Your final line of defense against the blades and fangs of this dark world, armor provides protection against physical and elemental damage, and resistance to status effects. Armor’s defensive benefits stack with those provided by your personal stats, so as you level, you naturally take less damage overall, though a suit of heavy plate will always provide more raw physical reduction than a dress!
Armor in Dark Souls is largely about tradeoffs between weight and protection. Any suit of armor is viable throughout the game, as lightweight armor leaves you nimble enough to dodge most incoming attacks, while heavy armor lets you absorb more damage directly. The Poise value on armor is important, as it provides protection from flinching when you take damage during an attack. High Poise allows you to ignore harder hits, and Poise is particularly important for avoiding stunlocks from multiple rapid enemy attacks, and for ensuring that your slow and hard hitting swings find their target.
Because you can change armor at any time, think of your armor as a situation-specific tool to help you get through areas. Facing the poisonous swamp? Stock up on high poison resist armor. Heading into the depths of the Smouldering Lake? Fire resistance can come in handy. Up against a boss with lethal magic attacks? You know what to do. In general, lighter armor tends to have higher elemental defense, and heavier armor better physical defense, while status effect resistance varies across many armor pieces. You can usually get away with ignoring status resistance attributes, excepting Curse (which is extremely deadly in the few areas that have Curse inflicting enemies), if you bring along enough curative items. However it’s usually pretty easy to find a mix of armor pieces that have similar weight to what you normally wear and provide extra resists suitable for an area, so if you’re exploring an area with a lot of Bleed inflicting foes, its worth taking a few moments to swap some gear around. A rare few armor pieces (often helms) provide some unique effects, check their in-game descriptions as you acquire new armor.
There is no one single ‘best’ suit of armor, as much depends on the weight your stats will allow and how much speed you personally prefer, so feel free to mix and match individual pieces as you see fit. And of course, we won’t judge if you choose to play a bit of Fashion Souls, looking sharp is important for the undead...
