I'm not seeing increased mobility in light, unless the stamina regen is supposed to represent that - which I'm afraid is clearly not worth the significantly lower armor class.
Heavy Armor's conditioning perk seems to remove all drawbacks of heavy armor completely, leaving light unquestionably in the dust.

there's always been a balance issue in the game. Once you get dragon armor and compare it to dragonscale armor you'll see a pretty big difference.

Light armor is better for stealth.

The stamina regen is also useful for archers.

I thought light armor gave you a chance to dodge?

Wouldnt that be your advantage?

light armor should let you move quicker, run quicker, regen stamina quicker, lose stamina slower but not sure how it is in game

You arent competing with anyone. Just use the one you prefer. That is the nice thing about the skill system. All the skills work together. Concept, playstyle, cool factor, appearance, and min-maxing. The min-maxing may not be as you picture it for a certain combo, but then you have all the othef aspects I mentioned.

Go forth, play, and worry no more!

I personally dont like looking like a walking robot man, so therefor I choose light armor, also works well with stealthy gameplay.

The majority of the game does not exist in a place where you have 100 skill and unlimited perks.

Conditioning, for example, requires 70 skill and 4 perks. That's actually very high. I'm level 26 in the game, have 40 hours, and I have nothing to 70 skill. You're going to be dealing with the full heavy weight for 40 hours. That is if you're even playing a build that gets hit often enough to raise your skill that often.

By contrast, light armor gets its "weighs nothing" perk at a mere 50 skill and 3 perks. In addition to being lighter that entire time. You could probably ignore this perk altogether.

A 10% chance to dodge is pitiful vs. the far superior perks in the heavy armor tree on top of it's better protection.

It generally depends on your skill perks. Light armor and heavy armor compared share most perks but the key to light armor is that 50% stamina regen you get which heavy armor doesn't get, the perk is called wind walker. Thats 50% on top of the bonus you are already getting because you are using light armor. If you are using a light weapon, it boils down to being able to make power attacks throught a fight without ever running out of stamina, something you can acomplish realivty early on with light armor.

Muffled Movement from the sneak constalation allows you to reduce the noise armor makes by 50%, given the substantial penalty heavy armor places on you, even with this bonus and a high skill you aren't going to be very good, while in light armor once you have this perk you become practically invisible.

For general defense heavy is the way to go.. I think light is mainly for the flexibility of having nearly unlimited stamina and as such you can deal a hell of a lot more damage with light armor for that reason.

I always go for light armor; namely Leather, Studded Leather, Scales, or Chain. I can't stand wearing the Plate. I fully realize that it is better protection but I just like my character to be a lighter archer type. At 14th level I am wearing the Guard Armor from Whiterun and it looks great, is Light, and Nordic.

Except power attacks are worse than regular attacks for damage over time I'm pretty sure, due to their slower speed. I never use them. Plus I use mostly archery anyway, which doesn't use any stamina unless you zoom but I rarely need to. The only thing I use stamina for is running, really, but the default is always enough, I've never been hurting for stamina.

As for sneaking, I don't go for backstabs, just use arrows. That is a good point though, wasn't sure if heavy vs. light made a significant difference with sneak or not. Seems like heavy armor is ideal for me though. I do prefer the look of light, but just doesn't seem worth it when it doesn't make enough of a difference in mobility.

IMO Leather, like in Oblivion, is still the best looking light armor they've put out. I'm just going to stick with it, boost it to Legendary and take the associated perks to get the most out of it that I can.

Nonsense.

Let's see how many perks it takes to MAX each out.
Light Armor: 10
Heavy: 12

The argument that "Heavy armor also has conditioning too!" needs to be looked at more closely. Notice that the heavy armor tree forks. The light connects. ALL the combat relevant heavy armor perks are on the right side while conditioning is all the way at the end of the left side. That means you'll have to chose which you want first and you'll be picking up 2 perks (drop damage, hand to hand) that you may never use at all.

Not only this. But for my light armor build i DONT plan on having a matching set because of artifact items out there that are light armor. I can skip the "matching armor" perk completely while getting everything else. Heavy can't. So thats a possible 3 extra perks I have.

As far as "far superior" how did you get that? The light perks will net you faster regen, possible evasion of damage, and better stamina (for attacking more). The only different ones in heavy are reflection of damage, and less staggering.

