you dont NEED but it helps. it saves you 1 entchant on jewelry or you dont need to use the lords stone. 100% does no longer work though. and some enemys give me still strange high damage i have 80 % magic resist now but this master necromaners with thier ice nova like spell still can kill me easily if i let them i have no idea why they still deal so much dmg to me. maybe they have some kind of weakness to ice spell. dont now for sure.

70 alchemy and counting here..... damn alchmey. if you think skilled enchanting is slow try alchmey guys...

I have a wood elf that I can actually still make perfect with the setup in this thread, but I was wanting to make a second character to make the best possible with the "best" race. If so, is it breton? I don't really see any other race that has better effects.

Who is the quest giver and what are the prerequisites to start the quest? I've exhausted all the dialogue options from everyone in the temple, clicked on the altars etc., and nothing.

I decided to test this by maxing out all my skills to level 100: I got some phenomenal results with the steps you posted, but they are not quite at the level of yours.

Without Potions:
Legendary Daedric Sword: 410
Armor Rating with Shield: 2125

With Potions:
Legendary Daedric Sword: 2166
Armor Rating with Shield: 2419

Apparently I am doing something wrong as I have done the steps and gave my equipment the enchants while using the potions. I can live with the armor rating, but the damage is nowhere near the target.

Draz, I just spoke to the innkeeper in Riverwood I think about rumours, and eventually got it. Also, does magic resist now resist all magic attacks, or is it like Oblivion where it was only the non elemental ones and you need fire/frost/shock resist for those?

Did you loop enchanting and smithing till you got 29%? Are you using a one handed and marksman potion (they stack)? I haven't had time to make a second pass through the numbers. I had a lot more perks than my minimum when I tested. I'll be able to make a second run through this weekend with a fresh character and i'll slightly adjust the numbers if needed.

Jerich, which Character Race do you play/prefer?

Breton for the magic resist because it saves you an equipment slot or Orc for their amazing daily ability (double damage done and half damage taken... Good for bosses.). None of the other races seem to have anything close to these powers.

To answer a previous question... The black soulstone drains human souls. Azuras star drains non human.

As far as the temple of Mara quest. I got it from the dark elf woman there.

Yes I did. Made a potion that buffed both One-Handed and Archery which you listed in a previous post. I am away from my home computer right now but after my appointments I'll double check what I am doing wrong.

It's more than possible the error was on my end since I had extra perks. I'll make a fresh character and test with them when I have time. I want to test azuras star and skyforge this time also to see if there are improvements. Your numbers are probably still good enough to one shot things.

I am also interested in trying this with the Orc ability. I bet you can break 4k damage if it multiplies rather than adds. We'll see.

My goodness... whats the difference of doing 890 dmg and having 746 AR to these? Sound a bit of an exaggeration...

Jerich, sorry if this has been answered before: Considering a brand new character, is it viable to go straight to Blacksmithing/Enchanting/Alchemy and powerlevel them and only then proceed with questing? I'm asking because I'm afraid questing might become terribly hard/broken because I'm putting perks into the crafting professions and only 2-3 perks on actual combat trees.
What would be your ideal progression for a new character?

Also, amazing theorycrafting work.

They should balance out alchemy, takes so long to level it up, enchanting isn't to bad, and smithing is to easy.

How do you get your armor up fast aswell? I'm doing the same thing but with light armor, but I'm only level 56 light armor at the moment.

somone make video tutorial for this,skyrim is my first elder scrolls game ever steps make no sense. tia

The initial 5 armor and weapon perks as well as the matching set bonuses are incredibly important. They scale multiplicitavely. I wouldn't start Pierrot eking crafting until I had at least some if those. The exception is alchemy... Use your trains for it... It is super hard to level. If you are not playing masters, it doesn't matter.

Curious how does this affect the game play when you set it on "MASTER" difficulty?

From the wiki on armor this should be the formula for turning AR into %damage resistance:
damage reduction% = armor rating * 0.16

The past games all capped DR at 85% which means any AR above 532 is a waste right? Any way to confirm this in game?

If this is true, while the system is impressive, it means all these extra things to crank your AR up is not really worth it.
Of course cranking your damage up to insane amounts is always worth it!


Also something for us non armor wearing mages to consider:
Alteration ebonyskin = 100 AR
Mage armor 3 perks = 3x AR power of skin spells
Best ward spell = 100 AR (need % resto reduction enchants to make this one usefull)
= 400 AR = 64% damage reduction with no armor
Stability is nice to (double?) mage armor duration.
At master level Alteration gets dragonhide which gives you 80% DR (500 AR) for 30 seconds, but I dont think stability affects the duration.

You still one shot everything.

This guide needs a MOD, one that can have Static type ENEMY NPC's that have godly stats... LEGENDARY DIFFICULTY, reason for the static is for lower levels that want to level-up legit?

Yes, this is madness.
I was thinking of going for it, but the alchemy part bites.
I figured Ill just settle on whatever store potion I can get and 100 enchanting/smithing.
I made a +23% set of +smith at 89 enchanting.
When I hit 100 I made a +25 set, the extra +8 did absolutely nothing.
I had a +25 enchant potion, drank that, and then it let me make +28s...
I saw a +4 damage increase available at that point.
So my 23 vs 25 yielded no difference. Im wondering if +28 vs +29 would be anything.
Tested with a +30 smith and +40 smith potion as well, and both at +23 or +28 smithing gear yielded 4 point differences on both my dagger and sword, and +2 on the bow.
I think for now I'll settle with +23 fortify smith gear and a +40% smith potion.
What +fortify enchant % would I need for +29 on gear? +25% got me up to +28%.
Head hurts right now for more math..

well i am not sure but in oblivion it was ALL magic so you are wrong there. i am not sure when it comes to skyrim tough has someone tested 100 frost resist aganist a ice master caster? do they still deal dmg to you if`?.

Couldn't you keep doing the, enchanting potion > enchant armor for alchemy > enchanting potion, from a much lower alchemy and enchanting level, and in the end get the same bonus if you kept doing it?

Is this actually accurate? So it's now a linear % scalar, and not a normalized ratio? If this is true, then any armor above 630 has no effect, since you're negating a full 100% of damage.

That damage reduction is assuming that no mobs got any % armor ignore skill/perk active on them, with a 75% armour reduction your need 2500 to hit the 100% reduction mark (and I think theres bound to be some given the PC got perks that gives him 75% armour ignore when using a mace).

He was thinking of Morrowind probably; didn't apply to elemental damage there.