Which armor to buy

How armor works

Every hit to a covered part of your body is reduced by the armor's level. No level stops a bullet outright, so you can die with your armor still on. Body armor covers the chest and stomach. Only level 4 also covers the upper arms. The helmet is the only thing that protects your head, and nothing covers your legs.

What it buys you

Percentages are hard to feel, so here is the same thing in shots. This is the M4 with standard ammo against a target with the same level of armor and helmet:

Going up one level adds 1 (level 1), 1 (level 2), 2 (level 3) and 2 (level 4) chest shots to what it takes to kill you. Every step also costs more and weighs more, so the question is how much fire you expect to take. The shots to kill calculator does this for every gun.

Durability

Armor wears down every time it takes a hit. It goes from full to degraded, then critical, then broken, and broken armor blocks nothing at all. So a vest that has already stopped a few bullets is worth less in the next fight. Higher levels have more durability as well as a bigger reduction:

Helmets have far less durability than body armor, so a helmet that has saved you once may not save you again.

Helmets

Head shots do more than twice the damage of a chest shot, and only the helmet reduces them. That is why most guides call the helmet the best value in the game. Without one, the M4 kills you with 2 shots to the head. Even the $200 level 1 helmet makes that 3.

• Level 1 Helmet3 head shots · $200
• Level 2 Helmet3 head shots · $500
• Level 3 Helmet4 head shots · $1,500
• Level 4 Helmet5 head shots · $3,000

Armor piercing

Armor piercing ammo is the answer to heavy armor. It does less against bare flesh but gets through plates much better. Against level 4, the M4 needs 10 chest shots with standard ammo and 7 with armor piercing. Hollow point is the opposite: great against no armor, poor against any plate. See ammo types.

What to buy

• New players: level 1 armor and a helmet. It is all you have unlocked at first anyway, and it is cheap to lose.
• The sweet spot: level 2 armor and helmet. $1,500 and 6.1 kg on its own, which leaves 3.9 kg for everything else before you drop out of the lightest weight class.
• Holding the zone: level 3, when you are going to sit on an objective and take a lot of fire. At 10.5 kg the armor alone pushes you out of the lightest weight class.
• Level 4: only if you ride a vehicle to the fight or stay in one place. At 22.5 kg and $7,000 it slows you down a lot, and the set costs 70% of your starting cash.

See weight classes for what the extra kilos cost you.