I don't understand armor in ESO

WoW_Refugee

In other games I've played, there are incentives (and sometimes actual restrictions) to get certain classes to wear certain armors, e.g., light armor for spellcasters, medium armor for thieves, etc. Veteran players in this game tell me similar things (e.g., light armor for my Sorcerer, medium armor for my two-handed weapon wielding DragonKnight), but I don't understand why I'd want to wear anything other than heavy armor. Heavy armor gives significantly more protection than medium or light and I don't see any disadvantages such as encumbrance, etc. So why shouldn't all my characters just wear heavy armor?

Also, I've been told by veteran players that I should equip at least one piece of each armor type so that I can level all three types simultaneously. Why? If light armor is best for Sorcerers, for example, why would I care about leveling medium or heavy armor?

Finally, I've actually followed the veteran players' advice and equipped my three characters with five pieces of their "main" armor and then one piece each of the other two types. My DragonKnight and Warden are leveling all three weights nicely, but my Sorcerer is only leveling light armor. Any idea why? She's got all light armor except for a heavy chestpiece and medium boots.

Veinblood1965

If you look at the "skills" menu in the game each type of armor has certain skills. For example I just started a tank who is wearing 5 pieces of heavy, one medium and one light. If you look under light armor skill there are perks there and some of those have to be a certain level before you can use them. So I I get my light armor skill high enough I can spend a point in let's say increasing magika recovery(I'm not at home so don't have access to the exact ones), which although great for sorcers comes in handy for my tank also. That's why you would want some in each as you'll get all the perks in heavy but there might be a few under the other two you would like also. If you don't wear either then that skill line won't even be visible.

macsmooth

Armour levels up faster the more items you have of that weight equipped

Light is for magicka dd and healers in pve
Medium is for stamina dd in pve
Heavy is for tanks in pve

PvP you can run either you want but usually same weight you selected for pve for your toon, cp will make you stay with 5 pieces of weighted armour once you put a point in that armour passive in cp

Look at the skill lines for the armour you need 5 pieces equipped to activate that skill line fully and one piece will activate part of that armour skill line and undaunted passives in that skilline

VaranisArano

I'll try to break this down.

For PVE, the different types of Armor have passives that substantially benefit different roles and builds. For Magicka Damage Dealers and Healers, light armor passives are ideal. For stamina users, the medium armor passives are beneficial for dealing for damage. For tanks of any variety, heavy armor is preferred for its greater protection. In PVE, you ought to be wearing the appropriate weight of armor for your build - if you need heavy armor for protection in PVE and you aren't a tank, you need to look at using food buffs, self-heals, and resistances so that you aren't completely squishy. Not using the appropriate weight of armor is a DPS/sustain loss, which is why your stamina or magicka Damage Dealers and Healers should not be wearing heavy armor.

For PVP, armor sets depend on your role. Heavy armor can be much more beneficial in PVP for the extra defense and procs, such as with 7th Legion. However, the more experienced you get, you can often run light or medium armor builds with a more glass cannon playstyle.

The reason people tell you to level all types of armor is two-fold.

1. If you later decide to swap your character around to fill a different role, you'll already have that armor line leveled up. My MagDK is a heavy armor PVE tank AND a light armor PVP healer, so I use both armor passives in different content. Later, I decided to run the Dark Brotherhood quest with that character, so I started leveling medium armor for the better sneak passives.
2. The Undaunted skill line has a passive that increased your max resources by % according to how many different weights of armor you are wearing. For some builds, its beneficial to wear 6/1 of 5/1/1 of different weights of armor to take advantage of the extra stats from Undaunted.

As macsmooth stated, have you unlocked the other armor lines on your sorc? You unlock them by equipping 5 pieces of that armor weight. I believe you still gain exp towards that weight from wearing the armor even if its not unlocked, IIRC.

WoW_Refugee

Thanks for the info! I didn't realize I had to equip 5 items to unlock an armor line. I probably did that accidentally on my first two characters but not on my Sorcerer.

zvavi

Undaunted passive is strong enough to make all mag characters run 5 light 1 medium 1 heavy in their arsenal (2% of max magicka health and stamina per armor type worn). Since you barely get anything from 6th and 7th armor piece from the light armor passives.
In a stamina characters more medium armor means more sustain and more crit chance, so you will find some people going 7 medium, or 6 medium 1 heavy (for a bit more meat) cause the passives are better on medium armor.
Tank have all of their resources important to them, so 5 heavy 1 light 1 medium is their setup usually.

And you unlock it by wearing 3 of the unlocked armor type, not 5.

ghastley

Passive bonuses require 5 pieces of the same type. It's generally those that make your character want to use that armour type, rather then the stats of the armour itself. And you can get resistances to damage from other sources, such as Champion Points.

Unlocking is once-off. The skill line doesn't re-lock when you take some off. So unlock them all while you're still at low level, and you won't need to think about it again.