I'd say if you have good sneaking skills you will be ok sneaking in heavy armor with the low to mid mobs, but the higher ones are more likely to detect you in heavy as opposed to light armor.

right.....my character is getting almost 100% stamina regeneration from enchanting, yet beelining and wasting perks to get to 50% regereration is better?

I think you misunderstood, by getting the stamina regen enchantment you're filling up a space that a better enchantment could be.

This. Because stamina regen is good, but not as good as several other things you could possibly enchant with instead. The prerequisite perks to get Windwalker are also not wasted points.

If you take the mentality that anything you can enchant for is a waste of perk points, you essentially need no perks except the enchanting perks and smithing.

One other thing to consider is the 100 skill perk for each armor type. Heavy has the perk that gives you a chance to have damage dealt to you reflected back, which is ok, but i personally would rather have the light armor perk with gives you a chance to completely dodge an attack.

It's really a cosmetic choice. Both end up being very similar, especially if you use Smithing, because armor is maxed out around 80% damage resistance. However, think about what you want to be doing until the point at which you max it out. And I think Archers look best in Light Armor such as Leather and Elven, but that's just my opinion.

Edit: If you're thinking about the differences though, realize that Stamina is useful for an Archer, when you zoom in you slowly drain it.

Why would you want a 10% chance to just avoid damage when you could have a 10% to completely reflect it?

There are a lot of misconceptions being thrown around here:

First, you regenerate stamina much slower in combat (about 1/3 of the normal rate) so that +50% increase will not be as noticeable in combat as it becomes +50% of that 1/3 rate.

Second, both armor trees have a weightless perk so that's a moot point.

Also, people seem to be disregarding that 50% less chance to stagger perk in the heavy armor tree. That's an effect you can't duplicate with an enchantment, unlike the stamina regeneration light armor perk.

Basically, if you're going to be stealthy at the start of the game, go with light armor. If you don't plan to be stealthy at all or plan on doing it much later in the game (with the Muffled Movement perk from the sneak tree) go with Heavy. Though you may still find sneaking more difficult with heavy armor than with light even with Muffled Movement but that's okay because you'll probably be doing most of your sneak attacks from range.

*Edit: Also, Also, power attacks done at 1% stamina aren't doing any more damage. You're just doing a slower normal attack. Power attack damage is proportional to the amount of stamina you have available.

The thing is, I'm not sure that this perk is giving an advantage to heavy armor, or reducing a disadvantage. Does anyone know if you stagger more when wearing Heavy Armor, because that could make a huge difference as to which armor to choose.

You do realize you can make enchanted jewlery......right? And add 2 enchantments to an item with the said perk.

If you want to go assassin/archer then I'd go light armor, you can still use a daedric bow.


Or alternatively don't use armor use cloth and alteration spells and perks to get the armor rating increase although you will also want to have enchant as using a spell will alert them unless you have the perk for silent cast (illusion tree iirc).

Cloth will be more silent than light armor.




Edit: A good assassin does not need armor anyway.

This is what I was going to say. You will get hit some but not enough to level up as fast as a melee character would.

I just started a hunter type character level 12...and I will going leather. But I only plan on hunter deer and killing people for the brother hood.

The purpose of a power attack isn't always (or only) about the damage it does. +50% stamina regeneration does mean you can perform more power attacks in combat and regain more stamina while you are not using them. 50% faster slow regeneration is still better than regular slow regeneration.

Likewise, since a (power) attack is not only about damage, 10% chance to dodge an attack completely is better than reflecting 10% of the attack's damage.

The perk gives you a 10% chance to reflect all melee damage. It doesn't reflect 10% of damage.

The point was that attacks are not only about the damage.