Yeah, I worked it out. But that is kind of the point, he is not even talking about steel weapons, but skyforged steel or nord hero steel. It cuts down on the weapons you can choose. I actually really like the armour cap because with some effort you can wear fur and have no real handicap. To use daedric or glass weapons we have the slightly perverse situation where w need to invest more perks for the same damage outcome.

Going elemental is just another way to be able to use whatever you want/whatever looks good/whatever fits your character. I think for that it deserves a thought.

I don't love sneaky characters, but I might test a pickpocket character to find max 'reasonable' damage via poisons. I already have a good character set up for it. Is there a cap on negative resist?

Ugh everytime i stop by here theres another perk that has faulty or plain wrong description/effect. thanks for the heads up.

regarding the recovery perk (+25/50 mag regen), it doesnt show up in active effects but is it actually working?

Yeah, we spent almost an entire thread researching which type of weapon was better, axes, swords or maces and can to the realisation that all of the weapon specialisation perks work like that making them rather insignificant.

Yeesh, Cheshyr really needs to update the Guide.

Domilasa et al. researched the weapon specialization perks extensively a few threads ago, and discovered that they mostly svck. Yes, crit hits are based on base weapon damage ONLY and do not scale. The Armor penetration from maces is mostly worthless as most enemies don't have armor (except some bandits/guards)... dragons don't have armor, for example. The axe bleed stacks with itself, but is a flat number -- with the downside that it doesn't work on undead/spirits or scale up with your skill/weapon.

Until they can get modded to scale properly, or somebody goes around and adds armor to monsters, the weapon spec perks are not worth it, IMO.
-Loth

Edit: HA! Domilasa beat me to it. Again.

Hey guys I followed the guide specified in thread 1 and proceeded to smith and improved a daedric dagger but its damage only came up to 116. Its a far cry from the 171 stated in the guide.

I am doing this with 4x 29% smithing enchants and 130% smithing potions in version 1.3 of the game.

Has the patch changed anything?

Maybe a silly question, but you do have the Daedric smithing perk, yes?
-Loth

LOL yes... otherwise I wouldn't be able to create the dagger in the first place.

EDIT: I found this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ltnrl9UOdAQ

His daedric daggers did not reach 171 damage either, even with the proper equipment and smithing potion.

Another thing I noted is the base damage of his daedric daggers were 26. Mine is only 22. What's going on?

And you improved it before the potion ran out?
-Loth

EDIT: Ah, I found what might be happening...
The numbers in the guide are what you get with x4 Fortify one-handed enchants as well.

Yes. I compared improving the dagger with and without potion. Also restarted the game and tried it again with same results.

Did you check the video?

Thanks btw.

Oh yeah, I forgot that daggers don't get the fortify one-handed bonus... I never use them
Maybe it's a typo in the guide or something.

-Loth

Edit: Do you have 100 one-handed skill and 5/5 armsman perks?

Even if it is a type thou, why is there a discrepancy between my results and the video? This thing is really bothering me lol.

EDIT: @Loth,

I feel so silly now. I used to console to set one-handed to 100 and my dagger damage did go up. I was under the impression that since one-handed enchants didn't affect daggers, neither would one-handed skill level.

Thanks.

The armsman perks also affect daggers, my friend... it's just the enchants you don't get the bonus for. This is made up by the uber-perks in the stealth tree for dagger backstabs, plus shrouded gloves... you can get [censored] backstab damage with those.

-Loth

PS Glad to help! Have fun.

Is there a mod out there that makes elven armor less ugly? Im not talking about the texture, i mean its overall design, form, and color. better yet would be to just replace its appearance with another armor set like ebony or even wolf armor.

If you can get your hands on the mesh and texture files for any other armor, I think you can just drop them into your Data folder after renaming them according to the elven armor sets, and that should replace the appearance of Elven armor. A simpler thing might be to downloaded a texture package that changes the colors (I had one that turned it black/red). I'm not a fan of the default appearance, either.


I probably missed something, but how do you kill stuff with bound weapons? One-handed enchants/potions?

Bound weapons are essentially Daedric, so do a goodly bit of damage per strike, but even if they didn't, the fact he's sprinkling in Paralyzes means he won't get retaliated against and can hack/shoot them down at will. Weapon skill perks apply to Bound weapons as well, and the weapons raise said skills, so you're basically getting a weightless, un-smithed, Daedric weapon from essentially the start of the game. You need 50 skill for the Bow and Battleaxe spell books to show for purchase, but spamming the Sword or War Axe gets you there in fairly short order.

