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A Guide to the Best Weapons and Armor (Includes "God" Armor)


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NOTE: I no longer own the game so if future updates have made some of this process harder I apologize ahead of time.

History

This guide began after I had played about 30 hours and decided I didn't like light armor and since I had spent a lot of perks into it I decided to begin again. This second time I wanted to focus making items that were awesome and worked in conjunction with one another all the while having a character that could take on any amount of enemies and win. With that in mind I pooled my own knowledge with random tid bits from the internet and began my journey.

 

Introduction

Before you begin this journey understand that this is not a quick and easy process (yes I understand that there's a glitch with the Oghma Infinium but that takes all the fun out in my opinion). You will be spending a lot of time grinding between stores for ingredients and components and it does get a bit tedious regardless of how great the game is. The payoff though is worth it in my opinion as you'll be able to create awesomely powerful equipment and fully maximize your fun. After all who doesn't want to be able to laugh at a Giant when he barely scratches you with one of his earthquake club strikes? It should be noted here that the armor rating caps out at 567. Although you can get your armor rating to 3000+, it still only blocks the same amount of damage as the 567 rating (about 80% damage reduction). Keep this in mind before spending perks to increase armor percentage.

 

Still here? Okay then let's get started. First of all, I suggest doing this with a new character so that you don't have any of the main quest done or any perks chosen. Also, there will be some traveling involved and random dragon attacks will be fatal until you're done with all this. Next, don't spend any perks unless I tell you to. The last thing you want to do is ruin this character by spending a perk on something you won't use later. Last, don't worry about your level going up without you knowing any combat skills. When this is all said and done, your equipment will more than make up for the gap.

 

Step 1: Set Up

We'll start this process as soon as you emerge from Helgen after the attack. On your way to Riverwood be sure to stop by the standing stones and choose the Thief sign. Next go to Riverwood and sell off everything extra in your inventory. You're not going to be adventuring for a while so none of this stuff is worth keeping. From there advance the main quest until after you're given the quest to go to Whiterun. Before you go there though, you'll need to pick up a little gold first.

 

Head over toward the wood mill and begin chopping wood. Hod, the owner of the place, will give you 5 gold per piece of firewood you chop. You'll need about 3000 or so gold to get started with all this so get to work. This can get quite boring as you're looking at 100 chopping sequences to get the 3000 gold mentioned above. Stick with it and it'll be done in no time. After finishing with your lumberjacking around head to Whiterun and go inside the city. Once inside the city go to Arcadia's Cauldron to begin step 2....

 

Step 2: Leveling Alchemy

Alchemy is a very quick and easy way to earn money in Skyrim. At my highest level I'm capable of making potions worth over 5000 in gold. Leveling this skill though is a lot harder than Oblivion. To begin this process you'll need to go to Arcadia's Cauldron (the town Alchemist) to start. Once inside speak with Arcadia and begin buying ingredients. At first you're only going to want to buy certain ones to save money and maximize the amount of money spent. I should note that she doesn't sell all the ingredients below until you invest in her shop through the speech perk.

 

Alchemy is leveled up by creating potions, although eating ingredients does give you some XP. The higher the value of the potion, the more it levels you up when you make it. With that in mind, to start off, only buy the following ingredients:

 

 

  • Bear claws
  • Blue Butterfly Wing
  • Blue Mountain Flower
  • Briar Heart
  • Canis Root
  • Chaurus Eggs
  • Chickens Egg
  • Creep cluster
  • **Daedric Hearts (see comment below about these and whether you need them)
  • Deathbell
  • Eye of Sabre Cat
  • Frost Mirriam
  • Giant's Toe
  • Glow Dust
  • Glowing Mushroom
  • Hanging Moss
  • Hawk's Beak
  • Histcarp
  • Ice Wraith Teeth
  • Imp Stool
  • Juniper Berries
  • Large Antlers
  • Luna Moth Wing
  • Mora Tapinella
  • Nightshade
  • Nirnroot
  • River Betty
  • Salt Pile
  • Scaly Pholiota
  • Silverside Perch
  • Skeever Tail
  • Spider Egg
  • Spriggan Sap
  • Swamp Fungal Pod
  • Vampire Dust
  • Wheat

 

The above ingredients can be used to make the following high cost potions:

 

Damage Magicka Regen:

Bear claws, Blue Butterfly Wing, Blue Mountain Flower, Chickens Egg, Glow Dust, Hanging Moss, Nightshade, Spider Egg, Spriggan Sap

 

Damage Stamina Regen:

Creep cluster, Frost Mirriam, Histcarp, Juniper Berries, Large Antlers, Silverside Perch, Skeever Tail, Wheat

Invisibility:

Chaurus Eggs, Nirnroot, Ice Wraith Teeth, Luna Moth Wing, Vampire Dust

Paralysis:

Briar Heart, Canis Root, Imp Stool, Swamp Fungal Pod

Slow:

Deathbell, Salt Pile, Large Antlers, River Betty

 

