I have been experimenting with crafting and noticed a huge synergy between Smithing / Enchanting / Alchemy. Here are some of my results:

Edit: I redid this with a fresh character and realized that the Lord's stone seemed to be adding a blanket 50 armor. I also rolled an Orc and that gave me double damage.
The new title should read: 2419 Armor. / 6399 Damage using (Smithing, Alchemy, Enchanting) (only 33 Perks!) 32.9k Backstabs!

Armor / Weapons with no training:

• Full Daedric Armor: 160 Armor
  
• Daedric Bow: 24 Damage
  
• Daedric Dagger: 12 Damage (wrote down wrong... I think it was this)
  
• Daedric Two Handed Sword: 26 Damage
  
• Daedric One Handed Sword: 15 Damage

100 skill with Juggernaut 5, Well Fitted, Tower Of Strength, Matching Set and 5 Weapon Perks (13 Perks Total)

• Full Daedric Armor: 538 Armor
  
• Daedric Bow: 57 Damage
  
• Daedric Dagger: 33 Damage
  
• Daedric Two Handed Sword: 72 Damage
  
• Daedric One Handed Sword: 42 Damage

With Daedric Smithing Level 100 (Steel, Dwarven, Orcish, Ebony, Daedric: 5 Perks) (18 Perks Total)

• Full Daedric Armor: 765 Armor
  
• Daedric Bow: 87 Damage
  
• Daedric Dagger: 63 Damage
  
• Daedric Two Handed Sword: 102 Damage
  
• Daedric One Handed Sword: 72 Damage

Level 100 Enchanting (5 X Enchanter, Insighful, Corpus, Extra Effect: 8 Perks) (26 Perks Total)
With Level 100 Enchanted Smithing Gear and Using Store-bought Smithing Potions (+50 Smithing for 30 Seconds)

• Full Daedric Armor: 1107 Armor
  
• Daedric Bow: 141 Damage
  
• Daedric Dagger: 117 Damage
  
• Daedric Two Handed Sword: 156 Damage
  
• Daedric One Handed Sword: 126 Damage

Level 100 Alchemy (5 X Alchemy, Physician, Benefactor: 7 Perks) (33 Perks Total)
You can brew better + Enchanting and + Smithing Potions with Alchemy than you can with store bought (Note you can eek out about 5-10% more by using Enchanting to Improve Alchemy and Alchemy to Improve Enchanting until your potions are +130% Smithing and +32% Enchanting. Your crafting gear is then +29% X 4 (instead of 25% from base enchanting). The potions make a huge difference.

• Full Daedric Armor: 1597 Armor
  
• Daedric Bow: 195 Damage
  
• Daedric Dagger: 171 Damage
  
• Daedric Two Handed Sword: 210 Damage
  
• Daedric One Handed Sword: 180 Damage

At this level it looks like Daggers are the clear winner... but they don't benefit from enchants...

Gear fully Enchanted
4 X Weapon Enchants and 4 X Armor Enchants. (Note I used the +32% self made Enchanting Potion to Power the Enchants... if you don't do this, your results will be 20%ish lower)

• Full Daedric Armor: 2125 Armor
  
• Daedric Bow: 562 Damage
  
• Daedric Dagger: 171 Damage - Too bad one handed enchants don't work for daggers... I guess sneak attacking with fully enchanted swords is better.
  
• Daedric Two Handed Sword: 605 Damage
  
• Daedric One Handed Sword: 518 Damage

Dual wielding One handed weapons seems to be the best for DPS. They also seem to sneak attack for more.

Add 60 Second Weapon + Armor Potions
Custom Made Potions using my enchanted Alchemy gear: Last 60 seconds

• Full Daedric Armor: 2419 Armor
  
• Daedric Bow: 1242 Damage - So much the display reads 124!=P
  
• Daedric Dagger: 171 Damage
  
• Daedric Two Handed Sword: 1391 Damage!
  
• Daedric One Handed Sword: 1192 Damage

Add 60 Second Weapon + Armor Potions + Bugged Marskman Potion
The Marksman potion seems to be bugged and gives a flat 130% to all damage Last 60 seconds

• Full Daedric Armor: 2419 Armor
  
• Daedric Bow: 1242 Damage - So much the display reads 124!=P
  
• Daedric Dagger: 393 Damage- Marksman buffs this too!
  
