The hardest Steam Centurion I have ever faced was inside the room with an uneven floor in Shimmermist Cave, on a flat level surface getting in close is easy.
The Sphere in Blackreach is the nastiest Dwemer Automaton in the game, if it is not destroyed before it detects your character. The ranged attack of the crossbow seems to always kill in less than three hits on all of my characters. I am using Live Another Life, and I know how to kill it when entering Blackreach normally, but when using one of the start options in the mod, that

Sphere is a pain to survive.