Kody Wirth 
Image: Sharayah / HGG | Sources: Santa Monica Studio
Kody is our expert Destiny 2 and shooter genre writer. He lives in Oregon.
Reviewed by Benjamin Barr
God of War (2018) is a modern masterpiece and one of the best games of all time. Its success stemmed not only from how impressive the gameplay and story are, but how it was able to reinvent a well-loved franchise.
Gone are the massive, screen-sized encounters, hack-and-slash mechanics, rampant blood lust, and random sexual encounters across ancient Greece. In their place is a difficult and strategic exploration of Norse mythology framed around the story of a forlorn father attempting to connect with his son and bury the past. Almost everything was reinvented in this entry, including the addition of an RPG-like gear system.
With the official gameplay reveal of God of War: Ragnarok placing the highly anticipated sequel sometime in 2022, now is the best time to revisit the revised original. In this article, we’ve ranked the best armor in God of War from worst to best. So, if you’re diving in for the first time or attempting a New Game Plus run where you track down those deadly corrupted Valkyries, here is the best armor in God of War.
Best Armor in God of War, Ranked Worst to Best
Collecting armor in God of War is fairly common. Almost every encounter, chest, or secret includes some piece of gear or a rune for your troubles. However, some gear is only useful in specific situations, while others are only attainable in New Game Plus. You’ll want to pay attention to what works for your playstyle alongside searching for high-level sets that are truly the best of the best. Let’s get you started.
15. Protection Armor Set
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This Legendary set is fairly standard and falls somewhat close to the usefulness of the True Warrior set as a generalist piece of armor. It’s acquired fairly easily, only requiring Solid Svartalfheim Steel to do it. As far as the benefits it provides, the armor is solely focused on providing a solid defense, which explains the long-sleeve shirt-like appearance.
However, it’s worth picking up if you’re struggling to execute parries or just want to grind through minor encounters during the mid-game. It provides enough of a buff to make Kratos a bit more tanky, but that’s about it.
14. Blazing Magma Set
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This epic armor set truly reflects the name, covering Kratos in seemingly active pieces of magma and lava rock. Beyond just looking cool, it also grants you increased Strength and Defense and decreases ability cooldowns. Of course, it wouldn’t be a fiery-themed armor set if there wasn’t some burn damage to go along with it.
The Magma Shield skill it offers provides you with a chance to activate a fiery shield that deflects incoming damage and burns enemies. Just know you won’t be able to obtain it until late in the game, as you’ll need to earn Smoldering Ember from Muspelheim.
13. True Warrior Set
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This Armor Set can be purchased from Brok and Sindri and provides a surprisingly well-rounded set of stat boosts. Only requiring Svartalfheim Steel and/or Hacksilver, it’s well worth obtaining early on to increase your Strength, Defense, Vitality, and the number of enchantment sockets you have available.
Keep in mind that it can only be upgraded twice and really serves as base-level armor for you to run in non-specialized encounters. However, the Defense stat alone (maxing out over 100) can make it incredibly useful even in the end game.
12. Ivaldi’s Cursed Mist Set
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One of three armor sets attributed to Ivaldi, this one ranks lowest due to how difficult it is to obtain and upgrade. It grants increased Strength, Runic, and Defense stats while providing a small amount of continuous health regeneration, making it very useful in the deadly mists of Niflheim. This can stack up to five times given the right conditions and a few upgrades, but it can take a while since it requires plenty of Mist Echoes to do it.
It’s truly a good armor set but lacks some additional boosts to make the health regeneration truly shine. If it had increased Vitality or decreased cooldown, it would be far more useful.
11. Ancient Armor Set
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The Ancient Armor set can be found incredibly early on and just requires a few Ancient Hearts and Ancient Rubble to craft. Once you do, you’ll earn some minor buffs to Strength, Runic, and Defense, along with the Elemental Shielding perk. This does exactly what you think, providing minor damage resistance against Frost, Burn, and Poison attacks.
This is stacked up to 45% resistance with each piece of armor, making it much easier to take on elemental-infused enemies near the start of the game. If you’re not running a defensive build, this is your next best bet.
10. Traveler Armor Set
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Unlocking the Traveler Armor set not only nets you a sweet perk, but also grants you the ‘Path of the Zealot’ trophy. To craft it, you’ll need to take down a handful of Travellers to earn Armor Shards and Grisly Trophy items. Once you’ve snagged the full set you’ll earn a sizable increase to your Strength, Defense, and Vitality, along with a few more Enchantment slots.
Pretty standard stuff, except for the Protection of the Traveler perk you also obtain. This allows you to tank one hit without taking any damage, which can be a nice freebie in boss fights and other difficult encounters. It’s especially useful in the Muspelheim challenge where you can’t get hit, basically giving you one chance to mess up.
9. Sindri’s Royal Dwarven Set
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It only makes sense that Sindri’s armor set focuses on wildly upgrading your Runic abilities. With large boosts to your Runic and Cooldowns featured alongside a high Defense stat, it makes it far easier to spam abilities and absorb damage. If you’re running all three pieces, you also earn the Arcan Protective perk. This has the chance to protect you from all attacks when using a Runic ability, along with a boost to any Burn and Frost damage.
