Diablo 4 is about to take a radical step when it comes to armor

In Diablo 4, your character's armor rating often means the difference between victory and defeat. On the live servers you have to deal with it deep into the endgame – a circumstance that should change with Season 4.

We'll explain to you what role armor actually plays in Diablo 4, what the change consists of and what that means for you.

Less is more

In the last Campfire Chat Blizzard introduced a variety of changes to items and ways to customize them. An important innovation concerns the armor value.

With the start of Season 4, the limit for the maximum reduction in physical damage (still 85 percent) is one Armor value of 9,230 reached. This “cap” occurs as soon as you fight against monsters of level 100 or above.

From this value onwards, it no longer makes any difference whether your opponents are level 100 or 199; the damage reduction is always 85 percent.

What exactly does armor actually do?

Your armor value in Diablo 4 determines what percentage of physical damage is absorbed by your equipment and other sources (paragon nodes, affixes)..

A high value reduces the damage you take and increases your survivability. You can prevent a maximum of 85 percent of damage with armor. However, the value required for this increases with the level of the opponents.

9:15 p.m

Diablo 4 – After much criticism, Blizzard is radically restructuring the game with Season 4!

Now what does the change mean?

From level 100 onwards you have to limit your armor value no longer increase. Currently in Season 3, for example, you need 12,960 armor to get to 85 percent for level 150 monsters.

With the “cap” at 9,230 armor, you can give your items other attributes and bonuses from this value onwards instead of continuing to look for new ways to increase your armor.

This is important because Blizzard wants to reduce the number of affixes on all items so you don't have to use these reduced slots for armor, but can effectively strengthen your character, for example with affixes that improve your build.

With Season 4 you should still be able to improve items more individually despite reduced bonuses. The new upgrade mechanics called “hardening” and “completion” serve this purpose. You can find out exactly how this works and what other innovations will be included in the next big update in the article linked above from our Diablo expert.