The best Elden Ring armor give you breathing room while you're fighting tough enemies or dueling a massive boss. Elden Ring is filled with status effects and combo attacks that good armor can protect you against. It should be pretty natural to swap armor depending on the situation. Below, we have several armor sets with different attributes to help you through The Lands Between.
In this Elden Ring armor guide, I'll go through some of my favorite sets, what they're good for, and where you can find them. But just like Dark Souls, you can always wear armor just because you like the way it looks, since everything above a certain level will take a hit or two anyway. In terms of balancing looks and defense, most of the sets below are pretty great.
Equip load for the best armor
How the best armor works in Elden Ring
Armor comes in many different shapes in sizes in Elden Ring. Very few pieces of gear come with stat bonuses, so you want to look for defensive stats, poise, and weight. Here's how weight percentages break down and determine how fast your dodge roll will be in combat. And keep in mind that your other equipment and weapons will add to the overall equip load, so you need to factor in everything to determine how it fits with your build.
Equip load percentages
29.9%: Light armor, fast rolls
30% - 69.9%: Medium armor, normal rolls
70% - 99.9%: Heavy armor, slow or 'fat' rolls
100%+: Over-encumbered
The best heavy armor
Lionel's Set
Base equip load: 50.7% (Medium)
Best build type: 💪 Strength
Location: Lower Capital Church, Leyndell, Royal Capital
Rating: 🔥🔥🔥
The Lionel's Set is the toughest suit of armor in Elden Ring. It's simply the best armor you can get if you want to face-tank hits without flinching with a good balance of defense and poise. This set will let you swing a greatsword into enemies regardless of the attacks they throw at you.
Anyone that wants to put together a build that brute forces opponents through sheer stability, this is the set. It requires you to be mid- to late-game to get, but it's worth making the sprint for if you plan on being a walking tank but maintain enough mobility to keep your distance when needed.
The best medium armor
Black Knife Set
Base equip load: 21.8% (Light)
Best build type: 💪 Strength, 🏃♂️ Dexterity
Location: Ordina, Liturgical Town, Consecrated Snowfield
Rating: 🔥🔥🔥
The Black Knife Set in Elden Ring makes your character near-invisible. Well, invisible to enemy AI, not necessarily enemy players. This medium (with other gear) armor set masks the sound of your character walking, which prevents you from alerting enemies until you're very close to them. This allows you to set up opening attacks on them for basically free damage.
The set can only be grabbed late-game, but you can mix and match with it as long as you keep the chest piece to maintain the muffled sound trait. Aside from that, it has fairly good fire resistance and a hefty amount of Robustness to protect yourself from bleed and frostbite damage.
The best light armor
Spellblade Set
Base equip load: 8.6% (Light)
Best build type: 🧠 Intelligence/🏃♂️ Dexterity
Location: Roundtable Hold (Sorcerer Rogier)
Rating: 🔥🔥
The Spellblade Set from Sorcerer Rogier is a pretty strong early game choice for spellcasters in Elden Ring. Unfortunately, you have to wait until Rogier expires to get it, but you can wear it in his honor.
The set boosts glinstone sorcery weapon skills, so if you plan to do an intelligence and dexterity hybrid build, this is a fantastic option. In addition to its passive bonus, the armor set also has a lot of Focus and Vitality to protect you from Madness and Blight buildup respectively.
Thematic armor to wear
The Omen Elden Ring armor set
- The armor of the Dungeater. Perhaps the heaviest in the game, but boasts excellent all-round damage negation and resistance.
Location: Leyndell Royal Capital
You'll all probably remember the Dung Eater as the guy who was getting hung in the opening cutscene. Around the time when you progress into Leyndell, Royal City, the Dung Eater will appear as a red phantom in the Roundtable Hold, in the room next to the Twin Maiden Husks. He'll ignore you until you get the Seedbed Curse from his mirrored location in the Roundtable Hold in the city, which is past the big gate at the end of the road with the Erdtree Avatar.
