Beetle armor

Type	Armor
Defense	18
Body slot	Pants
Tooltip	6% increased movement and melee speed; Enemies are more likely to target you
Rarity
Sell	3 GC60 SC
Research	1 required

Type	Armor
Defense	23
Body slot	Helmet
Tooltip	6% increased melee damage; Enemies are more likely to target you
Rarity
Sell	6 GC
Research	1 required

Type	ArmorSet
Defense	: 61 /  : 73 (set)
Set Bonus	: Beetles increase your melee damage and speed;  : Beetles protect you from damage
Rarity
Sell	14 GC40 SC (set)

Beetle armor's effect with the Beetle Shell equipped.

Beetle armor is a Hardmode, post-Golem armor set that provides melee and defensive bonuses. It is the final melee armor set available on the Old-gen console version and Nintendo 3DS version. On the Desktop version, Console version, and Mobile version, it is the penultimate melee armor set, followed by Solar Flare armor.

Beetle armor has two variants for its chest piece; Beetle Scale Mail and Beetle Shell. The Beetle Scale Mail enhances damage output and can grant the Beetle Might buff, whereas the Beetle Shell provides more defense and can grant the Beetle Endurance buff.

Crafting the full set with one chest piece requires 18 Beetle Husks and a full set of Turtle armor (54 Chlorophyte Bars (or (Desktop, Console and Mobile versions) 270 / (Old-gen console and 3DS versions) 324 pieces of Chlorophyte Ore), and 3 Turtle Shells). Crafting all four pieces from scratch requires 26 Beetle Husks, 78 Chlorophyte Bars (or (Desktop, Console and Mobile versions) 390 / (Old-gen console and 3DS versions) 468 pieces of Chlorophyte Ore), and 4 Turtle Shells.

Set

Chest variants

Beetle Scale Mail

Statistics

Type	Armor
Defense	20
Body slot	Shirt
Tooltip	8% increased melee damage and critical strike chance 6% increased movement and melee speed
Rarity	08*
Sell	4 GC80 SC
Research	1 required

Internal Item ID: 2200
Internal Armor ID: 105

Beetle Shell

Statistics

Type	Armor
Defense	32
Body slot	Shirt
Tooltip	5% increased melee damage and critical strike chance Enemies are more likely to target you
Rarity	08*
Sell	4 GC80 SC
Research	1 required

Internal Item ID: 2201
Internal Armor ID: 106

Crafting

Recipes

Result	Ingredients	Crafting station
Beetle Helmet	Beetle Husk4 Turtle Helmet	Mythril Anvil or Orichalcum Anvil
Beetle Leggings	Beetle Husk6 Turtle Leggings
Beetle Scale Mail	Beetle Husk8 Turtle Scale Mail
Beetle Shell	Beetle Husk8 Turtle Scale Mail

Notes

Beetle armor provides the following bonuses when fully equipped:

With

Beetle Scale Mail:

+61 defense
+8% melee critical hit chance
+14% melee damage
+12% melee speed
+12% movement speed
+500 aggro, with the Helmet and Leggings both adding 250.
Beetle Might offensive buff: increases melee speed and damage by increments of 10% when dealing melee damage to enemies. The boost can be raised up to 30%, and the rate at which it increases depends on total damage dealt per second. Dealing less than roughly 180 damage per second will not grant Beetle Might at all. The buff depletes at an accelerating rate as long as the wearer does not deal damage, meaning that the buff will reset very quickly outside of combat.

With

Beetle Shell:

+73 defense
+5% melee critical hit chance
+11% melee damage
+6% melee speed
+6% movement speed
+900 aggro, with the Helmet, Shell, and Leggings adding 250, 400, and 250, respectively.

Beetle Shell's effect

Beetle Endurance defensive buff: When the player avoids taking damage, this buff reduces damage taken on the next hit by 15%, with further boosts to 30% and 45% if the player continues to avoid damage for a longer duration. The buff gets first applied after 3 seconds from taking damage, and will then increase after another 3 seconds. When the player takes damage thereafter, each hit lowers the boost applied to the next hit by one step. This buff features a visual effect showing one to three "beetles" flying around the player, signifying the 15%, 30%, or 45% damage reduction boost currently in effect.

Although the Beetle Shell's set bonus says "Beetles protect you from damage", it will not prevent the full damage of attacks, but can only prevent a portion of damage instead.
The increased aggro has little effect when playing in singleplayer, and mainly affects multiplayer gameplay.
While the Beetle Shell is equipped without any items occupying the social slot, wings will not appear unless the player is in mid-air, similar to the Turtle armor, Leaf Blower, and Heat Ray.
Other damage-reducing effects, like the Endurance Potion, stack with the Beetle Endurance buff.

Tips

Beetle armor is not a true upgrade to Turtle armor. The offensive version has lower defense than Turtle armor, and the defensive version has lower offensive bonuses than Turtle armor. Neither version has the thorns effect, nor the unconditional 15% damage reduction that Turtle armor has. Nonetheless, the increased specialization of Beetle armor makes it a worthy upgrade in most cases.
When using the Beetle Scale Mail, it is recommended to use the Terra Blade to take advantage of its massive melee speed bonuses. Most other melee weapons do not fire faster with increased melee speed, making Beetle armor inferior to hybrid sets when using them (unless attacking at close range).
The Beetle armor with the Beetle Shell has the lowest damage boosts out of all Hardmode melee armor sets, with lower offensive boosts than even Molten armor. Due to these low bonuses, players can use ranged or magic weapons instead of melee weapons and deal similar amounts of damage.
The full set with the Beetle Shell has the highest defense of any pre-Moon Lord armor set. However, even higher defense (80) can be achieved by swapping the head and leg pieces for Hallowed Mask and Valhalla Knight's Greaves, which has the additional benefit of providing far better offensive melee bonuses.
Beetle armor at its 45% state, the Worm Scarf (17%), and the Endurance Potion (10%) will reduce damage by nearly 60%.

(100%-45%)×(100%-(17%+10%)) = 40.15% damage taken = 59.85% damage reduction

Frozen Turtle Shell (25%) will further increase it to almost 74%.

(100%-45%)×(100%-(25%+17%+10%)) = 26.4% damage taken = 73.6% damage reduction

Trivia

With the full Beetle Endurance buff and a Lifeforce Potion (600 HP) and/or Endurance Potion, it is possible to survive a hit from the Dungeon Guardian.
Beetle armor is the only armor set to have multiple chest piece variants as opposed to helmet variants.
Solar Flare armor(Desktop, Console and Mobile versions) provides more defense than either of the chest variants. However, the Beetle Shell provides 45% maximum damage reduction as opposed to the Solar Flare shield's maximum 30% reduction.