Pop quiz, hotshot: you’re out of food, your water makes your canteen glow green, and the last human being you saw worshiped a giant moth. You’ve got to crawl out of your shelter and into the nightmarish hellscape beyond - so what are you going to do to defend yourself? You’re going to grab your trusty sidearm and maybe a chainsaw if you’re wise enough, but what are you supposed to wear to an apocalypse?

Oh, and did I mention you’re entirely out of fusion cores? That big walking tank you’ve got in storage is barely going to be able to move at a crawl - so maybe you should do what your ancestors did, and hunt on foot.

You (Don’t) Got the Power.

Stormtrooper or Space Marine? The choice is yours.

Armor in Fallout 76 generally falls into two different categories: Power Armor, which allows you to absorb a lot of punishment, carry a lot of gear, and deal massive amounts of damage; and regular, non-power armor that allows you to move faster, sneak around, use workbenches and crafting stations to their fullest, and it doesn’t require you to consume Fusion Cores whenever you want to go for a stroll.

Non-power Armor builds are entirely viable. Most of the major combat builds in the game don’t even bother with it. It generally just depends on your personal playstyle. I prefer PA, but there are days when I want to grab my Western Spirit or a Crusader Pistol, slip into a suit of Brotherhood Recon and breeze through the daily challenges. 

You do have trade offs to consider:. Power Armor is just that - armor. It makes tanking hits a lot easier. You get more perks when using Heavy Weapons. You can carry more equipment. You can automatically and instantly use stimpacks and other chems without a ‘using’ animation.

Regular armor (like the ones listed below) allow you to move faster - a lot faster, in most cases. You have perks that allow you to do more damage, use less AP when sprinting, and it makes stealth significantly easier (allowing you to take advantage of perk cards that give you a bonus to sneak attacks). You’re a little more fragile, but you can make up for that with just general ease of use. 

One of the strongest build types in the game primarily involves regular armor - if you don’t mind getting a little bloodied first.

The Radioactive Glass Cannon

If you can’t tell, THAT’S the important part: the Unyielding Legendary effect.

While there are two main armor categories in 76, there are also two main build types: Bloodied, which focuses on using weapons with the Bloodied effect - and full health builds, which more or less use everything else. Bloodied builds grant you a boost to your DPS the lower health you are, which means you’ll need to consume sources of radiation (like Toxic Goo and the giant glowing asteroid C.A.M.P. item ) to keep your overall health to a minimum.

But with that is another effect - Unyielding. Unyielding is an effect for your armor that grants you +3 to all stats (except Endurance) the lower your health is to a maximum of +15 with five pieces of Unyielding equipped. If you plan to roll with Bloodied weapons, Unyielding is going to be your go-to choice for Legendary mods.

Don’t get me wrong - you will do a lot of damage that way. You’ll also die a lot on a bad day. However, the penalties for dying generally are fairly minor. On the flip, you can effectively one-shot 99% of the game, so it’s genuinely a personal preference. 

If you don’t think that the risk of being able to be killed by a sneezing fit from a Scorched with a head cold is fun, you have a lot more flexibility. In terms of the meta-game, you can play around with Junkies (if you love chowing down on chems), Mutants (if you’re rocking plenty of mutations), or if you’re generally a fat and rich wastelander, Aristocrats and Gourmands. There’s also Vanguard if you want to take being a full-health tank seriously, but that one is a little better suited to Power Armor than it is regular.

All of that being said, you actually have to be wearing armor if you want any of those effects.

5. Combat Armor / Marine Armor

I’m an Army boy, in an Army world; wrapped in plastic, it’s fantastic!

Armor, as defined in 76, is far more complicated than it has to be, and truthfully? The lower level armors provide way too many different options than what you actually need. You have your choices of Raider, Wood, Leather, Combat, Robot and Marine; and then the game throws plans at you for things called “Heavy,” or “Sturdy,” or “Shadowed,” and it just…

…honestly, it can get overwhelming. So let me go point blank here: the majority of your armor in the early game does not matter. As long as it has higher defensive stats than whatever you were wearing, wear it. If it doesn’t, don’t. With that knowledge in mind, if you’re fresh to the game, Combat Armor is a solid choice.

Combat armor scales starting at level 20 on up (though with the changes in December 2023, you can START playing FO76 at level 20!) and it provides reasonable damage resistance and energy resistance across the board. You can wear underarmor with it if you find some, and you can easily mod it (dense and deep-pocketed are my favorites). 

