Welcome to the Forum, xJunK.

-Loth

Well actually all the sword, axe and mace perks are useless. Dragons have 0 armor rating, bandits at high levels will have huge amounts of health rather than armor. You won't find many enemies with more than 80 armor rating, the perks are pretty useless. As soon as you hit around 15 damage rating for swords, they will be doing more damage per second than maces and axes, swords are superior in terms of damage.

My favourite combo is dagger in the left hand, then mace/sword in the right. This is because the weapon in the left hand determines the double attack and triple spin power attack speed, so in terms of damage and speed that is easily the best option. But if you enjoy maces thn go for it, they look the best IMO.

Dual wielding in general is incredibly fun and very strong but ultimately not viable in higher difficulties due to lack of disruption (shield/weapon bash, shield charge) or blocking.

Its my dream to create a viable dual wielding alteror that sneaks in invisible, pops a mass paralyze, then goes to down with his health absorb and paralyze dagger/sword. the only isue is that you get killed rather easily even with 567 armor rating and 900 health. now obviously theres a lot of cheese you can do but it doesnt feel "manly" like dual wielding shield.

the issue at master or higher is not the damage you can do. 300 damage swords will be good enough to take down anything, its just enemies do so much damage that its hard to justify losing so much defensive power in a shield to agument the power of your physical attacks.

You should state that you are using mods to bring the difficulty up, because dual wielding is most definately viable on vanilla master.

You may consider using slow time as your primary means of defense in this case. The necromage/vampire combo makes slow time last longer. I can wipe out 20 dealth overlords within that time using duel wielding. I suspect it would not be possible using other types of weapons.

slow time is nice but i prefer marked for death. well truthfully , i sometimes forget i even have shouts because their cd is so stupidly long.

I'm using Intense difficulty 4x (4 times as difficult as master difficulty) + PISE w/ more intense level scaling.

Trying to figure out if Reflect Blows (Heavy Armor 100 perk) is worth grabbing at all and have a few questions. Hoping somebody might know a bit more about it.

1) Do you reflect 10% of the damage you receive before or after the damage reduction from armor rating and blocking kicks in?

2) Is elemental damage from an enchanted melee weapon also reflected?

3) Is the amount of damage an enemy suffers influenced by the difficulty level (i.e. halved at master difficulty)?

Thanks in advance.

1: After reduction, IIRC... kinda svcks.

2: I don't think this was specifically tested for when the trials for the perk were run -- unknown

3: Also unknown, IIRC... the tests were centered on if the perk was protective or not, and the actual mechanism behind the reflection and what it is affected by were not tested for.

What we can say with certainty so far is that the perk is an offensive kind of thing, and does not confer any defensive bonuses in the way that Deft Movement for light armor does.

-Loth

1. After
2. No
3. Affected.

Yes, imagine the worst possible interpretation of this skill and it works exactly as you imagined it.

Lothario and wtflag, thanks again

Guess that's one more crappy perk to cross off the list...

Windshear.

No disrespect but ive made a smither once, legendary gear and it was pretty much godmode from then on, got boring really fast, whats the point of going even further, wheres the fun while you can stand there with an elder or ancient dragon snapping at you and not even have to heal ... look at your nails and whistle a bit, while the dragon is still snapping at you.
then sigh, roll eyes flash out a tiny potato knife and kill the dragon with a little swing and go muhaha.
Just open console and type tgm.

I can imagine the first time is funny, but over and over, reason enough to uninstall and go play something else, something where theres actually a challenge? i can imagine some people like to play this way but its really not for me.

Hello Hello Hello! I've been reading these series of threads now for a little while, and finally decided to ask a question! My question is about the armor cap and weapons. Firstly, What would be the point of say, 2 perks to reach Wolf Armor, when your weapon would be lacking from trying to save the perk points? I fully understand that it weighs less, but in the end you are still spending roughly the same amount of perk points as you would going for Deadric.. assuming you are going to be using a Deadric Weapon to maximize your damage dealt. I'm just wondering if besides the reduction in carrying capacity (and looks), Is there really any other reason to wear Wolf Armor over Deadric? Which brings me to my next question! What would the damage difference be between lets say a Deadric Mace and an Elven Mace? This was the only way I could think of to actually save perk points this way... Is that the Elven Mace would be close to the Daedric Mace without much of a difference to damage dealt. You just plug in enough perk points for Elven, and then increase the given stats of the weapon and apparel, Does this make much sense? Or am i completely going in the wrong direction with all of this?

This is basically a thread for advanced players to share effective builds and how game mechanics work. This thread was more or less in existence since the game was released to explore these issues.

There are people more interested in character builds and theorycraft than the power it comes from having such knowledge itself. Partially also because it is rather annoying that you sometimes cannot tell if a perk works or not, or how effective it really is.

Those wiki entries that advise you on certain game mechanics like how holding faster weapons in which hand lets you dual power attack faster? Or how Bladesmen actually works? They come from posts just like this one.