There are some ingredients though you'll want to save to make "super" potions worth lots of money and experience. The ones I used are as follows:

 

 

  • Giant's Toe, Wheat, Hawk's Beak (Creep Cluster if you don't have Hawk's Beak)

 

  • Mora Tapinella, Scaly Pholiotam, Creep Cluster = Fortify Illusion, Regenerate Stamina, Restore Magicka, Fortify Carry Weight, Weakness to Magic

 

  • Bear Claws, Hanging Moss, Eye of Sabre Cat = Fortify Health, Damage Magicka Regen, Fortify One-Handed, Restore Stamina, Damage Magicka

 

  • Glow Dust, Glowing Mushroom, Hanging Moss = Resist Shock, Fortify Destruction, Damage Magicka, Fortify Health, Damage Magicka Regen

After you buy the ingredients from Arcadia, it's time to restock her inventory. Vendors in Skyrim restock after 48 hours. To speed time up, press http://www.xbox360achievements.org/forum/../images/misc/back.png and press http://www.xbox360achievements.org/forum/../images/misc/rb.png to move the bar to 24 hours. Now if you just press http://www.xbox360achievements.org/forum/../images/misc/a.png here you'll wait but it takes a long time to count down. The trick is to get the bar to 24 hours and press http://www.xbox360achievements.org/forum/../images/misc/a.png and then IMMEDIATELY (read almost simultaneous) press the guide button. Let the guide screen stay up until you see the background clear up and the compass on top show up again. This will make waiting three times faster than the normal method. Do this twice while standing in Arcadia's shop and she'll have 500 gold and new ingredients. From now on when I say to restock a merchant do the process just mentioned.

 

Once Arcadia's restocked, buy ingredients from the list again and then move over to the alchemy station. From here begin making potions using the recipes above. I suggest only using two ingredients per potion too as this will give you more potions to sell back. Once you can't make anymore potions, head back to Arcadia and sell her as many of your potions as you can. After that restock her and continue this process for awhile. Note that as it gets late Arcadia may yell at you to leave. If this happens just go outside and wait until 9:00 AM then go back inside and continue. As your alchemy skill continues to grow spend perks into only the following as soon as you can:

 

 

  • Alchemist (all 5 ranks)
  • Physician
  • Benefactor

Continue the process above for awhile until you have around 5500 gold. At this point your alchemy skill with perks should be making quality potions that in total sell for more than Arcadia has to spend. When this happens head on over to Belethor's shop next door and sell the remaining potions to him for more dough. While in Belethor's shop browse his apparel and buy any that give a boost to alchemy. Also browse his Misc section and buy all the filled petty soul gems and lockpicks he has in stock. Once again continue making potions from the list and making money. Note that your speech skill levels up pretty well during this whole process.

 

At some point, you'll get to where both Belethor and Arcadia don't have enough gold to buy all you potions in one 48 hour period. At this point it's time to start buying all of Arcadia's ingredients and making any potion you have. Be sure to save the ingredients above only for the specified potions as those are still the best, but the rest can be mixed and matched into whatever yields the highest value. If you need to know recipes for ingredients, GO HERE. Also at this point you'll begin to start making lots of gold. If you're planning on doing heavy armor be sure to buy daedric hearts anytime you see them as you'll need them later on. Now it's time to start getting training from Arcadia.

 

STEP CONTINUES ON NEXT POST.....

Edited by Method
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Arcadia is the expert level alchemy trainer in Skyrim and can teach you all the way up to level 75. The cool thing about spending money on her training is that she keeps that gold and it never resets. By this I mean if you spend 6000 gold on her training, the next time you restock her she'll have 6500 gold instead of the normal 500. This makes her training basically free since you earn all your money back from her by selling your potions. Just be sure not to get carried away with training an end up broke and back in Riverwood cutting wood for gold. Arcadia can train you a max of 5 times per level so be sure to have her do it to further speed up this step. Last, it's been reported that if you leave her shop the gold you gave her from training will go away. With this in mind, it's best to stay and restock her while in her shop while you're trying to recoup your training gold.

 

From here on out, it's up to you continue the processes above and get your alchemy skill all the way up to that elusive 100 level. If you want to make selling potions easier, you can invest four perks into speech until you get the investor perk. This perk will increase the gold limit of any vendor you invest in and the previous perk allows you to sell any item to any merchant. This means you can sell potions to the vendors outside of Arcadia's as well. This perk allotment though is by no means required, but it does give you a lot more places and gold to sell your potion stock.

 

Step 3: Leveling Smithing and Enchanting

Now that you've finished with your alchemy leveling it's time to start leveling Smithing and Enchanting. These two go up much faster than Alchemy so fear not, the most tedious part is behind you.

