UESP says the maximum AR I could get out of 3/3 Mage Armor and the Ebonyflesh spell is 300. That seems low.

Plus, Dragonhide isn't affected by Mage Armor.

So are those perks a waste? If combined with wards do they start to shine? Is my understanding of the AR scale skewed?

For the most part, Magic resist perks are better off, anyways.

The mage armor perks are pretty handy in Cidhna Mine (depending on who you back), the master restoration spell quest, and for any character that don't use armor. 300 DR(taking your word for it, OP. I'm lazy and won't look it up) isn't bad, but requires slightly different tactics than a character using conventional armor.

My Mages tend to use Conjuration quite a bit. They hardly ever got hit if I play carefully. So I didn't bother with mage armor spells or mage armor perks when I played my second Mage. She spent her whole game with 0 AR. It was actually pretty fun. She was a real glass cannon.

The character I have planned out would use mostly defensive magic, with staves and runes for damage. No weapons. Will use Wards. Probably use a follower. I don't *plan* to get hit a ton, if that makes a difference.

IIRC the DR cap is reached at something like 567 displayed armor rating. So a 300 AR with Ebonyflesh and 3/3 Mage Armor (which takes fairly deep investment) is more than half that. I guess add on 50 AR from the Lord stone. Then if I'm using wards, that could be another 40-60 points. So say a high point of 400 AR.

I'm just wondering about the long-range usefulness of those 3 perks, when Dragonhide will eventually make them irrelevant. Is Dragonhide *so much* better than working up the Mage Armor perks that they're not very beneficial?

Edit: Hey Pseron, festive avatar! I've got a real glass cannon mage running right now - Destruction only, 100 Health. So I want to make sure my next mage can take a few hits!

I have a lot characters that I like to play without armor or much clothing.... and it is quite adequate. I have some that are mostly melee focused, using Alteration, sword and board, and enchantment that I haven't had any problems playing. I play them on adept and once they get good enough even expert. I use fortify onehanded on ring, necklace, boots and gloves with custom enchants. Smith up your sword and shield d if not using Ysgramor's or Solitude shields, utilize paralyze when available and it is good enough. Dragonhide doesn't really present much dilemma until after quite a bit of playing time, and even then I use standard shield most of the time unless I anticipate facing high level archers or boss melee enemies at which point I use dragonhide. With Lord SS u can have 350 AR and with good shield around 400 which is plenty.

Picking the Perks prevents chomp-cams from triggering as often when fighting Dragons that have landed, and do make a difference for an aggressive Mage or clumsy Player in damage taken during combat. I do not take the Perks on Hybrids, and the Perks could be considered wasted on Sneaky Mages, especially since Illusion takes a lot of Perks to be effective. If I was smart, I could have picked the Perks on the Mage I am currently playing and only died twice from Archers in Skuldafn. I had to restart from killing the second Dragon quite a bit today.

I should also have said that this will probably be a low Health build. Maybe something like a 10:1 or 5:1 ration of Magicka to Health (haven't decided yet). I'll play on Adept.

The trick is getting enough AR to avoid being one-shot by some of those nasty archers. I know there are some Deathlords out there that will do a ridiculous amount of damage, so I want to make sure taking the perks would help against that.

Guess I'll check the UESP, but you guys are making some good cases for going the Mage Armor route.

This is just my opinion, but I actually think 300 AR is fine, when playing on Adept. Even my physical-armor-wearing characters rarely have more than that. I've never hit the armor cap on any character yet. I don't pay much attention to armor ratings, to be honest. However, I do tend to move around a lot. I'm constantly on the watch for archers, and I do a lot of dodging. I guess the need for AR depends a lot on playstyle.

If you're going for something slightly more resilient than a glass cannon, I would think your 10:1 or 5:1 would do fine. If it were me, I would put points into Health for the first few levels. I'd wait until level 5 or 6 before I implemented the 10:1 or 5:1. The early levels are often the toughest for most of my characters. The way I see it, that gives a mage a fighting chance when he's at his weakest.

I've run a couple of characters recently that used swords (dual scimitars for one, and great-sword for the other) but no armour. In each case, they needed to cast the 'flesh spell before battle, as they didn't have a hand free. It worked OK. Neither put any points into Magicka, as they had enough to recast without doing so. No Fortify Alteration needed either.

Both stopped using ranged weapons or spells once they had Dragonrend available for flying dragons, too.