Shield VS ward

[desperado2010]

Which one do u prefer?? And which one do you think is more effective??

Shield block melee attack, and magic attack with resist magic effect.

Ward block magic and increase amour rating.

[Musicman247]

I personally don't use either, but if I were to use one, it would be a shield, and it would be Spellbreaker since it is a shield and a ward.

[MaKo]

In melee fight, I prefer shield, as you can bash with it. In my experience, I haven't noticed any game-changing effect from Elemental Protection perk; it might be because it is only effective when shield is raised, and when you are slashing your enemies, it is not.

In early game, I used ward, which seemed quite effective. The problem I had with it was that if you were staggered, you were not able to get the ward to protect you. That happened quite a lot when fighting against dragons and especially against different sorts of mages, as raising your ward needed you to predict the blasts (luckily, quite easy with dragons). The other problem was that when fighting against mages, many of them used shock effect, which drained your magicka and you were not able to cast the ward.

[desperado2010]

I see. Because i am Imperial worrier, I want to use some useful restoration spell. i have +10 restoration, don't want to waste it.

[Isildor]

I took the elemental protection perk because I like to stand right in front of dragons and hack away.

[azuarc]

Here's a silly question, but somewhat related...I'm a light armor wearer. I've avoided using heavy shields because it's not in-line with my skillset, but is there much reason for me to be worried about it? It's not like it breaks my set or anything. I've got Spellbreaker sitting in a chest at home because I didn't want to use a heavy shield, but I'm beginning to think that's stupid.

[MaKo]

I'm a light armor wearer. I've avoided using heavy shields because it's not in-line with my skillset, but is there much reason for me to be worried about it? It's not like it breaks my set or anything. I've got Spellbreaker sitting in a chest at home because I didn't want to use a heavy shield, but I'm beginning to think that's stupid.

I tried to make some tests with my previous character about this subject, but in the end I didn't arrange good and controlled situations to say anything confirmed. I have just a feeling that your shield does not give experience to the armor class (Light or Heavy) although its (basic) protection depends on the corresponding skill, instead it seems to give experience to Block when using it; but as said, I am not 100% sure for this, not even 50%. What made me to use light shield with light armor, was that I used to have Fortify Light Armor enchant in my usual light armors, and thus heavy shields didn't give that much protection as light shields (and similarly vice versa with my regular heavy armor sets). I don't recall other reasons why I mostly stayed with one type of armor...

[MasterRokon]

I wish there was a ward for us to use like the thalmor in the mages guild used x.x that would be epic