Light Armors vs Heavy Armors

[dragonalumni]

When building a character, taking all the perks in light armor and heavy armor as well as all black smithing perks isn't a sound investment. Besides the perks themselves, gameplay wise you cannot mix sets because you will lose up to a 25% bonus for using just light or heavy and another 25% armor bonus for matching material sets. So, Let's face it. If your a melee user you need make a choice between light and heavy armor. This also means your going to have to pick between black smithing perks for light and heavy armor.

 

Some people have mentioned you can make armor cap with just light armor, I wonder how much exploiting you need to do with alchemy and enchanting to make that a reality, besides that, it must be much easier to do it with heavy armor, meaning you can use enchanting slots for some other improvement. I really don't know, what I do know is, all the artifacts in the game are daedric metal and can only be improved by people learning heavy smithing perks. I also know know weapons made from heavy smithing perks are better than light armor.

 

What bothers me is that smithing perks make it so that a melee is not only forced to use the same metal for all his armor, but will also have to use the same metal for his weapons.

For example, a blacksmith with steel perk. Will not use any other metal, because steel with improvement will surpass even orc or elven, even daedric artifacts don't look so good as a skysteel sword with improvements on it. Also if find some awesome magic sword in the early game it's useless unless you can improve it. So if its the wrong metal type or wrong tree all you can do is sell it. Finally, even if I wanted to play an glass armor guy, until that point most of the armor in this tree are much less cool looking than heavy, for example scaled, a high level armor that looks so much like the newbie stuff at level 1.

 

In short, light armor users and smiths get ugly gear with less effective weapons. But the whole perk system screws the balance of usable weapons and armors, forcing players down a narrow path of what is upgrade or usable loot. It's one of the least fun aspects of ES5. Selling a glass sword with an awesome enchant just because I can't improve it to be more useful than a steel sword really is a poor design flaw on Bethesda.

[chanchan05]

I don't really see much difference really.

 

For example regarding the weapons, I might manage to pick up a cool daedric sword with an awesome enchant, I just disenchant it and transfer the enchantment to a glass sword. As for ugly gear, well, I find the glass set pretty cool looking, IMO even better looking than the Daedric Armor for me. Its a matter of taste.

 

Elven armor is also pretty good looking, and in my playthrough, I never used scaled armor.

 

EDIT: I also noticed the artifacts bit. No, not all artifacts in the game are Daedric metal (ebony actually). Spellbreaker needs Dwarven ingots if I remember correctly. However your argument does not hold valid ground here, because even if you have Daedric smithing maxed, it wont translate to enhanced smithing for the Daedric artifacts. For example, Ebony armor vs the Ebony Mail (daedric artifact). Improving the Ebony Mail's attributes remains the same value whether or not you have the Ebony/Daedric armor perk or not. You can improve items at the smithy even without perks.

Edited January 19, 2012 by chanchan05

[faifh]

When building a character, taking all the perks in light armor and heavy armor as well as all black smithing perks isn't a sound investment. Besides the perks themselves, gameplay wise you cannot mix sets because you will lose up to a 25% bonus for using just light or heavy and another 25% armor bonus for matching material sets. So, Let's face it. If your a melee user you need make a choice between light and heavy armor. This also means your going to have to pick between black smithing perks for light and heavy armor.

 

Some people have mentioned you can make armor cap with just light armor, I wonder how much exploiting you need to do with alchemy and enchanting to make that a reality, besides that, it must be much easier to do it with heavy armor, meaning you can use enchanting slots for some other improvement. I really don't know, what I do know is, all the artifacts in the game are daedric metal and can only be improved by people learning heavy smithing perks. I also know know weapons made from heavy smithing perks are better than light armor.

 

What bothers me is that smithing perks make it so that a melee is not only forced to use the same metal for all his armor, but will also have to use the same metal for his weapons.

For example, a blacksmith with steel perk. Will not use any other metal, because steel with improvement will surpass even orc or elven, even daedric artifacts don't look so good as a skysteel sword with improvements on it. Also if find some awesome magic sword in the early game it's useless unless you can improve it. So if its the wrong metal type or wrong tree all you can do is sell it. Finally, even if I wanted to play an glass armor guy, until that point most of the armor in this tree are much less cool looking than heavy, for example scaled, a high level armor that looks so much like the newbie stuff at level 1.

 

In short, light armor users and smiths get ugly gear with less effective weapons. But the whole perk system screws the balance of usable weapons and armors, forcing players down a narrow path of what is upgrade or usable loot. It's one of the least fun aspects of ES5. Selling a glass sword with an awesome enchant just because I can't improve it to be more useful than a steel sword really is a poor design flaw on Bethesda.

 

I took both smithing tree sides. Simply because I wanted to wear light armor, but smith daedric weapons. Since all perks in smithing are single point investments, its not that much amount of a perks you need. I concentrated on light armor, but when that reached 100 I used heavy as well, since you want to get more perks for raising both, don't you? I havent seen good perks into heavy armor, so let that be. With dragon bones, improved with top smithing its strong enough without any perk.

