Hi! I am currently thinking of which skill tree to invest in and I have a question: I don't want my character to be a melee god, he should be decent but not that strong since its not his main profession. It is his main combat style since I don't like destruction and archery but I would like to invest my points in illusion, restoration and conjuration instead.

So Im asking myself what is the better way to go: Investing perk points in armor and one-handed (which would be about 10-15 probably), or instead invest into smithing to be able to improve my weapons and armor instead? I heard that you can craft some very powerful equipment with a decent smithing skill. I would have to invest 9 perk points in it to be able to craft and improve all kinds of weapons but its still less than I would invest in armor and weapon skill. Also, I would be able to use all kinds of weapons and armor and not be limited to one-handed or two-handed, and heavy or light armor.

Is this viable?

You need to specialize in either 1-handed or 2-handed and then pick light or heavy in smithing. You won't be able to master all four of those with perks until you've hit the high levels, and at that point it really won't matter so much.

Personally, I'd opt for 1-handed and heavy smithing.

I mean that I dont invest perk points into any combat skill and instead only smithing, so I can improve all weapons and armors. This way, I wouldn't have to waste perk points into one-handed etc. At least thats what I thought.

You only need 2 perks in smithing for good equipment. One for Steel Smithing early game to start the tree, you can upgrade your early weapons well and Arcane Smithing so you can upgrade enchanted items.

By the time you get 100 smithing your enchanted weapons will be pretty powerful and you really wont need perked smithing.

But I would have to invest into one-handed and armor, so I could just invest into smithing instead. This was my thought. Also, better items also look better like glass swords or daedric armor etc.

I think anything would be viable, i haven't used a potion or follower in 110+ hours and my smithing maxed out first so my other skills were lacking and i had no trouble with anything.

I would only use 1h or 2h, heavy or light armor. Using all 4 would be to broad, you would miss out on the useful perks. Such as 1h dual wielding speed increase, or heavy armor reflect damage. You can always try the other style on a different playstyle.

But if you are set on doing this, I suppose it can be done, I'd go for the heavy armor route (in terms of smithing perks), then get the dragon scale armor at the end. So you have the best heavy and best light armor, glass armor is very similar in terms of base defense to dragonscale, it's just less perks using dragonscale via daedric.

You could probably hit the armor cap with either armor, without any perks. You will need alchemy and enchant too though, or the restoration glitch. Both ruin the game for me to be honest, but it might appeal to a 'jack of all trades' character.

What I like to do, is ignore all the smithing perks except steel and the arcane perk. So I can't craft stupidly powerful armor/weapons, but I can improve the armor/weapons I find. I can always craft daedric weapons/armor using the atronach forge (you need to max conjuration), which is more difficult as the materials are rarer, and I can't improve them to the extent available with the smithing perk.

You will have to invest in a weapon tree anyway, but smithing is entirely optional. Extra perks in smithing will make your equipment way more powerful than you really need and will rather spoil the game. But its your game, do as you please and dont let anyone tell you otherwise.

I made a warrior with no perk points in any of the combat trees (bar decaps, 'cause I love them so much).

I wasn't going to allocate any perk points at all, but alchemy is really fun, so I fully perked that. Plus I used 2 perks in smithing to get arcane smithing perk. It's doable, but it can be tough going at times.

Depends on how far he intends to go though doesnt it, i took 1h block heavy ench alch smith, so i could dual wield use shield and make all my own gear,granted every available perk is accounted for but i had no bother plowing through most of the storyline ( not the terrible unconnected/couldnt care less quests) in the first 20 or so hours.

I would put a bet on being able to finish the story on adept without using any perks.

Oh, I seem to have overlooked that you can improve weapons and armor even without the actual perk. I thought you can only improve e.g. daedric weapons with the daedric smithing skill. Okay, then I think everything is fine. My character is not a warrior, she just needs a way to defend herself (I like melee combat more than destruction and archery). I want her to specialize in illusion, restoration and maybe conjuration. Also, I want to invest into the basic perks of alchemy and enchanting to have something to do besides of combat.

Well I play on master, and I don't use enchanting, restrict smithing. Only improve armor I find/buy, without all the smithing perks (only steel and arcane).

I still need to finish ench/alch just to fiddly and i cant be botherd, i played on expert but ramped to master, not sure if expert/master would be doable without perks though since i refuse to use potions apart from crafting.