Purpose of this thread:
This series of threads are dedicated to exploring mechanic interactions, build optimizations, and novel aspects of the game engine, in an attempt to find their outer limits. By knowing these limits, individual players can make an educated decision on how to play the game, in an effort to play in the way they find the most enjoyable.

Previous Threads:
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1266212-2469-armor-3199-damage-using-smithing-alchemy-enchanting-only-31-perks/, http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1275179-2419-armor-6399-damage-using-smithing-alchemy-enchanting-only-33-perks-329k-backstabs/, http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1279078-2419-armor-6399-damage-using-smithing-alchemy-enchanting-only-33-perks-329k-backstabs-post-3/, http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1289727-2419-armor-6399-damage-using-smithing-alchemy-enchanting-only-33-perks-329k-backstabs-post-4/, http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1300996-armor-cap-ridiculous-damage-enchanting-alchemy-smithing-only-21-perks-thread-5/

Contributors, in no particular order:
Jerich, Domilasa, Whisk3yjack, Nerevar X, DieBySword, Dimeron, gabriel_eliot, Excessive, fragonard, Human Being, wtflag, Barlow

tl;dr summary:

• Any Armor can reach the Armor Cap of 567, which is 80% Physical Damage Reduction
  
• Magic and Elemental Resist stack, and cap at 85%, which is 97.75% Magical Damage Reduction
  
• All weapons can do obscene damage with the proper perks and crafting skills
  
• Destruction spells can do obscene damage with the proper perks and crafting skills
  
• You can use any weapons and any armor, and still have a viable character

Table of Contents:

• Base Character Template, Crafting Gear (see below)
  
• http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1310006-complete-character-design-freedom-damage-resist-caps-and-ridiculous-damage-thread-6/page__view__findpost__p__19701928
  
• http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1310006-complete-character-design-freedom-damage-resist-caps-and-ridiculous-damage-thread-6/page__view__findpost__p__19701951
  
• http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1310006-complete-character-design-freedom-damage-resist-caps-and-ridiculous-damage-thread-6/page__view__findpost__p__19701971
  
• http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1310006-complete-character-design-freedom-damage-resist-caps-and-ridiculous-damage-thread-6/page__view__findpost__p__19701992

Base Character Template, Crafting Gear

The original discussion assumed melee combat, and a desire to maximize Armor Rating, Magic Resistance, and Weapon Damage. As such, Daedric Crafting was assumed, and a either One-handed or Two-Handed was incorporated into the baseline.

The result was the following template:

• Enchanting (8) [100]: 5/5 Enchanter, Insightful, Corpus, Extra Effect
  
• Alchemy (7) [100]: 5/5 Alchemist, Physician, Benefactor
  
• Smithing (5): Up to Daedric
  
• {Weapon Skill} (5): 5/5 Armsman or 5/5 Barbarian
  
• Heavy Armor (1): 1/5 Juggernaut

These perks enabled:

• 29% Fortify Enchanting enchantments
  
• 29% Fortify Smithing enchantments
  
• 32% Fortify Alchemy potions
  
• 130% Fortify Smithing potions

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%

This enables a total of +246% Weapon and Armor Improvement. It may be wise to make multiple of the potions during the process, just in case your spend too much time in the enchanting screen.

When the above crafting equipment and potions are used to craft and enchant your gear, you end up with some astonishing results:

• Full Daedric Armor: 2125 Armor
  
• Daedric Bow: 562 Damage
  
• Daedric Dagger: 171 Damage
  
• Daedric Two Handed Sword: 605 Damage
  
• Daedric One Handed Sword: 518 Damage

These values assume 4x Fortify Weapon Skill enchants, and 4x Fortify Armor Skill enchants.

It was disappointing that the Fortify One-Handed enchant didn't apply to daggers, but the cumulative 30x multiplier from Sneak perks and Dark Brotherhood gear made it apparant why this was the case. These numbers are fairly extreme overkill regardless of game difficulty setting. 1500 Armor Rating was wasted due to the Armor Cap, and Dual Wield Sneak Attacks hit for over 32k after additional buffs from potions and racial abilities! In addition, it was fairly simple to hit the Magic Resistance Cap. Given that Ancient Dragons only have 3.1k HP, their melee attacks could be reduced to as low as 60 damage (lower with shield), and we could now stand in their flamebreath without noticing or caring... it was time to bend our efforts towards enabling player flexibility through optimization.

Crafting Console Commands:

Raising Skills:

• player.advskill (skill) (uses) - Simulates using the skill x times. You can change the skill name and the number to level up naturally (doesn't screw up stats)

Smithing:

• player.additem f 10000 - 10k septims
  
• player.additem 2e4ff 10 - 10 Grand Soulgems (filled with Grand souls)
  
• player.additem 3ad5b 10 - 10 Daedra Hearts
  
• player.additem 5ad9d 10 - 10 Ebony Ingots
  
• player.additem 877c9 1 - Gold Diamond Ring
  
• player.additem 877f1 1 - Gold Diamond Necklace
  
• player.additem db5d2 5 - 5 Leather

Alchemy:

• player.additem 63b5f 10 - 10 Spriggan Sap
  
• player.additem 1b3bd 10 - 10 Snowberies
  
• player.additem 7ee01 10 - 10 Glowing Mushrooms

Armor, Block, and Physical Damage Resistance

Physical Damage Resistance is fairly straight-forward. The higher your Armor Rating, the larger the incoming damage reduction. The graph of percentages is linear; one point increases it by a fixed percentage. The http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Armor shows an exponential graph, but they're plotting relative durability, which is a metric derived from the underlying damage reduction equation. It isn't wrong, but it isn't very useful for making decisions regarding your characters armor.

