I would like your opinions on wether i should use the heavy armor skill or light armor skill for a new character im making, i want to specialize mainly in: -one handed (for dualwielding daggers & swords) - archery and sneak. But im torn between light and heavy armor. I do want to remain quick and nimble for surprise attacks but i would like to have some protection because i wil not be archering all the time.

any suggestions?

not sure hybrids such as sneak warrior works (master), but if you are giving it a go perk light armor, and use a shield in direct melee combat imo.
heavy armor takes too long to perk and make it usable with stealth while light armo is good from start and even without perks, not to mention you are faster, wich helps with avoiding detection by moving.

personally, and since I always play on master, my ranger sneak-archery-one handed + alchemy doesnt even bother perking armor, since investing in more than 3-4 skills = bad progression.
once developed sneak allows you for steady control of any combat in a big enough space, and before its developed I use companions/invisibility pots to compensate, aswell as sword and shield for melee combat when need be.

uuuuh.... light armor?

ill go with light only for the stamina reg with perks, regarding sound and weight of armor but are the same with perks they become weightless , but if u dont want to spend perks in that go light

Heavy works even better than light with the right equipment and perk. You need the sneak perk that stops armor affecting sneaking, also the heavy/light armor perk that makes the armor weightless, you can also use the stone for the weightless armor (+100 carry capacity). Then heavy armor and light armor will be equal for sneaking, So you can sneak better in heavy armor if you do it right. Also don't listen to people saying a sneak warrior won't work, you can make anything work.

it hardly works better...
you need to twice the levels and perks to make it work the SAME, not better.
light armor works without any perk at all.

The heavy armor weightless perk needs 70, the light armor perk needs 50, but you can use the stone for the weightless armor and I believe the perks you need to take to get up to them are the same. You need the sneak perk for both of them anyway, light armor is less affected to begin with, but when you have the perk they are equal.

Then read what I put in the spoiler, heavy armor is better.

Go with light armor and invest some perks into alteration(ebony flesh) if you want more protection.

... it takes ALOT of leveling to reach heavy armor 70 and alot of perks... and you DONT NEED the light armor perk at all since the armor is light enough on its own to be disregarded entirely with perked sneak tree.

so what if there is a lightweigh ebony item with a muffle bonus?, there is exactly the same bonus for light armor pieces aswell AND a unique light armor piece with backstab bonus...
no heavy armor is NOT better at all, neither at start nor when fully perked...

If you wear armor, the perk you are talking about only works when you aren't wearing armor. That is another option, don't wear any armor and use the alteration armors. Ebonyflesh is the expert spell, which gives you 100 armor rating, triples with the perk to 300. The master spell gives you 80% damage resist for ~30 seconds, which is the max you can get with armor.

You can use the stone until you have the perk, like I have said twice before.

Light armor does affect sneaking when worn, just not as much as heavy armor. The sneak perk that ignores armor when sneaking affects light and heavy armor. With the perk, they are equal.

There isn't a light armor equivalent for the ebony mail, you can use muffle on heavy boots or light boots, but you can only get that effect on the ebony mail.

Thanks for the quick responses, i was thinking about using the ebony mail at some point, because there are, like you all said, several ways to make this work. fast progression is no issue for me as i will be intending on playing for a long time and not using fast travel so much just to see the world and discover it even better etc (patient player sort of thing). Thing for me is i would like to create a swordsman archer with an "under the veil of darkness" sort of thing, hehe. Anyways, sneaking around, ambushing ppl, and other aspects, you know...

Note taken btw. Can also not use an heavy or light skill and focus on the sneak first then make my decision...

I heard you before... but the fact that you have to sacrifice a stone buff, that is much less usefull on its own, in order to make an armor work, makes that armor LESS suitable, not better like you been claiming...


with ZERO perks in light armor and without armor disregard perk from sneak, you can sucessfully do backstabs on most targets that with heavy armor you cannot


muffle is a low tier sneak perk... that is also useless when you get armor sneak penalty perks in either sneak, light or heavy armor
nightningale also has muffle btw...
and DB has backstabb bonus... that no other armor has.

Sorry for the mix up, but i know the perk doesn't work thats why i said the ebony flesh spell. Sorry if you thought i meant mage armor.

I'm lvl33. My plan was to play a sneaky warrior, dual-wielding 1-handers, wearing light armor.

My friend laughed at me, saying it was impossible. When I look at videos on YouTube, I see people (ab)using archery with sneak all the time. I hardly see people playing warriors in light armor.

I had my share of problems. But I guess you'll always run into hard fights, where enemies could 1-shot me, or kill me very quickly. But unless you always kite your enemies, I think that will always happen. Should always happen.

I was leveling up slowly, leveling a few of my combat skills, getting some perks. Doing fine. Playing at expert level. The only enemy I couldn't kill was a master vampire. But I ran into more and more enemies that were hard. Most endbosses in dungeons. I switched to using a shield. My general strategy would be: kill all adds asap, while drinking potions. Then I'd kite the last boss, while a summoned Fire Atronarch would constantly shoot fireballs to the boss. I would only attack in melee when you Shout was available (I only have 3 shouts, and they are not very powerful).

This became a bit boring, and I felt like cheating. So I decided to do a little power leveling,(e.g. block). And buy some training (alchemy and sneak). And work on my smithing and enchanting. Now my character became quite a bit stronger. And dungeons were giving me less problems. Until I ran into my first Dragon Priest (or what I think was a Dragon Priest). I stood no chance at all. Getting one-shotted. Then I realized I had found a shield with shock resist in that same dungeon. I check the web, and decided to get some boots with shock resist. Went back to the dungeon, and the Dragon Priest became a lot easier.