One more thing - Marine Armor? It can spawn in some of the same places as Combat Armor, but it’s a bit more rare - though it’s just as good. It doesn’t have the same protection as Heavy Combat Armor by the time you hit 50, but it’s right there in the “it just works” department.

Pros

• It gets the job done. It doesn’t have a full set bonus, so you can mix and match it with other pieces of other types of armor and still be happy.
• The plans can be learned from a variety of methods - you may find them in a building with glass display cases in Harpers Ferry or through the Free States Questline. You’ll also just find them on random drops from the creatures you encounter in the wastelands, and just generally scattered all over.
• You can also buy the plans from player vendors. 
• You can put Legendary effects on these.
• You’ll have a good chance of finding these with Legendary effects already on them on Legendary creatures.

Cons

• It’s not heavy-duty, but with the state of the game in early 2024, you don’t need it to be.
• Because the plans are varied and random, it may take you a while to know all of them.

4. Chinese Stealth Armor

If you play to the Rule of Cool, it’s hard to get much cooler than this.

So first things first: you can get this armor in only three ways. You either need to side with the Settlers and complete the quest “Invisible Ties,” as part of one of the major main questlines and learn the plans, or you can buy them once you have ‘neighborly’ faction with them (after a lot of faction grinding). Ooor you can wait for Minerva to have the bootleg plans for sale. 

Why bother though? Well, CSA is a quest reward which makes it generally easier than finding special plans - and if you’re earning Treasury Notes like mad through your daily adventuring, getting it from Minerva early might make your life a little easier. 

The big part of it is that for a lower-level player or someone who’s focusing on soloing their way through the first fifty levels for the endgame meta, it grants a major boost in stealth. I admit that I didn’t get to use it very much as a lower-level player but if sneaking and shooting is your jam, this one will tide you over for a while.

Pros:

• CSA offers outstanding radiation protection; there’s next to nothing that matches it.
• The plan is a quest reward.
• It scales from level 25 to level 50, so you can make new ones as you level up.
• Minerva sells the plans on occasion.
• You take less fall damage while wearing it.
• Whenever you crouch, you gain Stealth Boy effects automatically. Combined with perk cards that drop your agro completely whenever you’re in stealth, and you’ve got a pretty powerful ability.

Cons:

• It’s only one piece (as opposed to the typical 5), and the overall damage resistance is much much lower than anything you’ll want to wear if you plan on taking a hit.
• You cannot give this armor legendary effects. It is what it is, and if you don’t like it, you won’t get to use it.

3. Covert Scout Armor

KABAL WINS. FLAWLESS VICTORY.

Now we’re getting complicated. Covert Scout Armor is good. It’s really freaking good. It’s good, and compared to our #2 item, it’s easy to grind for. Unfortunately, it is a grind, and while you’re grinding, you’ve got a chance to get our #1 item at almost the same time.

(This) CSA can be crafted starting at level 40. The chest has a base level 40 damage resistance of 50 points, and 60 at level 50 - before any mods you put on it. You also gain a passive ability for improved stealth in dark areas, and let’s be honest, this is the apocalypse, not a well-lit sunny day (usually). Unlike Chinese Stealth Armor, this is a five-item piece (six if you count the mask) and offers strong damage and energy resistance. The radiation resistance? It’s lacking. A lot.

The plans? Well, that’s a downside.

Pros:

• Can be imbued with Legendary effects.
• Can be modded (again, I always go with ‘dense’ and ‘deep pocket).
• Can receive a variety of paint jobs for looks.
• Is impressively strong for level 40 armor.

Cons:

• You can’t trade the plans. They drop in Daily Ops as a rare reward, so expect a lot of days working for Dodge to get them (but you can get other good plans in DOs, too, so it’s not a wash).
• You can also buy them from Minerva, but if you plan to spend your gold - don’t spend it on this. Look for our #2 and #1 ranked armor pieces instead.

2. Thorn Armor

Thorn Armor: it’s a real pain in the… well. It’s a pain in the everything if you use it right.

Compared to everything else on this list, Thorn is extremely hard to get. But it works. It works  well enough to stand out from Covert Scout and Marine, or everything but Brotherhood and Secret Service - if you decide you’re willing to put in the grind. Let’s cut to the chase on this one: the perk for Thorn Armor is that it does damage instead of just protecting you against it. 

When you wear a full set of Thorn, it does 100 points of bleeding damage over 10 seconds if you get hit by a melee attack. Or if you hit something with a melee attack, it adds an extra 250 points over 10 seconds - and while that’s not much, if you combine it with an automatic melee weapon (like a chainsaw or auto axe), you’re adding a not-insignificant DPS boost to your day.

