If you got a fortify health enchant on your armor, when should you upgrade to a non-enchanted piece?

[InDarkestNight]

I found an iron cuirass with +20 health on it very early on in my game. I'm still running around in it, even though I could get slightly better armor.

 

Invariably I find that switching to an un-enchanted armor set gives me better survivability, but I don't know of any way to determine when this will happen other than through trial and error.

 

In theory, a +20 boost to health at level 1 is equivalent to 20% damage reduction. The problem is your health isn't static; it increases as you level. Also, as you level enemies hit harder. This makes it hard to calculate when ditching the armor is a good idea.

 

Also, in a way, its like comparing apples to oranges. Armor only protects against physical damage, but health protects against all forms of damage. Of course, getting magic resist early on isn't that hard (the lord stone alone grants +25% magic resist).

 

Either way, its obviously that low-level armor with a health boost eventually gets outclassed by unenchanted armor at higher levels, but where's the cut-off point? Should you switch armor when a new armor set would increase your damage reduction by as much as the health boost (in the case of a +20 boost, that would be 208 armor about). Does a health boost become less valuable as your health goes up and it thus the bonus it adds constitutes an ever smaller percentage or your total health?

 

When should I get rid of this armor and upgrade? Should I just use it until I find a cuirass with an equal or greater fortify health effect and not take armor rating into account? I'm just unsure how to do the math here.

[IsharaMeradin]

Replace when your crafting skills are high enough to make the same material style with a higher temper level and a higher enchant level of the same effect.

I wouldn't wait on trying to find a better piece with the same effect.

 

That said, keep in mind that fortify health comes on the neck, chest, hands and shield pieces. You can always mix and match to take advantage of the best pieces available to you should you not wish to craft.

[Madrias]

A bit late to the party (Yes, I checked the date this time, I'm only raising the dead a little here), but, I've found a few occasions where upgrading out of enchanted gear makes some sense.

 

In this case, with an iron cuirass with +20 health, that's a great find for a lower-level player. Generally, and this is just from my experience, you want to replace it if:

1. You get a Steel Cuirass with +10 health or more (obvious - It's better armor with a similar enchant)
2. You get a steel cuirass and have the smithing skill to upgrade it to at least Superior. (At this point, the armor's protection starts to loosely equal the health enchant.)
3. You find another piece of gear (amulet, gloves, or shield) with a Fortify Health enchantment. (Use that gear for your active fortify health, disenchant the iron cuirass - it's heavy and not very protective - and use the best-rated armor you have in its place)
4. You can enchant an item with Fortify Health to the strength of +10 or higher. (This assumes you've already learned Fortify Health from some other bit of gear. At this point, any armor can become Fortify Health armor.)
5. You find Orcish, Dwarven, or Steel Plate on your adventures. (The armor-rating boost from these begins to offset the enchantment, especially if you find multiple pieces of a set.)
6. You find Elven or Glass Light Armor and choose to do a light-armor build. (Not always the most obvious choice, sometimes characters hate light armor, but the movement speed penalty of heavy armor means you're going to get hit more, while light armor relies on not getting hit through agility.)
7. You join the Dawnguard and get their Heavy Armor (Similarly to #5, it's the armor rating boost.)

8. Spend two level ups on Health (+10 each time) and immediately afterward, disenchant the iron cuirass and put on any heavier-duty Heavy Armor cuirass. In the early game, this is easier to do, and by raising your native health by +20 early on, you avoid falling into a sunken cost fallacy of dragging the iron cuirass through far more than it should have gone because +20 health is good.

9. If you're past about level 15 or 20, vendors will often have better armor with potentially higher enchantments. It may be worth doing the level up thing (+2 levels into Health and dumping the iron cuirass) and buying a better set of armor.

I don't know the numerics of it, but from my experiences, Fortify Health is one of the weaker enchantments to carry forward for me. It's better in the late game if you're having survivability problems, and do a little bit of casual alchemy (not the alchemy, enchanting, smithing loop, but make some Fortify Enchanting potions, get the strongest enchantment out of Fortify Health that you can within reason, and apply it) to give you some extra health.

 

Personally, the ones I always get into trouble with are items enchanted with Health Regeneration. At what point is it worth dropping an item that gives you faster health regen in favor of taking less damage overall?

 

Basically the long-and-short of it is this:

 

Skyrim is very casual-gamer-friendly. If at any time, you're worried that your current enchanted item is essential to survival, put two or three levels worth of points into your health and you'll probably be better off.

 

What I generally do is, up to level 10 or 11, I dump points strictly into my health, no matter whether I'm a warrior, rogue, or mage. No matter what, you'll appreciate 100 extra hit-points, and while enemies start hitting harder by that point, well, any armor is good to protect that extra pool.

 

Even if you just use the extra-fast-levels (up to Level 5) for health gains, that's still 50 points of extra health, and there's not much gear out there that'll give you +50 health for free.