Endurance skills are turning out to be a real pain in the butt to advance. I'm playing at 75% on the difficulty slider, and I just can't stand in front of my foes, blocking or wearing heavy armor for very long. Armorer seems very very slow. Any tips to help advance the Endurance skills?

Do not always hold your shield up at the ready. This signals the enemy to unleash a power attack. This will hurt you. Usually badly. Instead try to time your blocks when they are just swinging their weapon in at you. It will hurt less, and increase your block at the same time. Heavy armor is definitely a drag in the beginning levels. By about level 19 or so, it should feel like putting on a bathrobe: that is, you won't feel as encumbered, and will be able to move around better. As for the Armorer skill, I repair everything. Even if it's a bad guy's weapon and cuirass that you cannot possibly carry, I pick it up, repair both items, and drop them on the ground again.

To me, Armorer seems like it levels almost too fast. My current character is only level 28, and I took Armorer as a major, and it is already at 100. Other than Alchemy, its the only skill I have at Master level.

edit - I am like mpls Big Daddy, I repair everything though. Even if its an Iron Cuirass I have no intention of selling, I still repair it.

Thanks for the advice guys. I'll try the Shield trick and just start repairing everything I see

Just find a sewer rat as a sparing partner

works wonders

When armorer is less than 100, my char picks up everything to repair as well, even though she just leaves it after. If you take something into your inventory, then drop it on the ground, it will stay. So, my char instead sticks it back in the inventory of her dead foes so when the game comes along and spawns everything clean, the bodies (with the armor inside) go away. If she just left the repaired armor all over the ground and roads and such, we're afraid Cyrodiil would get all cluttered up.

I do the same. Good to know others enjoy a clean working environment.

At high-to-max difficulty some tricks may be called for. One way I trained endurance was to find camps with bandit archers and close on them for melee. The more, the merrier. They'll whip out their daggers and start nipping away at you. Terrific armor training. When their daggers break and they go h2h, some stuff (I forget exactly which) will cease training. You can find another camp, drop iron daggers onto the ground for them in the hopes they pick them up, or reverse pickpocket bound daggers (which are much more durable but also, unfortunately, much more dangerous) onto them. This method trains block, light & heavy, and armorer. You can even train alteration, quickly, if you choose to buff your armor level- a good idea for max difficulty since 85 armor level will help you survive.

On a simpler level, you could eschew getting a horse and/or fast traveling and run everywhere. Tedious, but it helps the old Endurance. Getting or making something so that you can breathe water helps, since swimming helps Athletics more than running - that, and you can look for goodies underwater.

Seeing as athletics is associated with Speed, I'm not certain what you mean by it helping endurance...

Put your 5 training points per level into Armorer. If you can manage to get 5 more points into End skills that'll give you your +5 to Endurance. Mud crabs may be good for heavy armor training. They don't do that much damage and are slow enough that you can keep away from them while you're healing up.

Mara

If you are in the AU you can create a disintergrate armor on self spell, allowing you to continiuosly repair it

Keep one or two rats. Visit the location every day or two so they do not go away with a respawn (Elven Gardens sewers are good, but there are other places, too).

Use Destruction Disintegrate Armor on all foes. As the armor pieces hit zero health, take them from the body. Once you finish all of them, repair them all. Sell them or whatever (as Acadian pointed out, a clean environment is good... I have had the game crash from stuff left on the ground). You may want to make a custom disintegrate armor spell that is more efficient than the in game stock spell.

Make training spells both for basic training (lower costs... drain skill 100 for 1 sec) and for actual training encounters. The latter can also include potions. Specifically, make a spell that you can chain/spam using fortify intelligence and fortify magicka, and include Restore Health and Shield. Find your rats, let them hit you while you continually spam your spell, minimizing damage and healing what you take. As I said, at early levels, you may need to boost this process with potions that include the same effects.