I have heard people claim that critical hits only do have of the base damage of the weapon excluding any weapon upgrading. A long sword that does 12 damage will always only do 6 points per critical hit even when smithed to legendary status. Is this true?

Bump.

Does anyone have any answers.

I don't know. I seem to hit REAL hard on criticals.

Maybe the two-handed version is glitched though, I wouldn't know. I only use battleaxes on my 2-handed chars

I believe that's what UESP.net states. While I haven't done any specific and extensive testing, I'd say that it's fairly accurate with my experiences in the game. Critical hits, including the sprinting critical hit perk for double critical damage, seem to do very negligible damage compared to the overall damage of the weapon your using (Provided that you have upgraded it from it's base damage via smithing or enchantments).

I ran some minor tests using the perks related to the sword, axe, and mace. I didn't really find any major differences when I had them as opposed to when I didn't have them. I just noticed that the critical damage was negligible and the bleeding damage was also negligible. The armor penetration for maces seemed decent, but also fairly negligible. If anything, the armor penetrating perk is probably the most valuable, but that's not saying much because the critical strike and bleeding perks are no good.

Personally, I didn't like the speed reduction of the Mace and the armor penetrating perks only affect foes with armor (As far as I know. I.e. Dragons, Trolls, etc. will not get affected by it.). Neither of the three perks seemed worthy of spending 3 perk points in. Although the Mace perk probably has the most potential (Provided it works as a 75% armor penetrator and not on some base number or what not) but it seems like most enemies are not armored enough for it to matter.

Just my two cents. Toodleoo.

I have heard people claim that only the weapon original base damage halved is what you get for critical damage. In other words smithing your weapon will not increase your critical damage.

Any new information on this topic?

For this sort of thing you are better off (1) checking the Wikis (2) asking in the hints forum, which has more hardcoe players (but I can't go there as I still haven't finished the game) or (3) checking it yourself systematically, which would probably take 20 minutes.

I do not seem to have any problems with it but many posters in some other forums have mentioned it. I was hoping that someone from Beth would chime in on this.

any new thoughts?

Indeed, the Bladesman's "critical" only takes into account the base damage of the weapon. Upgrades and skills don't matter.

xbox360
3/3 blade perk
skyforge sword
v1.3

i havnt noticed any change in my crits. When they land, they land hard. its awesome.

There are no crits by default - at all - so I find the fact that you noticed a change in them a bit... odd.

You more odd than you silly reply. Some people who own the game claim that all criticals are glitched. Many claim that you will only ever do have the base damage of the original weapon's damage. Meaning a daderic long will only do 7 points of critical damage do matter when you find it or when you smith it.