Armor

Armor reduces all damage taken by 1% per 1 armor, so 15 armor reduces damage by 15%. Most heroes have 15 base armor, with a select few instead having 25 base armor. Guardians have 30 armor.

Heroes are able to increase their armor with temporary buffs or permanent upgrades. Heroes are able to reduce enemy armor with temporary debuffs, and some hero skills deal damage that ignores armor.

Armor has a soft cap of 65, meaning that stacking armor bonuses from base armor, skills, and upgrades can only have a maximum effect of 65 armor, reducing damage by 65%. However, the soft cap does not affect single skills that grant more than 65 armor, such as Wu's Q RR upgrade which grants +80 armor, and gets treated as if he has 80 total armor. Note that the damage reduction from armor is independent from the damage reduction stat, so you can have 60 armor and 50% damage reduction combine together to reduce total damage by 80% (base dmg * (1 - 0.60) * (1 - 0.50) = base dmg * 0.20).

Armor reduced below zero by status effects gets treated as zero armor for damage calculations.

Heroes with 25 Base Armor

HK-206 The Margrave Rutger Vadasi Zandora

All other heroes have 15 base armor, although Aisling has 25 armor while Cador is not summoned.

Ignore Armor

Damage that ignores armor, or true damage, is damage that treats the target as if they have 0 armor. The status effects bleed, poison, and cracked / broken armor deal armor ignoring damage. Additionally some heroes have upgrades that make damage either partially or fully ignore armor.

Ignoring armor is great vs guardians, heroes that have high base armor, and heroes that gain a large amount of armor from upgrades.

Damage Effectiveness

The table below shows the effect of ignores armor, broken armor, cracked armor, and common levels of armor buffs on damage dealt.

% Change in Damage Dealt vs Target Armor

	x0	-25	-10	Baseline	+5	+10	+20	Notes
0	+0%	+0%	+0%	-	-5.0%	-10.0%	-20.0%	Most summons
5	+5.3%	5.3%	+5.3%	-	-5.3%	-10.5%	-21.1%
10	+11.1%	+11.1%	+11.1%	-	-5.6%	-11.1%	-22.2%
15	+17.6%	+17.6%	+11.8%	-	-5.9%	-11.8%	-23.5%	Most heroes, all young creatures, and Griselma's summons
20	+25.0%	+25.0%	+12.5%	-	-6.3%	-12.5%	-25.0%
25	+33.3%	+33.3%	+13.3%	-	-6.7%	-13.3%	-26.7%	Armored heroes and all adult creatures
30	+42.9%	+35.7%	+14.3%	-	-7.1%	-14.3%	-28.6%	Guardians
35	+53.8%	+38.5%	+15.4%	-	-7.7%	-15.4%	-30.8%
40	+66.7%	+41.7%	+16.7%	-	-8.3%	-16.7%	-33.3%
45	+81.8%	+45.5%	+18.2%	-	-9.1%	-18.2%	-36.4%
50	+100.0%	+50.0%	+20.0%	-	-10.0%	-20.0%	-30.0%
55	+122.2%	+55.6%	+22.2%	-	-11.1%	-22.2%	-22.2%
60	+150.0%	+62.5%	+25.0%	-	-12.5%	-12.5%	-12.5%
65	+185.7%	+71.4%	+28.6%	-	-0.0%	-0.0%	-0.0%	Armor soft cap

Testing

The max 65 armor cap can be verified by testing with Margrave in practice mode.

1. Practice mode has motiga enemies that shoot fireballs dealing 100 base damage.
   • fireball deals 75 damage since Margrave has 25 base armor.
2. If you take the R R upgrade on his E called Battle Cry, it gives him +40 armor for 5s after his E hits the ground. That puts him at 25+40=65 armor.
   • fireball deals 35 damage, since Margrave has 25+40=65 armor.
3. If you now take the L upgrade on his F called Iron Skin, it gives +5 armor at all times. Try getting hit without using abilities to confirm.
   • fireball deals 70 damage, since Margrave has 25+5=30 armor.
4. Now use the leap again and get the 40 armor bonus pushing you up to 70 armor.
   • fireball deals 35 damage, since Margrave has 25+5+40=70 armor, but instead gets treated as 65 armor due to the cap.

The min 0 armor cap can be verified by testing with Xenobia in practice mode

1. Take the R R upgrade on her Q ability named Crack and Ruin.
   • This will cause her Q to inflict broken armor (-25 armor) on enemies that have recently been hit with her RMB.
2. Xenobia's LMB ticks for a base damage of 26.
3. First test on Margrave
   • Hit with a single LMB tick
     • LMB deals 19 damage, since Margrave has 25 armor
   • Hit with Q, then LMB
     • LMB deals 22 damage, since Margrave has 25-10=15 armor
   • Hit with RMB, then Q, then LMB
     • LMB deals 26 damage, since Margrave has 25-25=0 armor
4. Next test on Knossos
   • Hit with a single LMB tick
     • LMB deals 22 damage, since Knossos has 15 armor
   • Hit with Q, then LMB
     • LMB deals 25 damage, since Knossos has 15-10=5 armor
   • Hit with RMB, then Q, then LMB
     • LMB deals 26 damage, since Knossos has 15-25=-10 armor, but instead gets treated as 0 armor due to the floor.