Once you get the conditioning perk in heavy armour will you move at same speed as naked?

also since it makes your armour not weigh you down does that mean there is no sneak penalty?

I checked with the notched pickaxe equipped and there was no increase in damage. Feel free to verify it yourself though.

pasta from old thread

there was a fortify alchemy item in mehune dagons shrine, part of the mehrunes razor quest. it was sitting on the side not in a chest which makes me think it was not random. there was also a fortify archery item hidden outside nearby.

are items lying around random? if not then its worth listing these.

the timer still runs in the enchanting menu, so you got real time 30 seconds to do your enchants.


There is no movment penalty, you just get 0 weight from your armor while having this perk.


There is no sneak penalty for armor, but there is a 50% silent movment perk in the armor tree that makes sneaking easier. Couple that with the sneak tree perk 50% silent movement and your basicly running while stealth.

Daedric has a pre-req of Ebony. It looks like a circle, but it's not. Poor interface design on their part. You have to go up the entire Heavy Armor tree.

In my experience, Stamina is only a problem if you dual wield. However, the Top Tier Light Armor perk (10% avoidance) is unique and pretty powerful.

The 4 potions are just in case you can't craft and rename fast enough. The 30 seconds are counting from within the Enchanting and Amithing menu's. You are correct that they do not stack.

I don't know the answer to that. I know that the Steed Standing Stone makes it so I can move at normal speed in Heavy Armor. I don't know how it impacts sneaking, but I'm having no trouble stealthing with only 50 points in it so far.

@DieBySword Your armor weight is actually used to calculate how much noise you make while moving, at least according to the loading screen tips.

Thanks. I'll play with it a bit as well, just because it's there.

The problem with Conditioning is that you have to waste 2 points in order to get it (Fists of Steel and Cushioned). Is the speed boost/ extra carrying capacity worth 3 points?

i did everything u said, wearing 4x 29% smithing gear, use a 130% smth potion, but i dont get the results u posted
Daedric Bow: 195 Damage
Daedric Dagger: 171 Damage
Daedric Two Handed Sword: 210 Damage
Daedric One Handed Sword: 180 Damage


the dagger comes out to 163, the one hand sword 172, i have armsman maxed what am i missing?

now with 4x 47% one handed things on daedric sword is 494

are these numbers right or is somethign up? cause urs says like 500 somethjng...

Did some basic checking with my specific character in mind but I'm not sure about the results.

100 Smithing
Orc Armor = 56, Orc Boots = 21, Orc Gauntlets = 21, Orc Helm = 28, Orc Shield = 42, TOTAL = 168 AR with 100 Heavy Armor skill and zero armor perks spent. Total Weight of Full Orc Armor = 57 (71 with shield)
100 Smithing 4x +29 Smith Items
Orc Armor = 115, Orc Boots = 51, Orc Gauntlets = 51, Orc Helm = 58, Orc Shield = 72, TOTAL = 347 AR with 100 Heavy Armor skill and zero armor perks spent.
100 Smithing 4x +29 Smith Items + Potion of Fort Smith 130%
Orc Armor = 185, Orc Boots = 86, Orc Gauntlets = 86, Orc Helm = 93, Orc Shield = 107, TOTAL = 557 AR with 100 Heavy Armor skill and zero armor perks spent.

These are all the displayed amounts.

I had to use player.setav enchanting to over 100 to get the same results as the OP even though I was using all the same steps. Even with 100 Echant and the exact same potion listed, my +Alch/Smith results were different (off by as much as 5.)

I don't have access to Skyforged armor nor the Wolf armor mentioned earlier. It seems like Steel, Imperial and Orc have the same weights by piece of the standard heavy armor types. Iron is lower, as are Ancient Nord, Falmer, and Wolf but I don't know if you can craft those last few and I don't see listings for every slot type for some (like Falmer.)

Is the maximum store bought potion +50 smithing?

yup and 25 enchant i believe

I got an item called silver-blood family ring from "No one escapes chidia mine" quest. had to kill madanach in it to get that reward. the enchantment says

"weapons an armour can be improved by 15%"

I disenchanted this to get the "fortify smithing" enchant. I was expecting fortify smithing to be a flat skill buff like "+15 to smithing", hope this post might clarify for others.

I haven't gotten an answer on this, so I'm going to try again.

I have a wood elf who is going to be an archer/one-handed sneak with alchemy. He'll be wearing light armor.

I'd like to get the very best armor for magic and weapons damage, and the best damage output I can for that.

