they start running out.

Once your bubbles hit zero, you take 1 heart of drowning damage every second until you surface. This is where this enchantment comes into play:

• Each level of Respiration adds 15 extra seconds of underwater breathing time.
• At maximum level (Respiration III), you get 45 extra seconds, for a total of 60 seconds underwater before losing air.

You can get this enchantment in a few ways: you can craft it on an enchanted table at level 30, get it from librarian villagers, or even from treasure chests

Aqua Affinity

If you have ever explored an underwater monument, you might already know how difficult it is to mine. A single block that takes one second to mine on land suddenly takes five times longer underwater, even with powerful tools like Efficiency V.

This is why you need the Aqua Affinity enchantment. It allows you to mine at a normal speed underwater. It has only one level and can be applied to all types of Helmets (Leather, Iron, Diamond, Netherite, or Turtle Shell).

5. Chestplate Enchantments

A chestplate is supposed to be your main line of defense, hence it needs to be taken care of.

Well, the general ones that we have are Protection of all kinds, Unbreaking, Mending, and Thorns. And that is all you will ever need. There are no specialized enchantments for a chestplate. These are the best ones you can get.

6. Leggings Enchantments

Next up, we have Leggings. Again, we will add all the general ones we discussed earlier, which are absolutely necessary.

Other than that, there is one specialized enchantment for leggings known as the Swift Sneak. When you crouch or sneak in Minecraft, your movement speed normally drops to about 30% of your walking speed. This is where this enchantment makes things better.

Each level increases your sneaking speed, letting you move faster while still remaining crouched. By level III, the speed increases to 75% of your normal walking speed.

The only way to get this enchantment is through loot chests found in Ancient Cities (Deep Dark structures). It is one of the rarest among all since you cannot obtain it from villagers or even craft it on an enchanting table.

7. Boot Enchantments

For boots, we have four specialized enchantments. Here is everything you need to know about each of them.

Father Falling

This is one of our favorites, and probably anyone who has played Minecraft enough can tell you the amount of time this enchantment has saved them. Feather Falling can help survive a creeper blast, a skeleton ambush, or even a zombie horde with good armor.

Feather Falling reduces fall damage by 12% per level, up to 48% at Feather Falling IV. It protects you from elytra crashes, Ender Pearl teleport damage, falling from scaffolding or cliffs, knockback from explosions or Ravagers that send you airborne, bed explosions in the Nether or End, and falling through the Nether roof or End void edges (until death).

You can get this enchantment from the villager trading, enchanting table, fishing, loot chests, and Anvil combination too.

Depth Strider

Depth Strider is another enchantment you need that increases your underwater movement speed, effectively making water feel as easy to walk through as air.

Here is how it works:

At Depth Strider III, you can almost outrun Guardians underwater and easily maneuver around mobs, coral reefs, or ruins.

You can enchant boots using an enchanting table, villager trading, loot chests found in temples or ruins, and sometimes fishing, too.

Frost Walker

Frost Walker is a boot enchantment that freezes water beneath your feet as you walk or sprint, turning oceans, rivers, and lakes into solid ice paths. It’s one of the few enchantments that physically changes the terrain around you, and that’s what makes it so satisfying to use.

This is how it works:

• The water blocks within a small radius around you turn into Frosted Ice.
• After a few seconds (5–7 seconds), the ice melts back into water, leaving no permanent trace.
• You can safely walk on this temporary ice bridge as long as you keep moving.

Soul Speed

If you have ever explored Nether, you might already know how difficult it is to walk on Soul Sand. This is why Mojand introduced Soul Speed to make things a little easier.

This enchantment increases your movement speed only when walking on Soul Sand and Soul Soil. There are three levels of this, where at level III the speed increases 90% faster, even better than walking normally on land.

Unlike most passive enchantments, Soul Speed drains durability every time it activates. Each step on Soul Sand has a small chance (4%) to consume 1 durability point. This means if you use it constantly, your boots will wear down faster, even with Unbreaking III.

Conclusion

And that is all from this guide. The more you start playing by yourself, the easier it gets to understand how everything works. Armor mechanics might seem a bit overwhelming at first, but once you get the hang of it, you will not want to look back.

It is safe to say that Diamond and Netherite should be your endgame. Before that iron armor should work perfectly well. Moving on, we learnt how Trims make everything look nice and so much better; it depends entirely on you, since it adds no value to the game.

Furthermore, the enchantments you will need in all the armor types are Protection, Unbreaking, Mending, and don’t forget Thorns. Make sure to add some specialized enchantments too for each of the armor types to enhance their power and usage.