• Daedric Two Handed Sword: 3199 Damage!
  
• Daedric One Handed Sword: 2742 Damage

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)
Pretty much, a one handed weapon sneak attack will kill almost anything at this damage level, even on master. A bow sneak attack will most likely one shot anything except for a boss dragon. Edit: It looks like you get these numbers because of a bug with Marskman Potion that makes it's damage a universal modification. It seems to be stacking with the One-handed and Two-handed Potions.)


All of the Above + the Orc Berkserker Rage
The 100% damage bonus of Berserker Rage seems to stack with everything!

• Full Daedric Armor: 2469 Armor
  
• Daedric Bow: 2583 Damage - So much the display reads 258!=P
  
• Daedric Dagger: 787 Damage Sneak attacks for 23.6k
  
• Daedric Two Handed Sword: 6399 Damage!
  
• Daedric One Handed Sword: 5485 Damage Sneak attacks for 32.9k

Conclusion:
Using 26 points to get these crafting feats seem to no-brainer for any min-maxer playing on Master's difficulty. They synergize incredibly well. Dual Wielding One handed weapons / Archery Seem to be the way to go for DPS with Two handed weapons coming closely behind. Once you are this buffed, your hardest problem will be not accidentally killing your hireling.

If you don't like Daedric Armor you could use an Ebony Chest (That's what I do) This took me from 2175 Armor to 1793 Armor. Still Plenty of Armor. Light Dragon Armor (Less feat intensive when sneaking, but getting staggered hurts your melee dps) yields 1770 Armor.

Thanks for Reading!

- Jerich

Optional build for Archer / Melee Weapon Hybrid who wants damage over armor
Optional Build for a one handed / Archery hybrid. If you don't mind having less armor (1200-1500), you could swap the heavy armor enchants in the rings and gloves for archery / melee weapon enchants. Then put Archery on you helm and melee weapon on your boots. You will do full damage to everything.

Maxing Magic Resist
Magic Resist caps at 85%. Here are the ways I currently know how to get magic resist:
Breton - 25%
Lord's Stone - 25% + block 50 damage: This is hard to get to. It is in the pale South by southwest of Dawnstar.
Agent Of Mara: 15% - Quest starts in the Temple of Mara at Riften
Magic Resistance X 3 in the Alteration Tree: 30%
Enchant a Ring, Jewelry or Shield: 23% Each max
Potion of resist magic: 32% each max

Non-Bretons will probably want to use at least one ring.

Edit: Other enchants with your extra dual enchanting slots?
- I have toyed following: Boots: Sneak, Carrying Capacity, Stamina, Stamina Regen. Helm: Water Breathing, Magica, Magica Regen. Chest: Health, Health Regen.

Simple Step by Step Directions
1. Once you have max perks and 100 in each skill...
2. Enchant fortify alchemy helm, ring, gloves + necklace. The buff should be +25 on each for + 100 total.
3. Put on the gear and make 4 fortify enchant potions (+ 27ish?)
4. Use those potions to make better fortify alchemy gear. Note... You have to be quick because you only have 30 seconds per potion.
5. Use that gear to make better fortify enchanting potions...
6. Keep repeating 4 - 5 until you can make fortify alchemy + 29 on each piece (116 total)
7. Use 4 +32 enchanting pots to create fortify smithing rings, neck, gloves and chest.
8. Make some fortify smithing potions (+130% with your alchemy gear)
9. Craft daedric armor, shield and weapon.
10. Put on your smithing gear, drink the potion (130 + 116 = +246% to smithing), then improve your weapons.
11. Make about 10 enchanting potions (+32)
12. Enchant a ring gloves and neck with fortify heavy armor and fortify one handed. I believe the number was 29 for armor 47% for weapon? Not in front of computer.
13. Enchant health / heavy armor to chest.
14. Enchant one handed / stamina to boots.
15. Enchant helm with whatever you want... (archery... Magic?)