Edited January 19, 2012 by faifh

[Darksun45230]

In a theoretically balanced Skyrim, lighter armors should mean better mobility: dodge rolling, faster speed, higher jumps and easier sneaking being the bonuses.

In a theoretically balanced Skyrim, heavier armors should mean better defense: better blocking, less knockback, and more stamina at the cost of everything listed above.

 

I have no doubt that one day there will be an armor mod that appealing to this issue.

[Khorak]

Considering how quickly I power out Smithing, because I looooove me some mining, I go down the heavy armour side of the tree even if I'm using light armour. I still end up with the ultimate goal of Dragonscale armour, but don't have to compromise on using Glass weapons instead of Ebony or Daedric. Edited January 19, 2012 by Khorak

[ModelV]

With Heavy Armor you can reach the cap with legendary smithing full heavy armor skill with all the perks but only 1 in juggernaut and a full set of Daedric, in fact youll over over the limit and can probably do it with ebony or dragon too. With light armor you simply need to have a few more perks in Agile Defender but I dont even think the full 5 is needed. Also Light armor is more protective once you hit the cap due to that 10% of avoiding melee damage and you get an extra boost to stamina regeneration. Heavy armor damage reflect perk doesnt prevent the damage from hurting you.

 

 

As for Light armor looking stupid: thats a matter of a opinion and personally I think light armor looks better and its obvious youve never ever played an Argonian which look really stupid in heavy armor. Also Daedric weapons do about 10% more damage then glass which really isnt much. With some potions you can also improve some salvaged Daedric weapons to legendary if you really want the extra damage. Same goes for artifacts.

 

In a theoretically balanced Skyrim, lighter armors should mean better mobility: dodge rolling, faster speed, higher jumps and easier sneaking being the bonuses.In a theoretically balanced Skyrim, heavier armors should mean better defense: better blocking, less knockback, and more stamina at the cost of everything listed above.I have no doubt that one day there will be an armor mod that appealing to this issue.

Light Armor:

Better mobility: Check

Dodging: Check

Faster Speed(redundant much?): Check

Higher Jumps: Nope but jump heights are fixed.

Easier Sneaking: Check, even with sneaking perks.

 

Heavy Armor:

Better defense: Check for the early game when you hit the cap no.

Better Blocking: Im still trying to figure out blocking but Im guessing no though you would get more armor out of that shield.

Less knockback: Check

More Stamina: What? Why the hell would you get more stamina?

[ManleySteele]

I also find some of the armor, both light and heavy, ugly. I just don't find any of it ugly enough to do anything about it. I may do something later, but I probably won't. As for the questions about light and heavy armor perks and smithing perks, I guess it depends on your mindset when playing the game. I use light armor for everything. I also use followers ( as talking mules). I try to respect the intent of the game as much as possible, but I find it hard at times. Some of the scripting decisions leave me scratching my head, but hindsight from an outside observer of these decisions doesn't advance anything unless I am willing to do something about it. Having whined all that, I just find that light armor fits my style better than heavy armor. The perk limitations drive most of my decision about armor crafting and use. I made a decision, early in my playing. to only use armor/ weapons I had crafted. I have been forced, by circumstances, to make numerous exceptions, but I try to stand by it as much as possible. I also try to get my enchanting and my bow up off their knees as early as possible in a game. It's not easy if you don't want to pay for training (another thing I try not to do). One observation. If you don't intend to use the console commands or mods to break the limits of the game, then max armor is max armor and maxed weapons are maxed weapons, It really doesn't matter what form they take, It's all a personal decision and if you play enough, you will find your own favorite methods and styles. Hope this rambling doesn't gore anyone's goat, too much. If it does, try not to work yourself into too much of a frenzy. lol

[rpger30]

Having now played 4 characters to the point of being level 40+, I can say pretty definitively that your choice between light and heavy armor is only a matter of taste. ModelV nicely summed up the differences between the armors in the early game.

 

By the late game, all differences other than aesthetic have disappeared completely. The light armor perk tree is vastly superior from a pragmatic POV though.

 

For example, you could spend 2-3 points in agile defender vs 1 point in juggernaut while spending the same overall amount of perks. This will easily let you hit the armor cap in the late game, while also netting two perks which are arguably superior than their heavy armor counterparts.

[Khorak]

It's also very, very important to note that with light armour you can use the topless fur armour and a steel greatsword on a male and look like a totally awesome barbarian. That should override most other considerations. :P

[ManleySteele]

It's also very, very important to note that with light armour you can use the topless fur armour and a steel greatsword on a male and look like a totally awesome barbarian. That should override most other considerations. :P

 

That's funny. I did the same thing, just to cut wood in front of the Inn. I also carried it for a while for swimming, sleeping and other activities. I quit when it became more problem than it was worth. What this game really needs is a backpack that only holds four or five sets of clothing. 1. The afformentioned swim/sleep set. 2. A set of work clothes. 3. A set of good clothes 4. A Mage or priest set. and 5. One set of non-armor, of your choice. I don't care as much about weight as I do about the ability to organize the junk into sets. Does this make sense to anyone else?