DontCamp.com

[MTLMortis]

Health (Red on enemy health bars; White on your own HUD):

They're non-regenerating, non-special health.
Fall to zero and you're dead.
Restored by health packs and player healing abilities.
All players have at least some
Does not regenerate (exception: Mercy's HP regenerates like shields do).

Shields (Blue):

Same as HP except they regenerate after a period of not taking damage (3 seconds).
Regenerate at a rate of 25 per second.
Deplete before HP and before armor.
Sometimes provided by teammates like Symmetra.
Restored by health packs and player healing abilities AND If granted by a player, can still be replenished with Health Packs and player healing abilities.

Armor (Yellow):

Function like Health with a major difference: Armor is hardy. It's the best "health" in the game for reducing damage.

Reduces damage from each damage source by 5 as long as it exists. This means it's extremely effective for blocking small, repeated sources of damage such as tracer bullets, shotgun "pellets", Winston's tesla gun, Zarya's beam, etc. For example, Tracer pistols vs a D.Va's huge pool of armor is ineffective as it gives D.va virtually hundreds of extra hp. YES, this DOES reduce each pellet in a shotgun blast. It's been tested and verified multiple times. It has changed in the beta and any source that says each pellet is not reduced is using outdated info. For example Reaper does 70 damage to D.Va's armor instead of the 140 he would do to HP/Shields.

Less effective against large single sources of damage (Tracer sticky, D.Va self destruct, rockets, etc.) as the whole hit will only be reduced by 5 points of damage.

Armor is replenished by health pack or healing from teammate abilities only if the character spawns with armor (e.g. Reinhardt), however if it's granted by a player it does NOT replenish with health packs or player healing, and must be given again.

Healing from other players (Mercy for example) is boosted by 50% for recovering armor.

Depletes after shields and before HP, meaning that it'll reduce damage even as shields are depleting. Torbjorn armor on Zarya effectively turns her 200 shields into armor.

Technical note: it reduces damage by 50% up to a max of 5 damage. Meaning if the damage done is less than 8, it'll only be reduced by half. 8 damage would be reduced to 4. 100 would be reduced to 95 (the full 5 damage reduction). This still makes armor exceptionally effective against small sources of damage, but prevents it mechanically from making you immune to small sources of damage.

Tips:

General

Every hero was created for a reason. There are multiple tanks with various forms of health pools to tank different situations.

D.Va

Armor is invaluable against small, repeated sources of damage. D.Va's HP is composed almost entirely of armor. Such a large pool of armor makes her a very good tank against Tracer, shotguns (Reaper/Road Hog).

Since armor comes back 50% faster while being healed (Mercy/Lucio), she can tank a LOT of small arms fire (Soldier 76, Tracer, Shotguns) while being healed, resorting to Defense Matrix to sort out larger attacks like rockets.

Zarya

Zarya's HP pool consisting of 200 shields means that she can play mind games with the enemy. Because her HP can regenerate, she doesn't have to pop her bubble shield immediately in a fight. An enemy team who sees Zarya doesn't want to damage her during her bubble shield or provide her with a chance to charge up. If she doesn't bubble right away, she may make the enemy think twice about throwing something heavy at her (knowing she can shield to absorb it). Where her 200 shield health comes into play here is allowing her that time to bluff, shield up with shift, and then recharge. She can also use her 200 shield to attack after charging up. With the luxury of it recharging, she can stick around to attack after her bubble is down, before ducking to recover.

Torbjorn armor put on Zarya effectively turns her large shield pool into an armor pool, because shields deplete before armor, but armor provides the reduction as long as it's in your health pool.

Torbjorn

Torbjorn's 75 armor buff is great to protect your flankers and squishies from other flankers. As a defensive pick, he can make your team a lot hardier than it seems at first.
_________________
[MTL]Mortis - "No one says you have to fight a war with your pants on..."

http://www.cultofzal.com
http://www.twitch.tv/cultofzal
http://www.youtube.com/cultofzal