I was talking with another player recently about armour. Most specifically that he wasn’t sure which class could use what. I think what throws a wrench into this for a lot of people is that they’re aware a lot of games allow player characters to utilize stronger and/or different equipment as they progress through the game.
LotRO is no different in this sense and it’s definitely helpful to know what you’ll be capable of using down the road. Obviously if you can’t use something at this point in time the item will be bordered by red. That doesn’t necessarily mean you can never use it, however.
People might tell you to just go look this up in the manual. Unfortunately, it only covers the first 20 levels of skills and some might wonder if there are additional armour proficiencies after that. You’ll be able to check all of that below.
Reading the Armour Pop-Up
Whenever you mouse over an item in the game you will be presented with a pop-up. For armour it should look something like this:
I’m going to quickly go over these sections and what they mean to you.
- Icon: Beyond just being an image of the equipment, the icon will be outlined in a border. The color of this border determines the value of the armor in rarity. If this border is red, the equipment cannot be used by your current character.
- Name: Much like the icon, the color of the name will allow you to determine the equipment’s rarity. White is common, yellow is uncommon, purple is rare, cyan is incomparable and orange is legendary.
- Binding: This gray text tells you whether the item Binds on Acquire (you can’t give it away or put it on the Auction House once it’s in your inventory) or Binds on Equip (you can’t give it away or put it on the Auction House once a character equips it for the first time). If the item doesn’t have a binding, nothing will appear here.
- Armour Weight: The white text tells you the armour’s weight: light, medium or heavy.
- Armour Value: The tan text tells you the general armor increase you will receive upon equipping.
- Bonuses: The green text lays out any additional bonuses you will receive when this armor is equipped. These may affect stats or give you additional protections. You may come across some equipment that offers a bonus “upon use”. You have to specifically use the equipment to activate this bonus (which will have a cooldown), but it doesn’t necessarily need to be equipped.
- Durability: The next bit of white text is the equipment’s durability. Getting attacked or defeated will lower the durability of your equipment. If the durability reaches zero, you will no longer be able to equip the item and it will have to be repaired. The more damaged and/or rare the equipment, the more money it will cost to repair it.This armour also has text that says “Tough” next to its durability amount. This means that this armour will degrade more slowly than normal armour.
- Exclusions: Any exclusions will be listed in red on the next line. Typically these will list the level you must be before equipping something. However, this line will also list equipment proficiencies you lack as well. So, for example, if you can’t use Heavy Armor that be displayed in this section.
- Worth: This is the value of the equipment if sold to the vendor. Equipment is worth more if fully repaired. Keep in mind that the vendor value can be extremely low. If you know an item is relatively rare and it’s not bound, try seeking it out on the Auction House first.The best example of this that I can give are shards. Vendors give a few silver for them, but they can sell between 50 silver to 1 gold on the Auction House at times.
Armour and Shield Allowances
Armour that can be used by classes at later levels require certain skills. Most armour increases are passive skills. Passive skills can be gained and will always be active without further action by the player. However, Class traits must be slotted, which is the case with the Champion’s Heavy Shield trait and the Minstrel’s Medium Armour trait (thanks to . All Level 1 skills are passive by default.
The following list is of armour types that each class can use. Armour comes in one of three weights: light, medium and heavy. Bear in mind that armour is inclusive, meaning that if you can wear Medium armour you can also wear Light armour.
Burglar:
- Level 1: Light Armour
- Level 10: Medium Armour (Passive Skill)
Captain:
- Level 1: Light Armour, Medium Armour
- Level 15: Shield Use (Passive Skill)
- Level 20: Heavy Armour (Passive Skill)
Champion:
- Level 1: Light Armour, Medium Armour
- Level 15: Shield Use (Passive Skill)
- Level 20: Heavy Armour (Passive Skill)
- Level 30: Heavy Shield Use (Class Trait)
Guardian:
- Level 1: Light Armour, Medium Armour, Shield Use
- Level 15: Heavy Shield Use (Passive Skill)
- Level 20: Heavy Armour (Passive Skill)
Hunter:
- Level 1: Light Armour
- Level 10: Medium Armour (Passive Skill)
Loremaster:
- Level 1: Light Armour
Minstrel:
- Level 1: Light Armour
- Level 15: Medium Armour (Class Trait)
- Level 20: Shield Use (Passive Skill)
Conclusions
I think the main thing to keep in mind as you consider what armor to use is that quest rewards are heavily based upon the level at which Turbine expects you to complete the quest. As such, grabbing quest rewards you won’t be able to use for several levels has little benefit (although something you could use in one or two more levels might be worth holding on to). More than likely you’ll be coming across something even better by the time you’re actually able to use that equipment.
I think this might be more useful to craftsmen out there who would like to know what items and equipment they can make that will benefit their class the entire game. This can definitely help inform your choice.
Now that you have more of an idea of what is usable for you, you might wonder what the heck to do with all of those quest rewards that are Bind on Acquire and can never be used by your character. Just pick the one that sells the most to vendors and grab that. Selling these items is all you can do, so you might as well make the most profit you can.
Contact Me!
If you’re new to LotRO and have questions or problems, feel free to write me and I’ll do my best to help you out in a future Tip Time segment. There’s no question too basic and chances are if you’re having that problem, someone else is. Hell, I probably had it myself!




Excellent guide! I’m not sure but I think you meant yellow where you say “green is uncommon”, or do I just suck so much I’ve never seen a greed item?
You’re right, fixed.
I think I’ll be handling weapon types next. I was absolutely confused when I first came across an enemy that had “protection” and my weapons weren’t damaging it at all.
Oooh, I’ll be looking forward to that one. I haven’t run into that problem yet. O.o
Sorry for not being around much by the way. With Mom having problems in the hospital I just didn’t feel like playing much. Good new is she’s doing a lot better now.
No need to apologize, I’m glad she’s doing better.
Nice guide!One issue — Minstrels get medium armor at level 15 as a class trait.
Rombreisu — You’re right. Thank you
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Nice article, well i prefer medium armor in almost every MMORPG, because I love offensive style
Champion is my favourite class in Lord of the Rings Online