Hi, got back to playing again. Made a nord warrior, he will use light armor, bow, and either a two hand weapon or sword and shield.

However if I go the sword and shield route, I don't want to end up using an elven shield. I'm a nord afterall.

The glass shield variants also don't exactly complement well with me either.

So I am wondering, when using entirely light armor, does it matter if the shield is light armor or heavy armor? Does it impede movement speed any noticeable? Also, will I get heavy armor skillups when blocking with it in stead of light armor (which have some awesome perks) in addition to block skillup? Or does armor type skillup only happen when you get directly hit, with no blocking?

Thanks in advance, unfortunately I have a tendency to metagame way too much, will try to avoid it on this run but I just need this sorted

No, you can use a heavy armour shield and not put points into the HA skill. The only thing it will level up is block

Is movement speed decreased?

Nope.

Shields are a kind of a special case. They don't figure into the Armor Perks, like the ones that give a boost for having the same type of armor or the same armor material. So, you can mix and match shields, which is nice as there are shields out there with some nice enchantments on them and they don't always match your other gear.

They also don't count against the Mage Armor perk, so you can wield a shield and still get the benefit of doubly effective defense spells.

Never thought about that one. Good tidbit of information though, thanks!

As others have said: No. You can't use a Heavy Shield while having all Light Armor on and expect it to LV Heavy Armor. It won't, I asked the very same question myself a while back. Reasoning was my char. is Light Armor and got Spellbreaker completely forgetting that it's Heavy Armor.

There's still a Light Armor shield out there for you bro: DRAGONSCALE SHIELD

It's what I use, I'm a Nord and the same way. Refuse to wear elven/glass armors. So I wear Dragonscale, which is fitting because I am Dragonborn afterall.

No shield can beat Spellbreaker.

Spellbreaker is a heavy shield, but it does get a 25% armor boost when I've got all my light Dragonscale armor equipped, with the Custom Fit perk.