How weapons and armor wear out in Dungeon Settlers, what slows it down, and where to repair - with a simulator to count hits-until-break and the durability you will need to mend back.
What durability is
Every weapon, piece of armor and workstation has a Durability value and a Max Durability cap. Durability drops as the item is used and, when it hits 0, the item is destroyed: it is gone, so repair it before that. The game removes it with auto-equip switched on, so it may put another item of the same kind into the slot. Two separate things wear your gear - attacking wears your weapon, and getting hit wears your armor.
Weapon wear: attacking
Each attack or weapon skill spends a small amount of durability from your Primary weapon
(SkillTable.DurabilityCost). Of the 253 skills in the table, 185 spend no durability at all; the rest spend 2 durability for 51 skills, 1 durability for 16 skills, 3 durability for 1 skills per use. Because the cost is per action, a weapon lasts for
hundreds to thousands of swings before it needs mending.
| Example weapons | Max durability |
|---|---|
 Merchant's Scales,  Torch | 600 |
 Wooden Bow,  Wooden Club,  Wooden Great Sword and 2 more | 900 |
 Arcron Greatsword,  Arcron Spear,  Arcron Sword and 9 more | 1200 |
 Blue Crystal Wood Staff,  Fire Wooden Staff,  Green Crystal Wood Staff and 3 more | 1350 |
 Arcron Bow,  Arcron Mace,  Bone Bow and 5 more | 1500 |
 Bloodwood Bow,  Bloodwood Club,  Bloodwood Great Sword and 3 more | 1800 |
 Blue Crystal Bone Staff,  Blue Crystal Carapace Staff,  Fire Arcron Staff and 15 more | 2250 |
 Blue Crystal Bloodwood Staff,  Fire Bloodwood Staff,  Green Crystal Bloodwood Staff and 3 more | 2700 |
Guarding does not cost weapon durability - you are defending, not swinging. Better weapons also carry more durability, so they both hit harder and last longer.
Armor wear: getting hit
Every hit a settler takes wears each worn helmet, hood, body armor and shield at once. The loss on each piece is
0.1 x the damage of the hit that gets past Barrier (GAMESYSTEM_Combat_EquipDurabilityModifier). So a
100-damage hit shaves 10 off each armor piece; a 300-damage hit shaves 30.
Weapons, accessories and the torch never lose durability from hits taken, and damage-over-time ticks cause no wear. Only your own settlers wear armor this way; allied units and enemies do not.
- Higher resistance lowers the damage number, so it lowers the wear too - armor that reduces the hit literally lasts longer.
- Guarding a hit cuts its damage by the Guard Damage Reduction stat (50% by default), which cuts the armor wear by the same amount.
- Dodging or being missed creates no damage instance, so it costs zero durability.
- A Barrier protects your armor too: the wear uses only the damage left after the Barrier, so a hit the Barrier soaks completely costs no durability.
Reducing wear
There is no inscription, trait or effect in DS_B.0.4.29 that reduces the armor wear from hits. Wear is
managed through play instead: guard heavy hits, keep a Barrier up, build resistances so
incoming hits are smaller, avoid over-swinging with fragile wood-tier weapons, and keep a spare set for long runs.
The Self Repair effect belongs to the training scarecrows (
Scarecrow, 
Suspicious Scarecrow), not to
gear: it restores 200 durability to the scarecrow every second.
Repair
Mend worn gear at a Repair Stand in your settlement, or a Dungeon Repair Stand deployed on an expedition. Both are built from 8 Luma Log + 6 Stone and hold up to 8 items; a worker repairs the equipment placed in them over time. The game tables define no material cost per repair - it is a labour and time cost, not an item price. A Low Durability alert fires when any equipped item drops to 30% or below, so you get warned before something breaks mid-fight.