Question about Heavy Armor Perk

[HelloStranger]

Just had a question about the heavy armor perk, "conditioning." The perk says: "Heavy armor weighs nothing and doesn't slow you down when worn."

 

I had read somewhere that this makes it so that you could use heavy armor as a stealth character, and not have the disadvantage of being more noticeable. Can anyone confirm/deny this for me?

[Valamyr]

Just had a question about the heavy armor perk, "conditioning." The perk says: "Heavy armor weighs nothing and doesn't slow you down when worn."

 

I had read somewhere that this makes it so that you could use heavy armor as a stealth character, and not have the disadvantage of being more noticeable. Can anyone confirm/deny this for me?

 

Can confirm.

 

Armor-related stealth penalties are based on armor weight, and conditioning negate that portion. There are other stealth penalties like running or not that still applies until you also take the perk for that in the Stealth tree, but as far as heavy vs light armor is concerned, the advantages of light armor are: 1. Until you get the weight-negating perk, light armor is better for sneaking 2. Light armor gets its own weight-negating perk earlier skillpoint wise (50 vs 70) and 3. Light armor gets a stamina-regen perks that helps keep you sprinting almost all the time, so it keeps better mobility than heavy armor until the end.

 

However it doesn't make heavy armor a no-brainer. Light armor has several things going for it, namely the fact that you can also hit the armor cap with Dragonscale (light) armor. The best thing Heavy has is better / more Artifact-quality Heavy armor, but even that can be negated if you spec into Enchanting.