Item Decay Source 2 (Source)

Condition is the life of the armor. When you wear armor, and get hit, armor will deflect some of the damage. The damage that gets through the armor takes away some of your life and some of your armor's life. As for the decay rate, I've tested Mabari Armorweave and found it to be 20% of the damage that gets through the armor. So, if 100 points of damage get through, then the armor loses 20 condition.

Slicing does not affect that rate

As for repair, I never really understood how it works, but i know that the ranking is: Success, minor blemishes (hardly any lowering of the max condition) Success, max condition reduced (don't know exactly, but it's at least 70% of original value) Marginal Success, max condition reduced greatly (don't know exactly, but it's less than 80% of original value) Armor falls apart, armor is worthless (armor will not deflect damage, nor can it be fixed)

Regardless of the result, the condition is equal to the max condition when it's done.

Example: If you repair armor with a condition of 1/1000 you could have the following results: 995/995 870/870 657/657 0/0 Those AREN'T EXACT since I haven't test it really. Also, they say that armor with less than 50% condition has a higher chance of failing in repair and possibly even more of a chance of failure at less than 25%. So, the longer you wait, the higher your chances of buying new armor are, but you don't want to do it too early because the new Max Condition could be less than your current Condition (or it could fall apart).