I'm a Pally and have Resto/1h Sword /w Heavy Armor.

It exclaims you get the Dawnguard full set bonus when all pieces are equipped. I currently have Full Helm. Heavy armor, heavy boots and heavy gauntlets. All are the Heavy set. But for some reason the bonus isn't appearing under Active Effects even though I'm pretty sure it should be.

Some might say it's because I'm not wearing the Dawnguard shield but that doesn't make much since considering many other types of players aren't shield users, so why would the bonuses be limited to only that group.

I never see the bonus's for regular armor in the Active Effects, and I have all the perks and a full matching set of light armor.

How you can see the bonus, is remove one piece of armor. Then, when you go to put it back, you should see an increase in your overall DR more than just the one piece of armor would give you. IE, Helm gives 20, put your overall DR goes up 100 with the Helm, then you know the bonus is working.

Ooo ok, thank you, I tried what you suggested and noticed the difference!