+1

I have the Xbox 360 version and was am able to do 4 items with two enchants on each in the 30 second window. The time is definitely GAME TIME and not real time (at least on the 360 version). This is to say, that if you press the start button to pause, or press the Y button to rename, the timer stops.

A couple of useful tips:
1. Put all of the enchantable items that you aren't trying to enchant at the moment in a chest or barrel so that you don't have to wade through irrelevant items when speed enchanting. This has the added advantage that you can just select the first item and when you are done, the second item is auto-selected as the first is already enchanted. Also stash all soul gems that you don't plan on using so those don't get in the way as well.

2. Work out what gets what ahead of time and write it down.

2. Stay focused and work in short, quick bursts. That is, drink the potion, use the enchanter, select the first item, quickly go to enchants, select the desired enchant, go to gems and select it, press y, then chill out as you name the item, knowing that the clock is stopped. After you are done with the first, pause it. And get your priorities straight in your head. That is, OK, next is the Helmet with the Fortify Magic Regeneration Enchant. Then unpause and execute.

3. Start where the last enchant finished. That is, the first enchant is goes: Item, Enchant, then Gem. The second enchant goes: Gem, Enchant, Item. It's faster this way with less menu scrolling. That said, it can be easier to do the item before the enchant as the irrelevant enchants will be grayed out, making it easier to identify the desired applicable enchant. So, sometimes I will go: Item, Enchant, Gem; Gem, Item, Enchant.

4. Chill out. If you get too worked up or confused or sense an imminent brain fart, just pause it. Think about what item and enchant are next and then proceed. You can pause at each screen. Select the item. Go to the enchant screen and pause. Figure out where you are going mentally then unpause and execute.

5. Try a "dry run" of just going through and selecting the pieces and enchants before you drink the potion, so that there are no surprises.

5. Save your game before you start. This way if you mess it up, you can just reload and try again. You can verify that you were successful by taking a good look at the item after you press the enchant and it asks you to confirm. The clock is paused here. Everything is locked in. So check to see that the numbers are right. If they are at base, then you should try again. It helps to check what the base is before you drink the potion. If you are doing a set of something, e.g. Pickpocket Gloves, Boots, Necklace, and Ring, it should be obvious as the numbers should match the first several pieces.

Eventually, if you get more fortify enchanting ingredients for potions this becomes less of a big deal, but for when resources are tight I hope you find this helpful.

Silly question, but I presume this won't work on robes because they're clothing, not armor, right?

You are correct; I did misunderstand. And I agree, the Heavy side of the Smithing Tree is significantly more valuable than the Light Side, especially if you're ok with your final armor being Dragonscale. Another thing to note is that, just because you didn't go up a side of a tree doesn't mean you can't improve gear you find. It just means your improvements wont be as good, and you can't craft new items from that side. So yes, you could craft heavy side only, and use looted light armor until Dragonscale.

You can enchant clothes.

You can't choose the enchant though. A double enchanted weapons with enchanting potions and whatnot should add a lot more damage than the extra raw physical damage from Chillrend.

Daerdric weapon: 518 damage + 2 enchants
Chillrend; 527 damage + 30 frost damage + 2 second paralyse

True, but I can't improve them up the armor tree, can I?

Clothes don't have an armor rating, but they absolutely can be enchanted. This is very useful for utility sets of gear.

For example, I have the following:

Smithing Set:
Clothes (clothes not armor) - +43 points carry Weight + 29% Smithing
Hide Bracers (I would use gloves as these weigh 0.5, but these seem to be very rare and I have only found 2) - +43 points carry Weight + 29% Smithing
Ring - +29% Smithing +72 Points Stamina
Amulet - +29% Smithing + 29% Barter

Pickpocket Set:
Shoes (these weigh nothing, 0, but I've only found one pair [ in Dragonsreach]) - +47% pickpocket + Muffle
Gloves (0.5 weight) - +47% pickpocket + 47% sneak
Ring - +47% pickpocket + 47% sneak
Amulet - +47% pickpocket + 47% sneak