 

When I finished getting my alchemy level to 100 I had around 65,000 in gold from the process. This was more than enough to finish out the rest of these steps. The first thing you'll want to do now is go to Warmaiden's and talk with both Adrianne and Ulfberth. Buy as many iron ingots, iron ores and leather straps from them that you can. Next go to Belethors and buy all the iron ore, filled petty soul gems and lockpicks he has. Lastly head up to the Skyforge and talk with Eorlund Gray-Mane. Buy all the iron ingots, iron ores and leather straps he has as well. Once that's done head back to Warmaiden's and make iron ingots out of the ore you bought using the smelter. Now take a look in your inventory and make sure you have as many or more iron ingots as you do leather straps. If you don't buy leather and make the straps at the tanning hide.

 

At this point, head back to the Standing Stones and choose the Warrior sign. From here go to the Bannered Mare in Whiterun and purchase a room for 10 gold. Sleep for 12 hours and get the well rested effect. Now head back to Warmaiden's in Whiterun and begin smithing iron daggers. Iron daggers cost 1 iron ingot and 1 leather strap to make each. The problem you'll run into is that iron daggers weigh 2 units while the ingredients weigh just over 1. This means the smithing process will leave you over-encumbered. Don't fret though as Adrianne is always outside working so you can slither over to her once you've made as many iron dagger as you can. For reference I usually didn't start making daggers until I could make at least 100 in a sitting. Once you're done smithing the daggers, sell only as many to Adrianne as is required for you to be 10 units under your max carrying capacity.

 

As you begin smithing daggers your skill level will sky rocket quickly. At this point you have a choice of perks and it depends on your armor preference. The right side of the tree focuses on heavy armor while the left side focuses on light armor. Daedric armor, although it only requires 90 smithing, has a higher armor rating than heavy dragon plate. It's important to note that you can't go up the left hand part of the tree to dragon smithing and then choose daedric smithing. You must go up the right side to get that perk. Arcane smithing is a personal choice too. Since you're making your own equipment you don't really need it, but should you want to improve a magic item you find later on you'll need it. Last, remember the daedric hearts you were buying from Arcadia in the last step? Those will be required to create any piece of daedric armor or weaponry later on.

 

Now that you've got a ton of daggers it's time to begin enchanting. If you've followed my advice and bought the filled petty soul gems from Belethor you should have a good head start on this process. Before you can begin though you'll need an enchantment to actually put on the daggers. I recommend the banish, paralyze, turn undead or absorb health enchantments as those are more worth than other enchantments. Banish is worth the most but is hard to find though so of you see a paralyze or absorb health item just use that instead. To learn enchantment you must disenchant an item with the enchantment already on it. Warmaiden's and The Drunken Huntsman are the only places in town that sell enchanted weapons. This means you'll have to peruse the stocks of Adrianne, Ulfberth and Elrindir to look for the banish, paralyze and absorb health enchantments. If they don't have it, restock them and look again until they do. Once you have a bought an item with that enchantment, head back to the standing stones and choose the mage sign. From there fast travel to and enter Dragonsreach.

 

When you enter Dragonsreach head to the right of the Jarl (as you face him) and speak with Farengar. Buy all the filled lesser and petty soul gems he has. Now check your inventory to see if you have as many filled soul gems as you do daggers. If not, restock Farengar over and over and continue buying filled lesser and petty soul gems from him until you do. From here go to the Bannered Mare in Whiterun and purchase a room for 10 gold. Sleep for 12 hours and get the well rested effect. Now head back to Dragonsreach and go the the enchantment table by Farengar and disenchant the weapon with the banish, paralyze or absorb health enchantment. Once that's done begin enchanting all the iron daggers in your inventory. While doing this, begin investing in the following perks as soon as you can:

 

  • Enchanter (All five ranks)
  • Insightful
  • Corpus
  • Extra Effect (gained at level 100)

While you're doing this, you'll notice that the value of the dagger will begin to fall even though the enchantment is getting more powerful. I'm not sure why this happens or how to stop it but it has no effect on the experience you gain from each dagger.

 

Once you've enchanted all your daggers, it's time to sell them off. Adrianne, Ulfberth, Belethor, Eorlund Gray-Mane and Elrindir will all buy the daggers from you. While you're selling the daggers off begin buying all iron ingots, iron ore, filled petty soul gems and leather straps you can. If, after you've seen all the vendors, you still have enchanted daggers, it's time to restock the merchants and do the process above again. From here it's just a matter of doing all of the above over and over again until your enchanting and smithing skills are at 100. You'll hit 100 smithing before you hit 100 enchanting so you'll need to make a lot of daggers after you hit 100 just to have them for enchanting. Also, don't spend time getting filled lesser and petty soul gems from Belethor unless you're at his place to sell daggers and buy ore. Farengar stocks them much more regularly.

Edited by Method
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Step 4: Time to Make the Armor...

