Compared to the vanilla sets, how good are the new armor sets?

Wow! According to the skyrim wiki; carved nordic actually has a better base rating then Dragonplate?!

Carved nordic cuirass: 48, boots:17, gloves: 17, helmet: 23=105. Dragonplate cuirass: 46, boots:17, gloves: 17, helmet:22=102.

around the same from what i've seen but they all look really cool. there is actually an armor cap in the game and almost any set of armor can hit that cap if you use potions and other skills so there really isn't any best armor in terms of protection. just how much you wanna work on other skills to make crafting armor insane lol.

Stalhrim and chitin look like crap and are the only two that offer light variants that I've come across. Bonemold and Nordic look fantastic IMO. Stalhrim would have been better without so much fur showing and more actual Stalhrim in the design, the shield is pretty sweet though and the Bonemold shield is like a huge yellow horseshoe crab. But to each his own I truck around in Nordic armor.

Yes I know, but for non-grinders its pretty cool not to worry about a sub-par armor rating. It's also cool that the nords finally got some BA high protection gear. To Oblivion with all that shiny elven crap!!!

I don't remember my carved Nordic being better than my Dragonplate..

Anyways, the new armours are fantastic. Looking forward to making a Dunmer to use the Bonemold or Chitin. Nordic Carved and Bonemold launched themselves to the top of my list immediately. Every piece of new content is sweet.

Yeah, I agree that sthalrim is a bit goofy looking but bonemold and nordic look awesome to me. chitin too. but that's all cause I loved morrowind so much i'm sure lol.

I haven't seen stalhrim light yet, saw the heavy version on a loading screen, didn't even come close to the Nordic in terms of looks. How is stalhrim statwise?

When it comes to the chitin armors I think they looked pretty alien and cool. Playing as a dunmer mercenary with full heavy chitin is tempting..