I continued playing and cleared a few more dungeons. Then I ran into a few Draughr Deathlords. Got one-shotted. No way I can beat them.

So it seems that whatever I do, I will always run into enemies that are too powerful for me. But with some preparation, I was able to beat most of them. I think having a few pieces with fire and shock resist is key for the harder fights. (I am a Nord, so I only need 1 piece of Frost resist gear). With sneak around 50, with some perks, I can take out many mobs in one hit. Without sneak, I can take on most of them too. The endbosses seem to require a bit more strategy. And sometimes preparation. I like that. It doesn't make the game overly difficult (I like exploration and story a lot more than just combat). But there is some challenge left. But I can never drop my guard. I like that.

Np man thanks for your input

No, I'm claiming if you have the perks and the ebony mail, heavy armor is better for sneaking. Its inconvenient to sacrifice the 20% bonus, but it doesn't affect the game that much, you also get +100 carry capacity. If you got the ebony mail early on, you would be able to do backstabs with heavy armor even without the perk. The effect isn't muffle, its some sort of sneak bonus.

Also remember he wants to be a warrior as well, heavy armor is stronger, looks better IMO and is more useful for companions.

Not sure why I'm arguing for heavy armor, as I use light armor ha, also my next character after 1.3 will have no armor. But if you have the perks, sneaking in heavy armor will be better.

You don't need x30 sneak damage with daggers, as the weapons you get with heavy armor through smithing, are stronger than the light armor counterpart. Also most good unique weapons come under the heavy side of the smithing tree, most unique shields are heavy as well, useful for a warrior.

My bad, misunderstood you. But ebony flesh isn't that useful as you can easily meet the armor max rating with light or heavy armor.

The earliest you can get Ebony Mail is lvl 30.
Unless you level your heavy armor by being hit by skeevers for a few hours (gee fun), you will be pretty high level before you hit 70 in heavy armor.
Building your character around an otherwise pretty crappy stone blessing or stuff that you won't get before lvl 30+ isn't that fun either.

Go with light armor. It's just as good.

see now you are just being stuborn.... the simple debate is wich is better for sneaking... and light armor is the clear winner, BECAUSE it doesnt need a special stone or perks to work well with.
its not just incovinient to sacrifice a stone, its plainly BAD, it means that you wont be leveling as fast or worse, wont be having acess to neat offencive and defencive powers that other stones provide.

and its plainly and directly flatout BAD to use heavy armor BECAUSE you need to skill it to 70, AND perk it to be weightless to work anywhere near as good as using light armor, while light armor doesnt require any perks or leveling at all....
not to mention a sneak based char wont be hit very often and thus level slowly their armor skill, unless ofc, "artificially" leveled.


no, you wont, I dont think you know what muffle is... and BOTH gale boots (light thieves guild special armor) and ebony mail (daedric quest heavy armor) have muffle effect -> fact
also you are NOT going to get that armor piece early on as its a daedric quest, and even if you somehow DO, it poisons nearby people so you CANT backstab with it.


not going to argue there, its flatout more protection, and looks, is a matter of taste really.
but its also important to note that IF perked and leveled BOTH armors have the same defence potential, while light armor has stamina regen perk.
but in terms of raw protection, especially while elveling, for direct melee combat heavy armor is best.

but NOT for sneak.


why are you so stubornly saying this... how is it better?
the sneak bonuses are the same... light armor can have backstab bonus while heavy cannot, heavy armor requires twice or more skill and perk points to get as good as light armor is naturally...
how is it better?


LOL
you have no idea what you are saying... base damage value between a daedric dagger and a glass dagger is neglectible when applied to the huge backstab multipliers...
also nothing prevents you from using daedric daggers if you are using light armor... if you cant craft them they are less acessible, but very much so, still attainable
the sneak bonus is BIG and you DO need it, especially in master difficulty.

Haha once again thanks for the replies!

Ill throw another ingredi?nt to the mix: suggestions for a particulair stone? I have used the steed stone on my other character but going to change it into one more useful for this particulair character..

for magical protection, atronach imo(increases mana reserve, reduces mana regen rate and gives 50% chance to negate spell dmg and regen mana instead)
for balanced protection the lord (gives you a bit of armor and 25% magic resist)
for utility to complement your sneaking (helps alot) the shadow, gives you an invisibility ability (I didnt take it on my ranger, I was alchemy and made invisibility pots instead.

atronarch is better if you dont use cojuration. Why? Cuz atronarch absorb s your own magic with cojuration spells, in this case use lord stone. Any other you should use atronarch.

If just RPing, go with light armor. But you can easily use both.

Both armor perks are pointless.

Enchanting a weapon with stamina absorb is better than stamina regain by a lot making light armor worthless.
Armor rate is easy to raise a lot with enchant and alchemy making heavy armor worthless.
HP recovery if you like melee, master robes if your really into just casting a lot

Light if you don't want to put any work into, heavy for the rewards of building up to it.
Both as sneaky when you are level 50, heavy has better armour rating.
Currently I can sneak up face on to most opponents in broad daylight and slit their throat with my one handed sword, if I don't fancy giving them a chance or can't be arsed getting into a proper scrap.
My sneak is around 95 and I only used up till the quieter armour perk. My heavy is now a hundred but only got their over time and not boosting it with Skeavers.

Disenchant some random loot muffler boots and other sneaky items and you can make your armour whatever you want it to be.