Skyrim- The Standing Stones (Part Three)

[b]The Steed Stone:[/b] The Steed Stone grants you the effects of one and a half perks at once, and stacks with one of those perks- but this is unlikely to be worth it once you have the perks in question.  While you are under the sign of the Steed, your weight capacity is increased by 100, and your armor does not reduce your movement speed.  In the early game, both of these abilities are valuable- a single trip into a dungeon will often overwhelm your carrying capacity, and heavy-armor wearers lose a lot of their mobility.  It gets shown up pretty hard later on- both the Heavy Armor tree and the Light Armor tree have perks on them that reduce armor of that type to a null weight when worn and remove all penalties for that type of armor to your mobility, and with heavy armor this can nearly match the carrying weight savings of the Steed Stone’s effect.  Further, if you take the time to pickpocket at all, you can easily reach the perk on the Pickpocket tree that grants you an extra 100 units of maximum carry weight.  This isn’t to say that you can’t find the Steed Stone still worthwhile; if you like to carry a -lot- of gear, having 100 extra units of carrying capacity twice over can mean a lot.  However, most characters will be better served by an increased Stamina investment and the appropriate perks than they will by this stone.  Besides, there are doubtless other Signs you can operate under that will be more directly useful to you.  Just to compound the issue, the Steed Stone is located in Haafingar near Solitude, in the mountain pass that leads to Ravenscar Hollow- thoroughly across Skyrim from your starting location of Helgen.  Chances are, by the time you get there, you’ll need a different Standing Stone effect already.

[b]The Atronach Stone:[/b] This stone’s sign is of the most use to melee artists who like to open up with a spell barrage at the beginning- it causes you to absorb 50% of all spells that hit you and increases your Magicka pool by a whopping 50, but reduces your Magicka regeneration by half at the same time.  Thanks to the Magicka-regenerating enchantments that can be found on robes and copied to armor, it is quite possible to offset the loss of Magicka regeneration from having this Sign on you as well, making the Atronach Stone usable even by mages.  That said, a drawback -is- a drawback, and this one does hurt your capacity in any sort of extended magical fight- which all magical fights should be, given the existence of the Ward spells.  There is also the fact that characters who do not rely on magical spells during a battle at all will have no use for the extended Magicka pool, although anyone can gain from having a nice solid 50% magic-absorption rate.  This Stone can be found in Eastmarch’s Southern region, a short sprint Northeast of Darkwater Crossing.