New player here.

[Rokchewer]

I would suggest using medium armor for a bit until you get more str/sta from gear trains. Heavy armor for a new non HOL warrior can be pretty rough. Excellent job btw Stormcloak. Your responses are spot on, so I dont have to type as much.

[Stormcloak]

As Rokchewer suggests, it is common for war's to start with medium armour and then transition to heavy armour as they develop (and pick up Light as a Feather). How heavy you can go depends on your encumbrance - without Light as a Feather war's seem to do okay if they keep it "under the red" (i.e. less than 50%) depending on their entire setup. Some people prefer less, some allow a little more. At the same time, there are some glads that do heavy armour all the way through and do quite well (but I imagine they gotta be pretty big sized to begin with). You can mix and match your sets too - for example using a medium torso, heavy helmet, heavy weapon arm, medium legs if you have particular areas you want to focus on protecting. Your encumbrance plays into the initiative battle with your opponent - that is, who swings first (and a few good hits can decide the battle!), and how quickly you tire out. To help with this, again as Rokchewer mentioned, you can look for gear that gives you stamina and strength bonuses. As for what's best... you can't look at heavy or medium armour in a vaccuum, you have to consider how it works into your build as a whole. There is no best build (but there are plenty of sub-optimal ones!)

Your base stats and race will also factor into this if you want to post that as well.