My favorite is the Atronach for my warrior/assassin. Spell absorption for defense and extra magicka for when I (rarely use spells). Steed is a close second.

Yeah man lets all stay lowbies forever. Lets forego geting to the good perks faster just to roleplay some cripple like you. Nah. You're wrong.

Lover
Steed
Shadow

I don't get the love for the shadow sign. I have the invisibility spell and I think it's pretty svcky, enemies still detect you even when muffled and invisisble so why waste your stone choice on a once a day 60 second invisibility? I had the steed for a while really convenient, but I must say I quite like the lord stone, gives my light armor/destruction/sneak/one handed altmer a good amount of defense she would have otherwise forfeited.

Lover/Mage/Fighter/Thief are pretty much useless in my opinion. Want to level faster? Hire trainers it's not like you're going to be running short on cash in this game any ways.

I was using Apprentice stone until i found out that if you reduced the mana cost on spells to 100% they cost nothing, so now i use Atronach and it makes my Breton pretty much immortal on Master. I would say the most useful are steed stone until you get the perk that stops armor from slowing you down. After that Atronach unless you use more than 2 schools of spells frequently. If you don't use Atronach i would say that Lord stone probably is the best, 25% magic resist is nice when the most scary enemies are mages.

Also if you use heavy armor the talents you need to take to get the "armor weights nothing" perk are pretty gimped so maybe you should go with steed. I prefer light armor though, better talent tree. Legendary Dragon Scale armor easily brings your total armor over 1500 at high level, don't know how armor works in this game, but i'm pretty sure the extra armor from heavy is next to useless.

I don't really see the point with the leveling stones, im 64 myself, never used a leveling stone ever, still got plenty of stuff left to do in the game, if you use Lovers stone, you should hit 81, when you still have a lot of content left in the game.

one of the first three when crafting.

Lord stone when likely to encounter some big time necromancy.

Steed stone the rest of the time.

My favorite is the Ritual Stone. Sure, something like the Lord Stone might see more use, but the Ritual Stone has a particular flair to it


Fighting my way all the way though a dungeon to the boss. "Hmm, he looks pretty nasty...."

Turning to look behind me at the large pile of corpses in the previous room.

Lover's Stone here. Faster XP across the board.

Steed stone, no movement or stamina penalties in heavy armor and 100 extra carry weight? AWWWW YEAAAAHHHH

atronach stone is crap. reason : it absorbs ANY effect that is targeted at the player. even FRIENDLY ones. and guess what? POTIONS count as restoration effects. so they get absorbed sometimes aswell as summons healing spells and other buffs. dont use this thing esepcially not wit the +30% perk from alteration three. it just svcks imo when healing effects get absorbed into magicka when you need them.

lord stone is only uesful if you are not a breton. since the 50 armor rating becomes useless once you reach the cap you only gain ONE benefit.

the steed stone is by far the best endgame stone. reason :
+100 carry is ALOT.
and you dont need to waste THREE perkpoints for cushioned. so BOTH effects help you AND you save perks i tested this a long time thrust me guys. its the better deal of these both since two postive effects is always > one.

of course if you are not a breton you must use the lords stone or a shield otherwise both jewels slots will he eaten by magic resist entchants to reach cap.

i have a character now at lvl 81. he has still 30! perks left to spend currently since i leveled to 81 without using any perks (took nearly two weeks of skill grinding -.-) so i have a blank char to test builds on.

the character is a breton.
he now has 85% magic resist (cap) 883 armor (above cap) 636 damge on deadric 2hander (cap without exploits). 550 carry weight. zero manacost for destruction spells. 600 hp 272 endurance 372 mana. i did only put three points in heavy armor three at all to get 50% less stagger perk (usefull when fighting multiple enemies on master in melee range) i could still choose to fully perk conjuration or any other school PLUS full sneak three without giving up any of the above. of course if you are a breton the same works with the lords stone at the end you save the same amount of perks (1 more) BUT you lose 100 carry weight. and thats why i did choose the steed stone.

Atronach stone does NOT work on positive effects, i just spent 5 minutes trying out with restoration spells and potions and nope it doesn't absorb, so is your game bugged or what are you on about? Now i did not know about the armor cap, so i have 7 talents in light armor should only be 3 for unhindered, are you telling me that 100 carry weight is better than 50 magicka and 50% absorb from ONLY hostile spells and i looks to be 100% with the breton racial as i did not take any magic damage from mobs when i used it. Seriously i don't see how steed stone is better except you save omg 3 talents, my character is only 65, but i'm already out of stuff to put in, so i just put in crappy talents which doesn't really benefit me that much, so i much rather have 50 magicka and 50% absorb vs 100 carry weight and 3 talents thank you (cushioned is worthless if you have muffle, i got the nightingale boots when i sneak so...).

I already got armor cap and 85 magic resistance btw, using only light armor.

Edit, ok Atronach stone seems to make you absorb summons and only summons no other conjuration spells, i did not know this cause i always use storm thrall, so i don't have to summon often. Now this is obviously a bug and again potions and restoration spells are not effected.

Steed Stone... helps out a ton with my sneak character who wears heavy armor... it's his style don't make fun of him... he's a straight up wimp... uses the best armor so he won't die and sneaks around with his bow to kill things before they can get to him...

I'm sadly addicted to the Steed Stone and its extra carry weight. Wish I wasn't, as I'd like to try something else at some point.

Ritual Stone = Greatness

Lord Stone all the way!

One of my favorite times in the game so far was in that dungeon that has the trap door in front of the word wall that falls into a pit of dead bodies with a smug necromancer. He wasn't so cocky when those corpses rose up and chased him down.

The Lord Stone.
50 points of damage resistance, and 25% magic resistance = Awesome

Unless you are crafting armor with those bones, don't bother. Loot you find typically has more value at less weight.

On topic: The Lord has the best defensive properties. The Lover is great for general leveling.