Here's my understanding of what I will need:

First up is whether I want to level up my health or my stamina. I'm not sure on this one. I don't have a PC or a game guide and the wiki is pretty bare bones at the moment. From what I can see, if stamina isn't an issue for me (and it hasn't been), I don't need to do much with it. I see that it does increase carrying capacity by 5 pounds per 10 points of stamina though. I don't think that's much of an issue however, as I'm not big on how long it takes me to do stuff (making extra trips back to town) and I use followers and such too, so I don't think I need to worry much about my stamina.

Next up then is my perks. Since I'm using one-handed weapons, is it better to go with a sword or a dagger? Two daggers? Two swords? I'll also be using the bow quite a bit. It'll be my primary weapon actually.

Knowing that later in the game I want to make this "most magnificent armor" of all time, exactly which perks will I need for this character?

If we could just cover the perks, that'd be plenty of help for me since I think I can figure the rest out on my own. Might someone feel like pitching in to help me determine which perks to get?

Almost all of your questions are answered in the first 3 posts of this thread.

Dual Wield of any non-dagger is max dps.

Fundamental Perks Are 8 in Enchanting, 7 in Alchemy, 5 in Smithing, and likely 5 in the Armor Type of your choice. Again, these are listed in the first 3 posts in this thread.

Outside of that, anything goes. You'll be armor capped, and doing more damage than god. Just don't ignore your HP, Armor, or Combat skills and you'll be fine.

Okay, then the issue must be that I don't understand it. It's kind of confusing to those of us that don't understand the terms and that are newer to TES. I like to think I'm a pretty bright guy in real life, but the lingo's different in "real life."


What? What is DPS? Damage per strike? That's a guess, so if it's right don't confuse that with me knowing what the Hell is going on here.


Okay, so it's the same perks as if I was going to do the two-handed, no shield character right?

The first post seemed to me that it was created with an emphasis on a two-handed, non-shielded character in heavy armor. I guess the appropriate question that I should have asked is, "is this the same template to follow if I want my one-handed, wood elf, sneak archer?"

It seems from your reply that the answer is, "Yes. Same template."

Did I understand this correctly?


Well, I think that 33 perks leaves plenty for me to do what I want to do, or most of it at least. I think I can reasonably expect about 20 more perks to come that are above and beyond the template when all is said and done or so. That seems reasonable to me. The wiki doesn't have the perk tree up yet, but I imagine it will soon so I can see exactly where that puts me.

Thanks for your time and your answer, Cheshyr. I appreciate it.

Well in no armour vs heavy armour you seem to sprint faster AND drain less stamina so sprint for longer. so that alone would make it worth it imo, as a mele guy closing in on ranged enemies quickly is important while still having stamina to power attack, its why I used storm spirit shout so much.

and then if the armour weight reduction effects sneaking then HELL yeah. the main draw back of heavy armour is it nerfs sneaking. and sneak is maybe the most op skill in the game.

DPS means damage per second. It's an MMO term related to a character type(also called DPS occasionally) whose sole worth is measured by the amount of raw damage they can produce in a set period of time. The other major types are tanks and healers.

Of course, the concept is only really relevant in games where major battles last more than five minutes. Here, the difference is whether enemies die in two or three hits.

My apologies for the terse reply. Many questions in these threads are due to laziness, not genuine misunderstanding. Let me get home from work, and I'll give a better response.

Thanks for the explanation, Subtext.

Since in Skyrim the amount of swings one makes per second is dependent on how long the player "winds up" for a hit, doesn't the DPS(econd) vary by each user in all cases?


Actually, I thought you were rather polite, just matter-of-fact, which is fine with me. I prefer it actually.

Thank you for the apology however.

Also thank you for taking a look at it when you have more time.

Short answer: yes

Long answer: yes and no.

What the hell? You might ask. That's a fair question. DPS will vary from user to user. However, there is such a thing as optimal DPS. For the more complex games, this refers to the best combination of gear, specialization, and skill rotation possible. Most of the time, when people discuss DPS in theorycrafting posts such as these, they are talking about optimal DPS. However in Skyrim, only the gear is really relevant. (all specializations essentially boil down to weapon choices, and there is no skill rotation besides power attacking.)

As was mentioned, DPS means Damage Per Second, and was important for long multiple-player battles. It has since become a slang term that generally means 'effective damage output'. More DPS is better in any situation where you are the one doing the killing.

The key aspect of this thread is the Template, as you put it. If you buy and use those 30 perks (8 enchanting, 7 alchemy, 5 smithing, 5 armor skill), you can effectively do anything you want in this game, with any build, and know you'll be able to handle whatever you're thrown against.

