Advantage of heavy vs. medium armor?

Arinoyde

I have 2 items I picked up during quests: Heavy "Stormhold Cuirass," +260 maximum health, +armor value 13%, Level 24 ...AND...Medium, "Hide Jack of Health" , Sprinting + 7%, Level 24. These items are pretty equal, why go for medium when you can have extra protection of heavy? I always assumed that lighter armor would give significant magic protection as opposed to just armor value. All else being equal why not go heavy?

WillhelmBlack

Read the passives.

c.p.garrett1993_ESO

Bonuses to stamina, stamina recovery, and critical hits.
Heavy armor is just meant to be a pure damage sponge.

Kallipsoe

Its more about the passives in your armor skill lines than the base stats of a single piece of armor. Medium armor passive skills will increase your critical attack rating, stamina regeneration, reduce cost of stamina ability's, increase weapon damage and make you better at stealth.

Heavy armor increases max health, health recovery, healing received and reduced cost for blocking.

If you want to DPS medium armor is the way to go, if you want to tank heavy. Though most builds include a combination of the two "or three" to get the most out of it.

lolo_01b16_ESO

There are some passives that only work when you use a certain armour type. When you use light armour and have skillpoints in its passives your spells will cost less, do more damage and your magicka recovery will be higher. Medium armour does about the same with physical damage and stamina recovery. Heavy armour will increase your mitigation and reduce the cost of blocking.

vovus69

Just keep in mind that if you are doing solo - you need armor and resists too. So, balance it. Usual minmax dps guys are a paper kinghts - no armor, no resists, they will die in a sec without healer. Usually it is a bottles with stamina or magica with no survivability solo. So this minmax stuff is just for groups. Use your brain and make your decisions which will depend on your play style.

UrQuan

Yeah, unless you're looking at the passives under the different armour skill lines, heavy armour is always better than medium, and medium is always better than light.

If you're taking into account the passives available in the skill lines, then the choice depends entirely on your build and what is most important for it.

Davadin

well, armor value helps with how much damage, but everyone's right. it's those passive.

12% bonus dmg when wearing 5 mediums?

well, damn, son.

Muzumush

vovus69 wrote: »

Just keep in mind that if you are doing solo - you need armor and resists too. So, balance it. Usual minmax dps guys are a paper kinghts - no armor, no resists, they will die in a sec without healer. Usually it is a bottles with stamina or magica with no survivability solo. So this minmax stuff is just for groups. Use your brain and make your decisions which will depend on your play style.

I do agree some people do minmax but if it's fun for them why not...

I personally solo in PVE with 5 medium and 2 heavy armor and I survive just fine... In PVP it's a different story but that isnt my focus and all I fought were players at least double my level and they seemed to be serious PVPers.

I have all Medium passives and Heavy passives and I used to wear all Heavy and switched to 5/2 because fights took too long be it groups or boss. Yeah I could sponge the damage but now 1 Wreaking blow with Forward momentum activated I do almost 8000 damage (I also have all attribute points and armor enchants for Stamina and Jewelry with damage enchants and have Flawless Dawn Breaker as ultimate). But without the medium armor I wouldn't be anywhere close to that. So for my play style I go by this "the best defense is a good offense". For me it's quick fights with huge amounts of damage given vs long fights while sponging damage and doing "chip damage" to enemies.

I do miss the tanking a bit but I crafted me a heavy set and it just wasn't as fun...

For OP just do what is fun for you and what works best for your style.