Armour and block

Armour is a rating on your gear. Each physical hit is reduced by a fraction that depends on your armour compared with the size of the hit. It is strong against many small hits and weaker against big boss slams, and it never goes beyond 90% reduction. Armour only applies to physical damage from monsters' attacks, not to spells.

A full set of same-tier armour takes off a large share of a normal same-level monster's melee hit, less from rares and clearly less from bosses.

More physical protection. "Physical damage reduction" is an extra layer on top of armour. Its total is capped at 90%.

Block comes from shields. A shield's number is its chance to block an attack, up to 75%. A blocked hit does no damage at all. Block works against melee and physical ranged attacks, not against spells, unless you use the Bulwark Stance keystone (Keystones). A two-handed weapon cannot block. Shield bases range from about 15% block at the first tier to about 28% at the top.

Order. A hit is first checked for block, then evasion, then armour reduces what remains (Damage types and resistances).

Who benefits. Knights and shield paladins. The Bastion ascendancy heals on every block (Ascendancies). The Granite flask adds armour for a few seconds (Flask types and tiers).

Raising armour

• Pick armour bases for helmet, body, legs and boots (The three defences).
• Add "increased armour" affixes (Affixes).
• Use runes such as El and Nef (Runes).
• Take armour nodes near the Knight start (The passive tree).

Lowering it. Monster modifiers and map modifiers can reduce it. The map modifier Brittle cuts your armour, evasion, energy shield and block chance (Map modifiers).

Monsters with the Armoured modifier take less physical damage (Monster modifiers).

Mix and match. A hybrid base gives half armour and half another defence (The three defences).

Related: Evasion, Energy shield.