Armour Skills

The armour category includes all talents that influence your defence. It consists of three subcategories: light, medium and heavy armour. Each subcategory allows you to increase the efficiency of the corresponding armour type.

For example, the high level heavy armour perk allows you to increase your passive defence and increase the efficiency of all applied healing spells. The light Armour tree has a perk that allows you to increase passive melee damage and reduce the amount of stamina required for sneaking.

Light Armour Skills

	Spell	Type	Effect
	Annulment	Active	Protects from spell attacks, absorbing damage, up to a maximum amount per hit.
	Evocation	Passive	Each piece of light armour equipped reduces the mana cost of spells by 3%
	Recovery	Passive	Each piece of light armour equipped increases magicka regeneration
	Spell Warding	Passive	Each piece of light armour equipped increases spell resistance
	Concentration	Passive	Each piece of light armour equipped increases spell damage
	Prodigy	Passive	Light armour set (5+ pieces) gives increased chance for spells to cause critical damage.

Medium Armor Skills

	Spell	Type	Effect
	Evasion	Active	Temporarily increase your character's evasion.
	Improved Sneak	Passive	Each piece of medium armour equipped decreases the area within which you can be detected, and decreases the time to become hidden
	Wind Walker	Passive	Each piece of medium armour equipped increases stamina regeneration
	Athletics	Passive	Each piece of medium armour equipped increases sprint movement speed and reduces the cost of dodging
	Dexterity	Passive	Each piece of medium armour equipped increases your critical strike chance.
	Agility	Passive	Full set of medium armour (5+ pieces) increases your attack speed with weapon attacks.

Heavy Armor Skills

	Spell	Type	Effect
	Immovable	Active	Reduce all damage taken for a short period; immune to knockback and disabling effects for the duration.
	Juggernaut	Passive	Each piece of heavy armour increases the power of melee attacks.
	Rapid Mending	Passive	Each piece of heavy armour increases healing received
	Resolve	Passive	Each piece of heavy armour reduces damage taken by you.
	Constitution	Passive	Each piece of heavy armour increases health regeneration
	Bracing	Passive	Full heavy armour set (5+ pieces) reduces the cost of blocking.

Each subcategory has different perks. Perks in the Heavy Armour tree are better for those who prefer to receive a lot of damage. Perks from the Medium Armour tree are better for those who prefer to control enemies or sneak a lot. Perks from Light Armour will help spell casters.

As you can see some perks are better for one playing style and other perks are better for the other; perks are generally chosen according to your role. In Elder Scrolls Online you are not restricted by your class, players can use any armour type depending on the role they wish to play. For instance, choosing a Dragon Knight does not automatically mean only heavy armour and heavy armour perks.

Benefits from Perks of each Armour tree depend on how many pieces of the definite armour type you have. If you want to maximise the efficiency of one type of armour, you should put on only corresponding pieces. If you wish to combine effects from different armour types, the beauty of ESO allows that. It's less efficient this way, but if it matches your gaming style you can make it work.

Leveling

Each armour tree levels up independently, you level up in the armour tree by wearing corresponding armour types.