I just read in a bunch of different forums that there is actually an armor cap of 567 to prevent the player from resisting more than 80% damage. That means that a higher armor rating is wasted and provides no benefit, which renders my 1393 armor rating pointless.

So question, do all the difficulties have the same cap? If this is the case then I'm a bit disappointed because I was hoping that Master difficulty would encourage me to make more use of all the different resources in the game to survive and improve armor, such as equipment that improves armor enhancement abilities as well as blacksmith potions etc. If you think about it, it only makes sense that the armor cap is raised on master difficulty since enemies do more damage.

All difficulties have the same cap, and technically, it's not 567 unless you are wearing a full suit of armor. If you are going armorless, then the cap is 667 (which cannot be achieved via Alteration spells, unless you use the Dragonhide master spell).

The difficulty settings increase/decrease incoming damage, and decrease/increase outgoing damage, they have no effect on your armor ratings.
-Loth

Well, it is not completely pointless, if you have the fists of steel perk... Your rating still applies to damage delivered... Your hands are more powerful than any weapon in the game!

That is why they hide so many of the numbers... So people don't see that they are just swallowing placebo-sugar-pills... If they don't know it isn't working, they complain less. lol.

If you didn't read the "truth" in a WiKi, would you have ever known... Possibly not...

Hehe... not quite. Fist of Steel only adds the base AR of your gauntlets. Smithing improvements don't do Jack for it, and the only slots that take Fortify Unarmed enchants are rings and gauntlets. The absolute maximum achievable damage with unarmed is 68.

Khajiit bonus + Daedric Gauntlets + 2 Fortify Unarmed Enchants at maximum level = 68

-Loth

It is, and so are a lot of perks regarding AR. It should be raised to 1,500, with the physical damage cap still being 80% at that point. Or kept at that same level, but with modified armor values that make it hard to reach.

1,500?

please thats just silly.

Yeah, I don't like to let facts ruin a good story either.

Personally I'm not bothered about "caps" in a game like Skyrim. Number crunching and theorycrafting are for MMOs. Oh no! My mage's numbers are too low! I won't enjoy this game now! Fix Beth!

I agree, atleast on Master it should be raised to around 1500, so it is actually hard to reach the cap even with 100 smithing.

Its not that I worry about numbers. I just want it to be more challenging to make your equipment strong, and I want to make more use of other skills like alchemy and enchanting to achieve that, as I have found that the game is more fun when you use a wide variety of skills.