I cannot afford both smithing and enchanting perks on my character build, So I wonder which one is better investment. I imagine you can place second enchantment on all of your equipment giving you really extra boost. But what is the finest armor worth without a good enchantment? Maybe somebody who played has opinion?

Make some room for them. 8 points of enchanting, 6 or 7 of smithing.

Enchanting is going to give you better bang for your buck, most likely, who doesn't want to craft their own legendary dragonbone armor to put the enchants on!?

I bet if you look more closely through your perks, you'll find stuff you can weed out. What's your build?

Technically you can do both - perks are nice, but not necessary to use the skill. You can still enchant, and get to 100% skill in it. Pick your perks keeping in mind you will likely get to 100% with any skill you keep using. You don't need 50% spell costs on things, for instance, unless it's needed to get a perk that is really important to you - especially if you use the Apprentice to double your mana and MP regen.

But if you'd really like, if you're on the PC, you could always mod yourself perk points and just call them skill bonuses instead of perks. You still need to get to 30 points to get level 2 perks, 40 for the next.

A LOT of people will kick and scream and gnash their teeth at the idea that someone else will do that, but I've never found it to reduce gameplay in the least to tweak the game to my liking occasionally.

Ryan Fenton

I'd take enchanting over smithing unless you want dragon armor.

NORD warrior with some aptitude to freezing spells


Light armor: Agile defender (5) + Custom fit(1) + Unhindered(1) + Wind Walker (1) + Deft Movement (1) = 9

Smithing: Steel Smithing (1) + Arcane Blacksmith (1) = 2

One Handed: Armsman (5) + Hack and Slash (3) + Fighting Stance (1) + Savage Strike (1) = 10

Archery: Overdraw (3) + Eagle eye (1) + Steady Hand (2) = 6

Block: Shield Wall (4) + Quick reflexes (1) + Deflect arrows (1) + Elemental Protection (1) + Block Runner (1) = 8

Enchanting: Enchanter (1) + Insightful Enchanter (1) + Corpus Enchanter (1) + Extra Effect (1) = 4

Restoration: Novice Restoration (1) + Respite (1) + Recovery (1) + Regeneration (1) + Ward Absorb (1)= 4

Destruction: Novice Destruction (1) + Apprentice Destruction (1) + Adept Destruction (1) + Expert Destruction (1) + Augmented Frost (1) + Deep Freeze (1) =

It only takes 4 perks to get the extra effect ability from the enchant skill.

It only takes 2 perks in smithing to be able to improve enchanted gear.

At the minimum, if you are at all interested in them, I would put these 6 perks into the crafting skills.

Edit: Lol, looks like I should have waited for the above post before commenting


And since you have the essentials from both already, I'd suggest putting the remainder into enchant.

assuming I do a build like the one below.. which of the 3 skills would you take? (Restoration or alchemy) , smithing, enchanting... what is the best way to heal oneself in the game? Can I make good potions or cast spells without skills into alchemy or restoration? As it stands I cannot afford both smithing and enchanting unless I give up the healing skills, whether they be restoration or alchemy.

light armor - all (10)

sneak - all except silent roll, light foot (11)

one handed - armsman (5), dual flurry (1), dual savagery (1), bladesman (1), fighting stance (1)

archery - overdraw (5), critical shot (1), eagle eye (1), power shot (1)

restoration - novice (1), respite (1), regeneration (1), apprentice (1), adept (1) OR

Smithing - light side (5) OR enchantment - enchanter (3), insightful (1), corpus (1), extra effect (1)

total - 48... leaves one point, which would either go to expert or dual cast in restoration, or another point of dual flurry, one handed tree.

That is what exactly I did in my build as you see above. thanks

Haha, yeah, didn't see that post. And I'd suggest enchanting perks since if you have any left over since you get much more customization out of that than out of smithing imo. Enchant can be tailored towards whatever you want to fight, like improving your frost spells or resisting magic, or improving magic regen, while smithing just makes it so you hit a little harder and are hit by weapons a little less hard. (Although im guessing smithing makes a lot of cash fast, especially with the transmute alteration spell.)

that's a good build there.. tossup for me between dual wielding with stealth and ditching sneak and using a sword and shield.

