As you journey through Sanctuary and sort through the mounds of loot, some pieces have more utility than others. Whether you’re looking to upgrade your own gear, increase your Follower’s power level, or need to fill out Kanai’s Cube, these are the most versatile armor pieces in Diablo 3.
From helms and shoulders to legs and feet, there are a lot of armor slots to collect for. For the purposes of this list, the items included are the most versatile pieces that can benefit the most amount of classes and scenarios. Shields are part of the Best Weapons list, see that article for more items to look out for.
10 The Witching Hour
The Witching Hour is an excellent belt for any class and can even be the best-in-slot for some builds. If your character benefits from Increased Attack Speed, this belt is an unrivaled stat stick that grants a big power spike.
The other primary stat on The Witching Hour is one of the best in the game, Increased Critical Hit Damage. While it’s not useful in Kanai’s Cube or on a Follower, The Witching Hour can be extremely useful. Until you’ve found your best-in-slot, it’s hard to beat The Witching Hour.
9 Ice Climbers
The major benefit of having Ice Climbers is its ability to grant immunity to Freeze and Immobilize effects. Particularly strong when fighting elite packs or bosses, being able to move around freely is crucial.
While they can be equipped or extracted into the Cube, Ice Climbers is known as being the best-in-slot boots for your Follower. Followers rely on casting their crowd-control abilities, so staying active is their most important characteristic. If a Follower is immobilized, their utility drops through the ground, so get them some Ice Climbers.
8 Illusory Boots
Similar to the secondary effect of a Speed Pylon, equipping Illusory Boots allows you to move through enemies unhindered. For support builds, this can be a massive advantage. Grouping up monsters and allowing them to surround you is the goal of a zero-damage build, but you never want to be stuck.
When attempting to clear higher Greater Rifts, monsters become massive bullet sponges. If you don’t clear enemies fast enough, they can quickly surround and overwhelm you. Having a way to quickly escape danger can be the difference between clearing a Rift and getting wiped out.
7 Leoric’s Crown
Leoric’s Crown has a very powerful effect that makes it the best-in-slot helm for many Legacy of Dreams builds and on your Follower. Increasing the effect of any gem by 75-100% means that Leoric’s Crown with a Flawless Royal Diamond can lower your Cooldowns by up to 25%.
If your build can allow you to use a Legendary helm, equipping a Leroic’s Crown can be game changing. Lowing your Cooldowns significantly will increase the overall uptime of your powerful spells, giving you massive damage gains and defensive shields.
6 Strongarm Bracers
Few items have a flat damage percentage modifier, but when you can find it on an item it’s an enormously beneficial stat. If your build incorporates Knockback as a primary function in your attacks, Strongarm Bracers will increase all damage done by 20-30%.
Particularly beneficial for support characters, Strongarm Bracers will boost the damage from all allies for 6 seconds. So long as you hit the enemies with a knockback skill every 6 seconds, Strongarm Bracers is essentially just a free damage modifier for all party members.
5 Aquila Cuirass
Reducing incoming damage is essential for end-game builds. If you want to push Greater Rifts, you need to include items, skills, or gems that boost your defenses. Most of your survivability can be shored up by having an Aquila Cuirass equipped or extracted in Kanai’s Cube.
While above [90-95]% primary resource, all incoming damage is reduced by 50% with an Aquila Cuirass. This item requires your build to center around a resource-building skill, as opposed to most builds that drain your resources. But if it does, Aquila Cuirass is a fantastic source of survivability.
4 Aughild’s Search & Aughild’s Power
Item builds that use the Ring of Royal Grandeur (which reduces the number of items needed for Set bonuses) can often squeeze in 2 pieces of a 2nd Set to get another bonus. If you’re running a build that can spare the Wrists and Shoulder slots, consider using Aughild’s Authority.
Aughild’s Authority grants increased damage while also reducing incoming damage, a Set bonus that’s amazing on nearly all characters. With a Ring of Royal Grandeur, you can get 15% reduced damage taken with an extra 30% reduced from elites, as well as 30% increased damage dealt and 30% bonus damage against elites.
3 Captain Crimson’s Thrust & Captain Crimson’s Silk Girdle
Similar to Aughild’s Authority, Captain Crimson’s Trimmings is an amazing 2-piece Set that makes use of a Ring of Royal Grandeur build. By equipping Captain Crimson’s Thrust in your Legs slot and Captain Crimson’s Silk Girdle as your Waist, you can get a 3-piece Set bonus in addition to your main Set.
Reducing your Cooldowns by 20% and then increasing your damage dealt by your overall Cooldown Reduction percentage, this Set is perfect for characters with large Cooldowns. Paired perfectly with other 6-piece Sets, Captain Crimson’s Trimmings is a secondary Set that provides tremendous power.
2 Stone Gauntlets
One of the most effective defensive items in Diablo 3 is the Legendary gloves – Stone Gauntlets. Granting 50% bonus armor stacking up to 5 times when you’re hit, these gloves offer the single greatest defensive bonus of any item.
The 250% increased armor doesn’t come for free, however, Stone Gauntlets also stack a 15% reduction of movement speed and 20% attack speed up to 5 times as well. While it may seem not worth the trade-off at first, this just means that you need a skill that negates the debuff in order to enjoy the massive armor.
1 Nemesis Bracers
The best Legendary armor piece in the game is the extremely beneficial and versatile Nemesis Bracers. These wrists fit perfectly into many builds, are excellent in Kanai’s Cube, and are the best-in-slot Follower wrists. The benefit of this item lies in its Secondary power – Shrines and Pylons will spawn an enemy champion (Emanates).
When clearing Rifts, you want to seek out Elite monsters as they drop orbs that quickly complete the Rift. Having Nemesis Bracers means that whenever you get a powerful buff from a Shrine or Pylon, you’ll also meet an Elite pack to make use of that buff.
