Hello! This is the 5th installment of this thread. The opening Summary is still in progress, but Post Limits forced a hackney'd new thread before I could finish the revised summary.
---Under Construction---

Previous Threads:
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1266212-2469-armor-3199-damage-using-smithing-alchemy-enchanting-only-31-perks/, http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1275179-2419-armor-6399-damage-using-smithing-alchemy-enchanting-only-33-perks-329k-backstabs/, http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1279078-2419-armor-6399-damage-using-smithing-alchemy-enchanting-only-33-perks-329k-backstabs-post-3/, http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1289727-2419-armor-6399-damage-using-smithing-alchemy-enchanting-only-33-perks-329k-backstabs-post-4/

Contributors, in no particular order:
Jerich, Domilasa, Whisk3yjack, Nerevar X, DieBySword, Dimeron, gabriel_eliot, Excessive, fragonard, Human Being, wtflag, Barlow

Purpose of this thread:
This series of threads are dedicated to exploring mechanic interactions, build optimizations, and novel aspects of the game engine, in an attempt to find their outer limits. By knowing these limits, individual players can make an educated decision on how to play the game, in an effort to play in the way they find the most enjoyable.


Summary:
Using Smithing, Enchanting, and Alchemy, it is possible to reach the Armor Cap, and craft unreasonably powerful weaponry, without resorting to glitches in the game. We have seen 5k+ Sneak attacks and 2.1k Armor without the use of short-term potions or racial abilities, and it just gets better from there.

Core Conclusions:
It is possible to optimize the template down to 21 perks

• Enchanting (8) [100]: 5/5 Enchanter, Insightful, Corpus, Extra Effect
  
• Alchemy (7) [100]: 5/5 Alchemist, Physician, Benefactor
  
• Smithing (5): Up to Daedric
  
• Heavy Armor (1): 1/5 Juggernaut

All Armor can hit the Armor Cap of 567

• Steel Smithing requires the least perks; Wolf Armor is the lightest Steel Armor
  
• Elven Smithing requires an additional perk, but is the absolute lightest basic armor
  
• Daedric Smithing creates the highest damage weapons.

All weapons can get unreasonably powerful

• All Daedric Weaponry can exceed 500 damage except the Dagger
  
• Dagger users are compensated with excessive sneak attack damage bonuses
  
• Elven weaponry is only a 10% loss in damage over Deadric
  
• Nord Hero weapons are lighter than Elven weapons, and have comparable damage

Resistances can make you nearly immune to magic and dragon breath

• Magic Resist caps at 85%
  
• Elemental Resist caps at 85%, and is applied after Magic Resist.
  
• This gives a potential magic damage reduction of 97.75%
  
• Magic Absorption is all or nothing, and caps at 80%
  
• Magic Absorption also prevents secondary effects from a spell.

Outstanding Questions:

Crafting Details:
Using an Alchemy Enchanting loop, it is possible to make:

• 29% Fortify Enchanting enchantments
  
• 29% Fortify Smithing enchantments
  
• 32% Fortify Alchemy potions
  
• 130% Fortify Smithing potions

Your process should look something like this:

• Fortify Alchemy enchantments 25% x4
  
• Fortify Enchantment potions 30%
  
• Fortify Alchemy enchantments 28% x4
  
• Fortify Enchantment potions 32%
  
• Fortify Alchemy enchantments 29% x4
  
• Fortify Smithing enchantments 29% x4
  
• Fortify Smithing potions 130%

This enables a total of +246% Weapon and Armor Improvement

Crafting Console Commands:

Raising Skills:
player.advskill (skill) (uses) - Simulates using the skill x 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

Bugs and Exploits:
Marksmanship Potion
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/615803-the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim/61142033
Restoration Loop

To continue on the dual Resist Magic questions from the old thread:

- You need to get and disenchant the Shield of Solitude, Quest Reward from "The Wolf Queen Awakened". I assume you will not to have the max level for leveled gear since enchants don't depend on your level.
- You will learn a new Resist Magic Enchant which will be displayed as Resist Magic under the old Resist Magic
- Base Value displayed in the enchanting window is 10 instead of 8 and "maxed out" (No Resto Loop) 29
- Under Active Effects it will be displayed as 23% not 29%. (I've enchanted a shield with both and see the effect twice with the "Daedric Shield" as source). Testing if it really works and how much damage it reduces is not possible at the moment due to the Resist Magic not working bug in patch 1.2. On a side note: It seems that the binary spell resist from Alteration Perk and Atronach Stone still work,

For all "Assassin" Style players: There is an enchanteable version of the shrouded gloves called "Worn Shrouded Gloves". (acutally there's a whole set). These Items are not upgradeable and can not be disenchanted. Unfortunately the worn shrouded gloves that have double Backstab damage displayed will (at least once enchanted) not provide this bonus anymore. But if you're just about raw damage plus "Style" you can wear the normal "Shrouded" gloves and enchant the rest of the "Worn Shrouded" set as you like.

Btw. I am fairly sure that you can skip one step of alchemy gear by creating the first one with Fortify Enchantment potions. At least I am fairly sure I only created one Alchemy Gear before crafting my final crafting gear gear.

I have a quick suggestion that is also a question I have.

Core Conclusions:
It is possible to optimize the template down to 21 perks

* Enchanting (8) [100]: 5/5 Enchanter, Insightful, Corpus, Extra Effect
* Alchemy (7) [100]: 5/5 Alchemist, Physician, Benefactor
* Smithing (5): Up to Daedric
* Heavy Armor (1): 1/5 Juggernaut

At this part of the initial thread introduction, can you include the perks for going the route of elven armor in addition to the heavy armor route (I'm talking about how 1/5 Juggernaut is needed for heavy). What are the equivalent perks necessary for elven. Elven is referred to here in the introduction if that helps.

