Este artigo é sobre the skill. Para the physical equipment, veja Heavy Armor (item).
| Skill: Heavy Armor |
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| Specialization: Combat |
Heavy Armor is the skill governing your ability to move and fight in heavy armor. Each skill point increases your armor rating from heavy armor by 0.4% (1.5% for NPCs). The Heavy Armor skill tree has a total of 8 perks, requiring a total of 12 perk points to fill.
In-game Description: Those trained to use Heavy Armor make more efficient use of Iron, Steel, Dwarven, Orcish, Ebony, and Daedric armors.
Additional types of heavy armor that are forgeable: ancient Nord armor, bonemold armorDB, chitin heavy armorDB, dragonplate, Imperial armor, Nordic carved armorDB, and stalhrim armorDB. There are also a few types of generic, unforgeable, heavy armor: Dawnguard heavy armorDG, Blades armor, Falmer armor, and wolf armor.
Skill Perks
Juggernaut
Fists of Steel
Cushioned
Conditioning
Well Fitted
Tower of Strength
Matching Set
Reflect Blows
Heavy Armor Perk Tree
| Perk | Rank | Description | ID | Skill Req. | Perk Req. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Juggernaut | 1 | Increases armor rating for Heavy Armor by 20%.[1] | 000bcd2a | ||
| 2 | Increases armor rating for Heavy Armor by 40%.[1] | 0007935e | 20 Heavy Armor | ||
| 3 | Increases armor rating for Heavy Armor by 60%.[1] | 00079361 | 40 Heavy Armor | ||
| 4 | Increases armor rating for Heavy Armor by 80%.[1] | 00079362 | 60 Heavy Armor | ||
| 5 | Increases armor rating for Heavy Armor by 100%.[1] | 00079374 | 80 Heavy Armor | ||
| Fists of Steel | Unarmed attacks with Heavy Armor gauntlets do their armor rating in extra damage. | 00058f6e | 30 Heavy Armor | Juggernaut | |
| Cushioned | Half damage from falling if wearing all Heavy Armor: head, chest, hands, feet.[2] | 000bcd2b | 50 Heavy Armor | Fists of Steel | |
| Conditioning | Heavy Armor weighs nothing and doesn't slow you down when worn. | 00058f6d | 70 Heavy Armor | Cushioned | |
| Well Fitted | 25% Armor bonus if wearing all Heavy Armor: head, chest, hands, feet.[2] | 00058f6f | 30 Heavy Armor | Juggernaut | |
| Tower of Strength | 50% less stagger when wearing only Heavy Armor.[2] | 00058f6c | 50 Heavy Armor | Well Fitted | |
| Matching Set | Additional 25% Armor bonus if wearing a matched set[3] of Heavy Armor. | 00107832 | 70 Heavy Armor | Tower of Strength | |
| Reflect Blows | 10% chance to reflect melee damage back to the enemy while wearing all Heavy Armor: head, chest, hands, feet.[2] | 00105f33 | 100 Heavy Armor | Matching Set | |
- ^ a b c d e Does not affect shields.
- ^ a b c d "All/Only Heavy Armor" does not necessarily need to be a matching set, e.g., some pieces might be Dwarven and others might be Orcish.
- ^ A Set is Matched if the four pieces of worn armor (armor, helmet, gloves, boots) share the same material. Shields of all types match all armor.
Comparison to Light Armor
Advantages:
- Heavy armor is more protective than light armor until you reach the armor cap.
- You can deal more unarmed damage with the Fists of Steel perk. This can be combined with the Fortify Unarmed enchantment and an appropriate racial bonus to unarmed (if applicable) to provide a viable alternative to weapons and magic.
Disadvantages:
- Heavy armor weighs more than light armor, which causes you to move more slowly, takes up more of your available carry weight, and results in greater stamina usage while sprinting, although all of these disadvantages can be negated by The Steed Stone or the Conditioning perk.
- Wearing heavy armor creates more noise while moving, which increases your chance of being detected while sneaking.
Skill Increases
Character Creation
The following races have an initial skill bonus to Heavy Armor:
Trainers
- Gharol in Dushnikh Yal (Expert)
- Farkas of the Companions in Whiterun (Master)
- IsranDG in Fort Dawnguard (Master)
- KuvarDB in Thirsk Mead Hall (Master)
Note: Trainers that double as followers can train you for "free". They will still charge you, but you can get the gold you spent back by checking their inventory.
- This exploit is no longer possible as of version 1.2.6 of the Unofficial Skyrim Patch.
