Armor Values Explained: Discussion Repost

This is a link to the discussion this guide is plagiarizing.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/233860/discussions/2/133261907145702720/

Coverage is simply the chance that armour will protect against a hit to that limb. So a 100% chest coverage will apply its resistances on every hit to the chest. While a 50% coverage will only do it half the time.

In the case of pieces with overlapping coverage, it will hit them each separately in order of: Head, Armour, Pants, Shirt, and then Boots. (E.G. You have a 90% coverage pants, and a 40% coverage boots. It will roll for protection on the pants first to see if it protects, then pass any remaining damage onto the boots and roll for if they protect. This means that unless you have a piece with 100% coverage all on its own, there is always at least a slight chance for a hit to get through unmitigated.)

The number shown is the percentage of damage negated by the armour. So an armour with 75% cut resistance will negate 75% of the cut damage received, assuming it was a body part the armour protects and its coverage allowed it to apply its resistances.

This is simply the amount of damage points negated when hit by a harpoon or crossbow on a body part this armour covers. Normal coverage rules still apply.

This is where things get a little more complicated. You may notice some armours have a (60% Efficiency) or similar value on them, under the cut resistance. This the percentage of resisted cut damage that is actually nullified, rather than being converted into blunt damage and instantly applied (ignoring armour damage resistance). If the armour does not display this value, that means it has 100% efficiency.

Let's say you get hit for 100 cut damage and have an armour with 75% resistance and 40% efficiency, the armour negates 75 damage, sending on the remaining 25 to be applied to any other armour you have. But due to the efficiency, 45 points of the resisted 75 will be converted to blunt and instantly applied (ignoring any other armour) to your body part. This means that if you had no other armour you took a total of 70 damage, 25 cut and 45 blunt.

As you can see, that makes efficiency a very important value to consider, at least on the important body parts like the chest and head.

As mentioned before, this is the order it goes through the damage calculations in the case of overlapping coverage areas. It determines this based on the slot the items use. It will run through them in order of: Head, Armour, Pants, Shirt, and then Boots.

As the converted damage from efficiency ignores further layers of armour, it is very important to remember this. Having a low efficiency armour on one of the parts hit earlier can drastically increase the amount of damage you take. While having high efficiency can nearly entirely nullify damage depending on the specific armours and qualities you're wearing.

At the very least, one should probably aim for high efficiency on the Chest and Head slots. As they cover the critical areas.

Most armours have penalties to certain skills. These are shown a 0.67x or something similar. This means that skill will only function at that percentage of your skill level. So a 50 skill would only function at 67% (33.5) using the previous number as an example.

While a couple of the penalties do not stack, and only use the worst penalty of that type across your armour, moost do in fact stack. Further reducing said skill by the amount shown on the next piece. This can lead to very high penalties if you pick your armours carelessly.

Armour Penetration
Armour Penetration is a stat found on certain kinds of weapons. It reduces or increases the effectiveness of armour when that weapon is used.

Positive Armour Penetration is fairly straightforward, it decreases the effectiveness of armour. It subtracts the penetration value from the resistance value of the armour before doing the damage calculations above.
(E.G. A weapon with +20% penetration hits an armour with 50% resistance, the resistance value will be reduced to 40%, and then normal damage calculations will apply)

Negative Armour penetration as seen on weapons like Katanas actually INCREASES the effectiveness of armour. Instead of subtracting the Armour Penetration percentage, it adds it to the resistance value.
(E.G. A weapon with -25% penetration hits an armour with 60% resistance, it will increase the resistance to 75%, before continuing normal damage calculations)