Min - Maxing Armor / Weapons using Crafting in Skyrim

[Jerich]

Hey Guys. I did a little crafting Research in Skyrim this weekend and figured you min-maxers like me might like to see how far it can go... Here are my results:

TLDR: 2469 Armor, 3199 Two Handed Damage, 16,452 Damage Sneak Attacks!

Armor / Weapons with no training:

• Full Daedric Armor: 160 Armor
• Daedric Bow: 24 Damage
• Daedric Dagger: 20 Damage
• Daedric Two Handed Sword: 26 Damage
• Daedric One Handed Sword: 15 Damage

100 skill with Juggernaut 5, Well Fitted, Tower Of Strength, Matching Set and 5 Weapon Perks (13 Perk's Total)

• Full Daedric Armor: 588 Armor
• Daedric Bow: 103 Damage
• Daedric Dagger: 33 Damage
• Daedric Two Handed Sword: 72 Damage
• Daedric One Handed Sword: 42 Damage

With Daedric Smithing Level 100 (Steel, Dwarven, Orcish, Ebony, Daedric: 5 Perks) (18 Perk's Total)

• Full Daedric Armor: 1020 Armor
• Daedric Bow: 114 Damage
• Daedric Dagger: 90 Damage
• Daedric Two Handed Sword: 129 Damage
• Daedric One Handed Sword: 99 Damage

Level 100 Enchanting (5 X Enchanter, Insighful, Corpus, Extra Effect: 8 Perks) (26 Perk's Total)
With Level 100 Enchanted Smithing Gear and Using Store-bought Smithing Potions (+50 Smithing for 30 Seconds)

• Full Daedric Armor: 1232 Armor
• Daedric Bow: 141 Damage
• Daedric Dagger: 117 Damage
• Daedric Two Handed Sword: 210 Damage
• Daedric One Handed Sword: 180 Damage

Level 100 Alchemy (5 X Alchemy, Physician, Benefactor: 7 Perks) (31 Perk's Total)
You can brew better + Enchanting and + Smithing Potions with Alchemy than you can with Smithing (Note you can eek out about 5-10% more by using Enchanting to Improve Alchemy and Alchemy to Improve Enchanting until your potions are +130% Smithing and +32% Enchanting. Your crafting gear is then +29% X 4 (instead of 25% from base enchanting). The potions make a huge difference.

• Full Daedric Armor: 1647 Armor
• Daedric Bow: 195 Damage
• Daedric Dagger: 171 Damage
• Daedric Two Handed Sword: 210 Damage
• Daedric One Handed Sword: 180 Damage

At this level it looks like Daggers are the clear winner... but they don't benefit from enchants...

Gear fully Enchanted
4 X Weapon Enchants and 4 X Armor Enchants. (Note I used the +32% self made Enchanting Potion to Power the Enchants... if you don't do this, your results will be 20%ish lower)

• Full Daedric Armor: 2175 Armor
• Daedric Bow: 562 Damage
• Daedric Dagger: 171 Damage - Too bad one handed enchants don't work for daggers... I guess sneak attacking with fully enchanted swords is better.
• Daedric Two Handed Sword: 605 Damage
• Daedric One Handed Sword: 518 Damage

Dual wielding One handed weapons seems to be the best for DPS. They also seem to sneak attack for more.

Add 60 Second Weapon + Armor Potions
Custom Made Potions using my enchanted Alchemy gear: Last 60 seconds

• Full Daedric Armor: 2469 Armor
• Daedric Bow: 1242 Damage - So much the display reads 124!=P
• Daedric Dagger: 393 Damage - I don't understand this one... but that is what it read
• Daedric Two Handed Sword: 3199 Damage!
• Daedric One Handed Sword: 2742 Damage

Dual wielding One handed weapons now clearly do the most damage followed by Two handed weapons than Weapon + shield. Daggers come in last. Sword Sneak Attack (16452) Dagger Sneak Attack (6288) Bow Sneak Attack (3726)
Pretty much, a one handed weapon sneak attack will kill almost anything at this damage level, even on master. A bow sneak attack will most likely one shot anything except for a boss dragon.


