Disappoints me, too. At least we know now.


Is it even worth the effort? Similar to your earlier point about DPS and swing speeds, if we're one-shotting most things, the Axe DoT is irrelevant. Theoretically, it would be effective against heavily armored enemies who take a long time to kill, but we've just established such targets don't really exist.

Looks like it's Swords all the way.

From my experience;

Fur/studded bandits never wear helmets, and gloves about 50% of the time.
Iron armor bandits wears helmets 50% of the time.
Chiefs are most often fully armored, though sometimes they don't wear a helm.
Falmers rarely wears more than a shield, if that. Only Shadow Masters (or the highest version of falmer depending on player lvl) seems to wear the falmer helm.
Soldiers (imps/stormcloaks/ hold guards/thalmor) are nearly always fully armored. Some thalmors seems to forget their helmet in the barracks.

So, the Final Armor Rating will vary from NPC to NPC.
Most fur/hide bandits will have as much armor as the iron bandits, and falmer will have 100 to 140.

The only reason it's not really worth it is because the Axe effect is a DoT.

To summarize:
Daggers: Too low base damage; only useful for Sneak Attacks
Axes: DoT damage pales compared to instant Sword Damage
Mace: No armored opponents, so armor pen is worthless

I still think sword wielders are going to cry when they're faced with a 400+ armor boss, but 99% of the time sword is better, so it takes the prize.

The next debate is Sword Sword or Sword Dagger. I've read somewhere that Dual Wield attack speed is based on Off Hand weapon speed. If you're always Power Attacking, Sword Sword is better, but if you end up in fights that require normal weapon swings, Sword Dagger may be better. That said, with the Absorb Stamina enchant, you should never not be Power Attacking, so...

I read that the bleeding damage from Hack & Slash stacks, so it may be worthwhile against high health-enemies or on non-optimized expert/master playthroughs.

Reading through the thread now so will post replies and do any testing needed shortly. Just wanted to post my weapon numbers;

Ancient Knowledge perk doesn't effect weapons, so these are all the same with or without it.

5/5 perks, 4 enchants, you know the drill.

------------ One-Handed -----------

Daedric Dagger = 182
Daedric Mace = 567
Daedric War Axe = 558
Daedric Sword = 550

Ebony Dagger = 179
Ebony Mace = 567 (bugged?)
Ebony War Axe = 558 (bugged?)
Ebony Sword = 541

Glass Dagger = 176
Glass Mace = 550
Glass War Axe = 541
Glass Sword = 532

Elven Dagger = 173
Elven Mace = 541
Elven War Axe = 532
Elven Sword = 524

Nord Hero Dagger = N/A
Nord Hero Mace = N/A
Nord Hero War Axe = 532
Nord Hero Sword = 524

Skyforge Steel Dagger = 24 (Can't be improved, bug?)
Skyforge Steel Mace = N/A
Skyforge Steel War Axe = 532
Skyforge Steel Sword = 524

Dwarven Dagger = 170
Dwarven Mace = 532
Dwarven War Axe = 524
Dwarven Sword = 515

Orcish Dagger = 167
Orcish Mace = 524
Orcish War Axe = 515
Orcish Sword = 506

Steel Dagger = 164
Steel Mace = 515
Steel War Axe = 506
Steel Sword = 498

Iron Dagger = 85
Iron Mace = 289
Iron War Axe = 280
Iron Sword = 271

------------ Bows -----------

Daedric Bow = 593
Ebony Bow = 575
Glass Bow = 558
Elven Bow = 541
Nord Hero Bow = 95 (Can't be improved, bug?)
Skyforge Steel Bow = N/A
Dwarven Bow = 532
Orcish Bow = 515
Hunting Bow = 489 (Steel)
Long Bow = 263 (Iron)

------------ Two-Handed -----------

Daedric Warhammer = 662
Daedric Battelaxe = 645
Daedric Geatsword = 636

Ebony Warhammer = 645
Ebony Battelaxe = 627
Ebony Geatsword = 619

Glass Warhammer = 636
Glass Battelaxe = 619
Glass Geatsword = 610

Elven Warhammer = 627
Elven Battelaxe = 610
Elven Geatsword = 601

Nord Hero Warhammer = N/A
Nord Hero Battelaxe = 610
Nord Hero Geatsword = 601

Skyforge Steel Warhammer = N/A
Skyforge Steel Battelaxe = 610
Skyforge Steel Geatsword = 601

Dwarven Warhammer = 619
Dwarven Battelaxe = 601
Dwarven Geatsword = 593

Orcish Warhammer = 610
Orcish Battelaxe = 593
Orcish Geatsword = 584

Steel Warhammer = 601
Steel Battelaxe = 584
Steel Geatsword = 575

Iron Warhammer = 366
Iron Battelaxe = 349
Iron Geatsword = 340


Edit: Bleeds stack;

Mamoth health with a Daedric Waraxe

931
841
751
661
571
481
391
301
211
121
31

Health with the perk

931
829
727
625
523
421
319
217
115
13

Note: Bleed duration is 6 seconds, hitting multiple times within those 6 seconds leaves the enemy at the same health as hitting once every 6 seconds.

Not sure what you mean: Ancient Knowledge does affect weapons. 593 on a bow is an improvement you can only get with the perk.

On the swords vs Maces discussion:

No offense, but imho it's rather pointless to compare both weapons on one-shot opponents like bandits. Unless they don't die in one hit. Interesting values would be Draugr Overlords and the rest of the rather tough guys, including dragons of course. Basically anything with a health pool significanty enough. Can you get HP values via console?

Damn, why did I get the game for Xbox... I used to play on PC like you. Then I took an arrow in the knee...

