Without resorting to enchanting and alchemy?

I find it hard to put points into the actual armor skills If the max AR is 567 and gives 80% damage resist... doesn't this mean that I would have to have around 70 AR just for 10% for resistance? Right now i only have 142 and that's with the lord stone on.

And as a side note, is "deflect arrows" broken? I still take damage when the arrow bounces off my shield.

All you can do is just upgrade it and take the perks in the armour tree then. With no enchanting or alchemy that's what you're left with.

As you've already said, taking perks and casting flesh spells can increase your AR.

I guess i can't really argue since thats the entire point of the tree's

ah well If only i could decide better between light and heavy. I wanna be light but.... bonemold is so sixy

Heavy Stalhrim is even sixier.

Your real AR is the amount shown plus 25 per piece of armor worn (not counting a shield). The damage reduction is 0 .12 x that. So, if you have 142 with 4 pieces, your real AR is 242 or about 29% reduction.

As for the arrow perk, it actually gives 85% reduction on everything instead of 100% on arrows alone.

exactly. Stahlrim is my favorite smith-able armor in the game. Light stahlrim looks just as fantastic if not better too. Ah crud... now i want to wield 2handed stahlrim weapons when im specializing in 1h/block/archery.

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE

What he's done has brought on another case of restartitis for you!

Its gonna be ok @_@ I Prefer Light stahlrim and i just wont put any perks into 2H

Why do you "find it hard" to perk armour skills?

Yes, if you are going to use the crafting skills, you can get to the armour cap without putting too many perks into an armour skill. (In fact, if you use the crafting loop, you can hit the cap with one perk in heavy armour or two perks in light armour; I suppose you could hit the cap with zero perks in an armour skill if you also use the fortify restoration glitch).

Well, by the time i raise my crafting skills(if i used 2 or more) up to improve my armor, i would have gained enough levels for the foes around me to level up with me anyway. Feels kinda pointless.

Ill see how far i can get just by raising smithing and actually putting points into the light armor skill tree.

Huh? What does level scaling have to do with perking armour skills?

I used to have a problem deciding between light and heavy armour like you (and I was actually planning heavy), then I had Alonzo try on Elven Armour. Oops...