Just a topic to find out what everyone's favourite classes are?
For me, it has to be the Knight. Feels right playing a hero with this class and has a nice 'all round' feel to it.
Well, for the longest time I would be a "Ranger"--which for all intents and purposes was a stealthy archer. There's something very satisfying about dropping people instantly from the shadows and slinking about. I loved being able to move quickly thanks to wearing light armor, as well.
However for my current playthrough, I'm going back to how I used to play. When I first started the ES games, I would always be a typical sword & board knight, and honestly I forgot how much fun it is. Plus, heavy arrmor is really aesthetically pleasing in my opinion. I dunno if I have a "favorite" class per se, but I have the most experience with stealthy classes.
I think all three archetypes are really fun to play, and deciding how I want to play is usually the hardest decision. But that's what hybrids are for. Hell, even my current Nord Knight has Restoration as a major and I'm working his Alteration and Alchemy up alongside it. It's good to have multiple ways to solve a problem.
I hear what you're saying about heavy armour. Most of my knights sport the steel armour. Just look so cool and makes me feel like a proper knight!
I don't have a favorite class. The classes I play depend on my moods. Sometimes I'm in the mood to play a Mage-esque type of character, sometimes a Warrior-esque type of character...and just about everything in between. Overall, I'm more interested in the personalities and stories of my characters than I am in their jobs.
Myself, I almost always play custom classes. I usually name these custom classes after the character herself. My characters tend to have such eccentric skill sets that the usual names for classes rarely fit. To add to this confusion, most of my characters change and adapt over time. They generally start off using one set of skills and end up using another set of skills.
But for what it's worth, years ago I used to play a lot of Fighters. I'd say that was the class I was most comfortable with when I first started playing Morrowind.
My favorite class is mage. But I like assassin types, thief types, ranger types. The only thing I don't like is fighters and that's not because of anything other than the fact I hate melee combat and I'm no good at it as a player.
I don't really have a favorite class per se - all of my characters have custom classes, and their builds are more about working around the eccentricities of the vanilla leveling system than they are an actual representation of the character.
My favorite play style is probably stealth - either archery or melee (or both). I like the challenge of either one - of making tough shots from a distance with a bow, or of getting in close enough to get off a successful sneak attack with a melee weapon.
Either that or melee with a two-handed weapon - that's the other one I seem to end up with a lot of the time. It's a completely different sort of thing, since sneaking is really only useful to scope things out, since there's no sneak attack bonus for a two-handed weapon. The thing I like is how effective and satisfying the combat is. Once you learn the reach of a two-handed weapon and how to take advantage of it, combat becomes a sort of dance - moving and circling, in and out of range, hitting the opponent right at the edge of the circle described by the point of your blade then moving away before he has a chance to hit you. And there's almost nothing in this game more satisfying to me than timing a power attack so that it hits a charging opponent at the moment he steps into range.
Sorcerer is my favorite class if I have to choose one.