Conclusion:
Using 26 points to get these crafting feats seem to no-brainer for any min-maxer playing on Master's difficulty. They synergize incredibly well. Dual Wielding One handed weapons / Archery Seem to be the way to go for DPS with Two handed weapons coming closely behind. Once you are this buffed, your hardest problem will be not accidentally killing your hireling.

If you don't like Daedric Armor you could use an Ebony Chest (That's what I do) This took me from 2175 Armor to 1793 Armor. Still Plenty of Armor. Light Dragon Armor (Less feat intensive when sneaking, but getting staggered hurts your melee dps) yields 1770 Armor.

Thanks for Reading!

- Jerich

[DarkTails]

I'm not this interested in the game so I'll fall back on asking: Why did you put all those apostrophes in "perks"? lol

Neat info though

[superawesomeman589]

Dear god lol, you people move way too fast.

[VintageHazard]

Very useful info. But I'm a little more visualistic so if you could make a Youtube video that would be awesome

[superawesomeman589]

Very useful info. But I'm a little more visualistic so if you could make a Youtube video that would be awesome

Stats can't be visual bro, not like this anyways.

[Zidders]

Very useful info. But I'm a little more visualistic so if you could make a Youtube video that would be awesome

Um, it doesn't work like that, dude. This is for people who already know crafting, so they can see what the final stats will be based on the requisites given above the statistics. You can't make a vid showing that.Well, you CAN, but all it would be is a vid showing the resulting weapon stats..which...are right here, so why go through all the trouble?



Thanks for the write up, Jerich. You should submit this to the Skyrim wiki.

[superawesomeman589]

Thanks for the write up, Jerich. You should submit this to the Skyrim wiki.

Yes, he should.

[hawkn]

So this is what you were talking about... Now I'm totally going to try it on my next character lol.

[Edifier12]

Wait sorry, what is this "enchanting" potion you speak of? ingredients? and do i need level 100 alchemy for it to be worth while?

[hawkn]

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Fortify_Enchanting

[superawesomeman589]

Enchanting is about the only way to get anything good in this game. It's kind of annoying because that means every char I play as will HAVE to have it.

[hawkn]

I easily beat the game with only archery and sneak.

[superawesomeman589]

I easily beat the game with only archery and sneak.

No enchanting?

Also for clarification, you aren't done with the game until you've done EVERYTHING. Every location, every path, every dlc, and every quest, except for when it starts respawning misc quests, I was told you can tell, hitting max level, and leveling all your builds skills up to 100.

Seriously, I don't know how people can already be done with it, there is SO much to do.

[hawkn]

I did a lot of side quests, explored everywhere, and did the main storyline.

Like I said, Archery and Sneak. I spent like 3 points total on things like Destruction, Blade, and one into Alchemy. I'll probably play through again with a god build when I get time.

[Jerich]

On masters?

[superawesomeman589]

On masters?

I have no plans to play on that difficulty and no want to. Frankly, you masochists can have right at it.

[hawkn]

On masters?

On my next playthrough, yeah.

[peterqin]

Hey Guys. I did a little crafting Research in Skyrim this weekend and figured you min-maxers like me might like to see how far it can go... Here are my results:

TLDR: 2469 Armor, 3199 Two Handed Damage, 16,452 Damage Sneak Attacks!

Armor / Weapons with no training:

• Full Daedric Armor: 160 Armor
• Daedric Bow: 24 Damage
• Daedric Dagger: 20 Damage
• Daedric Two Handed Sword: 26 Damage
• Daedric One Handed Sword: 15 Damage

100 skill with Juggernaut 5, Well Fitted, Tower Of Strength, Matching Set and 5 Weapon Perks (13 Perk's Total)

• Full Daedric Armor: 588 Armor
• Daedric Bow: 103 Damage
• Daedric Dagger: 33 Damage
• Daedric Two Handed Sword: 72 Damage
• Daedric One Handed Sword: 42 Damage

With Daedric Smithing Level 100 (Steel, Dwarven, Orcish, Ebony, Daedric: 5 Perks) (18 Perk's Total)

• Full Daedric Armor: 1020 Armor
• Daedric Bow: 114 Damage
• Daedric Dagger: 90 Damage
• Daedric Two Handed Sword: 129 Damage
• Daedric One Handed Sword: 99 Damage