I'm trying to cap everything on my character and the closest I can get is with a breton using Savior's hide:
-magic resist(85)=racial(25)+savior(15)+agent of mara(15)+perk(30)
-disease resist(100)=beast blood(100)
-poison resist(100)=savior(50)+perk(50)
-elemental resist x3(100)=boots+ring+amulet
-block(85)=2h weapon(40)+perk(40)+gloves(5)
The only thing I miss is "muffle" and the only way to have it is by using a shield. Now, I don't know how much difference it does for someone using light armor and having the "muffle" perk and if it's worth sacrificing the range/damage of a 2h weapon for 1h & shield in order to put muffle on boots.

isnt block capped at 40% for most shields?

also, what about magic absorption?

Block is capped at 40% for weapons but it can be increased with perks/enchanting in order to reach the 85% cap.
You can also have 80% magic absorption (atronach stone(50)+perk(30)) and 100% once per day with the power.
And of course 10% avoid damage from deft movement and 80% damage reduction from armor for the ultimate tank.

You might be better off with Magic Resistance than Magic Absorption, as the latter is a percentage chance to activate while the former is always on; in addition, you can't enchant for absorption, so are restricted in Stone choice and locked into certain perks if you want it at a worthwhile level.

I tend to not worry about boosting block, but then my melee types are 2H rather than sword+board so I'm rarely bothering to block in the first place; since I tend to cap armor I rarely need to block from that point on anyway, as what gets through doesn't really hurt and can readily be covered by casting Fast Healing or taking one of the thousands of healing potions the game drowns you in.

I make up for the loss of the Shield enchantment slot by disenchanting the Spellbreaker artifact and stacking that enchantment with the regular magic resistance one; yeah, I give up two +2HDamage enchantments, but then I'd rather have the protection and live through a slightly longer fight than not have it and get one-shotted by a mage who wanders in mid-battle.

After seeing the synergy between magic absorption and guardian circle, i find it hard to not build around it. its also amazing to see how many effects are considered magic: animal diseases, dragon breaths, even your own circle spells! its an addition layer of defense that has the bonus of also recharging your magicka. I would always get the atronach perk and rely on atronach stone in future playthroughs.

Is there an advantage to 2h over sword and shield? weapon damage after a certain point is overkill as enemies die in a few swings regardless of weapon type or material. whats perhaps more meaningful is swing speed.

When I have both Magic Absorption and Magic Resistance running at max I do not regenerate MP. Anyone else notice this?

The atronach stone decrease magicka regen by 50%, if you have no other sources to counteract that effect, it might look like your regen is zero.

the recovery perk in the restoration school at rank 2 will give you 50% regen, an easy way to equalize the degen.

It doesn't just look like zero it is zero. I guess you are right I have no other source of regen.

Blocking with weapons is 60% at blocking 100 with no perks... not 40%. Elemental resistance is capped at 85%, just like magic resistance. Spell absorb does not have a cap, but is limited in where you can get it, as it does not enchant. Getting both atronach stone and perk and activating Breton 1/day power will make you completely immune to magic. The -50% magicka regen from the atronach stone can be completely nullified by wearing novice robes -- as an example. We left out the Ward Absorb perk in the Guide, but that is the fourth way you can absorb spells to recharge your magicka level. Spell absorption is bugged in that you can absorb your own atronach summons and cancel them... there is a mod you can DL on the Skyrim Nexus that fixes this.

-Loth

Pickpocket poison is as follows:
1. Most powerful poison possible does not kill a 50 level whiterun guard at master level. Infact it barely damages him.
2. Multiple stacks of poison does not work, only one of the poison is applied, rest is unconsumed. You have to pickpocket one in and exit interface before doing it again. If you have different (non-stacked) poisons, you can apply them together.
3. Damaging someone via pickpocket poison does not seem to count as assault. Death however does place bounty on you.
4. The most useful poison is appears to be paralyze.
5. The fear/frenzy poisons seem to be useful, except that master enchanter/alchemist can only produce a maximum of 27 level poison, which puts them too far behind the enemy scaling to be useful.

In short, the poison tree is underwhelming as a whole.