Elite armor

The Elite armor is armor the the Elite race wear for battle. It is comparable with the MJOLNIR armour worn by the SPARTANS. It is specially made to their physiology.

Features
The main feature of the Elite is it features a dynamic recharging energy shield, like that of the MJOLNIR. It uses energy to absorb incoming energy, such as kinetic or heat, ballistic weapons and plasma respectively. This however is the armor's only true form of protection for the user. It in fact has very little in the way of protection should the shield fail. Compared to the MJOLNIR it also lacks many features as well, such as hydrostatic gel, flash lights, bio foam injectors and other features, making it inferior. Little care is given to camouflage as the armor is usually brightly coloured and reflective and often contains something similar to LEDs. As far as it can be told, they do not have any kind of visible HUD, although the Arbiters armor seems too.

Variations
The Elite Armor has many different variations that are suited to different purposes. In fact, the armor for each different rank of Elite is different with the minor domo having the weakest shielding and apparently weakest armor and the zealot has the strongest in both degrees (although it's armors protection may not change, only the power of the user.).
 * Ranger's armor: The ranger armor is made for zero gee operations in space or places with no atmosphere. It is completely sealed, especially over the eyes and mouth and features a pair of anti gravity generators on the back.
 * Heretic Elite's armor: These have no helmet as normal Elites have. Instead, they have breathing apparatuses, to help them breathe on the mine. Heretic Elites also have four ridges on the back of their armor, which presumably contain oxygen. The only exception being the Heretic Leader, whose ridges are replaced with a jetpack. This leads to some curiosity over how the Heretic leader is able to breath for a long time. It may be that the jetpack also contains an oxygen tank. They may be based on old Elite designs or maybe Elite armor with the covenant plating stripped off to reveal the original forerunner equipment, like the Heretic Banshee.
 * Xytan 'Jar Wattinree's armor: The Elite supreme commander had his own version of the elite armor, which was described as "silver armor covered with the gold Forerunner glyphs of sacred mystery." Such silver-and-gold Elite armor has yet to be seen or mentioned elsewhere, and may be superior in quality to the gold armor of a Zealot.
 * Arbiter: The armor used by the arbiters is an ancient suit of Elite armor. It is ornate, covered in patterns, asymmetrical design and covered in overlapping plates on the limbs. It features a shield generator and stealth but the stealth generator is not as advance as newer Elite armor. In Halo 2 it is silverish-gray in colour but in Halo 3 it has more of a bronze colour and tint to it.
 * Stealth Elite's armor: Originally the armor that was used by stealth elites swapped its shield generator for a stealth generator to trade defense for stealth. However in Halo 2 the armor of the stealth elite and Special Operations Elite both feature stealth and shields.
 * Supreme Commander's: This is the armor owned by the 'incompetent one' in the HGN and features a purple headress and purple cloak but little else is known of it.

Permutations
In halo 3 multiplayer there have been three Elite armor types found in the coding and only images of the default and one other has been found.


 * Default
 * Raptor
 * Predator