Alchemy Set
Hat (0.5 weight) - +29% Alchemy +47% Lockpicking
Hide Bracers (I would use gloves as these weigh 0.5, but these seem to be very rare and I have only found 2) - +43 points carry Weight + 29% Alchemy
Ring - +43 points carry Weight + 29% Alchemy
Amulet - +29% Alchemy + 29% Barter

Lockpicking Set
Hat (0.5 weight) - +29% Alchemy +47% Lockpicking
Gloves (0.5 weight) - +47% lockpicking + 47% sneak
Ring - +47% lockpicking + 47% sneak
Amulet - +47% lockpicking + 47% sneak

None of these sets will ever be used in battle so clothes are perfect. Hats and gloves weigh 0.5, some shoes weigh 0, some 1, and clothes generally weigh 1. The low weight makes it easy to keep tailored sets around for various purposes with minimal encumbrance.

Incidentally, Enchanting pretty much makes many of the thief skills totally unnecessary. Why would I ever dump points into pickpocket or lockpicking (or to a lesser extent sneak) when I can get +%188 to my chances through gear sets that weigh 1.8 lbs each?

Edit: pms00 correctly pointed out that you can't have carry weight on clothing. It was a typo. My smithing clothes are + Smithing and + Stamina.

Perks, mostly, 200% Pickpocket doesn't increase your capacity, and 200% Lockpicking wont allow you to pick a lock in plain sight. It stops being about the numbers, and starts being a bit more tactical.

Excellent point.

IMO, the best restriction is to make armour a linear improvement to time to live, rather than a linear improvement to damage reduction. That way powergamers can stack their armour to their heart's content and while their time to live (ie: the amount of unmitigated damage they can take before dying) will continue to rise proportional to their armour value, their total mitigation will asymptotically approach 100%.

I know this is a stupid question but have to ask before I fail anything....using those enchanted smithing gears and potions gives +armor/dmg straight away when I create some weapon/armor? for example if I dont use any of those, some sword might have dmg of 50 and with enchants and potions it will be over x5 of that?

Yes, I still had a full inv and plus I couldn't remember what item would get what, So I was going item, enchant, gem, gem, item, enchant, item, enchant, gem, etc.
Hence after a few shots I could get up to 6.
I went with clothes to make it light with pickpocket as well. I still haven't found any gear with +alc, plus I decided to draw the line on alc and settling for just the store elixirs.

posting so it isnt lost


To add to that the shock dmg on my weapon enchant might be bigger because I have perked the 50% shock dmg in destruction tree. So being a perked destruction mage + using potions is a way of making an awsome battlemage with a staff in one hand and a enchanted sword in the other.
With the 25% better fire/shock/frost enchants (enchanting tree) and the 50% better frost/fire/shock dmg (destro tree) a mage can make better enchanted gear than a normal non-enchanting non-mage build. Couple that with the destro pot and not only does your dmg go up on magic spells but your enchanted sword deals more dmg too. This is nice because enchanting and destro will be natural choices for a mage. You lvl enchanting while using staffs, enchanting things and reloading staffs with soul gems. Alchemy is a natural thing for a mage too because we need good mana and spell pots to boost our skills.

Agree with all of your advice except for smithing chest. It is so much cooler to use a Blacksmith's Apron (Edit: even though you can't use carry weight).

So, once you do this what's the point of the game? Lol.

none. you are the strongest in the entire world and it FEELS like that too even on master. which is quite cool considering the work need to be done. unfortunatly there are no really good upgradeable uniques out there so exploring is kinda pointless after you get all this done. but thats a design flaw on beths part. we will see next week when patch comes if they nerf this. if they dont then its clearly intended.

You can still roleplay, explore, collect all the unique loot and finish all the quests. I've already got 100+ hours out of the game and I'm not finished yet. I'd say that's pretty decent for a singleplayer game these days...


