In Don’t Starve Together, armor is the best equipment to increase your chance of survival, as it prevents a considerable amount of incoming damage.
However, you can only equip a maximum of 3 pieces of armor at a time, even though the game offers quite a few.
In this guide, we’ll discuss what the best armor in Don’t Starve Together is so you can pick the one that suits you the most.
Recommended Read: How to Survive the Summer in DST
We’ve taken several criteria into consideration when choosing what armor is the best: Protection Value, Durability, Craftability, and Special Effects.
Based on these criteria, our picks for the best pieces of armor in Don’t Starve Together are the Log Suit, Football Helmet, Thulecite Crown, Thulecite Suit, Marble Suit, Night Armor, Shield of Terror, Bone Armor, Dreadstone Helm, and Dreadstone Armor.
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What Is the Best Armor in Don’t Starve Together
Although armor can only save you from physical and planar damage, wearing just a piece of armor is extremely useful because it reduces the incoming damage by a percentage, not a nominal value.
To determine the best armor in Don’t Starve Together, we use the below criteria:
- Protection Value: the damage reduction percentage. The higher this value is, the better.
- Durability: health point of an armor. The higher, the better.
- Crafting Recipe: if the materials are easy to obtain and the crafting process isn’t complicated, the armor gains a point.
- Special Effect: in most cases, armor pieces with a positive aura or don’t have one are better than those with a negative aura.
An armor that requires a chest slot will force your character to drop the backpack, which is a massive inconvenience for some players. However, it’s how the game works, so we won’t include this in the criteria list.
Overall, the best armor should be easy to craft, has high durability and high protection value, and can be used by most characters without penalties.
1. Log Suit (Chest Slot)
- Protection: 80%
- Durability: 315
- Crafting Recipe: 8 Logs and 2 Ropes | Science Machine
- Special Effect: receives 17 additional damage from Werebeaver
Log Suit is the best armor in the game’s early days. It has high protection value and average durability, making it ideal for blocking most attacks from the enemy above the ground.
By chopping a few trees and collecting six pieces of grass, you can easily craft this armor to prepare for the first hound wave by day 6.
The only downside of the Log Suit is it takes more damage from Woodie’s Werebeaver form. However, if you’re not playing on a PvP server, this armor has zero weakness.
2. Football Helmet (Head Slot)
- Protection: 80%
- Durability: 315
- Crafting Recipe: 1 Pig Skin and 1 Rope | Alchemy Engine
- Special Effect: none
With the same protection and durability value, the Football Helmet is the second-best armor to use in the early days of DST.
Although the values resemble a Log Suit, a Football Helmet requires a Pig Skin and an Alchemy Engine station to craft.
While you can get Pig Skins by defeating some pigs or breaking pig houses, crafting an Alchemy Engine is another story. It’s time-consuming but not too challenging to obtain this head armor.
3. Thulecite Crown (Head Slot)
- Protection: 90%
- Durability: 840
- Crafting Recipe: 4 Thulecites and 4 Nightmare Fuels | Fully repaired Ancient Pseudoscience Station
- Special Effect: 33% chance of preventing all damage and stun for 4 seconds
Besides high protection and durability values, Thulecite Crown has a 33% chance of creating a force field around the player to block all damage. However, this ability lasts only 4 seconds and has a 9-second cooldown.
Thulecite Crown has no significant downside, as you’re already nearly invincible with the 90% damage reduction without its ability.
The challenging part here is to find enough materials and repair the Ancient Pseudoscience Station to be able to craft this head armor. So, find the Ruins and start collecting Thulecites.
4. Thulecite Suit (Chest Slot)
- Protection: 90%
- Durability: 1260
- Crafting Recipe: 6 Thulecites and 4 Nightmare Fuels | Fully repaired Ancient Pseudoscience Station
- Special Effect: provides 3.3 sanity points per minute
Thulecite Suit has the same protection value as the Crown but possesses higher durability, allowing you to tank more hits in boss battles.
Its special effect isn’t significant compared to the Crown, and you can’t wear this armor piece simultaneously with your backpack. Still, it’s the armor with the highest durability.
5. Marble Suit (Chest Slot)
- Protection: 95%
- Durability: 735
- Crafting Recipe: 6 Marbles and 2 Ropes | Alchemy Engine
- Special Effect: reduces 30% movement speed
Marble Suit is one of the two best armor pieces with the highest protection value. In addition, its durability is above average, and the required crafting materials are relatively cheap (assuming you know how to farm marbles).
