How viable is a light armor warrior 1H with shield on expert or even master?

Also, I won't be using smithing or enchanting.

Well, my greatsword wielding light armored Warrior worked, sort of, so I don't see why that build wouldn't work, if you were light on your feet and very careful. You have to be on the top of your game in every battle to survive on Master...

Yea, master with light armor for a warrior is going to be extremely tough...and on top of that no smithing or enchanting is even harder. You will definitely need to play an Orc and use that racial!

If I were you I would use a shield as well. Your going to need some form of protection besides light armor

I'm playing that exact build with an Orc, currently level 25 on normal difficulty and it's still tough. The Main Quest was nothing though. I'm having more trouble just getting through my 1st test with the Imperial legion.

You'll definitely want a shield with light armor if you aren't using smithing. You won't last too long in the harder fights without using a lot of potions if you don't. A good shield can soak up a ton of damage. My warrior can stand up to one of the frost bears for a very long time with his shield up. Take the shield down and they eat up his health pretty fast even with smithing. Not to mention shields are excellent for bashing the enemy giving you openings for striking and for interrupting mages. I always run up and bash a mage before attacking them. The power bash perk makes it even better since you can drop them to one knee for a moment.

My light armor 2hander is one of the most entertaining characters I have ever played. Battles are all about fancy footwork. Swing, evade, swing, evade, decapitate! Or, power bash, decapitate! I especially love the fact that with a battleaxe, when an enemy's on one knee after a power bash, you don't get the "smash with the butt of the axe, decapitate" killcam, but the executioner-style axe-drop like a boss killcam.

tl;dr Light armor berserker is awesome.

I'd like to ask this same question as the OP and add "(How viable is a light armor warrior 1H with shield on expert or even master, plus archery?)

For a while I was focusing on increasing my archery skill, so as I've leveled up I've struggled to hang with some of the big boys. Of course it doesn't help me that I keep forgetting to stock up on health potions. I also keep forgetting I have Dawnbreaker in my arsenal.

It is a good combination provided you perk everything up well and don't svck at timing your blocks

Very viable having done so, quite a fun character as you have to be a bit more tactical than a heay armour chaarcter. You have to know when to hit and run.

My first char was just that. Light armor and 1H using swords and shields. Worked fine. I abandoned him around level 70 due to boring god like stats.

I play on Master with my Light Armoured Warrior. One-handed, Light Armor and Block. I don't use anything else, no magic, alchemy, enchanting or ranged attacks. I don't use any enchanted items either. I do use Shouts for role-playing as the Dragonborn though.

I even use no potions. I did add a few perks into smithing just to get a little more damage out of my weapon as on Master I have been taking too long to kill anything which was getting a little tedious.

well if you think you have too less protection, don't play master, if challenge is for you, why afraid of being light armor warrior? Just test it out if it is too hard to survive.

There are 2 things you can do to get through:

1) lower the difficulty

2) use a little bit smithing

Light Armour build, I found is much easier and viable than a Heavy Armour build at the start. The stamina, weight, and speed penalty of heavy armour just makes it a lot more difficult till you are leveled up to around 35 to 40.

Not to mention needing less perks to maximise armour rating on light armour tree.