I played a Nord and used sword combined with a healing spell. I found it most effective. But I wonder if a shield would be the better option, and when you need to heal, you switch to a healing spell.

Your opinions?

Bump

You should switch as needed.

My warrior's build is 1h, block, heavy armor, archery, smithing, and restoration. With a few points in sneak for the x3 archery.

Use your favorites menu (and hotkeys if on pc) to quickly switch between bow and 1h/sh when monsters close on you, and if you take a pounding, switch to double healing to fix it in a blink.

Keeping the same things in your hands at all times may work but its not optimal.

I vote shield. I found that with some perks invested into block, using a shield becomes very powerful.

In melee, at least on expert+ i find bash to be a requirement to live more than a few swings from the equal level baddies. Timing your bashes to stagger them during power-attacks is one of the best ways to mitigate damage, even then against some really hard guys i'll run around with dual healing spells dumping all my magicka on my health bar in a few seconds and then going back to a weapon that can block or parry.