The problem is how you get it. It’s a lot of effort for something that is cool but doesn’t defend as well as pieces that are much easier to get (including our #1 armor). I’m not saying don’t bother, but I am saying that armor goes, while this is unique enough to earn the #2 spot, it absolutely isn’t the #1.

But… will you ever wear a full suit of Thorn? That’s up to you, The Treasury, The Enclave, and Vault Steel.

Pros:

• You don’t see people wearing it often so you will stand out a bit if you’re going by the Rule of Cool.
• It comes with inherent stealth bonuses that make you hard to see, hard to find, and it allows you to really take advantage of the melee aspects of the set.
• It doesn’t have the worst damage resistance - at level 50, it’s a base of 50.

Cons:

• Crafting a piece takes a Legendary Module (fine) but also takes 10 Vault Steel (and that’s IF you have level 3 Armorsmith equipped). Vault Steel is bought from The Purveyor at a rate of 10 scrips per 100, and you have to wait a full day between restocks once you buy them out.
• You can’t re-roll the effects. Once you make it, if you don’t like what perks come with it, you have to make a new one - so you’ll burn through Steel pretty fast.
• Oh, and the plans? Bouillon. The mods? Bought from the Enclave vendors at steep rates.

1. Brotherhood Recon or Secret Service 

The Alaskan Winter is a special paint job. The rest of it? It’s just how I roll… ed my legendary effects and I’m too lazy to try to reroll to get something better than Antiseptic. I should, because AS just isn’t that good. Regenerating, on the other hand, is a useful quality of life effect.

It’s meta time! Brotherhood Recon and Secret Service armor do basically the same thing with slightly different stats. The only noticeable difference is how the game calculates those stats, and that’s… a deep headache that isn’t worth getting into here. The short form is that Fallout’s damage resistance and damage mitigation functions operate on a diminishing returns curve meaning that the higher they go, the less they do.

End of day, I am not a math guy, so I am going to skip that for the sake of you, me, and everyone else involved.

Where you get the plans varies. Brotherhood Recon Armor plans come from Daily Ops (the same place that Covert Scout Armor plans come from). The mods come from Regs in Vault 79 and sometimes Minerva on her special sales. This does mean you need to complete a big chunk of the main quest and it does mean you need to spend Gold Bullion (like you do for Thorn armor).

Secret Service, on the other hand, can be bought from Regs and Minerva at your leisure - no Daily Ops required. Ultimately, this means you can get the plans (and the mods) from just effectively existing in the world. Do Public Events for Treasury Notes as often as you can, buy gold from Smiley in the Wayward once a week, watch for Minerva’s sales, and take advantage of Gold Rush weekends to farm all the gold you need and you can get it relatively easily.

Pros

• Arguably the best damage resistance non-PA armor in the game between the two sets.
• You can get a jetpack with this armor as a mod (although if you use the Marsupial mutation, you don’t need it - free tip).
• While the Recon armor takes Daily Ops, the Secret Service doesn’t, so obtaining a full suit is particularly convenient.
• Can be modded with Legendary effects to your heart’s content.

Cons

• It’s a grind. The plans aren’t tradable, so you’ve got DO’s to do and stacks of GB’s to farm.
• That’s the only real con. Once you have it you don’t need anything else.
• It’s… okay, it’s mostly bland. There’s only a few paint jobs that have been implemented in the game for either type, and usually they’re not impressive. At least you can wear an outfit over them. 

There you have it. Remember the rule of thumb: if the radiation cloud is bigger than your thumb, you’re in harm's way. Oh, wait. No, that’s wrong. Don’t do that. You’re in harm's way. Run.

Remember the REAL rule of thumb: at the early levels, wear whatever has the best stats that you can possibly find. It’s the wasteland and scavenging for scrap, food, caps, and gear is a big part of the early levels. In the later levels, as you grind through Daily Ops and even Expeditions, you’ll run across what you need as you progress. Yes, it doesn’t hurt to have a plan, and yes, learning what playstyle is right for you will define the type of armor and weapons you have fun with.

But absolutely don’t walk around naked. 

And hey, if you enjoyed all of these, consider these other articles from GamersDecide about Fallout and what you can expect in the wasteland of wonders that is Appalachia! 

[Top 10] Fallout 76 Best Weapons in the Game

[Top 5] Fallout 76 Best Builds in the Game with Legendary Effects

[Top 10] Fallout 76 Best Armors To Use (Early To Late Game)