 

Finally! The hard work is over and it's time to make our uber armor set! The first step in this process will be to make a crafting armor set. To do this, you'll need gather the ingredients necessary to make fortify echantment potions, a couple unenchanted helms, gloves, amulets, rings, about 10 filled Grand Soul Gems and any enchanted apparel with fortify smithing and alchemy. The type of apparel doesn't matter so long as you like the look, but quality has no bearing on the enchantment strength. I personally chose steel plate armor as I thought it looked cool for an armor set I'd never wear in battle. If you're having trouble finding rings and amulets without enchantments you can either continuously restock Belethor and look for them or travel via carriage at the Whiterun stables to Riften. Inside Riften is a merchant named Madesi that sells nothing but unenchanted jewelry. The filled grand soul gems can be bought from Farengar in Dragonsreach. The ingredients for fortify enchantment potions can be found in Arcadia's cauldron and are the following:

 

  • Blue Butterfly Wing, Hagraven Claw, Snowberries, Spriggan Sap

Once you have all the items above, head over to Dragonsreach. Once you're here, create a couple fortify enchanting potions. If the potions give +32% to enchanting you've hit the cap. I can't remember if it does right off the bat or not as I didn't know there was a cap until I couldn't get past it. I initially thought I could make +enchanting potions to make +alchemy gear back and forth for infinity but I was wrong. If the potion doesn't give +32% we'll need to make an interim set of +alchemy armor. Head on over to the enchanter and disenchant your fortify alchemy and smithing items. Back out, drink the fortify enchanting potion and begin making a plus alchemy armor using one helm, glove, ring, amulet and grand soul gems. NOTE: The cap for +% to alchemy and smithing is 29% per item. Know that your time in the enchanter counts on the potion and you only have 30 seconds. This is usually only enough time to enchant two items before the effect wears off. If it does wear off drink another potion and go back to enchanting.

 

With your new set of +alchemy gear on (helm, gloves, ring & amulet) head back over to the alchemy table and make several + enchanting potions that give +32% to enchanting. Now head back over to the crafting table and make the following "ultimate crafting" set (be sure you have the extra effect perk from enchanting and drink the potion before enchanting):

 

  • Helm - +29% Alchemy
  • Gloves - +29% Alchemy/+29% Smithing
  • Armor - +29% Smithing
  • Ring - +29% Smithing/+29% Alchemy
  • Amulet - +29% Smithing/+29% Alchemy

Put on your new crafting set and head out into Whiterun. Once outside go to Adrianne, Ulfberth, Belethor and Eorlund Gray-Mane and buy all the leather straps and ingots you can. The type of ingot here varies depending on if you chose light armor of heavy armor. If you chose heavy armor you'll want ebony ingots if you chose light you'll want to make a glass armor set for now using malachite and refined moonstone. The light armor set that's best is dragon scale but that requires the dragon bones and scales you get from dragons. Since you haven't killed any yet, this glass set will hold you over until you do. On the heavy side, hopefully you took my advice and bought a lot of daedra hearts from Arcadia during the alchemy boosting process. A daedra heart is required for every daedric piece you smith.

 

Once you have all the necessary ingredients to make the armor and weapons of your choice, head on over to Arcadia's Cauldron. Here you're going to want to make a couple Fortify Smithing potions. The ingredients required for this potion are two of the following:

 

  • Blisterwort, Glowing Mushroom, Sabre Cat Tooth, Spriggan Sap

If you make this potions with your crafting set on you should end up with a +130% to improving weapons and armor effect per potion. With a couple of this potion type in hand head on over to Warmaiden's and make your set of armor. Do not take the fortify smithing potion while forging the armor. It's for improving the armor and weapons only. Once the armor and weapons are forged, head over to the workbench. Be sure at this time you have enough of the required ingot for each piece of your armor and weapons. If you do, take a fortify smithing potion and upgrade all the armor pieces. After this head on over to the grindstone and upgrade your weapons. All of your armor and weapons should now have (Legendary) next to them once this process is complete.

 

Voila! You now have the highest/best possible armor in the game. I went heavy with my smithing and with a heavy armor skill of 26 with two perks into Juggernaut, my armor rating with daedric armor is a staggering 582. As was said before though, the armor rating cap is about 567. This means that any number above that will not block anymore damage than the 567 rating (about 80% damage reduction). Keep this in mind so you don't waste perks to increase +armor %.

 

At this point it's up to you to add any enchantments you want to your "ultimate" armor set. Just be sure to drink your +32% enchanting potion before you add any enchantments to your ultimate set. For those that went light armor smithing, I wouldn't spend too much into your glass set (unless you prefer its look). Instead advance the story until dragons begin appearing and make an ultimate dragonscale set for yourself once you get the needed ingredients. Also, remember all those lockpicks you bought? Well they really have nothing to do with armor, but now when you go out questing you shouldn't have to ever worry about breaking lockpicks. I personally had over 400 lockpicks after completing those whole process.

 

I hope this guide was useful to at least one person. If so then I'm happy with the effort I put into this. I'll be as punctual as I can with any questions you may have. I'll also be sure to add any improvements or changes you all think would make the guide better. Thanks for reading!

 

Edited by Method
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Step 5: The Hidden Step to Ultimate Armor

 

Before you go any farther, realize that the previous steps produced the best possible armor and enchantments I believe the game developers intended for us to have. The following steps will allow you to have gear that is RIDICULOUSLY overpowered and potentially game breaking in my opinion. Therefore if you don't want to be tempted into making this gear, read no further. You've had your caution.