In response to your specific query, I would recommend doing the Thieves Guild quests for the Quest Reward gear. If you take smithing up to Ebony, and grab the Arcane Enchanter perk, you will be able to improve the weapon and armor rewards as your smithing gets better. Or, you can go the light armor tree instead, and just use the quest rewards until you can craft glass or dragonscale. The alchemy will have some nice synergy with your archery, in the form of poisons. You should likely take 5 perks in alteration, and 3 perks in pickpocket, for the magic resist and extra capacity. The last 12 can go into sneak (at least to the archery sneak attack), archery (until time slow 50%), and one handed (max 5 perks). Note you keep getting perks as you go up, but what I've laid out so far will take you to level 50.

Don't neglect your weapon and armor skills early... seriously. your first few points should be your weapon and armor perks. Alternate between health and stamina each level until 10, and then you can decide if expanding your magicka is really worth it.

These are just suggestions, so feel free to deviate in any way. This is just one potential way to play build and play a character.

Regarding the Notched Pickaxe, I have not found it to have any effect on anything. It says increased by 5 points, but it doesn't show up anywhere. If I had to guess, I think it treats your Smithing skill as 5 points higher when checking to see if you can Craft or Improve a specific armor type, but I couldn't find anything concrete, and I'm too tired to do more on it tonight. I'll chase it down tomorrow.

Thank you again, Cheshyr and Subtext!

I think this is partially incorrect. Or maybe PC vs 360 difference. On 360 I was able to enchant 6 items in the 30 second window.
First I could only get 3 out, then reloaded and tried, up to 4, 5 then eventually 6.
I think time only actually passes when you are at the screen that you can choose Disenchant, Item, Spells, Soul gems.
I would immediately hit right to get into the item menu, then try to be speedy to pick the item, hit a, then quickly left,down,right to pick enchants, repeat.
And I actually renamed each item as well. I used controller when testing 4 and under items, I switched to a usb keyboard when I got tired of retyping everything. I just named it Smith Shirt+, Smith Ring+, etc. So I did the smith shirt, ring, necklace, bracers, a daedric sword and a pair of boots.

Cheshyr, I think you are missing what Whisk3yjack is getting at. Your post presumes that he is under the impression that he can go up the Light Armor side of the smithing tree and simply add Daedric at the end, i.e. Steel, Elven, Advanced, Glass, Dragon, then Daedric, which, as you say is not possible.

What he is suggesting is going up the Heavy Armor side of the smithing tree, as per usual, and then adding Dragon at the end, i.e. Steel, Dwarven, Orcish, Ebony, Daedric, then Dragon. This is possible. Not only that, it may end up being optimal.

Going up the heavy armor side of the smithing tree with the end goal of producing Dragonscale light armor, has numerous potential advantages.

1. Your armor weight is minimal while still allowing you approach (or exceed; I'm not sure how the Dragonscale math works out) the 567 armor rating (or something like that) 80% damage reduction cap.

Some numbers (all given at base values for four pieces without shield):

Orcish
57 Weight
90 Armor rating

Wolf
32 Weight
72 Armor rating

Dragonscale Light Armor
20 Weight
82 Armor rating

The Dragonscale offers a MUCH better armor to weight ratio than any heavy armor option.

I'll leave it to someone else to do the Alchemy +130% maxed smithing, 100 Skill in Light armor math, but going this way may make it possible to approach the magic 567 or whatever armor rating while adding only minimal weight. I'd be curious to know what armor rating one can reach by going this route with NO PERKS in light armor (but 100 skill). Is it possible to hit the cap this way? If not, how many perks would have to be dropped on agile defender to hit the cap?

2. If you can hit the armor cap this way, or get close enough, this allows you to take advantage of the light armor perk tree, which to my mind is much more efficient than the heavy armor tree.

Let’s compare:

Right side of the tree:
Point 1 (or 1 – 5):
Juggernaut is roughly equivalent to Agile Defender = Tie

Point 2
Custom Fit = Well Fitted = Tie

Point 3 (or 3 & 4 for Heavy Armor)
Light Armor = Matching Set
Heavy Armor = Tower of Strength THEN Matching Set (Point 4). From what I’ve read, the efficacy of Tower of Strength seems questionable. If this is true, then this is somewhat of a wasted point trying to get to Matching Set, while Light Armor has no such inefficient point.

