Like the thread title says, are these two a necessity for the game at higher levels and expert/master difficulties?

Why I ask this is because at lvl 46 I was using the best bow I could find with the best possible enchantment I could get, and Draughr Death Lords required like a dozen arrows to freaking die and that first arrow or two were sneak attacks, while they on the other hand could kill me in 3 hits.

But when I raised my Smithing and Enchanting, got the required perks I can now kill them in 4 hits with the first being a sneak attack.

Cause for me it felt like a necessity, enemies just became a drag.
I was focused on being able to sneakily kill enemies and that doesn't help at all when they don't die until I've shot them like 4 times (in sneak) all the while they're closing the distance trying to figure out where I am.
I'm suppose to be a coward, a weakling that attacks from a distance.
How am I suppose to do this when I can't kill them and I'm forced into close combat with backpedaling?
I attack an enemy, sneak attack, he doesn't die, his mates gets attention to this, they all start moving towards where I am, I try to shoot them but now there is no sneak attack bonus, they find me, they rush me, I backpedal and jump up on things they can't get to in order to survive.

"Then lower the difficulty so that they don't have as much health"
Well I would, except that if I do then their damage is lowered as well, which means the entire game will turn into a cakewalk.


So, for everyone that played without smithing and enchanting for the first 40 levels on Expert or Master difficulty, does it feel like those two skills are a necessity if you don't want damage sponges?
I don't care for mage players or those that picked Smithing and/or enchanting right off the bat, I want to hear from others that went through the same kind of gameplay I did.

/shameless bump

Come on now, is the game biased towards Smithing and Enchanting?

No . You said it to 12 arrows to kill a boss. That sounds about right

It's biased as far as relative worth of skills go. But without intentional power leveling then they aren't NECESSARY just much much more powerful than most other skills.

Enchanting-it's top heavy and has a much more reasonable gradual leveling curve so it's not all that bad. Later it does get more and more important to have things like elemental resistances so it's a good idea for every pc eventually. Also it helps fix problems with magic in the game.

Smithing-pretty much the God Skill since it has a ridiculously strong leveling curve. By itself it doesn't do what the alchemy/enchantment/smithing loop does obviously but one thing it does help is fix problems from strongly leveling noncombat skills other than smithing that result in low combat skills but a high level meaning you're going to run into some scaled enemies. It doesn't entirely fix the difficulty of such encounters but it's bar none THE best noncombat skill to off set that.

On my first playthrough I didn't even know how to use enchanting or smithing, I was playing as a conjurer mage and had no problems with death lords, dragons, or anything else. It's possible to play without even touching those trees, not to mention I was playing on master. Enemies aren't supposed to be easy on higher difficulties and it's not for everyone. That's why we have difficulty sliders.

I'm level 47, smithing is 81 (up to ebony, heavy side only), enchanting is... 50 something (all from disenchanting), alchemy is whatever it started at plus books I've read.

I'm using a Dwemer bow right now which after perks and my couple of +bow damage items (all found or purchased) it's around 80-90 damage and I always sneak and have the x3 damage for bow. Assuming the first hit is a sneak attack enemies take 1 hit for the weak ones (draugr, forsworn, wolves, sabre cats etc...), 2-5 for most enemies (draugr scourge/wight, forsworn looter/pillager/etc..., bears, etc...) and lots and lots of shots with my bow for hard enemies (draugr overlords, briarhearts, bosses, etc...).

Personally I like it this way because my bow isn't the answer to everything but the bow is still useful (if you perk, enchant, and smith your way to a 300-400 damage deadric bow things get boring fast). I also make use of conjuration for a disposable meat shield while I plink away at hard enemies, Marked for Death shout (sometimes Unrelenting Force), Paralyze (poisons and/or alteration spell), my axe and shield, restoration magic, potions, that heavy armor I'm wearing, and rune traps from destruction magic (just for kicks really). I have to use multiple skills to survive the tough fights without uber-smithing and enchanting but it's possible.