 

If you're still reading now that must mean that you want to be god of Skyrim. Okay then, let's get started. The first thing you're going to want to do is gather ingredients needed to make fortify restoration and fortify enchanting potions. These ingredients are the following:

 

  • FORTIFY RESTORATION: Abecean Longfin, Cyrodilic Spadetail, Salt Pile, Small Antlers and Small Pearl
  • FORTIFY ENCHANTING: Blue Butterfly Wing, Hagraven Claw, Snowberries and Spiggan Sap.

Once you have enough of the above ingredients to make about 10 fortify restoration potions and 10 fortify enchanting potions, don your crafting armor produced from before and head over to an alchemy crafting table.

 

At the table, create one fortify restoration potion while wearing your crafting gear. After that, exit the alchemy lab and open up your menu. While in the menu, drink the fortify restoration potion. With the menu STILL open, unequip your crafting set then exit the menu. Once out of the menu go back into the menu and don your crafting set again. If done correctly, you should see that the % increase to alchemy on your crafting set has now gone up! From here you just recycle the process from above until you can create fortify enchanting potions that give +73442% to enchanting items.

WARNING: If you get too outrageous with the process above you'll literally break the game and the +% bonuses you get will turn negative.

 

To recap the steps above in a numerical order:

1) Don you crafting set

2) Make a fortify restoration potion

3) Exit the alchemy lab

4) Open the menu

5) Drink the fortify restoration potion

6) Unequip your crafting set

7) Exit the menu

8) Open the menu

9) Back to step #1

 

Once you've made 10 or so potions with +73442% to enchanting, grab a pair of gauntlets you like the look of. These gauntlets will be your new replacement to your entire crafting armor set. Once you've got a pair of gauntlets and a grand soul gem head to the arcane enchanter in Dragonsreach. Once at the enchanter drink one of your super enchanting potions and make a set of enchanted gauntlets with fortify alchemy and fortify smithing. When I did this, these gloves resulted in an effect that gives me +3180841% to both smithing and alchemy.

 

Now that you have these gloves you can either upgrade your current armor with them on or make a new set to upgrade. I made and upgraded a new set of dwarven armor with them. The armor rating stats were as follows (keep in mind the cap is still 567):

- Helm: 502117

- Armor: 77358

- Gauntlets: 38672

- Boots: 38672

 

After you upgrade your armor, go ahead and upgrade your weapons. I'm pretty sure there's a damage cap but below are the damage ratings my dwarven bow and dagger get:

- Bow: 906 shown (906445 actual)

- Dagger: 934 shown (906445 actual)

 

Now that your armor and weapons are maxed out grab some more filled grand soul gems and head to the arcane enchanter in Dragonsreach to make your super armor. Below is the set of armor I made with this exploit using +%73442 enchanting potions. With my weapons doing uber damage I saw no reason to fortify any weapons skills. Also with the high amount of health regen I have, no enemy can damage me enough to even make my health bar appear (even on master difficulty).

 

Helm:

Magicka regenerates 7952103% faster. Lockpicking is 5168867% easier

 

Armor:

Stamina regenerates 3976051% faster. Health regenerates 3976051% faster.

 

Gauntlets:

Increases you magicka by 7952103 points. Carrying capacity increased by 4771262 points.

 

Boots:

Wearer is muffled and moves silently. Pickpocket success is 5168867% better.

 

Ring:

Increases Magic Resistance by 2544673%. Increases disease resistance by 7952103%.

 

Necklace:

Increases your stamina by 7952103 points. Can swim underwater without drowning.

 

And there you have it. The game is officially too easy to even put into words. Battle with this suit on will not even be challenging on master. Enjoy you god status and feel free to smack Akatosh across the face if you want, even he couldn't strike you down with this armor on.

 

 

END NOTE: Though the above step is my writing, I was not the first to figure out the general path to use this exploit.

Edited by Method
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Don't know why he stopped, its not hard to explain the rest.

 

Get leather, make hide bracers, if you have iron make daggers, go to a dungeon and soul trap to fill all your gems, go enchant with fortify archery, fortify destruction, drain stamina or turn undead (for the bigest profits from the enchantments I had learned) Sell them back and repeat every 2 game days.

 

Eventually start doing this with fortify smithing gear on and your gear will come out at a little better value to increase profits. Eventually you will be able to buy all your mats and more with the money you made from selling all this junk, just like with alchemy (depending on what skill you started with) I personally think smithing is the easiest to start with, all you need is leather. thats it. you can get to 100 with just leather. And there is a lot of free leather just running right outside Whiterun.

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Don't know why he stopped, its not hard to explain the rest.

 

Get leather, make hide bracers, if you have iron make daggers, go to a dungeon and soul trap to fill all your gems, go enchant with fortify archery, fortify destruction, drain stamina or turn undead (for the bigest profits from the enchantments I had learned) Sell them back and repeat every 2 game days.

