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The best armor in Assassin's Creed Valhalla

assassin's creed valhalla best armor
(Image credit: Ubisoft)

The best armor in Assassin's Creed Valhalla (opens in new tab) isn't necessarily some special set buried in the toughest optional quest or endgame grind. The best armor in Valhalla is whatever you want it to be. Unlike the armor system in Odyssey where new loot dropped from every other dead guard, Assassin's Creed's trip to a more primitive setting in Valhalla is accompanied by a much simpler armor system. 

Let's go over how it all works, which should help you figure out how to get the best armor in Assassin's Creed Valhalla to match your playstyle.

Need to know

Assassin's Creed Valhalla best armor - eivor

(Image credit: Ubisoft)

How armor works in Assassin's Creed Valhalla

There are fewer armor sets and weapons in Valhalla than Odyssey, but they all come with unique stats geared towards focused character builds that lean into whatever playstyle you prefer. There's melee, archery, and stealth, and special affinities within each. 

Any armor you find is aligned with The Way of the Raven, The Way of the Wolf, or The Way of the Bear:

  • Raven gear tends to give stealth bonuses
  • Wolf gear tends to go archery
  • Way of the Bear leans into melee

Set bonuses only kick in if you have five out of five armor pieces equipped at once, a surprising ask. I was hoping to see some cross-pollination worked in between alignments, but nah.

The key to finding the best armor in Valhalla is deciding which archetype best suits your playstyle, then committing to a set of gear that supports it early on. Why? Because every piece of armor has a long, worthwhile upgrade path. Rather than trust invisible dice rolls to dole out the truly good stuff, you can simply improve the gear you love the best and carry it with you throughout the entire game. 

By collecting special crafting resources like tungsten, nickel, and carbide ingots you can improve the equipment quality (the loot 'rarity') of an item. Doing so increases how many times you can improve each piece individually to juice the basic stats, while opening up new rune slots for extra stat boosts. 

Simply put: if you love how a certain set looks and/or love the set bonus it provides, you can slowly upgrade it to the top-tier Mythical status, it's just going to take time and resources. It's not a perfect system, especially if you pour a ton of resources into a set early on only to stumble on another set that looks or suits your build better, but it also means you never have to say goodbye to your favorite looks and stat bonuses.

So if you're looking for the best armor in Assassin's Creed Valhalla, just trust your heart. The real dilemma is figuring out where to find all those precious armor upgrade materials.

Building blocks

Assassin's Creed Valhalla best armor resources

(Image credit: Ubisoft)

Where to find armor upgrade material in Valhalla

Where to find carbide ingots, nickel ingots, and tungsten ingots

You'll find ingots wandering the map. Look for the nodes of light that take the shape of three bars of gold when you get close enough. Chances are you'll need to solve a navigation puzzle or clear out some guards to reach the chest. 

Where to find leather and iron ore

The best way to stock up on leather is to go hunting. Shooting and looting animals will keep your stocks up. And while you're wandering be sure to scout for glowing rock formations. Mashing these will gift you a couple units of iron.

But if you're sitting on a hefty pile of coins, I recommend finding a local merchant and buying out their entire stock of leather and iron. If you can afford it, you can walk away with about 200 units of each resource. 

Follow your heart

Assassin's Creed Valhalla best armor

(Image credit: Ubisoft)

How to get the best armor for you in Valhalla

Find the best balance of fashion and function

Trust yourself here. Don't sweat min-maxing your build. Just play naturally, do what you find most fun, and then start committing to an armor set. If you're an aggressive player, look into Bear sets. If you love a mix of archery and light weaponry, the Wolf class might do it for you. If you can't let go of the series' stealth roots, eyeball Raven aligned armor. Once you find a set that suits you, both in form and function, start investing upgrades into it. 

Spec into your armor affinity 

To get the most out of your armor, be sure to invest skill points into the nodules that increase stat bonuses for specific alignments. You'll find them scattered around each denoted section of the skill tree. 

Respec with reckless abandon

And don't worry if you dump all your skill points into the Bear section of the skill tree only to fall in love with some Wolf armor later. You can respec your skill points at any time, for free. Experiment!

Don't upgrade your armor quality until you're truly ready

Make sure you're ready to commit before spending too many resources on an armor set. Ingots in particular aren't easy to come by, each representing time spent exploring, solving a puzzle, or emptying out an enemy fortress.

If you're desperate...

Bump down the difficulty and just roll with what you think looks nice. But if you want some extremely powerful stuff and/or unique right away, you can always spend money on microtransactions. We don't recommend it though. That stuff jumps the power curve and will trivialize most challenges. Save it for the late game when you know all you'll be playing for the next few months is more Valhalla and can spare the change. 

James Davenport
James Davenport
