Appearance, Lore, or Practicality?

[DerAlleinTiger]

How do you guys choose your gear? Do you base it off of the way it looks, the lore/story behind it/your character, or just the stats and armor rating/damage of it?

I mostly go for appearance and lore. If I don't like the way something looks, I won't wear it. My main melee-oriented character wears plain steel armor w/ shoulder pauldrons, leather bracers/light Imperial bracers, and steel cuffed boots with a Skyforge steel sword and a steel shield. I'll also use a Nordic sword once I get to Solstheim.

My second character, an archer, usually wears either leather armor, boots, and bracers or Hjaalmarch guard armor, fur boots, and hide bracers. And the weapons/ammo are an Imperial bow with steel arrows or a Nordic bow with Nordic arrows.

When I am doing the Civil War questline, I wear whatever Imperial uniform fits that character's playstyle.

I never wear a helmt and I also don't like to have my hands covered and I don't like to have full sleeves on my armor. I'm not sure why. I think it just makes combat feel a bit more personal when you're using your bare hands and your head is uncovered. Then, since most bracers don't go well with sleeved armor, that pretty much gets rid of sleeves.

The only exceptions to the no helmet thing are enchanted circlets and Imperial helmets during the Civil War questline.

[capo.lex]

Most of the time i divide it by character but normally i choose the best things referring to armor rating/damage, i only change my mind if the armor in question looks extremely good or badass, like the helmet you get from the quest with barbas.

[Tarchia]

Normally it'd be stats as a mage or armor rating as a warrior, currently playing a thief/stealth character though and can't seem to find any good stats for chests so am just using something I like the look of.

[Recumbent]

I generally use the best stats equipment that looks okay on an Argonian.

Since Argonians are all I play. If an item doesn't 'fit right,' I give it to my companion.

[Anvos]

Depends on what I'm playing

Morrowind, spent most of my playthrough in Ordinator Armor since only select pieces of late game armors could beat it in the medium armor category. Also it was a rather cool looking armor.

Oblivion, beyond the annoyances of its armor and level system I mostly spent time in Deadric Armor, until near the end game I switched to dark seducer for my female dunmer (used cc to get is since golden armors look bad on dunmer if they don't cover the skin, also it made little sense that siding with the seducers meant I shouldn't be able to get their armor).

Skyrim, Primarially Deadric since it actually looked demonic in this one and heavy dragon armor looked kind of meh.

Only really leave the best armor if I get bored with staring at it or its orcish armor.

[King Ultima I]

Myself, I primarily think character is key. I started skyrim with a multi class beefy maxed out point character. After that got boring i figured each character I made had to have a story and a personality, so i always just tried to dress and equip my character accordingly.

[Arcamean]

Ever since I downloaded Frostfall It's practicality over sexuality. It will remain that way until Chesko somehow allows mages to warm themselves with magic (as it should be).