The biggest drawback of the Marble Suit is the reduction in movement speed, making it harder or nearly impossible to hit and run for some fights.
Nevertheless, this negative effect can be removed entirely if you play as mighty Wolfgang or decide to tank a group of enemies.
6. Night Armor (Chest Slot)
- Protection: 95%
- Durability: 525
- Crafting Recipe: 5 Nightmare Fuels and 3 Papyrus | Shadow Manipulator
- Special Effect: reduces 10 sanity points per minute and reduces sanity by another 10% of taken damage
Besides the high protection value (95% is the highest in the game), Night Armor has a lot of weaknesses.
First, it has average durability, making it unsuitable for a long fight. Secondly, its crafting recipe is quite complicated, as you need to gather a lot of Nightmare Fuels and other materials to craft the Shadow Manipulator.
Finally, it has a huge negative sanity aura. So, it may not be the best armor for players afraid of shadow creatures.
That said, we list this armor here because it best fits Wanda. In middle age, Wanda only receives a third of the sanity effect from the armor. While in old age, she cannot suffer from the aura anymore.
7. Shield of Terror (Hand Slot)
- Protection: 80%
- Durability: 315
- Crafting Recipe: can’t be crafted
- Special Effect: is a weapon and can be repaired with food
Shield of Terror is the most unique armor in Don’t Starve Together. You can’t craft it but only receive it by defeating the Twins of Terror.
While the obtaining process, durability, and protection value aren’t that impressive, Shield of Terror is a hand armor/weapon. This means you can equip it in your hand to fight enemies like other weapons and also receive a damage reduction simultaneously.
On top of that, you can repair it with food items. The repaired value varies based on the absolute value of health and hunger the food provides.
Remember that the shield will break if it reaches 0 durability, so wearing other armor pieces is recommended to share the damage.
8. Bone Armor (Chest Slot)
- Protection: 100%
- Durability: 16 uses
- Crafting Recipe: can’t be crafted
- Special Effect: creates a shield to block one damage instance every 5 seconds
Although Bone Armor has a 100% damage reduction, its unique mechanic makes this number fluctuate. Therefore, 95% damage reduction from the Marble Suit and Night Armor is still considered consistent and highest in DST.
Every 5 seconds, the Bone Armor creates a shield to block an instance of damage. No matter how much the damage is, the shield will always break.
So, using the Bone Armor in boss fights (Shadow Rook or Toadstool) is best to nullify their power attacks.
This armor piece only drops from the Ancient Fuelweaver, so getting one may be challenging. Moreover, Bone Armor only has 16 uses, meaning you can only nullify 16 attacks.
For longer fights, you can refuel the armor with Nightmare Fuel or collect multiple pieces of Bone Armor and use them interchangeably in succession.
9. Dreadstone Helm (Head Slot)
- Protection: 90% and 5 planar defense
- Durability: 840
- Crafting Recipe: 4 Dreadstones and 4 Pure Horrors | Recipe unlocked after defeating the Nightmare Werepig
- Special Effect: reduces 5-20 sanity points per minute and passively restores durability based on sanity
Dreadstone Helm is one of the newest pieces of armor in DST.
It has high protection value with additional planar defense, high durability, and a unique effect that involves both durability and sanity.
Specifically, the sanity reduction rate of the helmet is determined by its durability and whether the player is wearing a Dreadstone Armor. The sanity reduction rate is lowest when the helmet is at 100% durability, and you wear a Dreadstone Armor.
Dreadstone Helm also restores its durability based on your sanity and whether the player is wearing a Dreadstone Armor. It restores 1% durability if your sanity is full and you wear a Dreadstone Armor.
10. Dreadstone Armor (Chest Slot)
- Protection: 90%
- Durability: 840
- Crafting Recipe: 6 Dreadstones and 4 Pure Horrors | Recipe unlocked after defeating the Nightmare Werepig
- Special Effect: same as the Dreadstone Helm
If you’re using the Dreadstone Helm, consider crafting the Dreadstone Armor for a complete set.
Not only do these two armor pieces repair themselves faster, but they also decrease the sanity reduction rate when worn. Moreover, you look pretty cool in this armor set!
Those are the 10 best pieces of armor in Don’t Starve Together!
Have any suggestions for this guide? Let us know in the comments section below.