Honestly, it's not that hard to become invincible. If you go the magic route all you need to do is max enchanting and take dual impact. Getting 100 enchanting is fairly easy. Give yourself mana cost reduction enchants and you have infinite stun lock on any enemy including dragons, giants, etc.

And just to add, eith Enchanting's extra effect perk, you can put and extra enchant on gear. So for mages you can actually have 100% magic reduction for 2 schools of magic. For me I have destruction and alteration.

What about the Spell Breaker shield? Is it stackable with Elemental Proction Perk?
According to the item description, I think enchant itself is same to the perk, but if is stackable with the perk,
there's no need to choose Breton or do Mara's quest right?

Sorry for DP. I replied at the old thread.

Thank you, Gabriel. That was exactly my point.

The Light Armor tree appears significantly better than the Heavy Armor tree. Since hitting the Armor Cap is relatively easy in Dragonscale, why not spend one more point in Smithing for it and use Light Armor instead?

Please correct me if this is off-base, but mobility and Stamina regen seem to be serious needs for any Warrior type; particularly since most of us are dual-wielding like good min/maxers. Unhindered and Matching Set can be had quite cheaply at only 4 points, whereas the Heavy Armor equivalents require 7 points. Furthermore, those 4 points in Light Armor grant access to Wind Walker and Deft Movement: both very powerful perks in their own rights, whereas Reflect Blows and Tower of Strength are of questionable value.

This is definitely the route I'll be taking.

"Dual wielding One handed weapons now clearly do the most damage followed by Two handed weapons than Weapon + shield. Daggers come in last. Sword Sneak Attack (16452) Dagger Sneak Attack (6288) Bow Sneak Attack (3726)"

I'm just assuming, but this clearly does not account for dagger sneak perk, or dark brotherhood gloves.. bringing daggers sneak attack multiplier up to a x30..

So, I'm a little bit confused. Elemental Protection perk is calculated as what? Magical or Elemental Resistence?
(It's MR on the top of the thread but ER in some comments)

This thought occurred to me when I was constantly running out of stamina with my Daedric set and then I read your post and thought you had the right idea.

But, thinking about it more, I think the way to go would be this:

Smithing: Steel, Dwarven, Orcish, Ebony, Daedric + Elven.

Though, I'm sure my math is somewhat off, I think it may be close enough to determine that we don't need Dragonscale armor at all. We can hit the 80% damage reduction cap with Elven Armor and two perk points in Light Armor.

I took my character with 100 in Smithing, +29% smithing X 4 gear, and +130% smithing potion, dropped a point into Elven Smithing for this exercise and created a set of Elven Armor (Elven Helmet, Gilded Elven Armor, Elven Gauntlets, Elven Boots) per the usual maximization protocol detailed in this thread.

The displayed Armor value for this set with my character who has a base light armor skill of 15 and no light armor perks is as follows:
Elven Helmet: 63
Gilded Elven Armor: 135
Elven Gauntlets: 58
Elven Boots: 58
Total Armor Rating: 314 (with 15 in Light Armor and no perks)
Total Weight: 7

Using the formula on http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Armour

(displayed armor rating = (worn armor rating + item quality) * (1 + 0.4 * skill/100) * (1 + Custom Fit or Well Fitted + Matching Set) * (1 + Agile Defender or Juggernaut)
+ (shield armor rating + item quality) * (1 + 0.4 * skill/100) * (1 + Custom Fit or Well Fitted + Matching Set)
+ effects (x-skin spells, Lord Stone, etc.)
hidden armor rating = 40 for wearing (chest) armor + 20 for each additional piece worn
damage reduction% = (displayed armor rating + hidden armor rating) * 0.12)

I determined that the displayed armor rating for this set with zero points in light armor (impossible I know, but useful for getting the 100 skill number) to be 296.2264 for the total set (314/(1+0.4*15/100)).
This equates to a damage reduction value of 50% at 15 skill in Light Armor.

