Armor

Armor is the equipment that a character wears to reduce damage. For details on how armor reduces damage, see Damage.

''Note: Shields are considered as secondary weapons, not armor.

Five pieces, five locations
Unlike most other RPG games, the effects of different pieces of armor do not simply add up to reduce damage. Each piece of armor protects a specific body location. When a particular body location is struck by damage, only the armor worn there is used to calculate the armor effect. Thus, wearing a super sturdy helm is not going to help you much when an attacker stabs you in the chest.

Each body location has a certain probability to be struck by damage. As crafting material requirements (from the same crafter) for armors of different body locations always have a fixed ratio, folklore has it that this ratio also correspond to the relative probabilities of each body location being struck by damage.

The five body locations and their "crafting material percentages" are:
 * Head - 12.5% (1/8)
 * Chest - 37.5% (3/8)
 * Hands - 12.5% (1/8)
 * Legs - 25% (2/8)
 * Feet - 12.5% (1/8)

Note: There is a common misconception that certain spells always strike the chest (or some other fixed location). Currently there are no actual verified reports of this rumor. However, research has shown that spells and projectiles never strike the hands. See Talk:Armor for discussion.

Armor stats
The stats of an armor piece can be broken into the following components:


 * Profession base stats - This includes the armor (rating) (which is also a function of the armor's level, often energy & energy recovery bonuses, and in one case health bonuses.


 * Rune bonuses - Appears only if a rune has been applied to the armor piece. Runes typically modify a stat (attribute, health, energy) or reduce condition duration.


 * Insignia bonuses - Appears only if an insignia has been applied to the armor piece, or if the armor is a Prophecies Campaign or Factions Campaign armor (which are considered to have built-in insignias). Typically the insignia bonus involves conditional armor (rating) bonuses, which only triggers if the corresponding armor location is struck by damage and if the condition for the bonus is met.  There are a few other insignia bonuses that provide different utilities.

In general, the armor's bonuses are completely independent of the armor's art. However, because the insignia system is only introduced in Guild Wars Nightfall and has not been retroactively implemented for the Prophecies and Factions campaigns, certain restrictions for insignia bonus vs artwork apply.

When armor does not matter
There are certain situations where a character would lose the same amount of health whether s/he is wearing the best armor a developer can create or is standing naked:


 * Damage from certain sources do not strike at a specific body location, but directly make the victim take damage. They are characterized as armor ignoring damage, see footnote 1 of damage type for more details.


 * Certain effects removes health without causing damage at all, and thus are not protected by armor. Some examples include health degeneration, life stealing, sacrifice, as well as any skill description that says "lose health" without using the word "damage".


 * Certain effects place a limit on the amount of damage the victim may receive. It is often in the form of percentage of the victim's maximum health.  Protective Spirit and Shelter are among the two most prominent examples.

Obtaining Armor
All armor is customized for their owners, thus armor received in a trade cannot be worn (unless, of course, the armor you are getting was once yours). If you put an armor piece in storage, delete the character, and create a new character with the exact same name and profession, that new character will not be able to wear the old armor.

PvE

 * New PvE characters received starter armor that cannot be salvaged or sold to a merchant.
 * Armor crafters
 * Armor collectors
 * Special events - Certain special in-game events (usually related to real world celebrations, such as Halloween) may provide players with fun-looking armors. They have always been headgears that come pre-customized, have 0 armor, but can be upgraded with runes and Infused.  The ones from older events cannot be dyed, though later ones can.  The ones prior to the release of Guild Wars Nightfall cannot be upgraded with insignia.

PvP
PvP characters can create and change their armor anytime they are in a town or outpost via the PvP Equipment panel. A PvP character's armor cannot be placed into storage.