Go back to him and you'll get a key to the Leyndell sewers. You can access these by heading down the stairs from the Avenue Balcony grace, and jumping over the wall to the left to find a well to climb down. Head through the Subterranean Shunning-Grounds until you find Dung Eater locked in a cell. The route to him goes past the giant plants and up the ladder, as opposed to down the pipes.
Now, if you kill him, you'll get his armor and his sword. Be warned, though, he's a very tough fight due to his aggression and screaming skill that lowers your damage negation.
Crucible Tree set
- Worn by Crucible Knight leader, Siluria. This set also has excellent defense, and strengthens Aspects of the Crucible incantations.
Location: Deeproot Depths
You can find this armor set in a chest behind where you fight Crucible Knight Siluria in the Deeproot Depths. If you've found your way to the subterranean region, you'll find the boss in the northern section, at the westernmost tip, guarding a hollowed-out tree. He isn't too hard to beat on horseback, you just have to be aware of his swooping into the air and charging at you, or firing projectiles.
Cleanrot set
- The armor worn by Malenia's Cleanrot Knights. This set boasts one of the highest immunity stats in the game, so is perfect when facing off against poison or scarlet rot.
Location: Mt. Gelmir
This is dropped by Cleanrot Knights. The best place to farm them earlier on is in the Shaded Citadel due north through the valley from the Elden Ring Grand Lift of Dectus. Keep going until you enter the Mt. Gelmir region, and you'll find a castle sunk into a poisonous swamp. The Cleanrot Knights are on the upper level.
Royal Remains set
- The set worn by Ensha, that cool-looking guy who hangs around outside the door of Ofnir's study. This set slowly replenishes HP when it's reduced.
Location: Roundtable Hold
At a certain point in the game, you'll return to the Roundtable Hold to find it looking different, and Ensha will suddenly attack you. Kill him, and you'll get this armor set and his Clinging Bone weapon. When you ask Ofnir, he'll explain the Ensha was getting too big for his boots.
Radahn's Lion set
- The armor worn by Starscourge Radahn. Though on the heavier side, it has excellent all-round defense, and more importantly, a great helmet.
Location: Roundtable Hold (Enia)
This set can be purchased from Finger Reader Enia after you've defeated Radahn at Redmane Castle.
Blaidd's set
- The half-wolf's armor set in extremely cool, and has decent defense and robustness for its weight.
Location: Three Sisters, Caria Manor
You get this from defeating Blaidd (the Elden Ring wolf man on the tower), as well as his Royal Greatsword. Seeing as his wolf helmet is actually his face, you'll have to get it from somewhere else. Head to Seluvis' Rise and jump up the wall to the side to get around the back, and find a wolf helmet to go with this set. For more on how to get his armor set, check out our Elden Ring Blaidd quest guide.
The Deathbed Dress set
- A light dress worn by Fia, Deathbed Companion. It doesn't offer much in the way of defense, but it has good vitality.
Location: Leyndell, Royal City.
Found in the same room as Lionel's set above. Head down the stairs from the Avenue Balcony Site of Grace and hop over the wall on the left onto the rooftop. Look to the left and you'll see a small open doorway. Drop down into sewer on the left, climb up the ladder, and head inside to find it on the bed.
Queen of the Full Moon set
- The outfit of Rennala, Queen of the Full Moon. This set offers great magic, fire, lightning, and holy resistance, and a great hat.
Location: Roundtable Hold (Enia)
You can buy this set from Finger Reader Enia when you've defeated, Rennala, Queen of the Full Moon in the Raya Lucaria Academy.
Noble's Travelling set
- If you're looking for something on the lighter side that's a little fancier than the cloth garb, this set is a great choice. It pairs well with Roderika's Crimson Hood to increase health, or the blue one it comes with to increase mind.
Location: The Altus Plateau
Head to the far north to the East Windmill Pasture to find a group of women dancing around a corpse. You can grab the outfit here, as well as the Knight's Twinblade, though be careful as the women will aggro when you take it.
And those are some of the best Elden Ring armor sets. We'll be sure to keep adding them as we get more good ones.
