» Tue Jun 05, 2012 1:22 pm
Unlike what you may be used to in MMORPG, you actually cannot "stack" upgrades. Each upgrade, if it is of higher magnitude, replaces the old upgrades. You can upgrade any number of times but it wouldn't do you much good except wasting your materials.
The grading actually distracts you. There is a range for each grade and the legendary grade, being the last grade is very very wide. It is altogether possible that someone's legendary blade has twice the damage of your legendary blade.
The upgrade magnitude is dependent on your smithing skill, smithing perks, fortify smithing bonus on your equipment and fortify smithing bonus from potions. The strongest bonus is 100 smith skill, double upgrade bonus from relevant perk, four pieces of +29% fortify smithing equipment and a +130% fortify smithing potion.