Cant find good Enchants.

I am sure you can find Really good armor / Artfacts.

Enchanting Perks (specifically the +100% to enchants and Extra Effect) are the most powerful and flexible in the game.

Many of the magic items seem to have effects that match the tiered perks in other skill trees. So you get a 400% increase to enchants which can round out other skills.

Consider:
Let's say you want to max out your sneak after already getting some other perks in that tree. That'd be an investment of 4 perks at 20% per perk.

Let's see how much +Sneak you'd get with enchanting per perk point.

Assuming a +15% Sneak enchant (which I bet is probably only what you'd get from a Common Soul Gem, but let's just go with that for the sake of example), what could we get?
Well, w/o the Enchanting perks, and applying the enchant to every armor slot (feet, hands, armor, helm, 2x rings, and amulet), we'd have 7*15% = 105% increase.

With the above perks, we'd have a 420% increase to Sneak.

420-105 = 315%

Total perks to get both those perks: 8 perks

315/8 = 39.3% increase to Sneak per Enchanting perk. Roughly double what you'd get investing in the Sneak skill tree directly.

(Also, I ignored that along the path you'd grab +25% to skill increase enchants)

And I seriously doubt that +15% will be the cap for +skill enchants, so the difference is much larger. In fact, I expect it to be more like a 4-5x increase per perk over investing in a particular skill. And the gear you enchant is swapable, unlike the perks. Want to pick a lock? Put on your lock-picking rings& amulet which offer a combined 225% increase to Lockpicking (base 15% but including the 25% perk in tree). Switch back to your +whatever other skill when done.

Any build that doesn't go with the aforementioned Enchanting perks is either doing it for RP reasons or just hasn't thought through the game mechanics enough.

I've gotten all 3 proffessions and still room for 4 skills, how are you not able to get both?

Are you picking both light armor and heavy armor perks? Don't, you don't need both. That goes for most other skills too, you don't have to pick every single perk, just pick your favorites.

Also, it might make sense to take a the 4 perks you need to get to dragon armor in smithing out of your ranked perks.

For example, would it be worth it to be 20% less protected, have 20% less powerful archery shots, 20% less powerful one handed and 20% less powerful block if you could improve all four of those things twice as much at the smith and customize them to your liking? I'm guessing that being able to improve them twice as much would more than negate the 20% loss in each category. You might even want to pick one of those areas to skip out on the ranks since 4 perks to max out smithing is a really efficient use of perks.

Edit:


First thing, thats a typo: the sum should be 5, not 4.
Second thing, these perks seem out of place to me. If you think about it, most of these perks don't do anything you couldn't handle easily with potions/food in game without needing to put your shield down. Maybe I'm missing something in your RP scheme or something though, just talking from an efficiency standpoint.

Thank you. Kind of tight there. I might just chose elemental protection/damage boost side of enchantment tree instead. Which is more useful in game do you think?

not only that, but 5 points into the base sneak probably isn't needed because bonuses enchantment provide will make up for it? So maybe 2-3 points of sneak are all that's needed, and maybe only 4 of archery and one handed to free up the skill points needed for both enchanting and smithing? All that leaves me with now is to decide whether to go sneak plus dual wield or use a shield plus block and single wield.

Maybe take that character that has 25% magic resistance too. If they're not too ugly.

Im doing both, so i can be self sufficient and never have to spend money.

Generally, the center is probably more useful since it can be applied to more situations and requires fewer perks, but if you are planning on using lots of frost enchants and RPing a frost based character, I can definitely see why you would go for maxing out your frost power to ridiculous proportions

Plus, we don't know yet if the skill based enchants are "X skill is Y% more effective" or if they are "X skill is increased by flat value Y" like in Oblivion. If it is the second, those enchants will eventually have no use.

