Top 10 Armor sets in the Core Game and Gen 1 Expansions: Part 2 (Patreon)

Without further ado let's get right to the second part of this list!

5. Leather Armor – Leather Worker 

Leather is on far left with Zanbato and Leather Shield on back. A miniature who has been nicknamed 'Italics' because of who she looks like.  

Leather Armor is just a good, solid, dependable armor that you will build at least one complete set of this armor in most of your successful campaigns, generally this will be the third to fifth set of armor you build and it’s one of the primary reasons why you rush to get Ammonia in the early game (along with the Leather Shield).  The investment to get Leather Armor is pretty high, as it’s one of the few armour sets that requires resources to be spent to unlock the location and it requires an endeavour to turn hide into leather, however, like the Stone Circle, the Leather Worker has other benefits that share the cost (mostly the Leather Shield, which is pound for pound one of the most efficient defensive items in the game).

Leather Armor provides a wide range of benefits for the cost of [resources].  However most of these are somewhat low key, a complete set gives you:

 • 3 armor on all locations

 • +2 Insanity when departing

 • +2 Survival when departing

 • +1 Movement after your act

 • Immunity to Bash

 • 1 Green Affinity, 1 Blue or 1 Red Affinity, plus 1 Blue, one Red and 2 Green half affinities (Down and Right)

Leather’s biggest boon is how well it works with the Leather Shield and Monster Grease.  You mix all of those together and you get to unlock the +2 Evasion from the Monster Grease and stack the Leather Shield defense on top of that.  In addition, Leather is just a solid vanilla armour set that gives you protections (Insanity, Armor, Survival) and the ability to reposition slightly after attacking so you can be better positioned to protect team mates.

Zanbato/Rib Blade + Leather Shield + Monster Grease + Leather Armor is a great eight gear slot set up that is hard to beat.  In particular I like the Rib Blade + as my filler, but the Zanbato can be very helpful, especially when you are looking to Calcify it later on.  The other good builds on Leather is actually with the Counterweight Axe or Greater Gaxe, because Leather neatly supports those weapons by activating them cleanly and the Scrap Sword DPS character for those of you who like playing with swords.

Ultimately; leather is the best mid game tank set because, despite being boring, it gets the job done.  It has high synergies with very good weapons and it is dependable and powerful.

4. Rolling Armor – Dung Beetle Knight (Tech Level 4: Expansion)

Rolling Armor is so much more than the sum of its parts.  This ‘armor set’ is not a true armor set in the normal fashion, instead because very single part of its set does not occupy a specific location on a survivor it can be combined with parts of other armor sets for a variety of benefits.  This makes it both a fantastic loading platform to carry certain other parts of armor sets and a great piece of kit to improve other armor sets.

A few examples include adding the Phoenix Placart to the Rolling armor in order to gain another way to ignore hits.  Attaching a Rawhide Headband so you can continue to make use of its powerful AI control while also being more tanky.  Other armor based gear items which are amazing when combined with Rolling Armor include the Cycloid Sleeves (Sharp), Gorment Suit + Gloves (Guard), White Lion Cloak (Damage Reduction), White Lion Coat (Pounce), Screaming Torso (Slam) and the Trash Crown.  

A complete set of Rolling Armor provides the following benefits: 

  •  20% chance of ignoring one hit when being attacked

  •  -1 Movement (not a benefit!)

  •  Once Per Showdown when Survival = 0 gain +1 Strength Token

  •  Once Per Showdown convert all negative tokens to positive ones (Pulse Lantern and Forest Gate Synergy)

  •  5 Armor on all locations

  •  Once per round knockdown becomes knockback 5

When Calcified it improves even further with the following 2 benefits

  •  4 Armor on all locations

  •  30% chance of ignoring one hit when being attacked

All of this makes even non-calcified Rolling Armor one of the premier armor sets for a whole range of builds (And calcified armor is the best non-Green Armor in the game).  There are so very, very many things you can do with this armour set and it’s one of the armor sets that I often want on both my tank and by bruiser based DPS character (aka Offensive Tank).  I even want pieces of it for so many other builds, the Century Shoulder Pads alone for example give another +10% “evasion” that works even if you have already reduced the monster to a 10 to hit, the Rainbow Wing Belt makes decent Blacksmith weapons amazing (Especially the Lantern Glaive) and makes Speed 1 Weapons only miss 1% of the time; Plus the Rubber Bone Harness is one of the most interesting items to abuse in the game, the synergy it has with the Pulse Lantern is just one example of this.

However, what keeps this armor set at the number 4 position is the sheer difficulty in crafting this set; you need to be able to internalise all the moving parts for both the Dung Beetle Knight Fight (I recommend getting used to the Level 2 one, it’s the best risk/reward ratio) and understanding the timing of how to complete the Black Harvest and get the Greaves + Harness Built (which require the Level 3 Black Harvest to build; yes you can make the Greaves with a Level 2 Harvest, but you may as well be more efficient and jump straight to the Level 3 Harvest and get everything done in one go).

Calcification of this armor is a nice bonus, but it’s not essential in the current campaigns because normal rolling armor is already good enough.  We may well start working on calcification timelines when we get the timeline extension expansions such as the Screaming God and Ivory Dragon.

