Armor that provides excellent protection.
Description
The Shield Armor is a mid game heavy body armor in Final Fantasy IX for Steiner and Freya. It teaches Distract, which makes enemies' normal attacks miss against the character more often. It halves damage from Fire, Ice, and Thunder attacks.
Obtain[]
Faraway Lagoon chocograph.
The Shield Armor is found the earliest in the Faraway Lagoon chocograph treasure; the player can reach it when they progress Chocobo Hot and Cold after they have the Blue Narciss. The player can beach their boat on a small island with chocobo foot prints in the southwestern archipelago and summon Choco and then ride him to the treasure's location along the shallows. The Shield Armor is also found in Oeilvert 
and Desert Palace 
.
It is bought for 4,300 gil from Esto Gaza (after Desert Palace) and Ipsen's Castle.
Mechanics[]
The Shield Armor has 23 Defense and 5 Magic Defense, mainly mitigating damage from physical attacks. It halves damage from Fire, Ice, and Thunder; if the character also wears a Reflect Ring that weakens them to elements, they will take ~75% damage from these elements.
Use[]
The Shield Armor is already surpassed by the Demon's Mail by the time it can be obtained as a very rare steal from Tantarian. This is a tough steal to manage however, and so the player is more likely to get the Demon's Mail from a chocograph or from Mount Gulug. The Shield Armor is a good body armor for world map exploration on the Blue Narciss, Oeilvert, and Desert Palace.
Distract from the Shield Armor is useful to equip if the character has the Magic Stones to spare. It couples well with Cover. It is more useful for Steiner if Freya is using Jump a lot, making her impossible to target mid jump anyway.
The elemental protection can be good against Garudas outside Esto Gaza, and the Wraiths and Grenades and Vepals in Mount Gulug, as well as Agares in Ipsen's Castle, among others. It can also be useful to equip alongside a Reflect Ring, which weakens a character to elements otherwise. It can be good against magic-using enemies, even the final boss, simply for its elemental defense, even if it does not offer much Magic Defense.
Beatrix can also wear the Shield Armor, but the player cannot see this in a normal playthrough.