Light Armors vs Heavy Armors

[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

 

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?

 

You just weren't trying hard enough! You should have blitzed your Enchanting skill, created a load of Fortify Smithing gear, sucked down an overpowered Alchemy potion, and made that complete lack of armour inexplicably the equal of a full set of Daedric! :D

[SlimShadyIzMe]

I'm a full mage, rarely switching to dual daggers if i somehow run out of magicka. For me i get light armor, pump it up on the workbench then enchant it with magicka regenerating abilities and stuff like that.

[Feanoro]

Honestly I've done 2 playthroughs so far, one a Breton that went the heavy armor and pure warrior route and one a sneaky Nord archer in light armor, both in the low 60s in terms of levels now.

 

Like other people have said, in terms of defensive stats, after you get smithing to 100 (which is easier and faster than you might think, especially if you do the smithing-enchanting thing).

 

In terms of style I liked the heavy armors more, especially dwarven, orcish and ebony. Daedric looks really evil, but I really don't like the lack of symmetry particularly on the helm and shield. Completely disappointed in Dragonplate both in terms of stats and style.

 

On my light armor playthrough I just stayed in Leather armor at the start, then moved up to Elven, completely skipped that ugly ass Scaled armor and went directly to Glass as fast as I could. I think I played most of the game in Glass even though I had 100 smithing, just because it looks so beautiful to me and now I'm playing in Dragonscale which I also find really pretty (but hey, I love me some blue and gold, I'm still a sucker for Glass armor...which is why I gave Aela my old set:D).

 

As far as weapons go, daedric and guild artifacts are a huge letdown for me, as most of them can't be improved with Daedric or Ebony Smithing perks (Mace of Molag Bal, Mehrunes' Razor, Nightingale Blade and Bow, etc.) which means they'll remain weak compared to pretty much everything else when your smithing is high. That's if you go the heavy route.

 

If you like powerful weapons you'll be happy to know you have plenty of options even if you stay with light armor perks only. For example, Dragonbane found at level 46+ has base damage equal to a daedric sword, adds 40 extra damage to dragons and is doubly improvable under the steel smithing perk.

 

The best sword in the game, imo, is Chillrend found after lvl 46. It has the base damage of a Daedric Waraxe (hence superior to a Daedric Sword) and some cool enchantments on it as well ( 30 frost damage, chance to Paralyze for 2 secs). It's doubly improvable under the GLass Smithing perk.

 

Also if you go with Light armor, I would recommend getting Shrouded Armor (from the DB guild) early on, as it is improvable under the Leather Armor Perk and has really good enchantments. Also useful is Thieves' Guild armor early on, though I would hold back on Nightingale armor because it's leveled gear (not as far as defence stats go but in terms of enchantments). All of these are improvable under the Leather Armor perk and they look pretty beastly.

 

I'd get them early on since their enchantments are useful early on when you can't do better enchantments yourself. If you wait till you're a high level they won't be so useful.

 

By the way, here's a question that just came to me: if you wear say Ebony Mail and the rest Light Armor (because I have a low level in Heavy Armor and no perks in it), when you get hit, will it give experience to the Heavy Armor skill all the time?

[thesapien]

So, asking here if I got this about right. In the early game, the choice does matter in fitting to your play style, however, by the late game, it starts to become more a matter of aesthetics, assuming you've invested your perks wisely, yes, no?

 

As for immersion, heavy armor is odd to wear all of the time when traveling great distances, while light armor sometimes just looks like a few leather straps around the groin supposedly counting as armor, so the choice just depends on how you RP, yes, no?

[Khorak]

So, asking here if I got this about right. In the early game, the choice does matter in fitting to your play style, however, by the late game, it starts to become more a matter of aesthetics, assuming you've invested your perks wisely, yes, no?

 

As for immersion, heavy armor is odd to wear all of the time when traveling great distances, while light armor sometimes just looks like a few leather straps around the groin supposedly counting as armor, so the choice just depends on how you RP, yes, no?

 

Yes. It is supremely hard to be a sneaky beggar at the start of the game if you're wearing heavy armour, but eventually you can scrub the issues that make heavy armour much of an impediment. And on the flip side, you'll eventually be able to smash light armour into the hard cap anyway, or close enough.

 

This is contingent upon one single factor though; I haven't bothered finding out if the Steed Stone also, by completely removing the weight of worn heavy armour, removes the massive noise penalty (in the same way the Heavy Armour perk 'Conditioning' does). Then it would be fairly simple to be a sneak in heavy armour, thus making the choice even less important. I used to balk at anything that required me NOT to take the Lord Stone to help me laugh uproarously at magic users, but when you're a backstabbing extraordinaire? They don't even get to hit you anyway.

