The best armor in Helldivers 2 and how it works

The best Helldivers 2 armor helps you survive but also brings other perks, depending on what you need. Going lighter may be better if you require speed, but you’ll be a lot weaker against enemy attacks. You can choose between light, medium, or heavy armor, with each one having stats that affect your damage resistance, speed and stamina regeneration rate.

Similarly, you may also need extra protection from elements such as fire or gas. These effects may be crucial for your Helldivers 2 loadout, depending on the difficulty and type of mission you’re playing. If you need help determining what gear you should equip for your playstyle, here’s everything you need to know about armor in Helldivers 2.

Best Helldivers 2 armor

Picking the best Helldivers 2 armor mainly involved deciding on a preferred armor weight and then choosing a good passive perk to boost your playstyle, weapons or other preferences. Wearing light, medium, or heavy armor balances protection with speed and stamina regeneration in broadly the following ways: 

• Light Armor
  • Armor Rating 50
  • Speed 550
  • Stamina Regen 125
• Medium Armor
  • Armor Rating 100
  • Speed 500
  • Stamina Regen 100
• Heavy Armor
  • Armor Rating 200
  • Speed 450
  • Stamina Regen 50

What you go for isn't critical to creating the best Helldivers 2 loadout as it's mainly down to your own preferences, although you'll definitely want to pick armor that has one of the better passives attached. 

Here are some of the best Helldiver 2 armor suits I suggest using:

• UF-50 Bloodhound: Medium armor obtained from the Truth Enforcers warbond. The Unflinching passive perk is useful when up against Automatons, and should help in close-quarters combat. 
• B-08 Light Gunner: Light armor with the Extra Padding passive, offering medium armor-level protection with light mobility. Buy from the Superstore.
• B-27 Fortified Commando: Heavy armor with the Extra Padding passive, providing the most protection of any armor set in the game. Buy from the Superstore.
• CM-21 Trench Paramedic: Light armor with the Med-Kit passive, letting you stay very mobile and healed up. Buy from the Superstore. The CM-09 Bonesnapper medium armor is a good alternative from the Helldivers Mobilize Warbond.
• DP-40 Hero of the Federation: Medium armor with the Democracy Protects passive. Not being affected by bleed damage is one less thing to worry about and the 50% chance to not die can be very useful for saving reinforcements. From the Helldivers Mobilize Warbond.
• SA-25 Steel Trooper: Medium armor with Servo-Assisted passive. Throwing Stratagems further is nice to have, and the extra limb health will reduce the impact of injuries. From the Helldivers 2 Steeled Veterans Warbond. The SC-37 Legionnaire light armor from the Superstore has the same passive, trading a bit of protection for slightly more mobility.
• SC-30 Trailblazer Scout: Light armor with the Scout Passive – perfect for stealthy approaches where you'd rather sneak past enemies than engage head on. From the Helldivers Mobilize Warbond.
• TR-40 Golden Eagle armor: This is essentially heavy armor with medium armor movement speed. basically giving you a 150% amor thanks to extra padding. So if medium is your prefered armor class this is a great way of tanking up without sacrificing anything. Best of all it was free with the Escalation of Freedom. 

At the time of writing, light armor still seems to be the most useful of all the armor types due to the noticeable speed and stamina boosts you gain compared to medium and heavy. This is especially important when fight the Helldivers 2 Terminids as you need to match their ability to stay alive. However, while wearing light armor, your Helldiver will be very fragile, so the Shield Generator Pack is strongly recommended, especially since it's one of the best Helldivers 2 Stratagems.

Heavy armor does provide ample protection, but I've not found it noticeably better overall compared to light or medium armor due to the speed and stamina penalties. I'd only recommend heavy armor for fighting Helldivers 2 Automatons as their use of ranged weapons means there's less of a need to constantly move. Finally, medium armor is the jack of all trades armor type, being perfectly adequate in any mission but perhaps not the optimal choice – it's a good type to fall back on if you're not sure what to wear.

How Helldivers 2 armor works

The armor suit you choose for your Helldiver has three stats and an Armor Passive to provide some nice buffs while playing missions. The values of the three armor stats – Armor Rating, Speed, and Stamina Regen – are largely determined by the suit's weight, though there is some stat variation within each type. Light armor offers the best speed and stamina regeneration at the cost of armor rating, whereas heavy armor is the opposite, sacrificing speed and stamina regen for extra protection. Medium armor sits in the middle of the two, providing a balance of speed and resilience.

• Speed: Determines the running and sprinting speed of your Helldiver.
• Stamina Regen: Affects the rate your stamina is consumed as you sprint and perform other actions, letting you sprint continuously for longer. From testing different armor suits, I didn't notice any differences to the stamina regeneration rate.
• Armor Rating: Determines how much damage resistance your armor provides and how susceptible to injuries your Helldiver is. Armor suits with an Armor Rating over 100 reduce the damage taken from headshots too. This stat is much harder to test due to the many variables in combat, so it's hard to say exactly how damage resistance is affected by Armor Rating.

Helmets and capes have no special qualities, and all are rated 100 in each stat. You can of course change your armor whenever you like by visiting the armory station on any Destroyer or when picking your loadout just before dropping into a mission, but this is the extent of armor customization in Helldivers 2. There's no way to change the colors on your armor or change passives regardless of the armor you're wearing. An armor transmog-like feature is also unlikely to come to Helldivers 2 as the creative director has said it "doesn't make sense".

Helldivers 2 armor passives

The main benefit of armor in Helldivers 2 is that it provides a passive perk that enhances your Helldiver's capabilities in the field. Passives are not restricted to certain armor types, but medium armor seems to currently have the best selection. Here are all the armor passives in Helldivers 2:

• Democracy Protects: 50% chance to not die when taking lethal damage. Prevents all damage from bleeding if your Helldiver's chest is haemorrhaging.
• Electrical Conduit: Provides 95% resistance to arc damage (that means electrical damage from the Arc Thrower, Arc-12 Blitzer, and Tesla Tower). This passive is only available on armor from the Helldivers 2 Cutting Edge Warbond.
• Engineering Kit: Further reduces recoil when crouching or prone by 30%. Also increases initial grenade inventory and total capacity by two.
• Extra Padding: Increases Armor Rating by 50, providing extra protection against damage.
• Fortified: Further reduces recoil when crouching or prone by 30%. Provides 50% damage resistance to explosives.
• Inflammable: Gain 75% damage resistance against fire damage. This really help you if you're a fan of things like the Flamethrower and Napalm Strike. You can find this passive on the Helldivers 2 Freedom's Flame Warbond armor.
• Med-Kit: Increases initial stim inventory and total capacity by two. Increases stim effect duration by two seconds.
• Peak Physique: Increases melee damage by 50% and improves weapon handling with less drag as you move with your weapon. You can find this passive on the armor from the Helldivers 2 Viper Commandos Warbond.
• Scout: Markers placed on the map generate radar scans every two seconds. Reduces the range at which enemies can detect the wearer by 30%.
• Servo-Assisted: Increases throwing range by 30% and provides 50% more limb health.
• Unflinching: Prevents flinching when hit by attacks, but does nothing to prevent ragdolling. 

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