Last Tier
Light Armor = Deft Movement
Heavy Armor = Reflect Blows

It may be that neither is necessary and I personally probably wouldn’t invest a point in either, but if you were going to go this way, Deft Movement would appear to be the better of the two as Reflect Blows doesn’t reduce the damage to your character but rather duplicates the damage on the enemy. Since we are doing godly damage anyway, this doesn’t seem to be as effective as having 10% of all damage miss your character.

Left side of the tree
Tier 1
Light Armor = Unhindered
This could be good if you don’t want to use the Steed stone

Heavy Armor = Conditioning
Equivalent to Unhindered but more necessary (if you don’t want to employ the Steed Standing Stone) as the weight of Heavy Armor is so much more and the stamina drain when running is just tremendous.

The biggest difference here, however, is that you have to essentially waste two points on crap perks to get here. Fists of Steel seems mostly useless as is Cushioned. We can already strafe an almost vertical cliff face, how often is fall damage really a problem?

Tier 2
Heavy Armor = Fists of Steel and Cushioned = not much for two perk points.

Light Armor = Wind Walker
This seems pretty good, actually, and definitely represents a better use of four points (Agile Defender, Custom Fit, Unhindered, Wind Walker) than the Heavy Armor equivalent (Juggernaut [good], Fists of Steel [crap], Cushioned [crap], Conditioning [good, same as Unhindered]).

In conclusion to the Light Armor vs. Heavy Armor tree argument:
Heavy Armor = 11 Points (skipping Reflect Blows) = +150% armor bonuses (when wearing a matching set), armor wears nothing and won’t slow you down, plus the additional semi-crap bonus such as a reduced stagger which may or may not work, and the complete crap bonuses of Cushioned and Fists of Steel


Light Armor = 9 Points (skipping Deft Movement) = +150% armor bonuses (when wearing a matching set), armor wears nothing and won’t slow you down, AND you regenerate stamina 50% faster.

Light Armor is the clear winner. If you can hit the armor cap either way, Light armor affords you the opportunity to skip the Steed Stone AND regenerate stamina 50% faster with no wasted, [censored] perk points spent.

If you can hit the armor cap without any points great. I would like to know but am unwilling to wrap my head around the math now or ever.

Or, I wonder what armor rating would we be at if we put one point in Agile Defender and one point Custom Fit (are these wasted if we want unhindered and Wind Walker?).

3. With Heavy Armor, the steed stone or wasting two crap perk points on the way to Conditioning is practically necessary. Your stamina drains super fast while running around with a full heavy armor set. I’m always popping out of it whenever I can then switching back when I get in a fight. With light armor, this effect is not nearly as pronounced. Sure you could ride a horse or torch glitch your way around, but I HATE walking and light armor makes it necessary to not have to walk nearly as much.

4. Light armor is more versatile if you want to have multiple sets.

Though it is true that there are various ways to make the armor that you have equipped weight nothing (Steed Stone, Conditioning, Unhindered), the extra armor you carry around still counts against your burden, which can be a problem if you like to sport multiple situational armor pieces.

Light Armor frees you to have a spare Magic casting set and it doesn’t cost near as much to lug around as it would with heavy armor. You can have a spare set of non set breaking boots that drop the fortify archery damage and add carry weight and it only takes 3 pounds (for Dragonscale) instead of the 10 pounds for Daedric. And so on.

5. For one extra point in smithing (but two points less in armor perks, assuming you want Conditioning / Unhindered), you get the best of both worlds: The best Daedric weaponry and maxed or nearly maxed armor plus you get 50% faster stamina regeneration and more flexibility with spare situational pieces.

Downsides:
Before you have a chance to craft a Dragonscale set, the early game would be much more difficult as you would be restricted to unimproved Leathers, Steel, or found armor. If you use Heavy armor during this time, you won’t have trained your light armor skill at all before you make the eventual switch to light Dragonscale.

i found something worth mentioning in this thread.

actually the strongest 1handed sword is not a deadric one with 518 dmg.

there is a "partly" unique weapon in the thieves guild questline called "chillrend" it looks like a normal glass sword but its blade is skyblue and it emits ice particels when worn.

this weapon can reach up to 527 dmg max.

but there are two major downsides to it :

first : it is a LEVELED ITEM. which means if you got it before reaching lvl 50. you are screwed forever unless cheat/reload options.

second : you NEED the glass smithing perk to upgrade it completly. otherwise its inferior to deadric ones with the perk.

havent gotten dragonsbane yet seems it can also reach 518 dmg atleast if you wait till 50 before getting it.

damn its really time to get the ck released beth....