 

Eventually start doing this with fortify smithing gear on and your gear will come out at a little better value to increase profits. Eventually you will be able to buy all your mats and more with the money you made from selling all this junk, just like with alchemy (depending on what skill you started with) I personally think smithing is the easiest to start with, all you need is leather. thats it. you can get to 100 with just leather. And there is a lot of free leather just running right outside Whiterun.

 

he stopped because he has other things to do, obviously. and it's not just a guide to training skills, he's making that a full guide to make a full character with every perks used and beast FIGHTER character. That's why he's not done. :p

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Don't get me wrong, I appreciate him taking the time to write this up, and I'm sure he isn't "one of those guys" that throws up a thin half assed guide where all the info comes from everyone else, but they are the one that started the thread so they get the credit. But I have seen that happen in almost every game that has come out. Just getting a bit old of seeing guides posted not even halfway done is all.

 

Not trying to attack, and I'm sorry if I made it seem that way. You are doing a very good job of explaining how to do this.

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I don't understand the focus in Alchemy to make gold. I skipped alchemy entirely because of the huge investment of time and money it takes to even begin being profitable.

 

Instead, I invested in a soul steal enchantment for my weapon with a grand soul. The enchantment was set to 1 second intervals to boost the charges in the weapon (the weapon wouldn't lose charges with some investments in the enchanting tree, with the soul steal perk, and before then, one of the over abundant petty souls I had would top the thing off after a hundred or so swings). Went around buying empty soul gems, naturally collecting souls as I played, since every hit did soul trap, and enchanting things with the best enchantments when I made it back to town. I was working on smithing to ensure I had things to enchant, in between this. Before I was even level 40 in enchanting, I was clearing out merchant's gold and getting a few ingots/soul gems as a bonus with one dagger of daedric banishing. This not only earned me a ton of money, but made the long process of getting to 100 enchanting a little less annoying.

 

This, of course, is much slower if you're not going out and getting weapons to disenchant. Life steal and daedric banishing weapons make a killing, but good luck buying an item without a few thousand to spare. It just seems like a waste to invest so much time in alchemy when the skills that are needed to be trained to make better weapons grants you tons of money in the process. Hell, of the 350,000 gold "found" in my game, I'd have to say that at least 250,000 of it was from selling enchanted items that I enchanted.

Edited by Auburok
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... there's a lot of guides that are finished and floating around these forums that weren't stickied. Why is an unfinished guide that hasn't been heavily peer-reviewed (or otherwise) already stuck to the top of these forums? :S What is the criteria needed to be met to have a thread stickied? How does one go about getting that done?

 

Just saying - even if this thing ends up being finished and holding good info... shouldn't the sticky occur when all of that is said and done and not before? Considering the info available right now is just about upping your enchant/alchemy/smithing to 100 (which many people have posted about before), it seems very, very off from what the title advertises as the info being about how to acquire the best weapons/armor.

 

 

Edit: I hope this doesn't come off as bitchy. That wasn't my intention. I'd just like some clarification.

Edited by IDiivil
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All,

Sorry I posted this guide one third finished. I had to go my buddy's house for the UFC tonight but wanted to put something up so people that wanted to could get started. I don't take any of the critism personally, but I'd hope no one thinks I'm one of those people that sticks a half finished guide and leaves it for everyone else to finish for me :)

Don't know why he stopped, its not hard to explain the rest.

 

Get leather, make hide bracers, if you have iron make daggers, go to a dungeon and soul trap to fill all your gems, go enchant with fortify archery, fortify destruction, drain stamina or turn undead (for the bigest profits from the enchantments I had learned) Sell them back and repeat every 2 game days.

 

Eventually start doing this with fortify smithing gear on and your gear will come out at a little better value to increase profits. Eventually you will be able to buy all your mats and more with the money you made from selling all this junk, just like with alchemy (depending on what skill you started with) I personally think smithing is the easiest to start with, all you need is leather. thats it. you can get to 100 with just leather. And there is a lot of free leather just running right outside Whiterun.

As I laid out in the guide it's faster and easier to do the mass smithing of daggers than what you mentioned above. Plus buying the filled soul gems from Farnegar is a lot quicker and easier than doing it yourself. The money you lose buying filled soul gems from him is mostly made up for when you sell all the enchanted daggers back to the merchants in Whiterun. Though you do lose a little, it barely scratches the nest egg you built up while boosting alchemy.

 

Do you know if turn undead is worth more than absorb magicka? Due to the phenomenon of deteriorating value I described in the guide I can no longer tell myself. If you let me know I'll adjust the guide accordingly if turn undead is worth more.

 

I don't understand the focus in Alchemy to make gold. I skipped alchemy entirely because of the huge investment of time and money it takes to even begin being profitable.