This means that the displayed value for this armor with a Light Armor skill of 100 should be 414.716981 (296.2264*(1+0.4*100/100)).
This equates to a damage reduction value of 62%.

If we drop one perk point into Agile Defender, our displayed armor value should rise to 497.66.
This equates to a damage reduction value of 72%.

If we drop one perk point into Agile Defender and another into Custom Fit, our displayed armor value should rise to 622.075472.
This equates to a damage reduction value of 87% which is then reduced to the 80% damage cap ceiling. The damage cap is based on http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Armour, which admittedly could be wrong. However, it does fall on the higher end of the range that Nerevar X set forth (500 - 672 displayed armor rating). If there is any doubt, drop one additional perk point into Matching Set to give yourself a displayed armor rating of 746.49, which should definitely exceed the damage reduction cap.

Boom. We've hit the cap with armor that weighs 7 pounds for the whole set instead of 81 and while reducing the number of perks used from the original post suggestion of 33 (http://chrizel.github.com/skyrim/#t/7/4w,0,m73im8,za4oo,-zik0zk,0,0,0) down to 28 (http://chrizel.github.com/skyrim/#t/11/4w,0,m73im8,bco,-zik0zk,0,x,0).

To summarize, here are the advantages of going this route:
1. We now use 28 skill points instead of 33 to be a demi-god.

2. Our armor weight is only 7 pounds instead of 81.

3. Since our armor weight is only 7 pounds, we are free to have multiple utility sets that hit the 80% damage reduction cap in order to play whatever character type we want.
For example:
Set 1: Something like what was described in the first post but made with Elven Armor and with heavy armor enchants taken out and Archery or fortify health or whatever put in (7 lbs)
Set 2: Elven armor with Destruction and Restoration (or any two schools, really) free casting (4 pieces -25+% casting cost for each school) (5 lbs)
Set 3: Pieces focusing on +47 Carry Weight for the Gauntlets and Boots for when you need to haul more. (2 lbs)
Set 4: A sneaky set with Muffle and lots of sneak and lots of one handed for those sneak attacks. (2 lbs)

We are now tremendously versatile and can switch at will depending on how we feel like playing. All those sets above together weigh 16 lbs without rings and amulets. 16 pounds for all those play styles instead of 81 pounds for one.

4. We are also free to add Unhindered and Wind Walker if we want +50% stamina regeneration and eliminate the 7 pound weight and movement burden. The best part about this is that there are no wasted perk points, unlike the heavy armor tree where you have to wade through Fists of Steel and Cushioned to get to the Unhindered equivalent of Conditioning. Deft Movement is also an option at this point, though I don't think it's worth it as it will dodge 10%, which brings our damage resistance to about 82% on average, albeit with a high variance.

Even if we don't opt for these additional light armor perks, our stamina drain while running will be MUCH less then with a full set of Daedric. This frees us from having to use the Steed Stone or waste points on Fists of Steel and Cushioned to get to Conditioning.


What does everyone think? I'm trying to determine the best min max build here. I'm on the Xbox 360, so rerolling a character is rather painful. If I'm wrong here or you can figure out a way to improve upon this build, please let me know before I waste 40 hours getting yet another character to this point!

Actually I think it does. Daggers fall behind because only Armsman applies a damage bonus. Any one-hand enchants do nothing for daggers, which means that they just can't keep up with swords/maces/war axes at any level when you start building this way.

any answers? whats the point of using enchants and pots? what do they effect?

Good work. It's a good optimization, Gabriel. In my game, I use 26 perks, a mix-matched set of daedric armor and Otar helm, and no shield. There's definitely lots of room for refinement here, and armor perks can most certainly be customized to your style of play.

For me, I never bothered with weight reduction perks; I use the Steed standing stone. That allowed me to hit the cap using a single perk in heavy armor, 5 points in smithing, and not worry about the other optimizations at all.