Light armour or heavy?

Why is heavy armour just slighty better than light?
What is the point of using heavy if it drains stamina?
Am I missing something?

With the relatively low armour cap of 562 the only reason I think you should use Heavy Armour is a playstyle preference. That is if you also incorporate Smithing to boost up the armour rating of said Light Armour. The benefits to movement alone, without having to perk into it are enough to make me pick Light Armour much more often.

Metallipath said:

With the relatively low armour cap of 562 the only reason I think you should use Heavy Armour is a playstyle preference. That is if you also incorporate Smithing to boost up the armour rating of said Light Armour. The benefits to movement alone, without having to perk into it are enough to make me pick Light Armour much more often.

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Yea, Heavy Armor is mainly for the extra defense for pure melee characters or Battlemages who want to not die quickly.

Reiji said:

Yea, Heavy Armor is mainly for the extra defense for pure melee characters or Battlemages who want to not die quickly.

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I agree with this, Heavy Armour is a more personalized choice for a character that will not be smithing, and doesn't necessarily need to move around in combat so much. For example, the exact two classes you mentioned. Sword and Board warrior can simply time blocks properly, and a battlemage should be standing further away when engaging enemies. Hopefully they can zap or burn them to shreds before they get within range, but if not... Heavy Armour!

So if I would use a sword and a shield, I could get better use light armour if I time my blocks on time?
And what is that with the armor cap? Is there a max of armor rating I can have?
And which perk is that?
But wait, we do have the steed stone, is it called, it makes your armour having no weight, right?
I quess I'm just going to use that

MrCostari said:

So if I would use a sword and a shield, I could get better use light armour if I time my blocks on time?
And what is that with the armor cap? Is there a max of armor rating I can have?
And which perk is that?
But wait, we do have the steed stone, is it called, it makes your armour having no weight, right?
I quess I'm just going to use that

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The armour cap just means that anything past that amount of armour will not actually block any more percentage of physical damage. Therefore, if you incorporate a high smithing level, with a shield you should relatively easily get very close to, or beyond the armour cap. (The physical damage resistance is capped to 80%, which is how much 562 armour blocks.) The Steed stone is also a good thing to use if you want another 100 pounds of carry weight, but there are perks to replace the no weight effect, as well as Light Armour which either does not affect movement, or very slightly does. I think the Lord stone would be better suited for a light armour class at the beginning, adding a +50 bonus to armour, as well as a very helpful 25% magic damage resistance.

Also the armor you use should depend more on the difficulty your playing on. If your playing on adept, Heavy Armor isn't necessary unless your a mage with crappy defense. With a Sword/Shield you can knock back almost all melee attacks if you have enough stamina. Mix in the Disarm shout, and it's just mass rape. In Master Difficulty it's more likely to use Heavy Armor, as the enemies are insanely difficult to kill and do alot of damage. This all ties back to your play style.

Ah I think I get it, I'm just going for the Steed stone

No, I didn't read Reijij comment
So I'm still going to think about it.

Another question,
Do I get to make my armour better every 10 levels or so?
I'm 36 now and I can't make it better than superior, do I need to be 40?
And it takes a long asswalking and a long time to get all those ores.
Should I just buy them?
Is there some strategy for it?
I mean, when should I upgrade my armour, when should I buy armour.
It struggles me and I don't want to ruin my playthrough on YT!

Absolutely go for buying Iron Ingots and Leather/Leather Strips if you want to get Smithing to level 100 quickly, it sounds ridiculous but just build Iron Daggers! As many as you can, as often as you can! But, yes, you can further upgrade your equipment every few smithing levels, 10 sounds like a safe bet to me, but there are always exceptions. Smithing boost gear and potions will also help you reach Legendary long before reaching 100 Smithing. They'll also help boost the stats far beyond Legendary, without giving it a new status though.

Metallipath said:

Absolutely go for buying Iron Ingots and Leather/Leather Strips if you want to get Smithing to level 100 quickly, it sounds ridiculous but just build Iron Daggers! As many as you can, as often as you can! But, yes, you can further upgrade your equipment every few smithing levels, 10 sounds like a safe bet to me, but there are always exceptions. Smithing boost gear and potions will also help you reach Legendary long before reaching 100 Smithing. They'll also help boost the stats far beyond Legendary, without giving it a new status though.

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Ehmm no, I want to when I can upgrade my armor.
It should be limited to certain levels.
Like 20 30 40 60 80 whatever???
Can you tell me that?

