I have a question about armor smithing and perks. If I take the smithing perks and eventually craft legendary armor AND have all five of the heavy armor perks, Juggernaut, will I become virtually invincible? I'm not really looking to do this as I like the fact that enemies can harm me and I have to watch what I do. Right now I'm thinking the best thing to do in order to keep the game challenging at higher levels is to take the smithing perks and not the heavy armor perks. That way I can decide if I want to improve my armor rating (through a workbench).

Anyone have any insight to this? Does anyone wear legendary gear, have all five Juggernaut perks and still see the game being a challenge to them?

*I play on Adept and refuse to change the level. I want to play the game as it was meant to be played. I don't think changing the difficulty is the best way to make the game more challenging. I think limiting your perks is the best way to go.

pretty much man. You won't be felled easy I assure you. But if you truly want to be rediculously powerful use alchemy and enchanting trees. Use alchemy to create fortify enchanting potions and smithing potions. Make a seperate set of armor, boots, necklace and ring with fortify smithing on it. Use a potion of fortify enchanting before making the fortify smithing armor and items.

Do that then enchant with health and healing rate and you will only be beaten by an army of ancient dragons and dragon priests. Even with master difficulty.

Absolutly correct. Im on master now its how the game should be played with difficult ease.

This is exactly what I do not want to do.

I want the game to remain challenging and I want to have to worry about being hit. I don't want to be able to stand and be hit by an enemy fifty times and it not do anything. I'm not going to take any of the armor perks (light or heavy) but I'm going to take some smithing perks. That way I can decide what my armor rating will be.

Then bump the difficulty up man thats the idea when it gets to easy. Like I said im on master and ancient dragons **** me off.

What in the world is wrong with playing the game on a harder difficulty level? How is Adept the way the game was "meant" to be played? The developers included difficulty levels that they didn't actually "mean" you to play on?

Or to put it another way - why would you want to make a game more difficult by handicapping yourself, rather than by facing tougher opponents and tougher scenarios? If Super Mario Brothers became too easy, would you prefer that they make the next one a little harder, or would you rather just play without jumping, or using the fireball flower or whatever?

Try setting the difficulty level all the way to the hardest level, then do anything and everything you can to stay alive.

There is an armor rating threshold at 537 or so, so you can't be invincible.

And that is how we all should be.

Here's the reason, but to each his own.

On adept difficulty, as I'm sure most everyone knows, the damage for the player and the NPCs is 1x1. Meaning that a bandit is going to have the same damage and armor rating as I would using the same armor or weapon. That's what I like.

If you change it to master I think NPCs (if I remember correctly) do 200% damage and you do 50%. That's just stupid in my opinion.

Why not do the same thing but keep it much more realistic? You can do that by not taking certain perks (if you want to call it handicapping yourself, fine, but you're also "handicapping" yourself when you turn up the difficulty level).

The result of doing it the way I am thinking is this.

You still do tremendous damage at high levels BUT the enemy can kill you much easier. That's the way I like to play. I don't want to be able to get hit by a war axe fifteen times. I better dodge it and block it with a shield. That's more realistic. And the biggest problem I have with high difficulty levels is having to shoot an enemy with twenty arrows before they die. I want to be able to kill them with a more realistic (I know that's up to interpretation) amount of arrows while at the same time allowing them to do more damage to me.

I guess in the end, I'm doing the same thing that people do by turning up the difficulty. I just prefer to do it this way because I think its more realistic.

Play the game the way you want to play the game and don't listen to other people on how to play it their way. Each are to your own game style its just finding it that can be a pain. Take advice from but don't try to be us be yourself.

Play the game to you comfort level its better to do that rather than have people tell you how to play the game.

you'll be a tank but not invincible, especially on master at higher levels...the difficulty plays a big part of it, you'll be invincible if you play on novice or whatever the easiest setting is

I agree with you guys but I'm kind of asking for advice. I want the game to be challenging throughout, both low and high difficulties.

I guess changing the difficulty level really is like doing the same thing I am, just in another way. For those of you who play on Master difficulty aren't there instances where you have to hit certain enemies an ridiculous number of times to kill them?

theres always the parts where your hitting stuff alot of times but to me thats very much fun but some its time consuming, harsh fighting 3 wisp mothers on master when your a lumbering tank they will eventually wittle you down but if you think you can take them down slowly n surely thats intense stuff that keeps me going.

I hear ya. Do most of you guys play on Master or Expert? I just don't want it to be over the top. I want to be able to kill low-level enemies with one hit, like wolves. And what about becoming a werewolf? Wouldn't this negatively affect your damage in beast form?

See people have different ways of playing, and that one right there is an oldskool classy gamer.

Yeah, that's true. Except my armor rating is at 642. And that's with legendary ebony armor. I imagine if I was using legendary dragon plate armor it would be even higher.

As far as being invincible goes, I earned that. The whole point of playing an RPG for me is starting out as a fumbling weakling who jumps on top of a table and squeals at the sight of a skeever, and through time and effort becomes an unstoppable juggernaut who grabs a dragon by the throat and asks him what he said about my mother.

It's not that the game is easy. I got my ass handed to me several times earlier in the game. But I built my character from the ground up to ensure that never happened again. Now the only thing that can kill me is a high fall. If I want a challenge, I'll go play Dark Souls. That's not what Skyrim is about.

Not necessarly man. My glass armor legendary has better threshold than dragonscale legendary. And thats through alchemy, enchant and smithing

I didn't know I failed to show class... I am not knocking people that want to turn up the difficulty. I'm trying to get advice. I am thinking about bumping up the difficulty but I don't want it to unbalance anything, especially turning into a werewolf.

Do any of you guys play as a werewolf on Master difficulty? If so is it even worth the effort?

On adept then yes. But on Master and Expert they still harm you

What level do you play on?

Give it a try now mate. Save your game turn to master, transform into a werewolf and find out Best way of doing things is to have a go your sen

you don't fail in class at all. You are your own class pal. We all are.

when dawnguard comes with its werewolf tree you will be more offensive and defencive when playing master but right now its a matter of what skill you choose as a werewolf