Dear topic reader. Hope you can help me. My main stats are stealth and archery, second is one handed. Still looking for a crafting skill. Need to choose between smithing and alchemy. With alchemy i can make high damage poisons for my arrows but with smithing i can create my own bows and upgrade them. Problem is i dont use heavy armor. If i choose for smithing its only for creating bows. Isnt this a waste and should i better invest in alchemy?

You can create light armor from blacksmithing. There is the heavy armor route and the light armor route. Blacksmithing also allows you to enhance your bow with higher enhancements.

Alchemy gives you many potions and poisons, including the paralyze potion.

Now the sneak attack multiplier is important.

Poison damage do not get multiplied by the sneak attack multiplier.
But the blacksmith enhancement that you do to your bow IS multiplied.

I plan to take both on my stealther. I'm only taking the poison perks from alch though. Also, smithing lets you make light armor and lets you upgrade equipment a TON as well. Both are very lucrative for every character, imo.

Tnx for the reactions so far. Hm yes i think i will go for the light route in smithing then. Love to upgrade alchemy too but i have to choose do i need to invest in light armor too to make it worthwhile?

The fact is ... all three crafting skills are awesome for EVERY character.

In your case:
- Smithy for light armors, bows, and jewelry (rings and amulets)
- Alchemy for poisons, healing potions, and buffs.
- Enchanting to make those light armors, bows, and jewelry amazingly effective.

All types of crafting is very potent for a sneaky archer, simple as that.

Full of doubt here. Feels somehow like a waste to upgrade smithing for my character because i do it only for bow and swords. How much chance do i have to find a good bow in the game without upgrading?

Yeah, that is the problem I am having with my character: I want to have all 3 crafting skills, but there are so few perks to go around! I actually have a build laid out on a spreadsheet that allows for all 3 crafting skills along with all of my other skills, but the total perks for it is 75. Yeah, that will take some time to get it fully finished! lol

We have only 50 havent we? So for me it is smithing or alchemy, only 7 perks to invest in a craft because i put the rest in my master skills.

The soft cap in the game is 50. That is the leveling becomes much slower. You can continue to level beyond that, and every level you gain will give you one perk like always. It has been reported that the maximum level one can attain is level 81 (this was done with the PC version and through the console commands to level up).

Alchemy , poisoned arrows are awsome, it's great to watch enemies slowy dieing & not even being able to find you.

There are also about 20 quest given perk points according to the perk spreadsheet on nexus. So that would mean around 90 perks.

That is interesting really. I read that on the wiki, yet I have not found any quests in the game that give perk points so far. Does anyone happen to know of any quests that they can confirm giving perk points? If so please PM me with them so we can keep this thread spoiler free (since it is in the General forum).

Thanks!

Yes interesting. Its vague how many perks there really are. Most of the people say you dont get perks anymore after 50.
The gain you win with upgrading your weapons with smithing, will it be greater when you level more? Im using a dwarven sword right now, an damage upgrade would be nice, but i dont need the armor because i specialise in light. Ahhh i dont know!
When i upgrade only glass and elven in smithing (both light) im somehow commited to use them through the game, because they will be my best i think. How is the drop rate of good bows and swords? So i have to choose for a higher damage elven bow and good elven armor or mediocre elevn bow with deathly poison.

Take Smithing + Enchanting, it's not even an option the benefits are huge.

You can also take Alchy if you want to improve your gear even more because you can make your own +smithing and +enchanting potions to boost your gear even further but personally I found raising alchemy to bothersome.

And you have to take the heavy armor tree perks in smithing if you want to make the best weapons (daedric).

81 perks is the max you can get in the game.