1) Yes.
2) In theory, yes. Finding a good balance of stats/ perks as a spellsword can be challenging, but it's possible; especially if you craft a very powerful One Hander.
3) Vegetable Soup.
4) We're in the process of optimizing perks and crafting so weapon damage doesn't trivialize the game.

I only count 60% MR there (25% stone, 15% Mara, 20% Alteration perks), since you're neither a Breton nor using Resist Magic enchants. Granted, even a mere 60% MR along with 85% ER results in 94% total elemental damage reduction (which beats out, say, 85% MR with no ER), but it's worth noting. I don't see any way to get full resists with race/enchant shuffling without scrapping that 2H enchant on the ring though, which would presumably increase the TtBAt0.

Side note: you could also bump up that poison resist by 50% (that's under the untested assumption that it stacks additively) by throwing in two more Alchemy perks beyond the usual, in order to get Snakeblood. And if you go for lycanthropy you could swap Resist Disease for ... something else.

Whiskey already answered everything, but it might be noted that using block with a weapon in one hand and a spell in the other doesn't work. You would have to be unequipping that spell to leave the hand empty a LOT. If you want to be a spellsword that has easily hotkeyed blocking ability, I strongly suggest using magic at range and a 2H weapon for melee, as this will automatically free up that off-hand so you can block immediately (without going into the dang char menu or favorites) if need be. Besides, 2 handers do more damage...

-Loth

Aha, you're right sir! I must have been counting the Breton racial as I'm so used to playing one. So throw in the third alteration perk to make it 70%.

Becoming a werewolf would certainly be helpful, but there's not really anything else worth putting on the chest unless someone really wants another fortify magic school enchant. Same with snakeblood, really depends on if the player has a problem with poison or disease, poison can be annoying on certain enemies but I almost never see disease in my games.

According to my spreadsheet, switching out one of the two handed enchants for Resist Magic increases the TtBAt0 to 5, so if 4 is still to excessive it's something to look at, and save a perk in the alteration tree. This is of course without weapon enchants so it could be posssible to push it back to 4 after some testing

Another thing I was wondering about, with these optimized builds, which stats does it make sense to maximize? Magicka, Health or Stamina? With 100% magicka reduction, near 100% resists and 80% armor, is increasing Magicka and Health as important as before? As for stamina, since normal attacks are now so powerful, I don't see the need to increase stamina for making multiple power attacks...

Health, stamina and magicka allocation is generally whatever you want it to be. You take very little damage, have unlimited power attacks with stamina regen items and don't need to cast spells so it depends entirely on how you want to build your character.

Still waiting on that perk build, Domilasa.


Stamina isn't just for power attacking; it also affects how long you can sprint, and how much you can carry. But you're correct that Food effects (Vegetable Soup) and Absord Stamina enchants make Stamina of negligble importance in combat.

If you're a Warrior or Assassin type, splitting your stat gains 1:1 or 2:1 between Health and Stamina should work well. If you're a pure Mage, 1:1 or 1:2 Health and Magicka should work well also.

This is part of the reason playing a spellsword is challenging. You'll need all three stats, so you can't afford to ignore any completely.

Yay!

Strange - are you saying weapons block as good as a shield? In all my testing I find that is clearly not the case. Max 100 block score and all 5 ranks of Shield Wall had the shield performing a whole lot better then a two hand weapon. With a base armor score of 300 a sabre cat was hitting the daedric shield user for 7 pts of dmg. Retesting with a two hand daedric weapon and he took 27 points of dmg.

Now, two hand weapons will power bash for a lot more dmg then a shield. A two hand Daedric War Hammer was hitting for 100 dam vs a Daedric Shield of 40. This was without any Fortify block enchants. I wonder if those will boost the damage?

As I understand it, incoming physical damage is first mitigated by one's total armor value and then by block. Thus, if you're not armored capped with a Two-Hander equipped, you'll see a much larger disparity in the Blocking mitigation than the Block itself is accounting for.

Check the post right after his it was a miscommunication in the last thread.

Should we summarize some of those findings here? Correct me if any of this is wrong:

(1) All weapons block for 40% base.
(2) A shield's base block % varies with material, but is no lower than 50% (Hide Shield) and as high as 60-70% (Daedric)?
(3) Block % is capped at 85%, and it's very easy to hit that cap with Two-Handers by nabbing 1/5 Shield Wall and low level Fortify Block enchant, thereby making Shields of questionable value for otherwise armor capped players.

That pretty much sums it up.

OK. Nice to know some of the mechanics behind the game. However, most of the strategy seems to be centered around end game. It will be a long time before hitting the armor cap and even a longer time to hit the block 85 cap. Even if you focus on crafting, you still have to raise Armor/Block up a lot. Which takes time. During which the shield user will be much more durable. So, sure end game with mega enchantments and hitting the skill caps a shield looks weak.