A tip for you is if you shoot an enemy with a bow and then pop around a corner and summon something then back off they will stop looking for you. They will kill the summon and decide the fight is over. I did this a fair bit when wiping out open world forsworn camps on master. Sneak up, shoot a guy, throw out a summon and then hide around a corner until they wiped out the summon. Then repeat the process. Take as many shots as you can just don't get detected and move away from where you were shooting when you stop.

So Bandit Pillagers should require a dozen arrows as well?
A couple of Necromancers too?
How about the forsworn?

I don't mean just bosses.
I mean every elite type, and I meet a lot of them.

For a boss? Fine, they can have big health pools, I don't mind that, but when I face elite enemies constnatly and they all require a dozen arrows or more then it becomes tedious as hell to initiate combat.

Did you even read my first post?

Yeah I started using Conjuration as well to use this strategy actually.
The problem with this is that I shouldn't have to.
I shouldn't have to use Enchanting, Smithing or Conjuration.
I shouldn't even have to use Sneak considering Archery is in the Warrior tree, not the Thief/Rouge tree.
But when I only used Sneak enemies were way too sponge'y, and now that I started using Enchanting, Smithing and Conjuration the balance is starting to tip in the right scale for me.
So it felt like I was forced into this, if I hadn't focused on these three skills I didn't really want in the first place then I'd still be firing away 40 arrows to kill 3 enemies.

The only time I've experienced this is when I've avoided leveling Archery and leveled up many many times with other Skills. Even with decent arrows and a good bow you're going to have damage issues with some enemies that level scale until you level your Archery. Also this is assisted somewhat by the relative strength of the enchantments on the weapon and what enchantments they are.

I've had 100 in Archery for a long time, I had it before I started with Smithing, Enchanting and Conjuration.
So even with 100 in Archery and all the perks and the best arrows and best bow I had enemies were still too meat shieldy.


Let me put this into perspective.

Before I started to focus on Smithing and Enchanting I had this:

An Ebony Bow (Fine), the highest I could improve it.
Ebony arrows.
A fire enchantment that gave +10 in fire damage. The highest damage I could produce with no Enchantment perks.
A ring, an amulet and a crown that all gave like +10% or something in Archery damage. The highest I could enchant them with.

This was as strong as I could make my character.
I hadn't put points into Alchemy so poisons were rare and not something to rely on.
I couldn't find Daedric Bow or arrows, I couldn't enchant or smite better gear.
That was it.
That was as strong as I could make her.

I didn't just use a random bow and some random arrow with some random enchantments.
No I tried to make it as strong as it could possible become without putting points into Smithing and Enchanting.
This was the result: The enemies are still sponges.

But when I put points into Smithing and Enchanting perk trees and fleshed them out then my gear became so much better and the amount of arrows required to kill enemies has lowered by 60% (And I still have the double enchantment perk coming up, which means like 90% more damage)

So for me, I couldn't get any better.
I had the best of the best my character could possibly get, and it wasn't enough.
Which is why it feels to me like Smithing and Enchanting is a necessity.

Deathlords aren't bosses....

@OP It depends on your character perks and so forth. Those skills can certainly shore up weaknesses.

You're an archer, remember you can poison arrows

No basic enemy will scale with you so heavily that you'd ever need to use more than 5 arrows on them, as long as you use the best bow you've found, spend perks into archery and also find a few pieces of armor/rings/jewelery that boosts bow damage with 20-40%.

But.. I agree that smithing and enchanting give just a little bit too much bonus to weapons damage and such. For example, I'm level 5, smithing is merely 30. I upgrade my current steel sword. Damage does up by 50%. I'd have to level up my one-handed quite a lot to get the same effect.

This is why you can find a buy weapons with up to 25 damage enchants on them (highest non magicka damage I've seen) and up to +60 health enchants, unfortunately with the inclusion of smithing the developers forgot that it may be a good idea to be able to find upgraded equipment as well to avoid forcing players to have smithing as a skill. It's an understandable design oversite since it's a new mechanic, hopefully they'll change that in a later patch so you can find say up to either flawless or exquisite.