Yeah... some of our thread contributors and posters wrote the UESP wiki entries... so... something to think about. That chart I posted in the guide concerning smithing? Look it up on the wiki, 'cause that's where the wiki came from -- the data in this thread series. The previous charts they had up on the wiki were incorrect until Domilasa and I did the level-by-level testing, and they fixed the wiki to match us.

-Loth

PS They still need to fix one of the numbers in the UESP data fields that are wrong... Flawless is only +6 to base weapons, not +7.

Welcome to the thread, my friend!

To answer your question about maces and materials, etc.:
ANY weapon type can do incredible, ridiculous OP damage if you maximize your crafting potential -- even without using cheats. We have been in the process of "reining in" damage for the sake of sanity and fun gameplay as a result. Basically, you will pwn even master difficulty if you get a weapon that does around 300ish damage, and this can be accomplished with just about any weapon in any material except for the daggers, as they do not benefit from the Fortify one-handed enchantment.

To give you a sense of just how potent the crafting template is, the daedric weapons go for around 500-600 damage, depending on if they are 1H or 2H... elven equipment is only 10% or so less. This is because smithing improvements are equal across the board, regardless of material type -- so crafting out an elven sword will do far more damage than you really need... even on master difficulty. And this is not even counting elemental enchants that you can put on your weapons... dual wielding can give you an extra four enchantment slots for this.

With the template, damage is not an issue.

Domilasa made a theorycraft build for a character on master using the template and the "damage cap" ruling that we went by using only 21 perks (IIRC) that let her hit the armor cap, blocking cap, magic resist cap, and elemental resist cap. The only thing she didn't slot for was Spell Absorb, which she could have hit with another couple of levels and trading out the Lord stone for the Atronach stone. She used all elven gear to accomplish this -- it can be argued that elven is the most versatile and awesome of all the available materials... and it weighs next to nothing.
-Loth

You can still get awesome stats going with just the steel perk, wolf armor, skyforge steel sword and hunting bow. The skyforge steel sword and hunting bow are both improved by the steel perk and you can easily get massive damage out of both of them. The skyforge steel sword will be close to ebony and while the hunting bow isn't as much as ebony it fires quicker than ebony and daedric bows so the dps is probably just as good. Anyway you can totally kick ass with jsut wolf armor, skyforge steel sword, and hunting bow.

Where do they describe the 21 perk elven build? Using vampire/necromage I was able to make +31% alchemy/smith gear, +38% enchant potion and + 152% smithing potion. It got my daedric bow and sword into the 900 damage range. Also all of the fortify onehanded/fortifyarchery equipment works better on a vampire. The creation stats are like +51% but when you look at the active effects it is more like +68% or something like that. Anyway vampire/necromage synergizes with all of the enchanting/alchemy/smithing in awesome ways and massively increases your damage/skills.

It sure does... Necromage/Vampire is crazy.

The 21 perk build discussion happened around thread 7 or so, I think. That's about the time we decided to calm down with the super-high damage numbers and consider that one-shotting Alduin on master was not such a high priority. I fully agree with the folks that post in here saying "Why would I ever want to be so powerful?", because they're right, in my particular point of view in how I like to play. Sure, there are some of us that like the idea of earning "God Mode", but I for one would not craft a 500 damage sword because it would ruin the game for me. But that's just my personal preference... I play on master exclusively, and enjoy being gimped at the early levels -- I don't even use potions -- ever. My use of the crafting template does not involve alchemy or even store-bought pots, and my numbers are a lot lower... which is how I like it.

But that's just me, and I'm not going to judge others and how they approach their own games. The info in this thread series takes all possible options and lays them out for everybody's choice to use or not to use.

Which reminds me:
Is there anybody interested in tabulating easy-to-find alchemy ingredients for crafting-specific (fortify smithing/fortify alchemy) potions? I am not the man for this job (as you might imagine), and I would like to add a little snippet of useful info to the Guide for players looking for a little help in alchemy-related stuff as it pertains to this thread series. All we have so far in this regard are some console codes, which is kinda disappointing... I think we can do better. Surely somebody has a favorite haunt or technique to grab lots of ingredients to use for crafting?

-Loth

The game can be made trivial even without any sort of crafting skills. however, with the ck coming out very soon and several mods out there that make the game astronmically more difficulty there is certain some fun in pushing your db to the max by utilizing in game mechanics and efficient perking/stating.

Loth, i never had issues gathering ingredients for fortify potions, though if you want a nearly complete list of giant's toe id be more than happy to provide.

Hmm... specifics is what I lack. Knowledge of alchemy in Skyrim is what I lack. I don't even know what ingredients you can use to make a fortify smithing pot -- I got nothin'.

So... what are the ingredients (easy-to acquire, either common in stores or "findable" in the wild) that you can use for crafting? If I was a newb to Skyrim, where would be a good place for me to start building a stash of ingredients to make Fortify Smithing potions, and what kind of pots (with easy ingredients) are good for leveling the alchemy skill? I honestly have no idea.