Plus a shield does give you two more enchantment slots. Three if you count no longer needing to enchant a block item. You could move a Resisit Element and Resist Magic from a Necklace to the shield. Freeing up an Fortify One Hand or whatever you want. Even more better cause resist magic can only go on Necklace/Ring/Shield. And the Necklace and Ring are the best slots for enchantments - since you can put pretty much anything you want on them.

IMO health is still very much worth it. Even with 80% damage reduction high level mobs can still pack a punch on masters. For example, ebony arrow shooting death lords can still do over 100 damage even with armor cap.

As for stamina, that's up to you. I personally got 300 stamina. That leaves me a max health of 700 instead of 900 at level 81. Why 300 stamina? that's how much I can heal for with a grand healing.

Magicka is useless. Waste of points. My standard set gives me -100% reduction to restoration and I can spam grand healing all day long (so I don't have to bother with potions and makes me and Jordis almost impossible to kill). I have a second set consist of cloth, ring, and amulet that give me -100% reduction on conjuration for dead thrall. Quite frankly those are the two schools that one really needs.

So IMO:

Health is king
Stamina is nice to have but not strictly necessary
Magicka is useless.

Here's mine

Breton
Elven armor, blade sword, blade sword
Atronach stone, agent of mara, 2xresist magicking perk, atronach perk
Necklace: Resist magicka 23%, fortify one handed 47%
Ring: fortify one handed 47%, fortify restoration 29%
Chest: Fortify restoration 29%, fortify restoration 18%+10% magicka regeneration
Gloves: Fortify carry weight 43, Fortify one handed 47%
Boots: Muffle, Fortify one handed 47%
Helm: Fortify one handed 47%, waterbreathing

Left hand grand healing, right hand blade sword with 23 pt absorb health and 1 pt absorb stamina.

80% damage reduction
83% magicka resistance
80% spell absorption
near max one handed damage
Ability to spam grand healing all day long at 300 health a pop. 700 if I use both hands. A second blade sword in my inventory if I ever bother to go into favorite menu and dual wield. Rarely need to do it except against ancient dragons simply because switching between spell and dual wield is a huge pain right now.

Does the Berserk power double the armor/weapon rating past the cap?

There isn't any weapon caps. Sky's the limit, and the orcs can certainly touch it.

The damage reduction is probably counted before or after the reduction from armor, similar to how magic and elemental resistances work.

http://skyrimcalculator.com/#23422
I think that's it.

Never mind the smithing stuff, something is wrong with it >.<

Does Corpus Enchanter give any other bonuses than what it says? I skipped that perk as I don't use those enchants, and it doesn't seem you do either.

It doesn't, I skip it and go the elemental route for extra effects

As you noted, crafting can be maxed at any time. Block isn't particularly difficult to level; just grab a shield and go let a giant beat on you. Light/ Heavy Armor skill does take some time to level, but we don't need to have everything at 100 by level 15, do we?

Using a shield certainly makes you more durable in the early game, at the expense of significant chunk of damage output. The problem is that once your crafted armor is mitigation capped, and your Block is maxed, your shield's main benefits disappear; all that extra armor value is wasted, and the higher base Block % is irrelevant because your Two Hander blocks just as well. And how were you spending those perks in the early game? Filling out Block, One-Handed, and Two-Handed won't leave you much room for anything else.

Since we're trying to optimize here, mid- and late-game are definitely out targets, but you're not really gimping yourself in the early game by using a Two-Hander instead of a Shield.


The extra enchanting slot(s) are nice, but they're hardly a compelling reason to use a shield. +Block enchants are usually wasted on a Shield; a lowly Hide Shield starts off with a base Block % of 50, and 1/5 Shield wall brings that up to 70%-- just 15% shy of cap already. Upgrade your Shield once or twice, and you're already at the cap without any enchants. An extra slot for Resist Magic isn't bad either, but between the Lord Stone, Agent of Mara buff, and Alteration perks, it's not really necessary.

This is quite close to my build. No fight has ever really forced a heal so I just ready dual-wield all the time.

I also fully perk illusion tree and devote 2 enchantment slots for it. Both for the fun factor and the off chance 50 ebony bow wielding drager death overlords spawns beside me.

My experiments in summoning vast hordes of enemies to challenge my builds has lead me to the conclusion that facing such a force would be extremely difficult if not impossible without illusion spells.

I need help!
I have 100 smith, enchant, alchemy and all the necessary perks to follow the guide

However my enchant is stuffed. When I enchant my alch pots the base isn't 25% it's 20% so my enchant pots cap out at 26% and my fort alchemy items cap out at 22%. I have no idea why it does this and nothing I seem to do works. I have all the enchant perks too :/ Can someone please help?!

Double check that you have the full 5 ranks in the first perks for both enchanting and alchemy.