I prefer looks but my recent character is the only one I've mixed and matched on, for some reason.

I wear a Wolf Helmet, Dawnguard Heavy Armour + Steel Plate boots & bracers. Looks really cool imo. I like having my characters face on show, but want the added armour from the helmet, so the Wolf Helmet is the best of both words + shows off how he's part of the Companions.

Steel is my favorite heavy armor, easily.

My favorite combos are:

Blades Armor/Boots/Gauntlets & Shrouded Cowl on females. Dual wield Blades Swords, and you will look like a full blown ninja.

Solitude Guard Armor/Penitus Oculatus Boots/Ebony Gauntlets/Copper and Ruby Circlet

Nightingale Armor/Hood/Feet & Daedric Gauntlets

Fur Armor/Forsworn Gauntlets/Leather Boots/Copper and Ruby Circlet

Psh. The real Nordic man wears a full set of Dawnguard heavy armor. Never know when a vampire's gonna turn up.

you just necro'd a thread... to post that.

Agreed OP.

I really do pity the people in their full suits of Daedric 1-shotting legendary dragons. How boring.

Or the 'what level should I start xxx quest to get awesome sword of death'.

Even using the Iron sword things start to get easy after a while.

Matching set is about useless all but my current character.

I never wear the same armor set, I mix and match. But she does wear all light armor mashup including a hood from about 5 different armor mods. So she gets the matching set bonus. I guess its a good thing. 550 armor rating when all equipped up and since she isn't combative, it helps keep her safe when she does get hit.

But honestly stats mean little to me. I place style above it.

Not on a dark skinned Argonian... Now if only I can make an albino Argonian in Skyrim (Like I did in Oblivion) than Stalhrim + dual wielding chillrends would look simply divinely amazingly sixy...

On my main, both me and Derkeethus wear full Heavy Dawnguard armor. I'm in the white set with the holy hand grenade on the back. He's in the greyish set with nothing special on the back. He also wears his crossbow when not in combat (Though normally switches to his bow when in combat).

I like the looks of the long sleeved fur armor with forsworn gauntlets and boots.

@Michael, this showed up on the first page for me. Either the forums are tripping, or I am.

This is me. I'd rather run my guy around in regular clothes than have a mismatched armor set.

I recall playing some game that actually gave the player an armor bonus for wearing a full matched set (DA:O maybe). I'd like that as it makes sense.

You on the Skooma son?

Mans been hitting the skooma I say.

I hardly ever wear a full matching set. I do look at stats, but I don't let it govern the decision too much. I wish that Bethesda instead of merging the different pieces together, would have split up the armour more so we could customise our own style more. I miss that from Morrowind. Skyrim gives you some great looking armour sets though.

Skooma's a hellofa drug.

Yeah, screw stats! My Nord warrior only uses Steel until she can make Nordic Carved items. And then i stick with them. (Luckily they are high level items.)

The skooma's hit me hard, man.

Also, why is it that new members can't quote things?

I use a full set of vampire armor and even then, thanks to mods, I don't need to wear a helmet for the Matching Set perk to be effective. Of course, the set I favor is from mods. http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/25852/?? And if I feed it with potions of blood, I get more armor.

No matching set for me either. First of all, my characters almost never wear helmets - they wear either circlets or hoods (if it's cold). And the hoods are mostly for travelling, they usually take it off when going through some dungeon, getting all sweaty from the fighting. I sometimes use armor, bracers and boots from the same set, but I also use a lot of modded armors that I mix and match with vanilla armors.

A couple of examples:

La?s Morrard, this is a couple things he's been wearing recently (around level 50-55):

http://i.minus.com/ibsuDqXcb2AdiF.jpg (+ non-armor boots)

http://i.minus.com/iWi5RtFgc3lGq.jpg

http://i.minus.com/ibiozttFsI3MsF.jpg in armor from the Unclaimed Delivery mod, belt and straps from the Northgirl Armor mod, Ancient Nord gauntlets (and boots), hood from Immersive Armors, cloak from Winter Is Coming.

http://i.minus.com/iNjFMb8o1dkhi.jpg, with scarf from the Apotheus armor mod.

Full set of ebony armor with an adept hood.

I played around with armors on my altmer and came up with http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/487806724442148825/BF9F5544AE2A4D312E9E036B6907B921B91F1ED7/ (http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/487806724444157966/B2AEA7ED899292D5D3125DEAA5EAB0A39C8147B3/)(http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/487806724444160067/5D4484B16EF5C38BEE767CBA6C0046ADC0E083F9/). Gold college robes with elven armor and a gold emerald circlet. I think it looks pretty cool, but I've never actually played him in it, I just put it on to take pictures because he's mostly a retired character.