Skyrim XIV: You Are Trollvahkiin, Internetborn

Too spiky. So apparently most armor is now for the looks. S'okay I liked my DRAGONPLATE armor anyways. In some ways it kind of reminds me of an armored vehicle.

I'll actually agree with you on that. I just put some on, and I'd forgotten how cool they'd managed to make Steel look. The Nordic designs in particular are quite nice.

I'm not a fan of the alternate breastplate that has those pointy pauldrons, though. It just doesn't look quite right to me.

I'm actually peeved I went heavy armor now.

Blades armour looks the best IMO. But Steel Plate also gives me the feeling of "Badass dragon slaying knight"

Where are the sources for this supposed 135 armor rating cap? The link from UESP does not seem to be talking about the displayed armor cap being 135, and I have no idea what they mean by "tempered armor rating" there. I don't see any indication of actual change to armor calculations in any of the patches...so where does this come from?

I'm thinking of picking Skyrim up. How does it run on PC compared to, say, Fallout 3 or New Vegas?

I have both Skyrim and New Vegas. I would say Skyrim plays about as smoothly or a little better than New Vegas out of the box, and is prettier (in vanilla, mods can change this drastically of course) to boot. Of course, maybe that's just because I prefer the lush forests of Skyrim to post-apocalyptic Mojave desert.

Skyrim runs noticeably better than New Vegas out of the box, and is much more stable. I get better FPS with better graphics settings in Skyrim than I could in NV. I also never had any CTDs with Skyrim until I started installing some of the earliest mods as they started coming out. It's pretty much due to the fact that NV pushed the Gamebryo engine to the breaking points, whereas Skyrim seems to only be moderately stressing the capabilities of its "new" engine.

I'm honestly surprised. The "Will it Run?" website suggests my comp can only meet just above minimum reqs, yet I can run New Vegas nearly maxed out.

I played Skyrim on the 360. When I could actually see things (my tv's are kinda crappy for gaming), it was definitely prettier. Though, I thought Fallout 3 was prettier than New Vegas too, so...

Of all of the armor designs, I think my favorite is a mixed set. Wolf Boots and Bracers, Steel Plate/Ebony Armor, and either a Wolf Helmet or a Dragonpriest Mask. Alternately, Dragonbone Plate or Dragonscale, especially the Dragonscale Helmet. (Wolf Armor by itself looks silly). Haven't tried out Ancient Nordic armor yet, though.

Elven armor, especially Gilded Elven, is also cool, and Imperial is awesome simply becase Fantasy Rome, fuck yeah.

Master!Anything Robes also kicks ass. Haubor is currently tooling around wearing Wolf Gauntlets/Boots, Vokun, and Master Conjuration robes, and he sits quite solidly on the "Do Not Fuck With" list in terms of how badass he looks.

My favourite 'stock' armour was Dragonscale with the Dragonbone helmet. Then I got a mod that changed the Dragonscale helmet into the Dragonscale one and the world was good again.

I'm a fan of the Archmage Robes and a hood, plus a dragon priest mask.

Wish there was an option to use the dragon priest masks and a regular helmet, with the mask being the faceplate. Sort of samurai-style. Having the ebony/daedric helm with Vokun as the faceplate would be pretty sweet.

Blades Armor is arguably the best looking Heavy Armor if only because it doesn't actually look bulky. It's snug. It hugs your character's form. The only reason I don't use it is because it's actually pretty bad as far as armor goes. It's as heavy as the high-tier heavy armors, but only provides mid-range Heavy Armor protection.

If I was going with a serious Pure Warrior, I might make use of it after I maxed out Smithing and Heavy Armor (thus removing it's downsides), but other than that, I don't really use it. I grab the free set out of Skyhaven, stick it on a display stand, and never bother with it again. The real prize is Dragonbane, anyway. Assuming you pick it up at it's maximum leveled state (46+), the enchantment on it is massive (40 point damage to dragons, 10 shock to others), and it's base stats will be identical to a Daedric Longsword, but at two pounds lighter, making it an Endgame-Quality weapon.

Basically, the Blades stole their stuff directly from the Akaviri, and the Akaviri were way better bladesmiths than they were armorsmiths. Which makes sense, seeing how they're famous for swords, and not plate.

I always use the Dragon Priest Masks when I can, but the big problem with that is that they don't really 'go' with some kinds of armor. They tend to look best when paired with Steel or Dwarven armors, but everything else is kind of a crapshoot. I can tell you straight up that pretty much none of them look right on a Daedric set, and the only ones that really fit with the Ebony are the ones with darker hoods and masks.

I am surprised, though, at how good mixed sets in general look in Skyrim. It used to be that anything other than a full set of something made you look like a complete clown, but you can easily mix and match Leather, Iron, Steel, Hide, robes, gauntlets, and boots into pretty much any combination, and it will look good. In fact, some combinations make you look very good, in spite of how impractical they might be (mixing Light and Heavy, for instance). The right pick of leather, cloth, and heavy armor can make you look like an Assassin's Creed character.

The designers clearly worked hard at making large varieties of armor and clothes visually cross-compatible, and my hat is off to them for it.

Dragonscale is by far my favorite Light, with Glass being a close second. Skyrim is finally a game in which a full suit of Glass doesn't make you look like a moron, and I'm loving it. I especially like the fact that it is, essentially, heavily embellished and modified Elven armor.

But as sexy as it is, it pales to Dragonscale. I mean, damn, is there any way to not look badass while wearing it? And it looks great with all of the masks to boot.

The only beef I can bring on the Dragonbone and Dragonscale armors is that neither helm even obliquely resembles the Jagged Crown. Which I should be wearing. Because it belongs to me. The Greybeards flat-out say this, and there had better be some DLC somewhere down the line that plays to that tune.

One of these days I am going to do a playthrough and keep the Jagged Crown for myself because its looks awesome actually has a pretty good armor rating and IMO the other dragon helmets look aweful

The Jagged Crown is also one of only a few items that can be worn while also wearing another head-object. The Jagged Crown and the Falmer Helm can be worn in conjunction with Dragon Priest Masks and circlets. This not only allows you to get another slot for enchanting, but it also looks incredibly badass if you do it right. Dragon Priest Mask + Jagged Crown + Dragonscale/Dragonbone Armor = Bandits killing themselves when they see you, because Jesus Christ look at that bastard.

Indeed it is.

I guess that was the goal after all.

I kind of think the dragon armours look bad, myself.

That's what makes them awesome.

I don't care if it looks good because I'm not roaming about in the land of frostbite and bears, slinging fireballs at degenerate, hideous, sub-sapient bastard elves (and also the Falmer) to look good. I'm there to kick the fuck out of everything with fire and voice. Dragonbone/scale armor doesn't look pretty. Its a statement.

Said statement being "I killed an immortal godlike being, took parts of its body, and made them into clothes, because I fucking can."

yeah the first time I went through the game I had full Dragon plate armor so when I went up against Alduin for the first time it kinda went like this
Me- hey alduin remember all those dragons you worked so hard to resurect
Alduin- yeah what them
Me-well I'm wearing them

As someone who who has Skyrim on the 360 with no access to LIVE and thus no access to patches/bug fixes...how much has changed from release to now? Am I missing anything?

I know there's a few bugs I want fixed that's been fixed, but most of those I can live with.

Heh, it's a shame the Nightengale armor's enchantments suck so much. I just love sneaking around in that thing, playing medieval Batman!

For every bug that was fixed a new one popped up that had to be patched later so no AFAIK you didn't miss much unless you want some new (kind of brutal) kill animations.