Leveling Smithing
- Smithing is fairly easy to level and takes relatively few attempts to max.
- Dwarven ruins give a ton of scrap that you can melt down for free dwarven ingots
- You can often steal ingredients.
- You can mine ebony at the Gloombound mine as early as level 8. It is located in Eastmarch's eastern mountains, just south of the Orcish stronhold of Narzublbur. This is the only ebony mine in the game.
- Improving things you find is a quick way to level and often pays for buying the ingredients
- Make sure to save your Daedra hearts for forging daedric weapons and armor later.
- You will be able to forge skyforge items after finishing the companion's quest line. The stats look better than daedric, but I'm not sure if you can upgrade them...
- There is a quest chain, Unfathomable Depths that gives you a perk that gives you +25% armor in dwarven armor and makes smithing increase 15% faster. You can get it once you are level 15 from an argonian named From-Deepest-Fathoms who wanders around the docks of Riften that overlook the lake. This also gives you bunch of dwarven scraps.
- Daedra Armor is better than Dragon armor. So unless you want to make light armor for yourself or your companion... there is no reason to get Dragon Smithing. You also don't need to get enchanted Smithing since you can just pre-improve your weapons / armor before enchanting. It does make life easier, however to be able to improve your existing item.
- Smithing Trainers: Journyman: Ghorza of Markath. Expert: Balimund of Riften. Master: Earlund Gray-Mane of Whiterun.

Leveling Enchanting
- Easiest Method: Do the Black Star quest. (starts at the Shrine of Azura... ask innkeepers for rumors until they place it on the map). This will give you a reusable soul gem (black star: traps humans or Azura's star: traps non-humans). Note: You will have to fight Dremora, so be careful if low level.
- Once you have this item, enchant a weapon with soul trap and keep recharging it each time you fill Azura's star. Each time you do this you gain enchanting xp.
- You gain enchanting xp for disenchanting
- You can steal soul gems if you are stealthy enough. When you enchant something with them, they fill up.
- Make sure to disenchant alchemy and smithing enchants early on.
-Enchanting Trainers: No Journeyman. Expert Trainer: Sergius Turrianus of the College of Winterhold. Master Trainer: Hamal, of Markarth.
- The left side of the tree is pretty worthless (elemental enchants pale in comparison to the other enchants)... so it is best to max the right side of the tree to dual enchant.

Leveling Alchemy
- Leveling Alchemy is a HUGE pain to level. It takes over 10x the combines that smithing and enchanting do. Pick everything you come across... Steal Everything (potions made with stolen ingredients aren't flagged as stolen)...Use your trainer points...Buy cheap ingredients at the shops...
-You gain skill when you learn new uses ingredients... The more you use an ingredient the more you discover about them.
- I would save your trains for alchemy... This might actually be a reason you would want to join the dark brotherhood. (The master trainer is in it)
- Save the books + the Final Daedric Quest Reward for the 90-100 slog
- Fortify Enchanting Ingredients: Blue Butterfly Wing, Hagraven Claw, Snowberries, Spriggan Sap.
- Fortify Smithing Ingredients: Blisterwort, Glowing Mushroom, Sabre Cat Tooth, Spriggan Sap.
- Fortify Marsksman Ingredients: Canis Root, Elves Ear, Juniper Berries, Spider Egg
- Fortify One-Handed: Bear Claws, Canis Root, Hanging Moss, Hawk Feathers, Rock Warbler Egg, Small Pearl
- Fortify Two-Handed: Dragon's Tongue, Fly Amanita, Troll Fat
- Fortify Heavy Armor: Ice Wraith Teeth, Sabre Cat Tooth, Slaughterfish Scales, Thistle Branch, White Cap
- Resist Magic: Bleeding Crown, Chicken's Egg, Crimson Nirnroot (save for quest) Hagraven Claw, Lavender, Nirnroot, Tundra Cotton, Void Salts, Wisp Wrappings.
- Return to your Roots (A side quest): gives you a 25% chance of making a second potion when you craft a potion. It is a ninroot gather quest you can do after you have started the Daedric Quest: Discerning the Transmundane.
- Alchemy Trainers: Journeyman Trainer: Lami of Morthal. Expert Trainer: Arcadia, of Whiterun. Master Trainer: Babette, of the Dark Brotherhood.
- Alchemy Books: A Game at Dinner: (Honningbrew Meadery on the second floor in the bedroom), De Rerum Dirennis: Winterhold (In Midden Dark on the Alchemy Lab), Herbalist's Guide to Skyrim: Whiterun (In Arcadia's Cauldron downstairs), Mannimarco, King of Worms: (Either in Nightcaller Temple near the alchemy lab or Evergreen Grove near the dead mage on the alter in the water), Song of the Alchemist (Anise's Cabin)

