Ah thanks,
Any thoughts on what sort of armour would be useful as an archer?
I made a guy that used bows. He started out being a hunter, but that got old and I kept getting killed all by myself in the wild. When I went to town I started picking pockets and graduated to breaking into houses... I was wondering what the markings on the doors were until I found a book of "shadowmarks" and I went looking for entrance into the thieves guild. During the thieves guild quests I got a taste for killing, mostly with my bow so when I was done with that main questline I started in working for the dark brotherhood. I learned how to really use my blades while in the DB, the gloves are great. By the end of it all, I was insanely rich but the character wasn't anything special.
I could 1 shot kill ANYTHING, and with 100 sneak you can endlessly get stealth attacks which makes quick work of anyone and makes armor redundant. My archery is good but I went up the side of blacksmithing with glass and was unable to wrap around to daedric (so I hear) and wound up wishing I had gone heavy armor since I never got hit anyway (at least not by physical). Also, pickpocketing caps at 90% for anything but keys, there is always a 10% chance to be caught no matter what and at lvl 10 with 35 or so pick pocketing I had capped it for everything but huge sums of gold and heavy weapons. I never even used alchemy much because it was a chore to collect, create potions, and keep going into my inventory to equip them. If only certain poisons could be put on for multiple strikes (say 20) I would have done it. But a menu every kill is tedious.
I'm doing another character right now that is a cool mix of stealth and magic. I use sneak, archery, conjuration and illusion. I sneak around and when I find people I cast illusion spells on them from the shadows. I frenzy people against each other mostly but sometimes just fear and let them sort each other out and for some groups I turn someone and throw a daedra into the mix. Once someone dies I raise dead and keep them in the fight. I also use conjuration for bound bow... which is a spectral bow that comes with 100 arrows every time you conjur it. Not only does this let you skip blacksmithing to sharpen weapons (they get better via talents in conjur
AND archery) but it has cool perks only summoned weapons can get and looks cool as well... by that I mean through talents it soul traps so the spectral bow kills svck souls into you as you sulk in the shadows. The conjured weapons also have the ability to instantly banish summoned daedra and instantly turn summoned undead. This works great because with the illusion perk for silent casting, all this is going on and you are still in sneak so you can get multiple sneak kills without exposing yourself and it's HILARIOUS to watch.
The coolest part of this is the fact that I use nothing. My pets are casted, my spells are usually 1 time cast then I rely on my bow, I wear no armor(I only carry a shield with shock resist, as that is the only reason I wouldn't have the mana to defend myself otherwise), and I carry no weapons.... and I mean none, not even arrows or a backup sword. If by some weird happening I get thrown in jail or get unarmed for a quest, all it means is I'll have to circle back for my loot later on (no scrounging for shivs for me). This leaves huge amounts of my persons open for carrying goods as well.
EDIT: As for your original question? The best armor for a stealth archer is none, getting the stealth attack bonus modifier means no fighting. At low levels you will one shot most trash mobs, at higher levels you will have talents to kite easier. If you had to choose between light and heavy, I'd go light I guess... but none of them really help much. The equipment you are going to get during thieves guild and DB quests is all either light armor or cloth (yes, it's melee and archery clothing, not armor).