Best Fallout 76 Armor and Armor Set List (2024)

Best Armor in Fallout 76

The overall best armor in Fallout 76 is the Secret Service Armor. The plans to craft Secret Service pieces can be bought with Gold Bullion, which makes it available to everyone. Use the Fallout 76 Secret Service Armor guide to learn all the details on how to obtain the plans, the costs, what mods to use, and more.

In terms of defenses, the Brotherhood Recon Armor (BoS Recon) has the highest physical damage reduction but has lower energy reduction and radiation reduction than the Secret Service Amor. Since BoS Recon is so close to the Secret Service Armor in performance, you can use BoS Recon as a very viable alternative.

In the following table, you see the damage reduction values compared between a fill Secret Service set and a full Brotherhood Recon set. Both assume you use the mod Buttressed.

All other armors in the game are noticeably weaker or have a very specific use case.

Best Armor for Specific Build Types in Fo76

Other armor types can be strong picks depending on your build and playstyle. In the following table, you find suggestions on what armor type aligns with specific build types.

* Most Heavy Gunner builds use Power Armor instead of regular armor. Check the Fallout 76 Power Armor guide for an in-depth analysis.
** Only if you play as a stealth character.

Please be aware that most of the time the legendary effects are more important than the armor type. Meaning even if Secret Service would be the best for your character, a Brotherhood Recon or even Wood Armor with the optimal legendary effects could be better for you, than Secret Service Armor with unuseful legendary effects.

Wearing a complete set of a specific armor type is only important if you use Legendary Perk Cards like Funky Duds or you’re using an armor type with a set bonus like Thorn Armor.

Best Legendary Effects For Armor in Fallout 76

Every piece of armor can have up to 3 legendary stars. Each legendary star provides one legendary effect.

First Star Legendary Effect Tier List

The best first-star legendary effect in Fallout 76 is Unyielding. Unyielding increases your SPECIAL attributes +3 (except Endurance), if you’re at low health. Therefore, you need to play a low-health build to use Unyielding. In a low-health build, you accumulate radiation to stay below 20% of your health points all the time.

If you don’t play a low-health build and you don’t want to stay well-fed and well-hydrated, the next best options are enemy-specific damage reduction rolls like Troubleshooter, Zealot, Mutant Slayers, and similar. Try to mix your gear to have e.g. 2x Troubleshooter and one of the other enemy types. Since robots are often the toughest enemies, Troubleshooter is the effect you want to prioritize.

Second Star Legendary Effect Tier List

The best second-star legendary effects in Fallout 76 are poison and fire resistance. Especially poison resistance is important if you’re not using the Legendary Perk Card Funky Duds. If you are playing stealth build your priorisation is slightly different from a non-stealth build.

If you’re not using consumables to improve your Action Points refresh rate, Powered becomes more important for you. Powered increase your Action Points regeneration by 5%. If you are using consumables like Company Tea and Corn Soup, Action Points regeneration has less impact and is only B-Tier.

Hardy reduces the explosive damage you receive. This is less important than it was in the early days of Fallout 76, but it can still be of use.

Third Star Legendary Effect Tier List

The best defensive third-star legendary effect in Fallout 76 is Sentinel. Sentinel has a 75% chance to reduce damage by 15% while standing still.

These are the legendary effects from our tier list:

• Improved Sneaking makes you harder to detect while sneaking. In a stealth build, one or two pieces are helpful.
• Sentinel gives you a 75% chance to reduce the damage by 15% while standing still. This is the strongest defensive effect you can get.
• Cavalier gives you a 75% chance to reduce the damage by 15% while sprinting. Depending on your playstyle a combination of Sentinel and Cavalier can be very strong.
• Weapon Weight Reduction is a very popular effect but its effectiveness depends on how many weapons you carry. If you carry many weapons and survivability is not an issue, Weapon Weight Reduction will be S-Tier for you.
• Acrobat reduces your fall damage by 50%. If you die a lot from fall damage, try to get 1 or 2 pieces with Acrobat.

Fallout 76 Armor Set List

There are 17 different armor types in Fallout 76. Some of them have a light, sturdy, and heavy variant. They all have a chest, left arm, right arm, left leg, and right leg pieces.

* You can’t craft pieces but you can roll and re-roll legendary effects on them.
** Can also appear in Minerva’s inventory.

Armor Sets With Set Bonus in Fallout 76

A few of the newer introduced armor sets have a set bonus or additional effects on each piece.

Covert Scout Armor

Each piece of Covert Scout Armor gives you a sneak bonus.

Is it worth it? If you want to max out your stealth potential Covert Scout is the best armor. But there is a drawback: if you roll legendary effects on your Covert Scout Amor you need very specific legendary effects for a stealth build. With e.g. Secret Service Armor you could still keep some pieces for a more tanky non-stealth build, so your currency to roll legendary effects is not wasted.

Arctic Marine Armor

Each piece of Arctic Marine Armor increases your cyro resistance. Additionally, Arctic Marine Armor has slightly higher resistances compared to the default Marine Armor.

Is it worth it? For most players, the first use case that comes to mind for this armor set would be Daily Ops with freezing enemies. But sadly the added cyro resistance does not reduce the slow effect applied by enemies. Therefore, this set is not worth it for PvE. For PvP it is one of the strongest sets you can wear, to counter the dominant cyro weapons meta.

Thorn Armor

If you’re wearing a full set (chest, legs, and arms) you are harder to detect while sneaking and your enemies will bleed, if you attack them with a melee weapon or they attack you with a melee weapon.

Is it worth it? The Thorn Armor is great for melee builds (one-handed, two-handed, and unarmed). Stealth is always helpful for melee builds and the bleed effect does some noticeable damage.

Solar Armor

If you’re wearing a full set (chest, legs, and arms) you regenerate health for you and your nearby teammates, as long as your health is above 60%. This effect stacks if multiple players use the armor.

Is it worth it? The effect makes Solar Armor unusable for low-health builds, but unique and helpful for full-health builds. Generally, your Legendary Modules are better spent on e.g. Secret Service Armor because it’s more flexible and has more good rolls in terms of legendary effects.