Tried the staff.....................................this playthrough I got the crown.

Next I'll try the Shield

Seems like Beth automatically gives us an auto-save just in case we make abad choice.

I noticed this because I have "save on travel" turned off.

In keeping with performance tips I have read out here i keep only 5 saves and clean the system cache frequently.

I got the crown. It won't work...

Yes.
Incorrect, that's your opinion. I am invincible against all mages, and I use no glitching, cheating, or that joke of a "skill" called enchanting(no perks).
ALL great examples. Not to mention up to at least 35% skill increase rate boost.
Even better: My Vampire Lady Archmage wears her robes with her Legendary Aetherium Crown, and is completely invulnerable to magic with the benefit of the Lord Stone+Atronach Stone+Alteration perks+Necromage. Somewhere around 130% magic resist/absorption combo. Now I truly feel like I deserve to be the Archmage, and my secret weapon is my Aetherium Crown. Best RP ever, and I truly feel like I own a legendary artifact now, because even the Daedric ones are kinda pathetic, with the exception of a couple.
Not true for summons. I only "absorb" 3/5 summons on average with a similar build. Also, I don't wear armor, but being invulnerable to mages, dragon breath, etc. is extremely awesome for my Vampire Archmage.

What quest is this part of, the aetheruims wars thing? Because if so then im missing out on some good stuff

I'll quote a question on a thread I made, hope someone can answer.

crown. I can sell it for the most gold.

Hear hear!

I didn't have any use for any of them so I went with what would look best on display so went with the shield.

I have to agree. Actually I found all three equally useless. I thought about the crown for a min, but then I would have to give up My enchantments and my 1580 armor rating. Not worth it at all. So i just chose the shield for a follower and ended up just sticking it on the wall of my house

About 1000 of that armor rating is 'not worth it at all' either, though.

To be honest, I'm surprised that people are so down on these three quest rewards. Any of them is a fun artifact, and people are speaking like they deserved something more game-breakingly powerful for doing two dungeons and turning up in three other locations. For what you do, those three items are a great reward, and having the opportunity to choose them is very nice.

It is if you play on master lol. I like a challenge, but not tho the point where im getting one shotted. Then I just "Rage Quit" and never play the game again for fear of smashing my xbox. IMO the most useful effect for higher levels is the shield. being able to stop a legendary dragon for a few seconds and heal is cool. barring my %95 resist magic and %30 absorb magic though lol

The Crown, then I went to the steed stone and lover stone, lover stone makes sense for everyone so then you can have the stone of your choice and all your skills increase faster

the crown. my vampire necromancy loves it. I had an undead army of draugr, skeletons, gargoyles, necromancers, vampires, and thralls. invaded whiterun. it was amazing.

Sordel is refering to the game's armor cap of 567.

Your in game effective armor rating can't go higher than 567 - even though the game will display higher numbers.

After finally finishing the quest today, I can proudly say that I am part of the crown club.

I got the crown. I don't do the quests for the rewards, because frankly there are not many magic items I cannot make myself that are more useful. I do these quests for the exploration and visiting new areas. I wish the forge let you choose the enchantments imbued in the item from a large list of unique enchantments.

This is the first ive ever heard of this. If this is indeed the case then the game is busted. dragonplate without any help will put you over 800. so i find this hard to belive. added to the fact that at that level i get almost 1 shotted by basic enemies. so........im thinking this has already been patched

To the best of my knowledge the armor cap is still there, and there's also a cap on magic resistence (something like 65%). I actually think that the armor cap was a great idea because it means that, with smithing, you can choose what armor to wear rather than being forced into dragonplate or daedric (both of them pretty ugly). The armor cap doesn't need 'patching' because it's intentional: seems Beth learned its lesson after allowing people to craft 100% Chameleon in Oblivion.

You do know your armor rating caps at under 600 right?

No you don't understand, the armor cap is 667, when wearing 4 armor pieces the cap is 567. Anything higher than that is worthless.

The magic resist cap is 85% (it's not actually a cap, it just stacks in a way that can't exceed 85), anything higher again is worthless.

That's not a challenge, I play on master and I never have over 450-500 armor rating, or over 60% magic resist. I imagine if your armor rating is that high you play with weapons that deal 150 damage, again taking away the challenge even on master. This isn't WoW.

I gotta disagree with you here. If anything, I think the crown and shield are overpowered. Granted, I think they can be less relevant on certain builds: the build I'm currently working on won't really benefit from any of the three artifacts at all, so I probably won't even bother with the quest, except maybe for all the Dwemer junk to melt down into ingots. This build doesn't use block at all, so the shield is out. I thought about using the crown, but I really don't need it. I'm a Necromage Vampire with the Atronach stone + perk, which adds up to a full 100% Spell Absorption. I go unarmored, using dual Dragonhide for protection (max 80% DR for about 2:30 per cast) so I don't gain anything from the Lord or the Steed. Don't really care about gaining experience faster, don't use sneak, can cast super powerful paralysis at will, so that gets rid of about 2/3 of the other shouts. I thought about picking up Apprentice for the Magicka regen, but I realized with Necromage + an Elixir of Enchanting (and fully perked level 100 Enchanting skill) I can get almost 100% Fortify + Regen, times two for each of the four slots. So the Magicka Regen from the Apprentice Stone becomes irrelevant as well, since those clothes + 2/2 Regenation perk put me at around +200% Magicka Regen, even after factoring in the Atronach diminished regen. That pretty much leaves the Tower, which is pointless since lockpicking is so easy, and the Lady, which is pointless because I could simply create a custom hood of fortify health regen + stamina regen, that would be vastly more powerful, and wouldn't require running through 3 massive dungeons.

So in this particular case, I stand to gain more from using that slot for custom enchanting than adding a second standing stone. However, this is a build that's specifically optimized to work with a specific set of perks and enchantments, synergized with the Necromage perk on PC vampires. I think most mid-level characters could stand to gain a lot from some combination of Lord, Atronach, and Steed. Those are three very useful signs for pretty much any standard playthrough. Likewise, I think any playthrough that includes a shield in the left hand could stand to gain a lot from the aetherium shield. You can use that to buy you a few moments to heal in a pinch, or wait for your shout meter to charge, or to split up a group of enemies into more manageable numbers. I haven't done any testing with the shield, but I bet it could do some pretty useful stuff as well. I wouldn't be surprised if slashing or spellcasting at ethereal enemies still grants you experience, for example. If so, that could be a great way to grind combat skills without constantly healing.

I took the staff as well. I like sending my sphere or spider minion to battle. I was a little like morrowind.

Staff, I just like having a little dwarven spider

Crown is by far the best choice for any character especially if you aquire it before lvl 20-25 but my knight character who is the only one i've played on master difficulty really benefitted from the shield esspecially when using both the shield and become ethereal shout it supplies the worrior class with a real awesome crowd control tactic that lets you take on multiple super tough bad guys like the arch mage and the like.

ha thats what i thought until i saw that the "crown" was a double circlet