So make your choice:

Light armor: More stamina for attacking, less armor. You save at least 2 perks.
Heavy: Less stamina, less free perks, more armor.

Done. It's down to playstyle.

The Light Armor perk Unhindered "Light Armor does not weigh you down or slow you down" suggests that armor types (clothes, robes, light, heavy) slow you down depending on its weight. also heavy is damn... well heavy and you have to get to level 70 to make it not. And you basically stand no chance of sneaking in heavy and it makes your stamina recharge slower and if it still in the game like previous TES's heavy makes your spells slightly less effective. Don't know if one is really better than the other but all this makes me think it cant be enough to care all that much about it.

Edit: corrections

It really depends on what weapon you are using and how you are perked out.

For example if you are dual wielding swords and you take Dual Savagery, Paralyzing strike and Savage Strike coupled with some of the standards you literly cripple or kill oppoenents outright in a single dual power attack. And the speed of power attacks is actually increased with Dual Fury even though it doesn't state that in the perk description.

You can also use it with other weapons, for example bone breaker and Hack and Slash for axe and mace actually work for power attacks as well.

Your right though strictly speaking you would probobly do more damage with swords, but the power attacks really become almost one shot one kills, and if they don't kill you they are going stagger your opponent.

I haven't experimented with it that much but I find the power attacks as so brutaly deadly its crazy and while stamina is a none issue with a single opponent in those two on one or three on one fights, man that stamina comes in handy because you really need to stagger people and get them off their feet in a single swing else the chance of getting hit more often are a lot higher. I mean the shorter the fight the better for you.

But it needs more experimentation, I can't say Im an authority on the subject, but with dual wielding power attacks I find Im a death machine.

10% chance in fact, with a high-level perk. Heavy armor version of the perk is 10% reflect damage. I have too agree about the balance issue here.
If they made the reduse weight perk for heavy armor only reduce 50% it would feel like it is more balanced.

Well you have to put it to scale. Light armor gives you a chance to dodge an entire attack, any attack. Doesn't matter how much damage it would do. Be it 1 hit point or 5,000 hitpoints. A blow that might kill you in light armor could be dodged entirely where as in heavy armor that blow will still kill you and you might take someone with you, in which case the victory is meaningless. So given a choice here just at face value the light armor is a better offer. I rather dodge it than take it and share it.

But I agree that this all boils down preference of combat styles. I mean if Im swinging a great sword I think Heavy armor is the way to go. Dual wielding or using a mace for example, I think I prefer light armor for the stamina regen.

I find light armor is working really well with my 2 handed nord. The added stamina let's me make even more devastating power strikes during a fight, which are essential for my build obviously for the damage, but also to stagger the enemy. It also allows some stamina to sprint if need be and makes me lighter on my feet so I can dodge attacks easier.

I'm loving light armor.

Some good points, the two perks to get conditioning are pretty much junk. The faster regen and evasion of damage(the higher armor of heavy makes this obsolete IMO) seem worthless to me, however, compared to the staggering protection.

I suppose skipping both deft movement and windwalker nets me even more perk savings, though, without losing any of the important perks of light.

I guess when it comes to perks, light wins on a superior tree design due to junk perks in heavy being required to get the most important one, but when it comes down to the actual armor, heavy still wins. I might actually go with light then, since I like playing jack of all trades characters I'll take more free perks.

There's a difference in movement speed, but that doesn't matter all that much anyway. The main difference is stealth; light armor is for thieves and scouts and such, and the heavy armor is for straight warriors and battlemages and such.

i want medium armor back!!!!!

Well unless you build your character without Melee Power Attacks, stamina is important and Windwalker is probobly one of the best armor perks all around′. 50% of your already existing bonuses is huge.

No, I don't think that line of logic is correct. The pure armor benefits from Heavy Armor are higher than light, so it's extremely certain that at that top level you will definitely NOT be getting one shotted, all while reflecting some sick damage back.

Plus, the fact that you can completely remove the weight problems from Heavy Armor itself is ridiculous. The stamina stat is so easy to increase artificially without light armor perks that there is almost no reason not to go heavy armor when you want to play efficiently.

If you really want to role play, go ahead. But you're not getting the best you could possibly get.

You can't sneak in heavy armor. If you're not looking to play as a stealthy character, then of course the heavier armor is better.