All Armor can hit the Armor Cap of 567

* Steel Smithing requires the least perks; Wolf Armor is the lightest Steel Armor
* Elven Smithing requires an additional perk, but is the absolute lightest basic armor
* Daedric Smithing creates the highest damage weapons.

If you're going Daedric and have the Ancient Knowledge Perk, you don't need the 1/5 Juggernaut.

Elven Just needs 1/5 Agile Defender and is a 2 perk save for 5% dps loss but with a much ligher set for better stamina usage and sneak.
Steel is a 3 perk save but doesn't have the bonus of light weight.

Nord Hero and Elven weapons do the same damage

Weapon weights are;
Nord Hero, 9
Skyforged Steel, 10,
Elven, 13


Link to all the armors if you lost the post: http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1289727-2419-armor-6399-damage-using-smithing-alchemy-enchanting-only-33-perks-329k-backstabs-post-4/page__view__findpost__p__19516089

And the Weapons with the dps calculation for elven at the bottom: http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1289727-2419-armor-6399-damage-using-smithing-alchemy-enchanting-only-33-perks-329k-backstabs-post-4/page__view__findpost__p__19523808

Thanks guys. I AM going to edit the opening summary with a lot more detail; just ran out of time tonight. Thanks for digging up the relevant details and posts; it makes my job a lot easier.

I like the new title. I always thought the max armor # was misleading. Also keep up the great work.

Wolf only weighs 32 (20 for main armor and 4 each for gloves, boots, and helmet); so it's a trade of 25 carry weight for 1 perk with Elven.

Linked here from Thread 4!=P Managed to get that done before lock so this thread is a go.

From the end of the last thread:


Thanks again, Domilasa et. al, you've done some tremendous work in these threads.

I can confirm that it absorbs 52% of magic damage. The 23% showing up twice is a display bug, if you equip the same effect from multiple sources it shows the same one multiple times. Another was to see this is by wearing a full set of enchanted gear with the same enchant and it will list each effect as coming from the same source instead of seperate sources.

Tested by taking 400 damage from an ice spell with three elven shields, 23%, 29% and 23+29% along with the original shield of solitude.

Health after hit = damage taken (Percent magic resist )

550 base
358 = 192 (52%)
270 = (30%)
266 = (29%)
250 = 300 (25%)
242 = (24%)
150 = 400 (0%)

This also enabled me to confirm that for some reason my Breton is bugged, it shows 50% magic resist from it's racial passive but only gives me 25%. Really weird. I disabled it via the console while doing this test.

If that's all the difference I would probably just go with steel unless I really, really wanted many multiple sets of armor.

Was bored on my ps3 so I played around with this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awTyf6ApZF4

This is the point where I just stopped.

193,989 unarmed damage.

(video uploaded 10 minutes ago so it might take some time to process)

Or if you thought Wolf is ugly as sin.

Discussion on block for those interested:

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1294892-max-block-absorb/#entry19589131

For those who really want to max out their mitigation getting a shield with the elemental resist perk should work very well.

Your Breton is not bugged. The racial passive is 25%. The on-use absorb is 50%.

The racial passive is showing as 50% in my active effects window. It says "Breton blood grants a 50% resistance to magic", but testing has shown it's only resisting 25%.

The on use power has the descrption "Absorbs 50% of the magika from hostile spells for 60 seconds".

Then your Breton isn't bugged, the tooltip is, because it is supposed to be 25%.

Same difference

whats the "restoration loop"?

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1289727-2419-armor-6399-damage-using-smithing-alchemy-enchanting-only-33-perks-329k-backstabs-post-4/page__view__findpost__p__19556657

i am 100% certain that these DOUBLE magic resist effects you gain from the shield are A BUG. so using this would be an exploit. this thread is about how to reach high numbers without exploits or bugs.

same goes for the ancient knowlegde buff. but this one could be a typo aswell so cant say 100% for sure while the above one is definitly not a typo its clearly a bug. because its the SAME effect twice. this is never itended.

Is it possible to armor cap with shrouded armor? Or is that completely unenchantable.
I'm trying to figure out if I can get there using unique weapons/armor and saving even more perks than before. ie: Blade of Woe (Legendary), saves me from needing Daedric weaponry. Even if its not quite as powerful.

Something else to consider, depending on your build, you might be able to slot one or two Fortify Light/Heavy enchantments without losing any important enchants, and reach cap while saving a Heavy Armor or Light Armor perk. Chest piece doesn't really have many useful enchants available, and if you're focusing on only one weapon type, that leaves you a slot on your gloves for another armor enchant.

I may be remembering incorrectly so please correct me if I am, but isn't t possible to squeeze an extra percent or two out of the alchemy/enchanting loop if done more times than usual. I think it was said that its a waste of time because the number is small but maybe it would grant enough damage protection that a perk could be skipped or maybe help bump elven armor up a little closer to its competitors.

I don't believe so, but I could be wrong. I ran the loop 8 times, just to be certain, and I got no increase. The bugged Ancient Knowledge perk will make this a little higher, and some people have bugged installs that make this a little lower... but using the stock 29% cap, the best I was able to do with a non-breton was Mara (15%) + Lord (25%) + 2 MR enchants (2x23%) = 86%.