Smithing boost gear and potions will also help you reach Legendary long before reaching 100 Smithing. They'll also help boost the stats far beyond Legendary, without giving it a new status though.

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And what does that mean?
You mean smithed weapons get better, or I train my smithing faster?

But should I stuck with steel armour all the time??
When should I buy new armour?

Enchanted gear that boosts smithing, and potions that boost smithing will increase your upgrade percentages to gear. Not leveling speed. I'm not sure about what smithing level correlates to what upgrade status you can do though, sorry.

Ah ok thank you very much.
But when do you suggest me to switch my armour?
I mean, it seems to be easier for me to keep my steel armour and upgrade it a lot, is that fine?
And besides that, other armor doesn't seem to be much better.
It's like light armor compared to heavy.
Don't get it :S
Probably forgot a couple words again in this message, I seem to that lately a lot of times.
Maybe even in this sentence. Or this. Ok enough.

MrCostari said:

Ehmm no, I want to when I can upgrade my armor.
It should be limited to certain levels.
Like 20 30 40 60 80 whatever???
Can you tell me that?


And what does that mean?
You mean smithed weapons get better, or I train my smithing faster?

But should I stuck with steel armour all the time??
When should I buy new armour?

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fair enough if you want to upgrade your armour when you can legitimately, but your smithing will level so slowly and you wont be able to upgrade anything if you dont focus on "training/levelling" your smithing.

And by using "smithing boosting gear", it allows you to create weapons with damage beyond what i can make with 100smithing, so using this gear at a lower level of smithing will allow you to create better items without focussing on and levelling your smithing, which you dont seem to want to do, for some silly reason

MrCostari said:

Ah ok thank you very much.
But when do you suggest me to switch my armour?
I mean, it seems to be easier for me to keep my steel armour and upgrade it a lot, is that fine?
And besides that, other armor doesn't seem to be much better.
It's like light armor compared to heavy.
Don't get it :S
Probably forgot a couple words again in this message, I seem to that lately a lot of times.
Maybe even in this sentence. Or this. Ok enough.

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Oh, my bad. I'm sorry I thought you meant upgrading your current armour to new levels (Exquisite, Legendary, etc). Honestly, with the low armour cap I can't suggest enough to you to just wear what armour looks the best to you. If you find a nicer piece of armour with a good enchantment that's always good too though.

The kind of armor matters even if you smith because you need higher smithing skill to reach the armor damage reduction cap with lower kinds of armor so you can get dragonscale armor to cap with lower smithing skill than the smithing skill required to reach the damage reduction cap for glass armor etc.

You can improve your armor at any time and when you choose to do so should be dictated by your smithing skill and perks, not your level.

For smithing skill without the corresponding armor perk for the type of armor those numbers are 14, 31, 65 and 100, and with the appropriate armor perk they are 14, 22, 40, 57, 74 and 91 for Fine, Superior, Exquisite, Flawless, Epic and Legendary.

Without apparel enchanted with Fortify Smithing or Fortify Enchant potions or some combination of both you will never be able to smith armor to Epic or Legendary without the appropriate armor perk because your Smithing skill must be 134 for Epic and 168 for Legendary.

When your smithing skill exceeds the skill point requirement for Legendary your armor will get additional armor rating points on top of the 20/10 point improvement for the additional skill points.

Alright, it seems very complicated
So first of all I should get some smithing potions?
But they last for like 60 seconds, so I gotta be quick

JESUS !!!
I just leveled my smithing for 35 to 48 with just 40 iron daggers! OMFG thanks much for that tip!

AND OMG another 26 iron daggers made me level to 53!!

I know this wasn't an active thread yet, but I plan on making a Skirmisher (See here in the Warrior Archetypes Section: The Warrior (Skyrim) - The Elder Scrolls Wiki) but I am having trouble picking the armor since I am playing on Master. I don't know if I am ready for Master, but I want to try it so I have to pick between defense and a more agile offensive armor?

I think since your build includes Block you should stick with Light Armor. Expend less stamina running / eventually the light armor skill tree has a regenerate stamina perk. Your armor won't get hit too much if you are blocking, so as long as you have a decent shield and maybe a necklace of %blocking increase you shouldn't take too much damage. Especially since you will have sneak and archery as minor skills in your build, Light Armor seems to be the better choice to me.

To be honest, I seem to now be mopping up various miscellaneous quests, am level 39 (almost), and no foe seems to cause much problem now. AND... I've never regretting sticking with light armour.
At no point have I thought 'I really wish I had some heavy, smelly, clanky armour to slow me down'.

So that's my opinion.