So let your characters wear heavy then, if it fits.....wear it!

Ive upgraded to SkyRe.. It really helped with some of the issues i had with stamina usage, and armor imbalancing... Heavy is actually HEAVY... Makes you move slower, consume more stamina, and fall harder.. BUT... you get reduced dmg from arrows (as should be), stagger better, get staggered less, and really feel like a walking tank.. Whereas Light armor, im am agile, have some reflex via time slow, the chance to avoid dmg altiogether, etc..

It just feels like its done the way it shouldve been in anilla.. Know what i mean? VERY enjoyable.. Im now actually playing light armor, and cloth characters without feeling like im gimping myself..

with smithing, you do need to worry about armor. Just saying.

Im might be in the minority but i dont like they way they do armor in TES and especially Skyrim, where the advantage is slewed towards heavy armor at the expense of a little speed. Its not balanced but one of my biggest gripes with armor is that there cant be light and heavy versions of each material and that there isn't much of a difference between each besides movement and AR.

I'm playing the vanilla skyrim on 360. I don't use the PC version so no console commands for me. Just an average Joe. I do however take advantage of cheats/glitches in the game.

I love light stahlrim

I like the gauntlets of the set. Finger tips appeal to me.

But Heavy Stalhrim is much sixier.

The light armor skill benefits from the theif stone so thats why I use it. I also use archery and sneak which benefit from the theif stone as well. Theres a pickpocket perk that gives you +100 carry weight so no need for the steed stone. The only reason I use two-handed weapons is because as a Nord, I got a +10 bonus and a +5 in light.

My Imperial character is more of a warrior with a +5 one-handed, +5 heavy armor and +5 block.

I personally prefer to go with what feels good and looks right as opposed to the spreadsheet approach. It's a game not a science.

Which is best depends on the character I think.

Most of the time I go with the light armor because of the open-faced helms. The heavy armor looks good and is a must for some characters. Except for the closed-faced helms ... I do not like them.

As for spending perks on smithing, it is worth it to get at least the ( two for) arcane blacksmithing. It seems satisfying to me to be able to improve the enchanted items I find.

Enchanting can be fun and rewarding but I have never made it to 100 with any character to get the dual enchants. I mean I never thought it's been necessary.

This.

Since I pick armor based on aesthetics and (sometimes) RP reasons, I tend to favor both light and heavy--it depends on the character. Since I make use of the fortify restoration glitch, I smith any armor I use for my characters up to roughly Dragon equivalency.

Ulfius is my big tank of a Nord, and I like him best in heavy armor--a mix of iron and steel, tending mostly towards iron if I use a shield. For him, it's iron armor, iron helm, steel Nordic bracers, steel cuffed boots, and when I've got him going one-handed, an iron shield. I have a studded armor cuirass and a Stormcloak cuirass on standby, in case I want to mix things up a little, but I stick with all-heavy for him virtually all of the time. I also keep a plain steel helm and a pauldron-less steel cuirass on hand in case I get tired of looking at the awesome iron cuirass he normally sports.

Narienne is my Altmer spellsword, so I RP her as more light and mobile than a damage sponge. For her, it's either studded armor, a Stormcloak cuirass, or one of the four fur armor variants, depending on the season. Leather boots and leather or hide bracers round things out; no shields at all, and if I think it's necessary, a hide helm.

I also like steel plate, scaled, Dawnguard (both light and heavy), and hide. Elven is not bad, but seems awfully flashy, and only for any Altmer characters I happen to have. I've recently come to find Orcish armor to be not too bad looking at all, for a more fantasy appearance, but that's about it. I can't bear to use anything higher-tier; ebony is not bad looking, but the rest are just too ugly to look at.

Used to be a Heavy Armor kind of guy. Now though? I tend to skew towards Light Armor.

I hear you brother, but elaborate anyway!

All heavy everything

unless its stahlrim

I tend to play mages or sneaky characters so usually go for light armour, but occasionally make a warrior to get some dragonbone or heavy stahlrim.

If i play a warrior type of character I always choose for light armor. Heavy armor makes you slower.