Nice list; thank you for this.

Ancient Knowledge may not buff equipped weapon skill, but it still buffs the Improve effects, doesn't it? Were these numbers Improved while under the influence of Ancient Knowledge? (why does that last sentence sound so awesome?)

Confused and sorry for jumping in so late, but how do you get these armor numbers?

5 or 6 perks to hit armor cap with just iron? I don't get it. Is this assuming 100 Alchemy and lots of +Smithing potions? Or lots of +Enchant gear, then craft +Smithing potions, then smith the iron armor? Totally confused here. Simply crafting iron armor with 100 Smithing results in an armor rating of 368 or so (that's with 5/5 Juggernaut and Well Fitted and 100 Heavy Armor) -- no where near the cap. What am I missing?

Just tested it and it seems you're right. I used the ressurect command to wipe out my characters perks and it seemed to remove the effects of Ancient Knowledge, I lost the 25% boost to armor, however it now appears that the smithing enhancement is yet another effect that is permanent on your character. Looks like I'll need to roll another new character to test weapons without the perk. Silly game.

Thanks to a scaling bug, my newly made lvl 5 orc warrior met six death lords and as many wights at the end of first real Companion dungeon quest
Made off with a nice haul of ebony weapons though!

Anyhoo, all draugr seem to have exactly 2 armor. Dunno if they get the hidden armor bonus as well, but if they do, they'll have up to 102 armor.
Ironically, bandits seems to be some of the better armored opponents in the game.

HP values can be seen with the 'getavinfo health' command. Stamina/magicka and most other stats too, except level it seems.


Yes, you need to do this, with all professions maxed and properly perked:
Your process should look something like this:

Purchase and Drink a Fortify Enchantment potion (>=25%)
Fortify Alchemy enchantments 28% x4
Fortify Enchantment potions 32%
Fortify Alchemy enchantments 29% x4
Fortify Smithing enchantments 29% x4
Fortify Smithing potions 130%

Your smithing skill doesn't matter when you first craft your weapons and armor though - only when you improve them.

They weren't comparing damage output against Bandits. They've been checking armor ratings for various mobs to determine whether Bone Breaker and Maces are worth using.

Thus far, it seems that very few enemies in Skyrim have armor ratings high enough to make Maces competitive with Swords for damage output. If you know of any "tough guys" with a true armor ratings of 206 or higher, we'd love to see your data.


Oy. Draugr Death Lords were one of the last possibilities for a heavily armored class of enemies. I guess that really puts this issue to bed.

I wouldn't say it's put to bed; I'm still holding out for something to validate why Maces are in the game at all. But yeah, it appears Swords are the decisive winner.

My calculations show that with everything considered 30.7% resistance is the brak point.

Either way, the conclusion is still the same: use swords.

Tested the armor thing on a Draugr Wight, did 92.9 damage with a Daedric Mace, 95.2 with 3/3 Bone Breaker. It's totally overpowered

You sure broke that poor skeleton's bones... And heart

Odd that it increased your damage by 2.5%. Would mean he had ~27.5 armor rating. Perhaps he was only wearing a helm?

Can you repeat the test with a sword, so we have empirical confirmation of our theorycraft? Also, what os the reported weapon damages in inventory?

Edit: nevermind. Ill be home shortly; I'll run my own tests.

Standing power attack against a Draugr Wight
320
227.11 = (92.89) Mace
224.78 = (95.22) Mace with perk
232.92 = (87.08) Axe
232.92 = (87.08) Axe with perk (Undead don't bleed?)
238.72 = (81.28) Sword
228.56 = (91.44) Sword with crit

Damage shown;
Mace = 48
Axe = 45
Sword = 42

Normal Difficulty

Draugr Wight is wearing a helmet, so he has 2 armor + 20 hidden

These numbers imply that the draugr gets a natural 3.24% damage reduction in all cases except the mace with perk, in which case it's 0.81%. This implies that the mace perk is multiplicative (DR * 0.25) rather than additive (max(0,DR - 0.75)), which a. makes balance sense when you think about it, and b. makes maces even weaker than the previous math (which I believe assumed the mace perk to be additive) indicated.

On the other hand, the sword crit was 112.5% damage, not 150% damage, so that side of the math needs to be edited too. Assuming that was a 3-perk crit, that is. (If it was a 1-perk crit, there exists the possibility that 1/3 is +12.5%, 2/3 is +25%, and 3/3 is +50%.)

Would you guys recommend the Atronach stone over the Lord for someone just looking for magic defense? I see that it's an all or nothing thing but my character is going for the shield elemental resist perk and isn't going to conjure anything so I won't have to worry about that failing.

All the tests were done with 3/3 perks

I'd be curious to see if it's still +12.5% with 1/3 and 2/3 too, then. According to the perk text itself, it's "critical damage", "more critical damage", and "even more critical damage", so the damage boost should allegedly vary with number of perks.

And then of course this makes me furthermore curious about greatsword and archery crit damage with varying numbers of perks...

Random guy with 124 Damage resist. Wearing armor and boots so should also have +60 invisible resist.

441
365.04 = (75.96) Mace
350.01 = (90.99) Mace with perk
369.79 = (71.21) Axe
351.79 = (89.21) Axe with perk
374.54 = (66.46) Sword
369.00 = (72) Sword 1/3 crit
367.62 = (73.38) Sword 2/3 crit
366.23 = (74.77) Sword 3/3 crit

There's something very broken about these numbers. I trust you; it just means our understanding is even weaker than we thought.

I'm bothered by sword damage. Mace with full perks is still outpaced by a sword crit with 2/3... But these number are looking really close, and they shouldn't be on something with no armor.