Here's what I would lose:
4 points of agile defender
deft movement
3 points hack and slash
2 points overdraw
3 points shield wall
ward absorb
apprentice destruction
adept destruction
expert destruction

add in:
augmented frost
elven smithing
advanced armors
glass smithing
dragon armor
daedric smithing
4 enchanter
2 dual flurry

Shield wall + agile defender are going to make you incredibly tough against melee attacks, especially while your shield is up. I really doubt this is going to be necessary. I bet you're going to feel very tough against melee attacks on any difficulty, especially with full upgraded and enchanted dragon armor. Deft movement reduces melee damage taken by 10%, not worth a point imo. It's going to be spells or poison or arrows that kill you, not a sword. Hack and slash might be good, but it also might svck. The faster you tear through an opponent, the worse it is. It also forces you to stick with axes. IMO you're better off picking up dual flurry. For 2 points, it significantly increases your DW dps. You may see yourself using a shield most of the time, but being able to swap in a second weapon and go nuclear (+180% dps) when its safe is pretty sick. Overdraw likely won't be necessary except as a pre-req. Your bow damage is probably going to be pretty decent anyways, especially if it's a sneak attack. Plus, you're a melee guy. If you're fighting at range, it's probably going to be with frost spells. 3 points to decrease your spell costs by 50% is ridiculous, imo. Also, with twice as many double strength enchants, you should have plenty of room for +magicka, along with any health, feather, and magic resist enchants you need. I believe that powerful enchanting skill will reduce your dependency on stamina. Since enchantments are going to make up a lot of your dps, getting in more attacks > power attack. That plus stronger feather enchants means you can focus your stats more into health and magicka.

what would you suggest for this build? Would you ditch sneak and go block instead with a shield, or go for pure DPS? Anything else unnecessary? Anything you would add?


light armor - all (10)

sneak - stealth (3), backstab (1), deadly aim (1), assassin's blade (1), shadow warrior (1), silence (1), muffled movement (1)

one handed - armsman (4), dual flurry (2), dual savagery (1), bladesman (1), fighting stance (1), hack and slash (1)

archery - overdraw (4), critical shot (1), eagle eye (1), power shot (1)

Smithing - steel (1), elven (1), advanced (1), glass (1), dragon (1)

Enchantment - enchanter (5), insightful (1), corpus (1), extra effect (1)

total - 49...


edit: why does it matter if others are playing and give advice? Why report them? I'd rather use their knowledge and experience to help with my build when I finally play.

Stockwiz, i'd drop some from light armor and put some in block. Elemental protection, deflect arrows, and block runner are going to get you into range of pesky archers, mages, and dragons without chugging potions. Sneak might get you to the first one, but once combat starts, ranged guys are going to scatter. IMO every duel wielder is going to have to throw on a shield now and then to be viable on harder difficulties for certain fights.

I think sneak tree is a V, not an O, meaning you can't get shadow warrior from assassin's blade.

I would lose bladesman, 4 agile defender, deft movement, 3 overdraw, power shot, critical strike, 2 stealth, shadow warrior, silence, and muffled movement.

I'd add the 4 good restoration perks everyone's grabbing and the block perks I mentioned. Keep in mind that unless you powerlevel, you likely won't be seeing more than 30something perks during your play through. I mean how often are you going to be using conjuration, destruction, alchemy, 2hand, heavy armor, illusion, and pickpocket? If you don't level the skills, you don't get the levels and the corresponding perks.

I was wondering about that. Thanks for the advice. Makes me not want to waste my time with sneak, having to take 2 relatively useless perks, pressure plate and silent roll, for the good one. I actually am one of then types that tends to 'power-level' to a degree often before I even start a quest but I'll keep that in mind too. Using some random spells whenever I'm walking about is something I will be doing to level up. What about light armor vs heavy armor? I suppose I can answer this when the game comes out, but is there a difference? I could always use the steed standing stone, but I don't want to waste skill points on falling damage or gauntlets just to get the conditioning perk.

i like enchanting better cause a lot of smithing perks kinda get useless after you pass that "quality level"

I'm planning on using a mix of light and heavy armor until ~mid game. Gloves and helms tend to be pretty light weight, even when "heavy." I want to level both skills while I use my perks for 1h, smithing, and enchanting. Midgame, maybe in the mid-20s, I'll choose light vs heavy. I'm pretty sure I'll go light.

I can't decide about treasure hunter. What would have been vendor trash in oblivion and morrowind are going to be important for learning enchantments. If some important enchantments are rarer than other, this might help get them in a reasonable time without farming.