Leveling tips for Master Difficulty
- Breton (for the magic resist) or Orc (head start to skills and a REALLY good daily ability) seem to make the best warriors for Masters
- I usually go 50 / 50 Health / Stamina or 60 / 40 Health / Stamina.
- Don't just power your crafting skills right out of the first dungeon... you want to make sure your weapon / armor skills are at least keeping pace or you will get out leveled.
- It is easier if you try to limit gaining skills other than weapon / armor / crafting skills as you will become quickly outleveled.
- It is easier to level your armor skills if you use a melee weapon. If you use sneak a lot and snipe, it will not keep pace.
- The +25% armor and +25% weapon damage are the most important perks you can get. Get them as soon as they are available.
- Important Quests:
-- Black Star (unlimited Soul Gem),
-- Mara's Favor: +15% permanent Magic Resist (Get it from Riften Temple)
-- Lord's Stone: +25% Magic Resist, +50 block damage
-- Main Quest (so you start getting dragon souls, go at least until you get dragon rend so you can make them land, especially if you are not going archery),
-- Unfathomable Depths (See Smithing)
-- Favorite Shout, Slow Time: You get it at Hag's End in the Reach (Dark Brother hood quest the feeble fortune), Karvanjund (The Pale): Civil War Quest the Jagged Crown, Labryinthian (Hjaalmarch): During Winterhold: Staff of Magnus
-- Useful for Travel (Whirlwind Sprint): Dead Men's Respite (Hjaalmarch): Used for Bards' Quest: Tending the Flames, Volskygge (Haafingar)
-- Companions Questline: Awesome Form Abilities and Ability to Forge Skyforge.

I hope these help!

Console Commands
For those of you who want to replicate this before they invest the time into doing this with a character legitimately... here are some console commands you can use:

Raising Skills:
AdvSkill Alchemy 100 - Simulates using the Skill 100 times. You can change the skill name and the number to level up naturally (doesn't screw up stats)

Smithing:
player.additem f 10000 - Adds 10k gold
player.additem 2e4ff 10 - Adds 10 grand gems
player.additem 3ad5b 10 - Adds 10 Daedra Hearts
player.additem 5ad9d 10 - Adds 10 ebony ingots
player.additem 877c9 1 - Adds a diamond ring to enchant
player.additem 877f1 1 - Adds a gold neck
player.additem 3ad53 5 - Adds 5 cave bear pelts (which you can use to make leather)

Alchemy:
For crafting potions I use Spriggan sap, snowberries and glowing mushrooms.
player.additem 63b5f 10 - 10 spriggan sap
player.additem 1B3Bd 10 - 10 snowberies
player.additem 7ee01 10 - glowing mushrooms

For Heavy armor + block potions I use
3ad70, 134aa and 3ad61

For two handed swords I would use
4da00, 889a2, ec870

For archery / one handed I would use
6abcb, 5076e, 6bc02

I'll try to add some hints for leveling up the legit way in a bit.

Edit: Fixed a grammatical error.

Edit: Fixed final perk number to 33.

Also note that using damaging poisons or enchanting for damage seems to be a waste of resources considering the massive base damage you can do. I would enchant life, stamina drain or soul trap on weapons and use slowing poison on weapons.

Wow simply wow

Jeez, I'm glad I specialized in alchemy, enchanting and smithing.

Good research Jerich, brings a smile to my face, thanks.

But this would make the game boring. I got the game for the adventure and challenge, not for invincibility. If you want to be invincible, get the PC version and turn on god mode.

Good research. I am planning on this route as well before I read your post. I already figured there is some kind of "abuse" possible by looking at the skill improvement effects but isn't far enough in the game to try. Thanks for confirming my theory.

No one is forcing you to take his advice. Elder Scrolls games have always been very powergamer friendly.