Overall, Rolling Armor is an incredible set and it makes the difficulty of the Dung Beetle Knight worth it in spades.  This armor set and its individual pieces are so amazing that once you experience playing with this stuff you won’t want to go back to a time before the DBK…

3. Cycloid Armor – Sunstalker (Tech Level 3: Expansion)

If you are ever having trouble making a certain build, item or weapon work; Cycloid armor is your best friend in this matter.  This light armor set is sort of the monster equivalent of Rawhide armor in some ways, a complete set gives you:

  •   3 armor to all locations

  •   +1 evasion

  •   huge survival gains at the start of the hunt

  •   an inbuilt Fecal Salve (stop being a threat)

  •   Sharp on your attacks if you deliver them to the blind spot, extra accuracy on attacks 

  •  the ridiculous Prismatic ability.  

Prismatic makes all your half and full affinities all colours, which is amazing for activating abilities on unusual items.  

The sharp that the gloves give when you attack the blind spot are likewise amazing, they are capable of making so many marginal weapons perfect for the mid and late game.  Cycloid armor is the ultimate rogue set and is ideal for anyone who wants to play an assassin/rogue type character in this game.  Cycloid Armor is one of the few ways to make Daggers and Whips work well in the mid game and I would recommend that anyone who want to build one of those and it is also the best armor for a fist and tooth user to pack.

In addition, Cycloid Armor works really well for spear users, the combination of Cycloid Armor, Spear, and Blue Charm on a spear specialist gives you a 7+ and a separate 6+ chance to cancel the trap when you hit it. That’s incredible.

This flexible, powerful armor set provides so much benefit for its users and is a great enabler for weaker gear items, adding depth to the game.  The only real issues with it is that it is not available until the midgame and that it requires a lot of Sunstalker specific resources to construct (including Salt).  But it is worth it, completely and a set of this should be your first port of call for any unusual build you want to try out.

2. Screaming Armour – Screaming Antelope (Tech Level 2)

I would imagine this one comes as a bit of a surprise to most of you who don’t know me too well.  I am a huge advocate of the Screaming Antelope as being a lot better than people realise – generally I believe you should hunt 2 to 4 Antelopes in every campaign you possibly can, for a number of reasons.  But early on it is Screaming Armor that is one of the biggest boosts, This armor costs a total of 9 resources to build, which means that it is one of the cheapest Monster sets out there, especially when you consider just how often the Antelope provides monster specific resources when you critically hit it.  

The armor set provides a massive amount of affinities, plus it has spare blue and green half affinities to allow you to connect even more.  It’s perfect when combined with Monster Grease and a Leather Shield as it even fully activates the Monster Grease for +1 Evasion.  On top of that, a full set provides a massive amount of armor (it’s almost on par with Dragon and Phoenix Armor) [Slam related functions], the insanity gain it gives the wearer and the other members of the hunt party can be invaluable and the power it has with a Spear is unparalleled.  In 1.5, if there are no further changes to the Screaming Armor set I think it is fair to say that every campaign with a Screaming Antelope in should build that set ASAP despite the risk of the level 2 White Lion turning up on occasion.  

In total you get the following from a full set of Screaming Armor

  •  Ability to Scream and give either +1 Insanity or +1 Movement to all non-deaf survivors

  •  +1 Insanity when departing

  •  Slam - moving in a straight line (other survivors do not block it) knocking the monster back, reducing it's toughness and then getting to step in and attack

  •  Bonus wounding when using spears. 

  •  2 Green, 1 Blue, 1 Red, 2 half blue, 1 half green affinities

  •  4 armor in all locations plus 5 in the head.

This armor set is good enough for the late game in many cases, and the way that it supports Spear users (who are amongst the most important characters in the game) is a huge bonus on top of everything else it brings to the game.  But it’s also very powerful when combined with items like the Nuclear Scythe and Greater Gaxe and the sheer amount of affinities it provides makes it an amazing loading platform for a host of different builds, not just Spear ones.

This is the best Monster specific armor in the game due to how good the return on your investment is.  Generally this is the first monster set I want to complete and it'll be used for nearly the entire campaign.

So what's the best armor in the game right now?  It's not a surprise at all to be honest... It's...

1. Rawhide Armor – Skinnery (Tech Level 1)

If you were not expecting Rawhide Armor to be sat in the number one position on this list I think the only thing I have to ask you is, why not?  For the low, low cost of 5 hide you get access to a set that gives you:

  •   a red and a blue affinity

  •  +2 Survival when departing

  •   +1 Evasion

  •  2 Armor points on all locations

  •   a 50% chance of regaining survival when you spend it (effectively increasing your survival by 50% or more with Thrill Seeker, Abyssal Sadist etc) and access to one of the most powerful abilities in the game with the 

  •  Rawhide Headband’s AI Manipulation ability.

The first Rawhide set you build has a good chance of being worn for the entire game, which is a huge help, it saves a huge amount of resources over the entire game because armor sets are the most expensive things to build and the more lantern years you can make use of an armor set the better the return on your initial investment is.  

In the early game this will be your first tanking set, combined with Monster Grease and Tall Grass to give you +4 Evasion, then as you transition to the mid game your DPS characters will start to use it because it will allow them to surge more often and still have survival for dodges/dashes and finally in the very late game you will still see Support characters and Archers rocking this set because the utility and evasion it provides is more important than the armor.  This set has an incredible return on the investment and it will give you a strong platform to win hunts with and build up resources for other armour and weapons.

It’s the gold standard that every other armor set has to be compared to and it is why so many other armor sets have failed to make this list.