Armor comes in many shapes and sizes. There are three types of armor available: light, medium, and heavy. Light armor is geared toward mages, medium armor is geared toward stamina users, and heavy armor (the most protective type of armor) is geared toward frontline warriors. There are no limits to what armor you can wear; you can wear any armor or equip any weapon, regardless of race, class, or alliance.
In a switch back to the older gameplay of Oblivion and Morrowind, armor will degrade in combat and other circumstances (such as dying and respawning). There are repair kits you can carry around to make repairs in the field, or you can pay any merchant to do the work for you. Previously, the armor rating of a single piece of armor would gradually decrease as it degraded. As of patch 2.1.5, the armor rating stays the same until the piece of armor is fully damaged, after which its rating will be zero until repaired.
Armor is split into seven body sections, with different types for light, medium, and heavy armors: hats, helmets, and helms for the head; epaulets, arm cops, and pauldrons for the shoulders; robes (or jerkins), jacks, and cuirasses for the torso; gloves, bracers, and gauntlets for the hands; sashes, belts, and girdles for the waist; breeches, guards, and greaves for the legs; and shoes, boots, and sabatons for the feet. In addition, there are four more equipment slots for a disguise/costume, two rings, and a necklace, as well as two hand slots. A shield can be equipped in one of the hands to add to the armor rating and allow the use of One Hand and Shield skills.
Armor MaterialsEdit
StylesEdit
- Main article: Styles
There are numerous styles available to wear in Elder Scrolls Online. Styles can be categorised into two types, however both can be used to customise the appearance of your character via the Outfit System.
- Crafting Motifs — These are styles that the player can learn with the appropriate Crafting Motifs. Crafting armor or weapons in a particular style requires certain skills and ingredients. Motifs are typically used in conjunction with Crafting Writs.
- Outfit Styles — These styles are not associated with the crafting system in any way, and exist purely as visual changes that overlay their design over your existing equipment. Outfit styles are usually obtained during in-game Events.
Other styles exist in the game, but are limited, unavailable or yet to be released. This page serves as an outline of these.
Crafting MotifsEdit
Weapons and Armor can be crafted in a variety of styles. Crafting an item in a specific style requires a Style Material. Each character starts with the ability to create items in their own racial style, and other styles may be learned from special consumable books called motifs. These books along with secondary ingredients may be randomly found in containers throughout the world. The first fourteen motif listed below can be found throughout the world regardless of zone.
TraitsEdit
Traits are a special property that can appear on weapons, armor and jewelry. Each item can have a single trait, in addition to all other properties an item can carry, though items without any traits are also common.
Traits may be researched in order to craft custom items with the respective properties.
Constructing an item with a specific trait requires a special tertiary material. These ingredients can be retrieved by deconstructing items with traits, or refining raw ore, wood, leather or fibers, or dust. Crafting hirelings for Blacksmithing, Clothing and Woodworking will also commonly send all types of trait materials.
The magnitude of each trait depends on the quality of the item, improving the item will automatically increase the trait's magnitude.
Non-percentage values in the following tables are for Level 50 
160 items. Lower level items will have smaller values. See the individual trait pages for more complete info.
Armor traits are available on all articles of light, medium and heavy armor, as well on shields.
| Trait | Material | Description | Magnitude | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Normal | Fine | Superior | Epic | Legendary | |||
| Sturdy |  Quartz |
Reduce block cost by … | 2% | 2.5% | 3% | 3.5% | 4% |
| Impenetrable |  Diamond |
Increase your Critical Resistance by … and this item takes 50% less durability damage. | 116 | 118 | 121 | 124 | 127 |
| Reinforced |  Sardonyx |
Increases this item's armor value by … | 12% | 13% | 14% | 15% | 16% |
| Well-fitted |  Almandine |
Reduces the cost of sprinting and Roll Dodging by … | 1.2% | 2.4% | 3.6% | 4.8% | 6% |
| Training |  Emerald |
Increase experience gained from kills by … | 7% | 8% | 9% | 10% | 11% |
| Infused |  Bloodstone |
Increase armor enchantment effect by … | 9% | 13% | 17% | 21% | 25% |
| Invigorating |  Garnet |
Increase Health Recovery, Magicka Recovery, and Stamina Recovery by … | 8 | 10 | 12 | 14 | 16 |
| Divines |  Sapphire |
Increases Mundus Stone effects by … | 5.1% | 6.1% | 7.1% | 8.1% | 9.1% |
| Nirnhoned |  Fortified Nirncrux |
Increases Physical and Spell Resistance by … | 220 | 228 | 236 | 244 | 253 |
EnchantmentsEdit
The following enchantments (all additive) can be added to armor:
- Deni: Glyph of Stamina - Increases Maximum Stamina
- Hakeijo: Glyph of Prismatic Defense - Increases Maximum Health, Magicka, and Stamina
- Makko: Glyph of Magicka - Increases Maximum Magicka
- Oko: Glyph of Health - Increases Maximum Health
GalleryEdit
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Heavy Armor (High Elf, Nord, Breton)
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Heavy Armor (Redguard, Wood Elf, Dark Elf)
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Heavy Armor (Argonian, Orc, Khajiit)