While the upgrades for it are pretty minimal, it honestly does more than enough with what you get from the start. If you’re one who likes running abilities over standard combat, it’s worth investing in.
8. Brok’s Royal Dwarven Set
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The other Dwarf brother’s armor set functions similarly in many ways, but in a more aggressive manner. It has minimal upgrades and gives you large boosts in three stat categories, although it’s your Strength, Defense, and Luck this time around. This makes for a far more combat-centric set of armor designed to get you in the fray with the hope of not receiving damage or landing more critical hits.
Getting up close and personal is further augmented by the fact that each piece increases the regeneration rate of your rage meter. It doesn’t provide other damage benefits, but the ability to go virtually invincible more regularly may be enough.
7. Smoldering Brimstone Set
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Another set of armor locked behind the Muspelheim challenge mode, it’s well worth grinding for as quickly as possible. It grants increases to your Strength, Defense, and Vitality, making it a well-rounded boost to your base combat stats. Each piece also grants the Aura of Fire perk, which has a decent chance of providing you with increased Strength and minor health regeneration after you take a hit.
That’s really why this set is so valuable. It’s fairly easy to unlock, grants solid stat boosts, and includes a perk with a high likelihood of popping. What more could you want?
6. Valkyrie Set
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Hopefully, you don’t mind a challenge — this armor set requires you to take down all nine Valkyries to unlock every piece. This only makes it useful in New Game Plus, but it’s actually worth the challenge if you like to spam runic abilities. Aside from the base 30+ Runic stat, and increases in Strength, Defense, and Vitality, you also get the Arcane Runic perk.
This has the chance to wildly decrease your cooldown on runic abilities. It can pop fairly often, making it highly likely that you can continuously use Runic abilities with little to no downtime. Just remember that this will take a while to unlock. While it does give you a leg up in New Game Plus, it may not be worth all that pain.
5. Ivaldi’s Endless Mist Set
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Another Ivaldu set, this time with a high Defense stat increase alongside decent benefits for Strength and Vitality. This makes it a far more offensive version that still benefits from the minor health regeneration ability. However, while it does add the Vitality boost that Cursed Mist was missing, it completely throws out any Runic ability benefits.
This makes it a far more specialized piece of armor. You’ll want to be sure you’re alright with the longer Runic downtimes as a tradeoff for being far more spongy in encounters.
4. Fallen Ash Set
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The Fallen Ash Set is badass and certainly among the best armor in God of War 4. As the name suggests, this is another set that requires materials from Muspelheim. This is also the best of the bunch, requiring a few more materials to unlock in exchange for reasonable increases to Defense and Strength. Oh, and there’s a ridiculous perk called Retaliation of Fire, which causes the chance to unleash concussive burn damage to nearby enemies whenever you’re hit.
That’s right, this causes damage when you take damage, and each piece you wear increases the chance of activation. It’s one of those sets that activates more often than necessary, making it incredibly useful against tougher enemies and larger swarms of minor combatants.
3. Ivaldi’s Armor of Deadly Mist Set
Image: Santa Monica Studio
The last (and best) version of Ivaldi’s Armor combines everything that makes the others so useful. That’s right, this set includes solid increases to Strength, Runic, Defense, and Vitality, alongside the minor health regeneration of the others. It’s a far more balanced and useful build outside of the Svartalfheim maze, making you both capable of offensive and defensive positions.
It will take a bit more to get, so it may be worth unlocking one of the other options first before you make the grind for this one.
2. Armor of Ares Set
Image: Santa Monica Studio
It wouldn’t be a God of War game without here being a reference to Ares and Kratos’ past. Of course, this armor set is all about unleashing devastation and taking hits when they come. It provides some of the highest boosts to Strength, Defense, Luck, and your cooldown timer, all within the same set.
Then there’s the Rage Field perk, which supercharges the regeneration speed of your Rage meter while also slowing how quickly you use it. It does remove a chunk of your Rage bar in exchange, but this armor may be the only thing that brings the semi-reboot close to feeling like the original series. Don it and hack-and-slash to your heart’s desire.
1. Armor of Zeus Set
Image: Santa Monica Studio
What’s the best armor in God of War? The Armor of Zeus set. There’s a history in the God of War games where anything related to Zeus is the best item in the game. That also goes for the Armor of Zeus, which provides a stat boost of 145 to Strength, Defense, and Runic. In short, it’s meant to make you a strategic but offensive powerhouse that doesn’t require rage to get the job done.
If that wasn’t enough, it includes a perk known as Glass Ballista, which wildly increases your base attack damage while also increasing the damage you take. Unfortunately, this armor is locked behind defeating the Valkyries in New Game Plus, making it far less useful but no less exciting to unlock.
Join the High Ground
Hopefully this guide helped you outfit yourself with the best armor in God of War to make a successful refresher run before Ragnarok comes in 2022. Be sure to let your friends know which armor is worth pursuing by sharing this article on your favorite social channels. And for more guides on God of War and other games, sign up for our newsletter to stay in the know.
Happy gaming!
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