Free Skill Boosts
- +1 Heavy Armor from Brunwulf Free-Winter in Windhelm for clearing a bandit hideout.
- +1 Heavy Armor (and other combat skills) from Giraud Gemane (Bards College) for completing the quest Rjorn's Drum.
- +1 Heavy Armor (and Block, Archery, and One-handed) from Wulf Wild-BloodDB for finding his brother during Filial BondsDB.
- +5 Heavy Armor (and other combat skills) by selecting "The Path of Might" from the Oghma Infinium after completing the quest Discerning the Transmundane.
Skill Books
Gaining Skill XP
- Armor skill increases are based on the raw attack rating (plus any power attack bonuses) of an enemy strike.
- Methods that improve armor rating, such as Smithing, skill enchantments, spells, potions or shouts, have no adverse effect on the XP gained. For example, a character with an armor rating of 400 will receive the same XP as a character with an armor rating of 100 for the same enemy strike.
- The number of heavy armor items simultaneously worn by the player does increase XP gained. For example, receiving damage while wearing four pieces of heavy armor will result in more XP than wearing three pieces.
- Regenerate Health potions and enchantments can help with staying alive while training, potentially allowing you to leave the game unattended. This can also be accomplished with natural health regeneration during brawling sessions with NPCs or when fighting very weak enemies like skeevers, though skill gains will be very slow.
Notes
- Once your Heavy Armor skill is level 30 or higher, guards will begin to say, "Best offense is a good defense, am I right?"
- Reflect Blows will not reduce damage taken. When it triggers, a melee attacker will take the full damage dealt to you, but you will still take that damage. You are only now sharing it.
- Heavy Armor is the only skill that can directly modify unarmed attacks by way of the Fists of Steel perk. The perk modifies the damage done by unarmed attacks by the worn gauntlets' base armor rating, unmodified by perks, enchantments, or skill levels. This means Daedric gauntlets only add 18 damage to your unarmed attacks no matter what. The Khajiit Claws racial ability should be on par with the Orcish gauntlets (15 base armor rating). The Claws ability stacks with this perk (so Claws + 100% base armor rating of gauntlets + base damage = damage). Making use of the Fortify Unarmed Damage enchantment will further raise the damage done with fists.
- Note that when leveling up Heavy Armor, you have to take damage from an outside source (e.g. the spell Equilibrium will not level up the skill) and the amount of damage a blow would cause will dictate the amount of experience you gain, not the number of hits you take. One way of leveling up Heavy Armor is by fighting giants. From a starting level of 15, by training against a giant you can reach a level of over 50 within 5 minutes of getting bludgeoned, provided you don't die. A healing spell would be most helpful while training. Note that at early levels, the giant's ground shatter attack with its club is often fatal, unless you have a lot of health to spare.
Bugs
- With the Conditioning perk, when you carry more weight than you could without the perk, and you save a game, upon loading from inside the game, you will be over-encumbered (as if you didn't have the perk) until you open your inventory. This typically occurs only after an event, such as your death, removing all of your active effects. If you die and then quickload, you may become affected by this bug until you relaunch the game. The same behavior can be observed with the Steed Stone effect which is identical to Conditioning and the Light Armor perk Unhindered.
- If this happens, entering your inventory will let the game readjust your carry weight to its proper value.
- With the Conditioning perk active, you can stack the same type of Heavy Armor that is currently equipped without adding to your Carry Weight. For instance, if you have an Iron Helm equipped and have another Iron Helm in your inventory, they will stack onto each other as if they are both equipped, but you will not gain additional Armor Rating or enchantment bonuses after the "first" equipped helm. Armor of the same type that you have enchanted will also stack but enchanted armor that you find or buy will not stack. The type of enchantment does not need to be the same in order for the armor to stack.
- Ebony armor is affected by the Light Armor perk Unhindered instead of the Heavy Armor perk Matching Set.
- PC Only This bug is fixed by version 1.0 of the Unofficial Skyrim Patch.
- When wearing an ebony helmet in third person, you may notice that your character's shadow does not have a head.
- PC Only This bug is fixed by version 1.2.2 of the Unofficial Skyrim Patch.
- Tower of Strength does not apply the actual benefits described.
- PC Only This bug is fixed by version 1.2.3 of the Unofficial Skyrim Patch.
- Dawnguard heavy gauntletsDG do not benefit from the Fists of Steel perk like other heavy gauntlets.
- PC Only This bug is fixed by version 2.0.0 of the Unofficial Dawnguard Patch.
