Assassin's Creed Odyssey Armor: best armor for the early & late game, plus engraving explained

Did you hear the news? Assassin's Creed is a full-blown RPG series now, and Assassin's Creed Odyssey is the most RPG entry to date. One thing that comes with being a proper RPG is lots of gear and loot - and that includes an absolute slew of armor, all with unique perks, bonuses and downsides.

Assassin's Creed Odyssey is ultimately all about choice - choosing your protagonist, choosing your horse companion, picking a character to romance, and indeed choosing the look and functionality of your armor for maximum protection in battle. On this page we're going to offer some suggestions - running down a quick explanation of the armor system, explaining how to engrave and then finally finishing up with some suggestions of armor we recommend - first for your early adventures in Ancient Greece and then for the late game as you run up to and even see one of the game's 9 endings, when optimized set-ups really matter. Here we go...

Assassin's Creed Odyssey armor rarity and set bonus explained

If you're a more experienced old hand at RPGs this might be old hat to you, but given that Assassin's Creed has been pushing into the RPG space across its last couple of entries, Odyssey might also be the first encounter with traditional RPG gear rarity charts for many a player. As such, it's important to quickly touch on how they work...

So, here's the rub: there are four main rarities of item in Assassin's Creed Odyssey, and this applies to armor, too. They're color coded for ease of spotting which is which in the menus, and they are:

• Common (Black) - easily found, featuring one stat bonus
• Rare (Blue) - still fairly common, but a little less so. Has two stat bonuses
• Epic (Purple) - more worthwhile, powerful items - but harder to find. Usually has three stat bonuses
• Legendary (Gold) - the rarest armor, often featuring two stat bonuses but a significant 'set bonus'

Obviously beyond this each armor piece has a base armor rating too, and the better and rarer the armor the more likely it is to have higher stats that'll be more impressive in protecting Alexios or Kassandra. 

Armor doesn't come as one clean set, either. There are five armor slots in Assassin's Creed Odyssey: head, arms, torso, waist and legs. This means you can mix-and-match pieces of armor from different sets to create a cool look or a unique combination of stat bonuses that suit your play style - but this has a knock-on effect on Legendary Armor pieces in particular.

So, here's a thing to keep in mind: Legendary Armor usually has only two stat bonuses, with the third powerful bonus limited to a golden 'set bonus' boost. You only get this set bonus when you equip all of an armor set together. That means that even if you have four of five pieces of legendary armor equipped, that might be less effective than equipping a bunch of Epic Armor instead. That's because without the set bonus Legendary armor will generally only have two stat bonuses per piece - while individually equipped Epic armor will have three each. Keep that in mind.

Engraving: how to engrave armor in Assassin's Creed Odyssey

Another important thing to keep in mind in Assassin's Creed Odyssey is the act of engraving - a little bit of blacksmith action that allows you to add additional stat boosts to your favorite pieces of equipment, including armor.

Engravings are unlocked through your completion of various in-game challenges, many of which you'll do naturally in the coruse of the game by just taking part in the various activities - hunting, assasinating, engaging enemies in combat and so on. Legendary rarity items will also unlock an associated legendary engraving when you first obtain them.

Once you have engraving available, you simply need to visit a blacksmith to then engrave. It'll cost you, so choose carefully and make sure that the gear you choose to engrave is some you'll get extended use of. On that topic...

Assassin's Creed Odyssey: the best early armor for your first adventures

When you first start out, Assassin's Creed Odyssey does give you a little equipment to be going on with - but honestly, it doesn't have that much utility and you'll want to change it out almost straight away. Here's the problem: loot is fairly randomized in Assassin's Creed Odyssey, so it's difficult to outright recommend a specific piece when there's no way to guarantee you'll find it.

With that said, we recommend you keep an eye out for pieces of the Persian Warrior armor set, which appeared for us relatively early on and became a key piece of early-game armor. Likewise for the Athenian Champion armor set pieces - these are decent ones to keep an eye out for. 

The best super-early game set is one specific one, however: the Mercenary Armor Set. It's a common/rare set, meaning it really can be found early on quite easily. This isn't a particular high-stat set, but of the common armor sets it's one of the ones with the most utility that'll last you the longest. It looks decent, too.

The Best Late-Game, Legendary Armor Sets in Assassin's Creed Odyssey

Assassin's Creed Odyssey has a whole lot of Legendary Armor Sets. These ridiculously rare armor sets are many - this isn't the sort of RPG where there's one or two perfect end-game armor sets and that's it. Instead there's a slew of them covering all sorts of different character builds and combat styles - and truth be told, you'll probably want to have a few in your inventory and switch between them depending on the situation.

Below, we're going to note some of our favourites of Assassin's Creed Odyssey's Legendary Armor sets, running over their bonuses and why they're good - plus, of course, how to get them. Here's our top picks:

• Athenian War Hero Armor Set
  • This armor set is a classic Ancient Greek look. Each piece worn ups the damage done to Spartan Warriors, while the set bonus makes your arrows pierce shields - allowing you to rip through those annoying defensive enemies.
  • This armor is grabbed through completing the Delian Leage Cult.
• Amazon Armor Set (Kassandra only)
  • The Amazon Armor Set is getting another nickname from fans - the Wonder Woman armor set! This is a great reason to own this armor alone, but the set bonus is even better: it heals you as you deal damage, while the set itself just boosts your vitality in general.
  • Get this set through the Heroes of the Cult - wipe out that cult to get all the pieces.
• Achilles Armor Set (Alexios only)
  • The Achilles Armor Set is an equal to the Amazon Armor Set above, though it's for Alexios. It's actually identical - so you get the same great healing and vitality bonuses as with the Amazon Armor set.
  • It's also earned in the same way - set your sights on the Heroes of the Cult. 
• Demigod Armor Set
  • The Demigod Armor set is about your skill damage. It gives significant buffs, adding 10% bonus to all damage dished out via abilities.
  • Four pieces of this are gathered from the family chunk of the main story - the fifth will be dropped by the final cult leader.
• Immortal Armor Set
  • The Immortal Armor Set is another Persian-looking armor, but it's legendary in stat terms. This armor set is defined by its set bonus - when all pieces are equipped, you'll get a passive skill that instantly restores 20% health upon death. It's basically the second-chance armor.
  • To get the Immortal Armor Set, you'll need to tackle the Cult of Kosmos - specifically the Worshippers of the Bloodline sect of that cult.
• Pirate Armor Set
  • The Pirate Armor Set is a more traditional Assassin's Creed looking set, and it's actually got a more traditional bonus: if assassinations are your thing, this is the one. You get 15% additional assassin damage when the full set is equipped.
  • To get the pirate set, target the God of the Aegean Sea Cult - the cult members will drop the pieces.
• Spartan War Hero Set
  • This set is all about dishing out damage. Each set boosts your damage to Athenian Warriors - so it's the opposite of the Athenian War Hero set. The full set gives you a 15% damage boost bonus. 
  • To unlock this armor, you'll want to target the Peloponnesian League Cult, who drop the pieces.