Final Fantasy II/Armor

The role of armor in Final Fantasy 2 has some controversial aspects.

Armor reduces the damage inflicted to a character, and this sounds good. On the other hand, a character who receives lots of damage improves his/her maximum HP, stamina, basic defense and basic evasion.

Therefore, it could be advisable not to buy armor. In the earliest parts of the game, the characters will not only suffer damage, thus increasing the aforementioned attributes, but also will have to use often the Cure spell, thus some of them will increase their maximum MP, magic and wisdom.

Later in the game, several good armor parts can be found for free in the dungeons, and some of them have special properties (elemental protection, status ailment prevention, attributes improvement).

Armor parts with special effects
The following two tables list armor parts with special effects: attribute bonuses, prevention of status ailments, elemental protection. The number before every item is its physical defense value; the percentage before a shield name is its evasion bonus. Items that appear in more than one cell are highlighted in bold.