So for the hell of it, I decided to make a character that utilizes both light and heavy armor. Light armor on the body and head, heavy on the hands and feet. I went Warrior stone because I figured that because the body and head was light armor, the boost would help heavy armor keep pace.

Basically, both skills trail 15 points behind my two-handed skill, and I can only take the initial Juggernaut/Agile Defender. HA: 24, LA: 25, 2hand: 41

My armor rating is like 91 at level 15. Granted I could exploit-smith and upgrade both to the point where it would work, but without doing that the system is simply built for you to go one route or the other.

I just remember how the Vigilants wear robes + heavy armor gloves/boots and then had the mixed armor idea and decided to post the results.

so whats your question?

My character usually used light chest peice, and heavy everything else, im doing alright i guess. currently i have ebony mail(heavy) and darkbrotherhood hands and feet, and redguard hood( cloth)

im not wasting perks on the armor

Wasn't asking a question, was starting a discussion.

i've thought similar things when using both heavy and light. i have no proof, though.

it wouldn't surprise me if the system gets jacked with both equipped.

What level are you? What is your armor rating? Any problems you've run into?

You're right , 500 hours back I was looking for getting 'sets' but now I totally understand using both Light and Heavy is better.

If you're playing on Adept, it seems like you can get away with it. I imagine it would be quite difficult to try this on Master though.

well Im playing on Master so i get killed alot, and im an ice spellsword and everything is resistant to ice. im level 41 currently, if i had to guess my heavy and light is between 50-60 each

Keep your current configuration and perhaps use enchantments to boost your HA and LA ratings?

And you've put nothing into either in the way of perks? I imagine your armor rating is pretty low, since each rank in Juggernaunt/Agile defender gives you a 20% boost in each.

ya but if i recall correctly, the armor perks only really help you if your weariung full sets. The lack of medium armor makes me a sad panda bear, so this is how i compensate

Not true. I've tested it before and after taking the perks. It will give 20% bonus to each piece of the appropriate armor.

the dovahkiin wears heavy head, hands, and feet, while wearing light chest so i assume it should work

As far as I can remember, there is only one set of medium armour and it's only available to those that take the Imperial Legion questline... and even then it's only the armour itself, not the boots, gloves or shield

Its not medium armor. If you pick "medium armor" from the list, it gives you light armor plus a shield, I believe.

A quick google search pretty much confirms this.

- If you choose light, you get all light armour, including a light shield.
- If you choose medium, you get all light armour with a heavy shield.
- If you choose Heav- you get the idea.

Mind you, it also said the was no medium armour in Oblivion. It's been a while since I played it so I can't remember how true that is

I've tried to do the same thing using robes and heavy armor (like the vigilants of Stendarr) and it worked great with alteration and wards. Only had a few problems against strong melee enemies. Difficulty was set on Expert.

In my opinion it would have been better if Heavy and Light Armor would have been put into one tree that separated to give you boost if you chose to one way or the other. Also wish there was a way to add iron, steel, ext. plates to boost the rating through smithing and be able to make light and heavy versions of the different types of armor. Off topic I was wanting to make a character that uses heavy for hands and feet but use Blue Mage Robes. Is there a way to give it an armor rating without the use of spells?

You knew this was coming but... "there's a mod for that"

Someone went to the trouble of making medium armor, check out nexus. *


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It's funny you mention this. I was just thinking about a similar build idea today. But rather, switching between LA and HA instead of mixing. I can't imagine mixing the armor would allow for optimal experience gain. it really doesn't surprise me you're running into trouble there. (Just leveling up HA is hard enough because nobody can touch me )

But anyway my build was a warrior-by-day assassin-by-night sort of thing. I did it more for a complex RP situation. And the more I think about it, the more I like it. Just thought I would share

I like this. I always thought LA belonged in "the warrior" domain as well, because quite frankly, a thief should rarely get touched. Also, I wonder why more than one version of armor was made if they didn't have your concept in mind (I'm looking at you, elven armor). i see no reason why elven can't have a heavy variant.

Of course, if this change were to occur, it would mean drastic changes in smithing as well... which is fine by me. *There's a pretty recent thread with some good smithing ideas if you can find it.

I have tried the mixed armour approach, and I also find it a pain. The problem is one I've complained about elsewhere: the game makes the perks much more important than skills. In general, one perk point seems equivalent to about 25 levels of experience. But there are no "wearing four pieces of armour" perks (un-modded anyway), just four Heavy of four Light. That leaves only the basic Juggernaut and the Light equivalent to boost armour skills - which takes a total of ten perks to fill up. I never play higher than Adept so I can cope, especially with high smithing. But i still think there should be more focus on skill levels and less on perks.

I've gotten her to around 20th level now and yeah, that one perk on each tree that gives a 25% bonus to armor rating seems to be very crucial. I'm going to go a little longer and see how it plays out.

Theoretically, you could wear just one piece of armor and exploit the crap out of it with smithing and enchanting and hit the cap that way, but that way is just cheating IMO.