Mages: No Armor vs. Light vs. Heavy ??

[toastysquirrel]

I'm about to start my 2nd game, this time with intent to be a full-on Mage. My original characters was pure melee with Heavy Armor.

 

For a Mage, what's the best armor choice to go (light, heavy, none), and why?

Are there advantages of no armor over light armor over heavy?

 

Appreciate your input everyone, thanks!

Edited January 23, 2012 by toastysquirrel

[elricshan]

well if you go pure mage and remember enchanting you can have that armor yourself want. my witch runs around in ebony armor and can take some damage before she kills the enemies (or dies just as often because i always forget to by mana potions :D )

[ModelV]

Id have to recommend Mage Armor(alteration skill) for pretty much any mage. With Light and heavy Armor you usually will need to invest in smithing to keep up the armor rating but with mage armor you only invest in a single true and gain another tree of magic.

[TimF]

I prefer no armor, and developing alteration for several reasons. It brings additional benefits, much easier to level, and doesn't require smithing.

[chanchan05]

No armor - well you get the mage armor perk. It allows you to cast double the amount of armor alteration spells normally give you if you aren't wearing any armor. At max perked I think it gives 3x armor (Wiki says that it makes spells like Stoneflesh 2x as strong, the +0.5x per additional rank), and you're even sneakier with this than any armor.

 

Light armor, well you get the perks, and you're sneakier than heavy

 

Heavy armor, you get the heavy armor perks too.

 

The main difference is you'll be spreading yourself a bit thin IMO if you will be using armor since you'll be spending perks on that apart from the mage trees. For armor, you'll need perks in two additional trees: Smithing and the Armor tree (light or heavy). For no armor mage, just stick to alteration. Al lot of the perks armor trees give are augmented by wearing no armor (no noise perks and no weight perks) and other mage skills (muffle, armored flesh, mage armor perks, etc).

Edited January 23, 2012 by chanchan05

[BrknSoul]

All armors can reach the 80% armor cap, and Alteration has the spell Dragonhide which provides 80% armor for 30 (60 with Stability) seconds.

 

All that really matters is what perks suits your character.

[chanchan05]

All armors can reach the 80% armor cap, and Alteration has the spell Dragonhide which provides 80% armor for 30 (60 with Stability) seconds.

 

Dual casting extends duration for alteration right? So you get 120secs max?

[justwannaddl]

I am a summoner and necromancer so armor doesn't do much for me.

[BrknSoul]

Dual Casting is a 2.2x multiplier.

 

Dragonhide Armor

Base: 30 sec

Stability: 45sec

Dual Cast: 66sec

Stability + Dual Cast: 99sec

 

Edited for fail-math. DH can be dual-cast.

Edited January 23, 2012 by BrknSoul

[Corakus]

You can't dual-cast dragonhide, you can't dual-cast any master spell because the master spells take up both hands.Also, stability only increases the duration of alteration spells by 50%, not 100%, the max duration for dragonhide is 45 seconds. Edited January 23, 2012 by Corakus