Morrowind talk:Heavy Armor

Skill

What are the specifics of heavy armor skill? If you fortified your skill and gained a higher armor rating, would the damage done to your armors hit points increase while making less damage get through to you? Or would the damage done to your heavy armor decrease? — Unsigned comment by 68.51.114.161 (talk) at 22:27 on 4 May 2011

Increasing your skill increases your armor rating. A higher armor rating lowers the damage that gets through. Refer to Damage --Brf 23:25, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Weight efficiency note -

I added a short note a bit ago that some armor components are more effective than others for what they weigh, and it seems like someone came along and wiped it without comment. Considering the first note goes on at length about the weight problems associated with heavy armor (and particularly Daedric), I thought it would be useful to put in a note about how dropping certain components - notably boots, greaves and shields - was a simple way to free up a lot of weight without losing nearly as much armor rating as with other components. Based on how armor adds to armor rating, the progression from most to least efficient for components goes: helm -> cuirass, pauldrons, gauntlets -> greaves -> boots; a Daedric face of god is 25% of the weight of the boots for the same overall benefit. Removing daedric boots and greaves will free up a massive 114 weight while giving up two '10%' segments, which is even more attractive when considering that for enchantments, greaves have a terrible enchantment value and daedric boots are considerably inferior to exquisite shoes. I posted a similar comment on the Daedric Armors page (again along side commentary on weight) and someone struck that as well... 142.59.29.202 15:28, 23 October 2013 (GMT)

I think you'll find I did explain why. Without a cap on total armor value (like in Skyrim), a note on saving weight by dropping parts isn't really of value. It can be pointed out that swapping inefficient parts out for a lighter version (eg Ebony for Daedric) can save a total weight of significant value in return for a loss of a small loss in total armor value, which is more the way of the re-added note. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 18:02, 23 October 2013 (GMT)

You did notice that the note isn't just about 'saving weight by dropping parts,' which is blatantly obvious, but about the weight efficiency of said parts? Just because there isn't a hard armor cap doesn't mean its not worthwhile to pay attention to armor weight efficiency; by that logic the only valid way to play is to wear the best possible combination of heavies and then use all your enchanting to pump heavy armor skill so that you can squeeze every last possible ounce of protection out of your gear. Personally I find a combination of solid armor components and unarmored to be extremely useful. After all, there's not only a 'hard cap' on encumbrance, but a constant and relentless trade-off for speed. And remember that again unlike Skyrim, wearing no armor in a slot IS wearing a lighter piece of (un)armor(ed).

Or to put all this more simply, I think a player who faces not being able to move if they equip a full set of Ebony would potentially find information about which components are doing the least for him by weight to be of value. But I've got zero taste for wiki edit warring so meh... 142.59.29.202 07:01, 25 October 2013 (GMT)

Armor efficiency

Did some calculations. Assuming armor ratings of 168 for light, 145 for medium and 266 for heavy, then armor does not have an impact for damage less then 56 (light), 49 (medium) and 89 (heavy). Should we somehow point out that most commonly encountered enemies in the game do not actually do that much attack damage? Heavy (and even medium) armor seem rather wasteful in this light. — Unsigned comment by 51.75.222.161 (talk) at 16:15 on 17 May