Edited January 19, 2012 by Khorak

[FAOEOA]

Nonsense! I'm using nightingale and all my followers are equipped with mod armor (Deadly Dragonslayer), i have a bat that gives me 3 followers, which is good, however my nightingale has the top armor rating, higher than my daedric set, i have 70 heavy armor, level 52, level 100 light armor.

[rpger30]

So, asking here if I got this about right. In the early game, the choice does matter in fitting to your play style, however, by the late game, it starts to become more a matter of aesthetics, assuming you've invested your perks wisely, yes, no?

 

As for immersion, heavy armor is odd to wear all of the time when traveling great distances, while light armor sometimes just looks like a few leather straps around the groin supposedly counting as armor, so the choice just depends on how you RP, yes, no?

 

Yes. It is supremely hard to be a sneaky beggar at the start of the game if you're wearing heavy armour, but eventually you can scrub the issues that make heavy armour much of an impediment. And on the flip side, you'll eventually be able to smash light armour into the hard cap anyway, or close enough.

 

This is contingent upon one single factor though; I haven't bothered finding out if the Steed Stone also, by completely removing the weight of worn heavy armour, removes the massive noise penalty (in the same way the Heavy Armour perk 'Conditioning' does). Then it would be fairly simple to be a sneak in heavy armour, thus making the choice even less important. I used to balk at anything that required me NOT to take the Lord Stone to help me laugh uproarously at magic users, but when you're a backstabbing extraordinaire? They don't even get to hit you anyway.

 

Two things to note, though I could certainly be wrong.

 

Sources seem to indicate that conditioning has no effect on armor noise. Only a perk in the stealth tree does this.

 

I believe the steed stone also does not do this. Both of these just seem to eliminate the weight, speed penalty, and sprint/stamina penalty.

 

That said, I believe armor weight might be what is measured to determine noise level, so it seems possible that both of these things might reduce heavy armor noise. Neither UESP nor Skyrim Wikia seem to be clear on these.

Edited January 19, 2012 by rpger30

[jmlport98]

When I started, I never actually chose either side. What I decided to do was chose whatever armor I found, and if it was better than the one I was wearing, I would use it regardless of it being heavy or light. I wound up being a light armored character. My Nightingale armor is very good, and I love being able to move fast too.

[LiamFarley1998]

I use light armor all the time, because it looks nicer. I mainly use rare armors. Like nightingale and dark brotherhood. Anyways I also have a mod to use any heavy armor but dwarven as light and vice versa with light armors. It really opens up everything. Also as someone priorly stated some of the artifacts in the game are seriously underpowered. I went into skyedit and messed around with the armor and damage level of the mehrunes razor, which accordion to bethesda was an extremely powerful weapon in oblivion (Own the dlc but haven't had the time to do a complete oblivion playthrough). I boosted the stats up so with maximum one handed it did around 86 damage. I'm all about daggers, and some magicky stuff from far away. My current level 45 character owns every daedric artifact, including both of the hircine ones thanks to a glitch. The light armor is pathetic for me. Heavy armor contains way to few unbonuses. Imo heavy armor should make you eat up stamina like f***ing crazy, and make your sprint as fast as running naked, and run slowly. The full heavy armor tree makes heavy armor better light armor. For gods sake, perfect silence weightlessness and stuff. I will always use light armor and usually balance my stuff up to suit a more balanced game.

 

Another thing is that magic is extremely hard to use as a beginner character. Magic levels way to slowly and has total s*** for spells. I couldn't do crap with magic till I got midas magic.

Edited January 20, 2012 by LiamFarley1998

[thesapien]

When I started, I never actually chose either side. What I decided to do was chose whatever armor I found, and if it was better than the one I was wearing, I would use it regardless of it being heavy or light. I wound up being a light armored character. My Nightingale armor is very good, and I love being able to move fast too.

 

But doesn't that level them both up and thus either one less? I sometimes want to wear heavy armor for my light armor character because it might look cooler than what I'm wearing, but don't want to stop leveling up my light armor, you know?

 

Fortunately, really, it doesn't break your game unless maybe you're playing on master. It let's you get away with trying out stuff a lot, which is cool. I sometimes think the leveling up is more for personal reward kind of feelings but not necessary to progress, unless, again, playing on master. (I stay with adept, myself)