Hello,

I want to use the Nightingale Armor as my endgame armor. I plan on raising it to armor cap using smithing perks, but NOT using the infinite fortify loop. My question is this: what are the least amount of light armor perks I would need to accomplish this? If it matters, I'm using the Necromage/Vampire combo.

Thank you for the help!

I'm not sure. Bu if you get your smithing skill up to 100 and use some enchanted gear, you should be able to get it close if not over.

I know I can reach the cap with only a few, maybe two, perks. I do have it smithed past legendary, but only with fortify smithing gear and no exploits.

My advice would be to save your perks until after you've gotten the armor.

You only need 2 perks in smithing, one for steel to unlock, and subsequently perk arcane smithing to upgrade it. Other than that, some peerless smithing gear and a potion of smithing and your good to go.