Just wondering what my fellow sneak based archers went with as their choice in armorsmithing...

I'm a ps3 player, and on my builds I've always gone the heavy armor route only for the daedric bow, paired with dragonscale armor. Would it be better for my toon to go light for the glass bows? Glass just seems weaker to me compared to daedric, and no idea either if dragonscale would benefit from the light smithing side.

I also see heavy as a bonus to deck my companions all out in custom daedric.....so thoughts?

ps...not into RP, so it's kinda soley based on damage output.

If you mean for smithing. Then go up to Glass then if you want go up to Dragon then go heavy for Daedric if you want the most effiecinet. Sneak Archer. If you dont care get an armor set like the Nightingale or Shrouded.

I usually goes heavy to save 1 perk for Daedric because I always use guild armor before I got dragon.

If you go with Enchanting and Alchemy you can improve leather-based armors to and past the cap if you put perks into Light Armor. If you use the Restoration Glitch then you can easily improve Light side stuff as high as you want.

With sneak and a smithed and improved glass bow you can do nearly as much damage as a daedric bow.
So the light armor side of smithing will save you a few perks if you don't mind a few less damage points.
But once you get your glass bow and sneak attacks up you really won't need anything more powerfull than that.

Also if you are ever caught out of sneak,like when traveling,the glass bow will shoot faster than a daedric bow.

I did the calculation a while ago, and the difference is about 4%. With same smithing and enchanting, if your Daedric bow is doing 312 damage, your glass bow will do 300 damage. When fighting against an Ancient Dragon, you may have to put 1 more shot into him. 10 shots with daedric, 11 shots with glass.

i always go light on archers, seems more natural.

heavy armors have to be muffled don't they? And i believe that glass bows can be drawn faster than daedric

And important thing to think about is lighter bows can fire a lot faster. The extra damage a daedric bow has over a glass bow is meaningless, especially after you pile on smithing, enchantments and fortify archery. This is especially true if you use various exploits to farm daedric arrows. You can easily be an engine of destruction using a hunting bow.
My advice is take steel smithing and arcane smithing and save yourself the perks.

Another good thing about heavy besides being able to upgrade ebony and daedric bows is that you can also do Ebony Mail, as in the artifact. My first sneak archer Bosmer lass got it and had no skill in heavy armor but smithed the crap out of it and made some muffled ebony boots and is unstoppable. With one perk in HA and her smithing/enchanting the Ebony Mail gave her 200 something AR just for it alone, and she could still sneak right up to u in broad daylight. I like the smoke effect too. However, if you are on console there is the glitch with the eyes getting messed up after you go invisible which u will do when you crouch in the mail. if this has been fixed somehow on consoles, it would be worth considering. I just reload her when I feel like it and it fixes the eyes.

If you're being a sneak archer, then forging armor won't really be necessary for yourself, as you will most likely never get hit. Not even that great for your followers either, since they're likely to blow your cover, or walk into your arrows.

I would say go light and just use glass weapons. Or possibly even just elven. As a sneak archer, you could rain arrows on enemies without ever being detected.

That said, scripted battles are going to be kinda tough as a pure sneak archer.

The one thing I've noticed is even with all the perks in sneak taken I get detected as soon as the arrow hits or misses a target (I'm usually wearing dragonscale light armor). I shoot, the eye opens up, basically no matter what I do or how far away the target is. Would doing enchants that give a bonus to sneaking be worth trying out? I usually just enchant archery and stamina, along with muffle and carry weight increase. Should I also add sneak in there on armor?

According to UESP followers don't benefit from Fortify Sneak. However, they can benefit from Muffle.

Didn't mean on followers, meant my character. Even with sneak perks maxed and boots of muffle I get detected all the time. Would sneak enchants help or is that a waste of enchants?

Followers, if I take them with me, usually get their own enchants to help out their specific skillsets, health, 1H, sheild boost, etc. Never gave a companion a sneak enchant.

I wear 4 pieces of Fortify Sneak gear on my Assassin chick and I definitely notice a difference in standard sneaking, but I don't know if it works with Archery. I don't use Archery because I don't care for the mechanics, but it definitely works with normal sneaking so I would assume it works with Archery. I have been able to make the distant targets 'lose' me by activating Shadow Warrior though.

I can confirm this. As a ranger, sneak is only useful to get into position. Once first arrow flew, there's no going back to shadow like melee assassins. Your best bet is to dispose of them before they got close enough to whack you (Unless you got a follower / conjured being who can serve as distraction).

Light. As an archer, you need not to look any further than elven. Even Fur will suffice, provided that you are a master of sneak.

I would say light armor for the perks.'Unhindered' and 'Windwalker' fit the archer playstyle well.

Bows make noise. I could be wrong on this, but I believe the noise a bow makes is directly related to it's weight (I could be wrong on that one...). I believe muffle, not fortify sneak, is what you want to address this.

I did not read others' replies. I played successfully on Master difficulty with light armor on my sneak archer. I used a glass double enchanted bow and maxxed poisons with no trouble. I also used double glass swords. Only in the early game did I have trouble, but that is probably true of all builds.

??? I don't understand this. I can snipe off whole hordes of enemies and never be seen - and this is before my sneak archer maxxes sneak. There's a couple of things I can think of that may account for this - followers jumping the gun, and the reported over-buffed sneak 'bug'. (The latter is where you fortify sneak over a certain amount, and instead of giving you better sneak, it actually 'rolls over' and you sneak skill drops to low levels instead). Well, there's tactics too.

One thing to remember as a sneak archer is that, when at all possible, as soon as the arrow flies, move back and away. Find cover, move out of it slightly to plink yer target, and quickly get back under cover. Line of sight means a great deal to this game, and so does patience. AAAAAND so does taking advantage of AI and potions - distracting the baddies with a purposeful miss, using poisons (esp. slow and paralyze), and the great let-the-arrow-fly-and-quaff-an-inviso-potion-before-it-hits thing. Sure, there's been quite a few times I've been detected, but that's what sprinting is for! Run away and hide, and when they lose you, start over again. I generally don't worry too much about armor as I never intend on being in melee combat.

All weapons make noise except for daggers and I believe you are correct in your guess that a lighter bow makes less noise. Like susurruss I can snipe off hordes of enemies.

My Orc wears heavy falmor armor, ebony boots and orcish gauntlets. has perks in sneak and heavy armor. Can kill a group of bandits with a bow before being spotted. Can sneak up on the enemy and remove their weapons and armor and then engage them in battle of fists haha.

I thought it was Pickpocketing that did that.
I've got Sneak 100 with all perks and when I wear 4 items of Fortify Sneak +40% I sometimes get NPCs bumping into me and not noticing me.

Yes, at crazy distances even. ...with Forsworn at least. It's probably true of all NPCs, but with the Forsworn's camps/forts you'll have greater distances than most other enemies.

I have also noticed that daylight hurts Sneak a lot, but I haven't noticed that silhouette has much effect. I've been in front of torches in dungeons and had Draugrs and Bandits run right by me.

The sneak bug should be currently patched, iirc. If praxius has an unpatched game it may be the problem.

Without any Fortify Sneak enchants, I have no trouble using the 'shoot an arrow somewhere just beyond the NPC' to distract them, and don't ever get seen. You may just need a higher Sneak skill, if it's not at 100.

I chose heavy for Smithing because I like the Ebony Bow model. You can also perk Heavy Armor to be weightless and silent.

And you're maintaining you miss deliberately? Mm-hm.