 

Instead, I invested in a soul steal enchantment for my weapon with a grand soul. The enchantment was set to 1 second intervals to boost the charges in the weapon (the weapon wouldn't lose charges with some investments in the enchanting tree, with the soul steal perk, and before then, one of the over abundant petty souls I had would top the thing off after a hundred or so swings). Went around buying empty soul gems, naturally collecting souls as I played, since every hit did soul trap, and enchanting things with the best enchantments when I made it back to town. I was working on smithing to ensure I had things to enchant, in between this. Before I was even level 40 in enchanting, I was clearing out merchant's gold and getting a few ingots/soul gems as a bonus with one dagger of daedric banishing. This not only earned me a ton of money, but made the long process of getting to 100 enchanting a little less annoying.

 

This, of course, is much slower if you're not going out and getting weapons to disenchant. Life steal and daedric banishing weapons make a killing, but good luck buying an item without a few thousand to spare. It just seems like a waste to invest so much time in alchemy when the skills that are needed to be trained to make better weapons grants you tons of money in the process. Hell, of the 350,000 gold "found" in my game, I'd have to say that at least 250,000 of it was from selling enchanted items that I enchanted.

Now that the guide's pretty much finished I think the focus on alchemy is a little more clear. It's a crucial part of making the absolute best weapons and armor.

 

... there's a lot of guides that are finished and floating around these forums that weren't stickied. Why is an unfinished guide that hasn't been heavily peer-reviewed (or otherwise) already stuck to the top of these forums? :S What is the criteria needed to be met to have a thread stickied? How does one go about getting that done?

 

Just saying - even if this thing ends up being finished and holding good info... shouldn't the sticky occur when all of that is said and done and not before? Considering the info available right now is just about upping your enchant/alchemy/smithing to 100 (which many people have posted about before), it seems very, very off from what the title advertises as the info being about how to acquire the best weapons/armor.

 

 

Edit: I hope this doesn't come off as bitchy. That wasn't my intention. I'd just like some clarification.

I know this comment is coming from a certain place. I've noticed you've put a lot of effort into a few threads without a sticky. Don't worry though, I'm planning on making an encyclopedia thread that will be stuck. Your guides will all be linked in there for everyone's easy reference. We do appreciate your work and it won't be relegated to the depths of this forum ;)

 

Please feel free to post any questions or improvement to this guide. I want it to be easy to follow and painless to follow.

 

EDIT: Just made an interesting boosting set. I made armor that had -100% Magicka Cost for Destruction and Restoration spells. I can now cast any spell from those schools without touching my magicka. With that in mind I bought the healing hands spell, headed to the giants camp just outside of Whiterun and attacked a Mammoth. From there I jumped on a rock where none of the mammoths of giants could get me. Now I'm just casting flames in one hand and healing hands in the other on a stationary mammoth for constant leveling up of restoration and destruction. The triggers are rubberbanded so I don't even have to be in the room. I think this set will make playing as a pure mage quite fun too!

Edited by Method
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All,

 

I know this comment is coming from a certain place. I've noticed you've put a lot of effort into a few threads without a sticky. Don't worry though, I'm planning on making an encyclopedia thread that will be stuck. Your guides will all be linked in there for everyone's easy reference. We do appreciate your work and it won't be relegated to the depths of this forum ;)

 

It isn't so much my work that I want sticky'd... I mean, yeah, that's part of my agenda in voicing my complaint (it'd be kind of ridiculous for me to deny that). I just don't understand what the process is for a thread to be sticky'd. I guess that's a conversation for another place at another time, however. Is it OK if I ask you about it in a private message or whatnot in the future?

 

Anyways, thanks for clarifying the point of alchemy in your guide. I do have some questions regarding it and the build that's offered, however:

 

1. You can acquire smithing/enchant potions through drops or through stores. What is the percentile they are offered there, and is it that big of a difference to rely on your own self-made enchant/smithy/etc potions to make the gear to help boost your made gear?

 

2. While the seven points in alchemy makes sense, would you recommend it for a long run build? It does become hard to level pretty quickly, and that's a lot of points to invest (on top of what you need to put into enchant/smithing) ... overall, I feel like you are going to limit yourself as a combat based character - regardless of strong gear.

 

I mean... we're talking about 7 points in enchanting, 5 points in smithing (for daedric), and 8 points in enchanting (for double enchant items). That's 20 total points - so you can't even really get started on a real combat focused build until after level 20 :S

 

IMO, I thought it'd be best to buy the philter potions of smithing/enchant/etc and skip the points in alchemy altogether...

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1. You can acquire smithing/enchant potions through drops or through stores. What is the percentile they are offered there, and is it that big of a difference to rely on your own self-made enchant/smithy/etc potions to make the gear to help boost your made gear? The potions you can acquire from merchants are nowhere near the strength you can make them (at least from what I've seen). I don't know the exact numbers off the bat but I can find out. Granted, you could use these potions to make your armor better but it wouldn't be at the 3000+ armor rating you can achieve with this method. Plus even if the potions were close you still couldn't create armor and weapons this strong because you need the perk bonuses to do so.