-Loth

Edit: Give me an excuse to add you to the contributor list, len... I DARE YOU.

The two most available in

The two most common ingredients for amking fortify smithing are blisterwort and glowing mushrooms. Both are pretty common in caves. I generally buy out all of the ingredients from the alchemy store whenever ai am in a town. The ingredients are really cheap (as long as you avoid the expensive ones like void salts and daedra hearts)

Thanks, Sid... what do you know about Blue Mountain Flowers? I seem to remember that they were important for alchemy somehow. Also, there was a blue something else... maybe butterfly wings?

LOL I am pathetic at Alchemy, I know...
-Loth

For leveling alchemy: youll want to create the highest valued potions possible, which will generally invole a giant's toe. Obviously you can kill giants but they tend to be rather strong early on and there are much easier ways to obtain them.

Giant's toe locations:

• 3 in dawnstar, The White Hall
  
• 3 in college of winterhold, drevis’ room, arch mage’s quarters, hall of attainment 2 in Nightcaller Temple (The Pale) *
  
• 2 in Honeyside (Riften)
  
• 2 in Castle Dour, Emperor's Tower (Solitude)
  
• 2 inside East Empire Company Warehouse (Haafingar)
  
• 2 in Palace of the Kings Upstairs (Windhelm), in Wuunferth the Unliving's room
  
• 2 in Calixto's House of Curiosities (Windhelm)
  
• 2 in Proudspire Manor (Solitude)
  
• 2 (one on the dead Giant on the altar and the other in the stone bowl) at the camp just south of Sundered Towers
  
• 2 in Nightcaller Temple (The Pale) *
  
• 2 in riverwood, delphines hideout
  
• 2 in hagraven altar west of karthspire
  
• 1 in hall of vigilant
  
• 1 in Falkreath – deadly concoctions
  
• 1 in Largashbur – outhouse
  
• 1 in riften, elgrims elixer
  
• 1 in ???
  
• 1 in ???
  
• 1 in ???

Combined with a blue butterfly wing and blue mountain flower (both of which can be found in the plains region west of whiterun), you will be able to craft the single highest valued non limited potion in the game. I estimate with a few store bought foritfy alchemy gear, mage's stone, and well rested, that it would only take about 40-50 of these potions to go from 20 to 100 alchemy.

This handy tool will let you maximize skill/gold gain: http://keke.itarium.ch/uploads/alchemy/


Fortify Smithing = Blisterwort, Glowing Mushroom, Sabre Cat Tooth, Spriggan Sap
glowing mushroom can be found in most falmer caves, blisterwort can be found in chillwind depths.

Fortify Enchanting = Blue Butterfly Wing, Hagraven Claw, Snowberries, Spriggan Sap
blue butterfly wings can be found in the plains region west of whiterun and snowberries can be found in snowy regions.

Excellent post, len!

So you can wear fort alchemy gear to level the skill faster? That's pretty damn cool. --> Guide entry for sure

Hey, at least I knew about the blue stuff being important for something!
-Loth

Edit: I'll post up your snippet in the Guide when you say you're done... there's some entries missing at the bottom, so I'm not sure if you still had a few more. I'd like to edit the Guide as little as possible in some spots, as the post edit function on this forum gets buggy when the posts are long.

Edit2: As far as the mechanics goes with Alchemy, give me some head's ups: How does the ingredient value work? Does using more expensive stuff make for better potions, or does it not matter? What are the advantages of using more than 2 ingredients? Is it just for multiple effects, or does the effect get better if I was to use 3 things that shared a common effect? Would making a potion with Blisterwort, Glowing Mushroom, and Sabrecat Tooth be better than one with just Blisterwort and Glowing Mushroom?

Those missing values are from giant's toe i have not yet discovered but based on uespwiki do exist( 33 total). so theres aparently 3 more giant's toe somewhere in the world!!


Generally, there is absolutely no correlation between ingredient value and potion value. Nearly every ingredient except the elemental salts and daedra hearts will give you a massive return in gold when you craft them into potions and it is worthwhile to buy everything in alchemy shops that are under ~50 septims. Potion value is determined by their effects, fortify weight sells for a lot while damage health sells for nearly nothing.

Using a third potion potentially increases potion vaue and may add additional effects but will not strengthen the effects of the 2 ingredient potion.

making a potion with blisterwort, glowing mushomroon, and sabre cat tooth may potentially yield a second or third effect but it is trivial because you will drink it solely to increase your smithing anyways.

One of the best potions in the game and one that has an impressive effect count of 4: snowberries+hawk's beak+mudcrab chiten. elemental resistances to fire, cold, lightning, restores stamina.

finally, the reason why giant's toe is so amazing is that it's fortify health effect lasts 300 seconds instead of 60 like most effects. Possibly due to a bug or oversight.