Armor vs Fortify Armor

[Perkless in Skyrim]

Just how effective is the Fortify Light/Heavy Armor enchantment? Would smithing be more effective? When crafting your armor, do you ever choose this enchantment? If given a choice between Fortify Armor or Fortify Health which would you pick?

I get the impression this doesn't see a lot of use and I've only recently been giving it a try since to me More Health>Better Defense. Your thoughts?

 

[Adam Warlock]

The enchantment is not an outright % increase of your Armor Rating but adds to your total light/heavy skill level and AR is figured after that.
Have to agree that extra health is a better choice if you can choose only one.

I do find that a Fortify Armor enchantment(on hands for instance) will boost my Armor Rating somewhat until my natural armor skill and smithing ability can reach the cap without the assistance.

Note that Fortify Armor is useful to give to followers and thralls since most will not have the armor augment perks or skill level you do.

 

[Perkless in Skyrim]

The enchantment is not an outright % increase of your Armor Rating but adds to your total light/heavy skill level and AR is figured after that.
Have to agree that extra health is a better choice if you can choose only one.

I do find that a Fortify Armor enchantment(on hands for instance) will boost my Armor Rating somewhat until my natural armor skill and smithing ability can reach the cap without the assistance.

Note that Fortify Armor is useful to give to followers and thralls since most will not have the armor augment perks or skill level you do.

So it seems more useful as a beginner's crutch. I've got 2 pieces of armor enchanted with it. My Light Armor skill is 50 and with my enchantments its 90 something. I just wondered if a highly skilled user is better than a highly smithed set of armor.

Also, I wasn't aware that Fortify Armor worked on followers.

 

[raido KASAI]

the fortify armor enchantments are useful, but you are correct in that the higher up you get level-wise, it has less impact.

I tend to use it earlier rather than later. Where I found it helpful was in cases where my smithing skills were lower and I got a good set of armor that I did not have an improvement perk on its type and thus the amount I could improve it was pretty small.

Ultimately though since you are limited on the total amount of enchantments active at a time, typically enchantments are a limited resource that could be used more effectively on other areas.

Ultimately for all my characters in the long run, smithing is always a skill I attack early on and get it as high as I can and typically all the available perks are active.

This is best in my opinion for characters that don't primarily rely on magic that often. If I have a magic-first type of character I'd rather use enchantments slots on enchantments like magicka regen and boosts in whichever of the magic schools I wanted to use. Getting better at smithing can still be helpful though even in this case, except maybe for a pure mage, but it's considerably less if you don't use conventional armor

 

[ColleenG]

I like to use it when I hit 100 on enchantment. Dual enchant fortify light/heavy armor with whatever, your choice. You're invincible.