I understand your point, but I believe there is a huge difference between being given power (God Mode) and earning it (this). This is more earned success. Also... even with stats like these it is dangerous to just Leroy Jenkins everything on Masters. Enemies can drop you quickly on masters if you let yourself get surrounded.

all the above and a single strong mage enemy can still take you out since armor is useless aganist then so better put magic resistence in your build instead of x4 armor and only x2 armor. since magic resistence can only be put on jewelry 2 is the max.

i wonder if non bretons are even able to reach 100% magic resistence. but with bretons its possible ^^ and 100% resist magic is better than 1000 armor if you ask me.

but the dmg numbers are insane. i already tought about this after seeing the % based bonuses to one handed....

You have a point about magic resistance... Here is what I did for mine...
Breton - 25%
Lord's Stone - 25%
Agent Of Mara - 15%

That is an 65% always on there.

For the rest you can use the following:
- Ring for a drop in Armor (+ 25% = 90% resist magic)
- Use a shield for a drop in dps (+ 25% = 90% resist Magic)
- Take Magic Resistance X 3 in the Alteration Tree (5 Perk points) + 30% = 95% resistance.

I believe that magic resist cap is 85% so all of these options bring you to cap.

Two questions:

1. Can you loop the enhancements infinitely?

2. Those it mean all weapons and armour not self-crafted is pointless in therms of raw power, even artifacts.

This is pretty incredible. I've been having trouble finding the base enchants, but I'm sure that'll come with time.

I agree with X that building in Magic Resist is a good idea. I've been playing with Heavy Armor, and the premium in inventory space until you get the appropriate perk is painful. That said, I personally think Dragon Armor is fugly... which leaves me with Glass, or Heavy Daedric.

Can you explain "4 X Weapon Enchants and 4 X Armor Enchants"? I'm not quite sure which enchantments you mean. I assume you meant Weapon and Armor Skill enchants?

Now, I don't want to be able to completely decimate everything, but I do want good armor and weapons. Problem is, I want most of the One-Handed Tree, some of the Archery tree, as well as some of Restoration and Alteration.

The base item found as a drop or in a store is identical to the crafted version, no? The benefit comes from the improvement to "legendary" status, not in the crafting of the item itself, and in a secondary fashion since you're less at the whim of the RNG for acquiring a full set of Daedric gear.

Since this plan uses only 31 Perks, you would be able to fill out 2 or 3 other trees depending on how deep you need to go or how it branches.

Unfortunately not. Due to the diminishing returns of the Enchantment potion, you can only loop them 3 times to get your maximal Alchemy / Smithing Gear.

The base enchant is +25% to alchemy / Smithing. By looping 3 times you can work your way up to 29% and it costs about 20 filled grand soul gems and about 60 herbs to do this.

@craquehead: The enchantments you can make yourself are not only slightly better than the best you can find (when you use an enchanting potion), but you get two of them. So basically they blow away found gear.

Interesting finds.

Is that "daggers don't benefit from enchants" a console thing ? Soul trap enchantment is working fine on my dagger.

yeah but potions make the game too diablo like i only use the potions i find and use them in a jam and save and reload until i win. i die alot but its worth it chopping the last guys head off is that much more satisfactor. the perks make the dmg not the numbers the power attacks are 1 hitter quitters when sneaking everytime to most apponents and if that dont drop em just use your freeze shout and freeze everyone un-thawing them and pummeling them to death 1 by 1

I play on PC and also used daggers and was surprised with my results. Weapon Enchants work find on them, but + 1 handed weapon damage on the rest of your gear didn't seem to affect them. Perhaps it is a bug.

@Sir Volf Bite. You don't need to use potions to do a ton of damage. You mainly use potions to enhance your existing skills and you have the option to use the in the field potions when you want to one shot a level 50 dragon.

My point is that a plain, unenchanted Daedric sword is a plain, unenchanted Daedric sword whether you find it or craft it, no?

Wait, seriously? +one handed damage does not affect daggers? That's pretty [censored]ty =/

Oh, that - I think daggers just aren't considered "one handed weapons" by perks/enchantments/potions, because someone once said the 1handed tree perk (5 ranks, does +20% damage per rank) didn't affect them either.

Sounds like something that was intentionally done to prevent the x15 critical bonus from turning into x30 or more...

But it CAN turn into x30...

And that would've made it x60 instead. It seems SOME playtesting was done on stealth after all!

Maybe it increases the damage but doesn't show?