Level 100 Enchanting (5 X Enchanter, Insighful, Corpus, Extra Effect: 8 Perks) (26 Perk's Total)
With Level 100 Enchanted Smithing Gear and Using Store-bought Smithing Potions (+50 Smithing for 30 Seconds)

• Full Daedric Armor: 1232 Armor
• Daedric Bow: 141 Damage
• Daedric Dagger: 117 Damage
• Daedric Two Handed Sword: 210 Damage
• Daedric One Handed Sword: 180 Damage

Level 100 Alchemy (5 X Alchemy, Physician, Benefactor: 7 Perks) (31 Perk's Total)
You can brew better + Enchanting and + Smithing Potions with Alchemy than you can with Smithing (Note you can eek out about 5-10% more by using Enchanting to Improve Alchemy and Alchemy to Improve Enchanting until your potions are +130% Smithing and +32% Enchanting. Your crafting gear is then +29% X 4 (instead of 25% from base enchanting). The potions make a huge difference.

• Full Daedric Armor: 1647 Armor
• Daedric Bow: 195 Damage
• Daedric Dagger: 171 Damage
• Daedric Two Handed Sword: 210 Damage
• Daedric One Handed Sword: 180 Damage

At this level it looks like Daggers are the clear winner... but they don't benefit from enchants...

Gear fully Enchanted
4 X Weapon Enchants and 4 X Armor Enchants. (Note I used the +32% self made Enchanting Potion to Power the Enchants... if you don't do this, your results will be 20%ish lower)

• Full Daedric Armor: 2175 Armor
• Daedric Bow: 562 Damage
• Daedric Dagger: 171 Damage - Too bad one handed enchants don't work for daggers... I guess sneak attacking with fully enchanted swords is better.
• Daedric Two Handed Sword: 605 Damage
• Daedric One Handed Sword: 518 Damage

Dual wielding One handed weapons seems to be the best for DPS. They also seem to sneak attack for more.

Add 60 Second Weapon + Armor Potions
Custom Made Potions using my enchanted Alchemy gear: Last 60 seconds

• Full Daedric Armor: 2469 Armor
• Daedric Bow: 1242 Damage - So much the display reads 124!=P
• Daedric Dagger: 393 Damage - I don't understand this one... but that is what it read
• Daedric Two Handed Sword: 3199 Damage!
• Daedric One Handed Sword: 2742 Damage

Dual wielding One handed weapons now clearly do the most damage followed by Two handed weapons than Weapon + shield. Daggers come in last. Sword Sneak Attack (16452) Dagger Sneak Attack (6288) Bow Sneak Attack (3726)
Pretty much, a one handed weapon sneak attack will kill almost anything at this damage level, even on master. A bow sneak attack will most likely one shot anything except for a boss dragon.


Conclusion:
Using 26 points to get these crafting feats seem to no-brainer for any min-maxer playing on Master's difficulty. They synergize incredibly well. Dual Wielding One handed weapons / Archery Seem to be the way to go for DPS with Two handed weapons coming closely behind. Once you are this buffed, your hardest problem will be not accidentally killing your hireling.

If you don't like Daedric Armor you could use an Ebony Chest (That's what I do) This took me from 2175 Armor to 1793 Armor. Still Plenty of Armor. Light Dragon Armor (Less feat intensive when sneaking, but getting staggered hurts your melee dps) yields 1770 Armor.

Thanks for Reading!

- Jerich

This is a useful info... but I wish it has a video so it is easy to understand... lol

[Jerich]

Here's a better link

http://forums.bethsoft.com/topic/1289727-2419-armor-6399-damage-using-smithing-alchemy-enchanting-only-33-perks-329k-backstabs-post-4/

People have made YouTube videos of the process. Search for 2419 armor Skyrim.

I stopped theory rafting Skyrim shortly after this and turned my attention back to Torchlight 2.

[Krayzen]

I thought armor rating in Skyrim translated into damage resistance capping out at 85% at a bit under 600 armor? I was also under the impression that as there is no cap to those effect you could just make enchanted armor and potions that let you make batter enchanted armor and potions.. so you can make better well you get the point. Personally I think its a lot less min maxing and a lot more how far are you willing to take the exploit I suppose there may be some theoretical max where it either crashes the game or rolls over back to zero.