I've been thinking about this for a while and came to the conclusion that at 100 skill and all perks skilled, Heavy outclasses Light in nearly all ways and requires less smithing skill points to hit the max protection cap of about 870.

At 100:
Heavy has less stagger from being hit (very useful)
Light costs 50% less stamina to run (at high levels you usually have 400+ stamina anyway if you are not a mage)
Heavy dramatically increases unarmed damage (useful in brawls to end them quickly)
Legendary Ebony already hits armor cap at 80 smithing. You need 100 to hit it with Light on Glass/Dragonscale

Remember at 100 and mid level sneak, neither produces any sound while moving and both are weightless.

You also need fewer perks to get to the armor cap with Heavy than Light.

Light armor weighs less and drains less stamina. Saves you perks if you want to spend them on something else. Both can get you to max armor (567) without too much trouble if you power game a bit.

You might find the following thread interesting regarding min/maxing armor:

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1289727-2419-armor-6399-damage-using-smithing-alchemy-enchanting-only-33-perks-329k-backstabs-post-4/page__st__100

At mid-career when you got them maxed already they are both weightless. So it only drains less sprinting stamina. Stamina use from attacks remains the same.

Faster stamina regeneration, also drains less stamina when running, looks different(I LOVE scaled armor looks and fur armor. Really fitting in the nordic environment. but hate ebony, orcish and deadric armor looks), u move faster...

For me it comes down to the looks. Thankfully with smithing u can just upgrade ur equipment if u like how it looks and don't use the more fancy ones...

Only if you spend perks in them. If you don't want to waste perks you can wear elven armor that weights something close to 7 and still get max armor.

Max protection cap isn't 870 unless something changed.

The final perk in light armor is massively better than the perk for mastery in heavy armor, I am not sure why this thread keeps comming up.

dodging 1/10 blows completely is totally better than reflect damage if both armor sets hit cap armor. This is pretty obvious- especially when you consider hits get pretty hard later in the game.

EXAMPLE: If both characters have cap armor (light and heavy) and they take 10 hits for 50 damage- light armor wearer takes 450 damage assuming one dodge in 10 on CLT average. Heavy armor user takes 500 damage and reflects 25 back on their enemy... So the light armor user has actually taken less damage, ironic. Reflect damage? pfft.

Stagger... stagger... yeah I suppose heavy armor has this advantage, but I can't remember the last time I got staggered. I think this would depend on playstyle.

Light armor is friends with stamina. In light armor you ARE faster- you can sprint longer and more often so you simply cover more ground. With large stamina you can chain stagger enemies with power attacks much more frequently than its heavy armor equivalent. Also lets not forget enemy casters using frost effects, light armor wearers will not get sluggish like heavy armor in a fight like this. The counter argument is stamina potions, but if you think pausing the game to chug potions constantly isn't cheesy then that is a workaround for you.

BRAWLS??? LOL!!! all you have to do to win ANY brawl in this game is sit there and left click. There is no perk needed. If you want to actually kill things unarmed, then heavy armor is the way, otherwise the brawls argument is baseless...

Saying both are weightless is true, they both EVENTUALLY become weightless. Light armor has an advantage because they can be weightless much earlier in your career. This I suppose is roleplay here- but when I am playing a professional spellsword I am not going to say to my employer "Um, yeah I wear heavy armor and I am not level 30 yet, so I can't sneak, but just wait 50 more game hours and 20 more quests/dungeons for me to level up, and then I won't be a clutz" YMMV

OH, you can get fewer perks for everything you need in light armor and hit cap, and you don't have to take pointless ones like brawling and fall damage.

Another note- several light armor sets are quest related to stealth oriented players, so training in light is a natural boon when you consider the synergy. - No backstabby heavy armor gloves for example.

Lets put these "light armor sux" threads to bed please?

Amen.

Once I get my heavy armor skill to 100 I will be going back to my Nightingale Armor. Whenever I run around anywhere and not fighting I am always in third person just to think to myself how much of a badass I am. I honestly hate how the heavy armor looks while running and moving(including Daedric).

I wear Light Armor just for the roleplaying aspect. I've designed my warrior character as a sort of 'berserker' character, so he wears fur armor and such. I'm not too concerned though, with smithing and enchanting it's fairly easy to hit the armor cap anyway.

I'll need to read up on smithing and all that soon. But at level 31 I just got the ebony smithing perk. I was sadly disappointed to see that I could only improve it to 84 I think, and my elven gilded armor (epic) is 88. Luckily I saved just before I picked the ebony perk in case I changed my mind. I normally always go with heavy armor, but so far it looks like I'll stick to the light armor in Skyrim.

I like the Light Armor perk that makes them miss you completely 10% of the time.

Both Light Armor and Heavy Armor perk trees are pretty unimpressive. You'll be best served by spending as few points as necessary in them to become Armor Capped.

What are you trying to accomplish? Are you perking all three crafting trees to maximize the quality of your armor and weapons? Do you want Daedric weapons, etc.?

I prefer Elven because its ultra light weight (~7 lbs total) intrinsically offers lots of benefits that other armor classes have to perk for-- negligible stamina drain while running, negligible stealth penalty, modularity for different enchanted sets, etc. It can be crafted early, which is a help for the early and mid game, and it easily hits the Armor Cap late game with only a single point in Agile Defender.

Even without Alchemy, it only requires 3 points in Light Armor to cap (thanks Domilasa =)

For cosmetic reasons, sure (if that is ones cup of tea). Otherwise, thinking more long term, not really.

Is there any point in using heavy armor?

They're both end up weightless and dr capped but light has 10% chance to completely avoid a melee and 50% faster stam regen and less stam lost sprinting, heavy has stagger resistance (useless) and unarmed damage (even more useless). Hmm. What just happened here?

I like The light Dragon armour but I think Dragon bone is ugly. Everything comes down to looks for me, Even weapons, so I don't have overpowering problems either

So in the end it's all the same which you wear since both resist as much damage eventually (which defeats the purpose of having 2 - supposedly - different styles of armorsets in the first place)? I didn't know that.

even forum masters can give bad advice.

I admit not being completely infallible.

Sneak, that's all.

I kill all dungeon bosses with one backstab. I don't even need armor, I rarely get hit.

And yes, I'm playing on Master.

Sneak, and you can carry more stuff out of the place you just raided if you're wearing light instead of heavy armor.

what if you mix and match light and heavy armor? Like an iron helmet and studded leather ? does it make a difference?

The final perk in the Heavy armour tree only counts if you're wearing it sadly, if it counted when it was in your inventory too it'd be a pretty awesome perk. As many have said, it's all about looks now, you can easily hit armour cap in either heavy or light with ease providing you have the right level skills.