 

2. While the seven points in alchemy makes sense, would you recommend it for a long run build? It does become hard to level pretty quickly, and that's a lot of points to invest (on top of what you need to put into enchant/smithing) ... overall, I feel like you are going to limit yourself as a combat based character - regardless of strong gear. You still have 61 more possible perks to spend. Granted, getting to level 81 is a bit of a stretch to do legit, but even if you get to level 50 that's still 30 perks to invest in combat. Plus I really don't think you can understand how much this armor and weapon set makes up for lack of skills until you try it. Once I had the armor made I was level 40 with 100 in alchemy, enchanting, smithing and one handed. I was only 24 in heavy armor. Playing on Adept difficulty (like I did previously) I went out and attacked some giants and mammoths. Even with my lack of armor perks and skill they barely scratched me. Couple that with my ridiculous sword damage and I made short work of the herd and the big guys. As my heavy armor skill has grown and I've gotten more perks in it, I've switched to Master difficulty and even still I'm breezing through.

 

I mean... we're talking about 7 points in enchanting, 5 points in smithing (for daedric), and 8 points in enchanting (for double enchant items). That's 20 total points - so you can't even really get started on a real combat focused build until after level 20 :S In the end it's all relative right? This guide was made with the intent to show people how to get the absolute best armor and weapons. If spending the time to do that doesn't suit what you want to do then there's no reason to right? I'll still maintain though that my character with these items on is A LOT stronger than any other character that spends more perks into pure combat skills

Feel free to PM me anytime.

 

My answers are above in blue. Thanks for the questions!

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Thanks for the clarification. I'm just trying to compare the early game difficulties/slowness versus the long term benefits of ass-kicking gear. Basically, if it works really well and is that much stronger than anything you can make without alchemy focus (points and skills), I'll follow the guide for myself for my second playthrough, but I just am double checking things for the sake of saving myself time if we do find something that could be fixed, etc. Nothing against you or the guide.

 

Don't think I have anymore questions for now. Thanks for your prompt answers.

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Now that the guide's pretty much finished I think the focus on alchemy is a little more clear. It's a crucial part of making the absolute best weapons and armor.

 

Okay, fair enough. I just don't know if investing that much time in Alchemy is worth the extra 7% to enchanting items, or the extra 2% to +smithing/alchemy gear (net gain of 8%).

 

Enchanter's and Blacksmith's elixirs add +25% and +50% respectively, and are a great deal cheaper and less time consuming than to level alchemy to 100, and taking 7 perks in the tree. I don't know if I would call it crucial. I think it's safe to say it's the way to make"optimal" gear, but, all that money spent on training and all that time mass producing potions for a less than 10% in enchanting and smithing...

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Okay, fair enough. I just don't know if investing that much time in Alchemy is worth the extra 7% to enchanting items, or the extra 2% to +smithing/alchemy gear (net gain of 8%).

 

Enchanter's and Blacksmith's elixirs add +25% and +50% respectively, and are a great deal cheaper and less time consuming than to level alchemy to 100, and taking 7 perks in the tree. I don't know if I would call it crucial. I think it's safe to say it's the way to make"optimal" gear, but, all that money spent on training and all that time mass producing potions for a less than 10% in enchanting and smithing...

The blacksmith potion I make adds +130%. That's a huge increase over the +50% potion you're referring to. Also the net gain is 16% for alchemy and smithing (+4% per item). I won't dispute anything about smithing or enchanting since I think we're on the same page with those two skills and the perk investment. Edited by Method
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The blacksmith potion I make adds +130%. That's a huge increase over the +50% potion you're referring to. Also the net gain is 16% for alchemy and smithing (+4% per item).

 

Ah, I was referring to this part:

 

Once you've made a couple of these potions with your crafting set on you should have a +130% to improving weapons and armor effect on them.

 

I think you only referenced the potion percentage, and excluded the gear, which is why the number seems low.

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I hope this guide was useful to at least one person. If so then I'm happy with the effort I put into this. I'll be as punctual as I can with any questions you may have. I'll also be sure to add any improvements or changes you all think would make the guide better. Thanks for reading!

 

 

 

When you've done all this, what lvl will your character be?

 

Because, I've read that if you lvl up, the enemies insides caves and stuff will be levelling up with you.

 

and I don't want to face a dungeon/mine boss with low lvl one handed/two handed weapon.

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When you've done all this, what lvl will your character be?

 

Because, I've read that if you lvl up, the enemies insides caves and stuff will be levelling up with you.

 

and I don't want to face a dungeon/mine boss with low lvl one handed/two handed weapon.

 

The point is, the stats on this upgraded armour and weapons more than make up for your low skills.

 

Awesome guide Method, nice work :).

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When you've done all this, what lvl will your character be?

 

Because, I've read that if you lvl up, the enemies insides caves and stuff will be levelling up with you.

 

and I don't want to face a dungeon/mine boss with low lvl one handed/two handed weapon.

I didn't quite do things the way I described in the guide (I boosted one handed for a while first) so I can't give you a 100% firm level but I'd say you should end up somewhere in the level 30 region when it's all said and done. Like vulkean said though, this equipment will make the level scaling feel non existent. I had no problems going out and exploring when I finished doing it and I was level 40.
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