This. Alchemy is something you use regularly, but you can only do so much smithing outside of opening your own shop. I usually only use the steel and arcane perks and it took me quite a lot of time to reach the arcane one (I had no choice but to grind) because steel stuff doesn't increase skill very much and I didn't want to waste a perk to craft Dwarven stuff.

Thing is you can still make any potion you want with a low alchemy skill, they'll only be weaker; you cannot improve magic weapons until you reach 60, and you cannot create Dwarven, Ebony, Glass, etc. equipment until you have the perk for it. Major difference.

That is an extremely valid point. I think there should be "Skill Books" or quests you can get from blacksmiths that will teach you how to smith one of the sets or weapons/armor. It'd be similar to the Ritual Spell quests you get from the College to unlock the ultimate level spells.

There will be that difference anyway due to the nature of the items. A crap poison makes sense, as does a stronger poison, but making a crap Daedric sword doesn't make any sense at all. You get more xp. for stronger potions after you have invested, you get more xp. for better weapons after you have invested. Of course this is complicated by after the fact smithing improvements, but you can still improve Daedric to 'fine' with no skill and no perks, thus smithing gives you the chance of a small xp. boost over that which alchemy offers.

I think it's generally a good thing that smithing was changed, For the first time since Skyrim's released i have been using smithing trainers which then forces me to explore to get the funds for it, I spend most of my time being piss poor.

I'm digging the changes but i understand the frustration that the change has brought to some.

If there were more to smithing than "Insert components, receive weapon," it could work. Smithing's a tough process, and there's plenty that could go wrong. Your sword might look like your standard Daedric Sword, but it could actually be really weak if you didn't temper it properly.

Though I think too many people would object if the Smithing process was a minigame like what I'd like to see. Damn instant gratification seekers.

The trouble is the perks are all just representations of skills you would really have been working toward over time. Smithing new materials is no worse than anything else in this respect. You don't wake up one day and suddenly know how to hit critical points with a blade, or learn instantly how to pick pocket swords from scabbards, they are all things that require practice and time. Smithing just looks worse because all the perks are 'the next material, now'.

Smithing is easier for mages now, transmute mineral ore is a true gem of a spell.
Just grab a pickaxe at the start of the game and the transmute spellbook in the cave right near whiterun and turn all your iron ores into gold ingots. I buy all iron ores from stores, transmute them into gold ingots and smith into gold necklaces which are worth 120 gold. Great way to gradually improve smithing at a steady rate and make a bit of profit.

Don't you just smith gold jewellery now? That makes way more sense to me anyway.

And if you don't find a gold mine, or loads of flawless gems, buying those ingots instead of iron is a good way to stay poor as a down side to improving faster.

Strangely enough, one of the early dungeons in the game has a spell which transmutes iron ore into gold ore.

So all you need is an iron ore mine (first mine you encounter on the way from the guardian stones to Riverwood) and 100 magicka.

I frequently find more gems than I know what to do with. It is indeed a problem compared to the convenience of the iron dagger, but it isn't as big a deal as you're making out.

Prowler's Profit perk would be the fastest way to level up smithing now. It seems a little odd, considering it's a perk associated with the thieves guild. Look on the bright side, now the smithing trainers of Skyrim will actually make some money.

I've used the transmute spell / neclaces for smithing sense about a week after release. (It took me that long to find the book.) With the recent 1.5 changes to smithing yes I'm leveling slower but that just means my wifes "jewlery shop" has more stock to sell. I really don't see a downside to this.

Alteration is steadily getting closer to the upper limits, as are smithing and speachcraft. Considering Alteration is the only spell school I use that is all I care about. I don't even have ranks in it.

Yeah, it didn't make a lot of sense. Now you just have to grind higher level items instead. I was one of the people who never abused the system, and it worked perfectly fine for me. I never made it over 80 in smithing with my lvl 40 character and I felt like I had to make a lot of useless stuff to even get there.

In my first character I discovered the transmute spell and have always gone back to get it in future characters; it has been a good source of cash buyng iron and silver ore, turning it to gold and making gold rings. With my latest character, started after the last patch, I found doing this I got to 100 smithing way too quickly. The really stupid thing is I make the gold rings for the money and as a by product have got 100 smithing in the blink of an eye.

Smithing should have been a combination of recipe (Alchemy) and reverse engineering (Enchanting).

Instead it's stupidly easy shallow crap.

Is the ore transmutation method as effective as the dagger method?

No, but its your best shot.

How much of a difference should I expect, speed wise?

A LOT slower. But still faster then spamming iron dagger. Just do quests, and as you collect gemstones and iron ore, make them into high money gold & silver jewelry.

I think it is now better balanced with leveling, it won't surpass your other primary skills to cause a disruption in level scaling.

If you really want to grind you can always just uninstall the title update, grind and then reinstall it. I have seen a few other people mention they do that.

The smithing skill should have stopped giving experience once a certain cap was reached.For example,steel should have stopped giving experience at level 50 or when a certain number of items were crafted.How much can one learn by smithing the same steel sword after all?

Another problem is the availability of the raw materials at vendors.Iron and steel ingots should be available at vendors but more exotic materials should have been obtainable only through exploration etc.Having to delve into Dwemer ruins to look for materials for armour would have beeen much more interesting.I play the game this way and only craft full sets of armour using what i can find in the gameworld.It's a nice break from questing to plan a dungeon raid looking for materials.

Now you have to get all the perks from either light armor or heavy armor side to level up smithing efficiently. Smithing is now based way to much on the perks itself. You have to get all of the perks just to level it up efficiently and thats a problem.

Anyone with a shred of common sense can see that it is NOT normal for iron daggers to not have diminishing returns when crafting to 100. It is not supposed to be like this. It doesn't make sense that the training cost is so expensive, yet it takes only a fraction of that cost in iron daggers to level.

Smithing has been balanced from brokenly easy to normal.

To the people complaining about this, we have been hearing you all talk about how if smithing is "OP", don't use it.
Well consider the tables turned, if smithing is too hard to level, don't use it. Or use cheat codes to give yourself skill 100 after you craft 500 iron daggers.