Very Minor Spoiler ahead:

What is the best armor without ballistic weave? I completed the main story without reading anything online which led me to miss the ballistic weave perk. Now I am too far along to reload a previous save so I am wondering what some of the best options are? I have x-01 power armor and plenty of fusion cores but sometimes I'd rather roam around without it. I'm playing on Xbox1 so mods aren't an option at this point.

combat armor, the heavy one. mod it.

Actually I think the Synth armor has higher resistances than the combat armor. It just isn't as nice to look at. If you don't mind your character looking like the Michelin Man I'd go with synth.

The best base armor is Heavy Synth armor.

The problem with the game is that any modified base armor will not have Standard, Sturdy or Heavy in their name which will make it confusing to differentiate which of the three it is and they all look pretty much the same in the inventory menu and even the same console ID so the only way you could tell is by the DR rating, weight, and value or appearance when you wear it and those are only if you know what they actually are for all three.

Excluding various combinations of legendary/unique armor, the heavy synth armor is the best. But...I don't like the way it looks. I prefer heavy combat armor, and alternate between heavy and sturdy combat armor depending on the situation.

Heavy synth armor over a fully upgraded vault suit is as good as it gets without ballistic weave. The synth armor (+synth helmet) gives 112 ballistic DR and 131 energy DR while a fully upgraded vault suit (4 Armorer and 4 Science required) adds another 20 energy DR. If you use the commando helmet instead of the synth helmet you can get an addition 7 ballistic DR and 5 energy DR. You can also almost double the armor's defense (well, boost by 80% or so) with the nanofiliment upgrades.

I agree on heavy combat armor looking much better and not just in terms of style but it also looks like it offers much more protection too.

The Synth armor, in my opinion, looks like a male bdsn outfit, especially the sturdy variant lol.

I'ma say X-01.

Synth armor has is statistically the best protection. However a full set of heavy combat armor is easier to come by, and uses more common materials to upgrade.


As for it's appearance, I actually like the "turtleneck" the synth chest piece uses, but the stupid phalanges ruin the streamlined look that the armor was supposed to achieve if the plain and simple aesthetic the institute has was anything to go by. And the heavy variant could use better joint coverage. I personally wear the heavy synth chestpiece with polymer (white finish) combat armor.