It turns out, with an Armor Cap as low as 567, there is a TON of flexibility in how you armor your character.

A brief summary:

• Steel Smithing requires the least perks; Wolf Armor is the lightest Steel Armor
  
• Elven Smithing requires an additional perk, but is the absolute lightest basic armor

Domilasa took the time to do http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1289727-2419-armor-6399-damage-using-smithing-alchemy-enchanting-only-33-perks-329k-backstabs-post-4/page__view__findpost__p__19516089 on all the Armor Types to determine the number of perks required to improve armor to the Armor Cap.

Assumed: NO Ancient Knowledge perk! This perk is bugged; check the bugs section for the appropriate chart.
The chart below is read: {Type}: Perk Count / Armor without Shield | Armor Perk Details | Crafting Perk Details

Heavy:

• Deadric: 6 / 570 | 1/5 Juggernaut | Daedric Smithing
  
• Dragonplate: 8 / 702 | 1/5 Juggernaut, 1/1 Well Fitted | Dragon Armor (from Heavy Armor Side)
  
• Dragonplate: 7 / 702 | 1/5 Juggernaut, 1/1 Well Fitted | Dragon Armor (from Light Armor Side)
  
• Ebony: 6 / 685 | 1/5 Juggernaut, 1/1 Well Fitted | Ebony Smithing
  
• Orcish: 5 / 675 | 1/5 Juggernaut, 1/1 Well Fitted | Orcish Smithing
  
• Steel Plate: 5 / 666 | 1/5 Juggernaut, 1/1 Well Fitted | Advanced Armors
  
• Dwarven: 4 / 649 | 1/5 Juggernaut, 1/1 Well Fitted | Dwarven Smithing
  
• Steel: 3 / 639 | 1/5 Juggernaut, 1/1 Well Fitted | Steel Smithing
  
• Iron: 5 / 580 | 4/5 Juggernaut, 1/1 Well Fitted | None

Light:

• Dragonscale: 8 / 660 | 1/5 Agile Defender, 1/1 Custom Fit | Dragon Armor (from Heavy Armor Side)
  
• Dragonscale: 7 / 660 | 1/5 Agile Defender, 1/1 Custom Fit | Dragon Armor (from Light Armor Side)
  
• Glass: 6 / 643 | 1/5 Agile Defender, 1/1 Custom Fit | Glass Armor
  
• Scaled: 5 / 618 | 1/5 Agile Defender, 1/1 Custom Fit | Advanced Armors
  
• Elven: 4 / 607 | 1/5 Agile Defender, 1/1 Custom Fit | Elven Armor
  
• Leather: 5 / 585 | 3/5 Agile Defender, 1/1 Custom Fit, 1/1 Matching Set | None

This shows us that any Armor can reach the Armor Cap. It also pointed out that Steel and Elven require very few Perks to reach this cap. The choice between approaching Dragon Armor from the Light Armor side or the Heavy Armor side is based on your weapon material preferences (see next post for more details). It's possible to save an additional perk or two if you choose to use a shield:

Heavy:

• Deadric: 5 / 590 | None | Daedric Smithing
  
• Dragonplate: 6 / 673 | None | Dragon Armor (from Heavy Armor Side)
  
• Dragonplate: 5 / 717 | None | Dragon Armor (from Light Armor Side)
  
• Ebony: 4 / 567 | None | Ebony Smithing
  
• Orcish: 4 / 647 | 1/5 Juggernaut | Orcish Smithing
  
• Steel Plate: 4 / 630 | 1/5 Juggernaut | Advanced Armors
  
• Dwarven: 3 / 620 | 1/5 Juggernaut | Dwarven Smithing
  
• Steel: 2 / 609 | 1/5 Juggernaut | Steel Smithing
  
• Iron: 4 / 594 | 3/5 Juggernaut, 1/1 Well Fitted | None

Light:

• Dragonscale: 7 / 633 | 1/5 Agile Defender | Dragon Armor (from Heavy Armor Side)
  
• Dragonscale: 6 / 633 | 1/5 Agile Defender | Dragon Armor (from Light Armor Side)
  
• Glass: 5 / 617 | 1/5 Agile Defender| Glass Armor
  
• Scaled: ???
  
• Elven: 3 / 580 | 1/5 Agile Defender | Elven Armor
  
• Leather: ???

Amazingly, you can reach the Armor cap using basic Steel Armor and only 1 Armor Perk! You pay for that frugality in Weight. A full set of Steel armor weighs 64 (generic weight units). However, Wolf Armor, which is just another variant of Steel Armor, only weighs 32.5 (generic weight units). If you're going Heavy Armor, and you're tight on Perks, Wolf is definitely the way to go. For Light Armor, the answer is much simpler: Elven is the cheapest and lightest. It's also worth noting that Ebony Armor with Shield and No Armor Perks provides exactly 567 Armor Rating.

It's interesting to note that all of these numbers were achieved without ANY Fortify Armor enchants. As long as you get the core crafting perks from the Base Template, you can customize and improve your armor and enchantments without worry.

Block:
There is quite a bit of info on Block, but I have yet to consolidate it. ETA TBD.

A couple other odds and ends:

• No known enemy has Armor Ignore abilities, even though the player has access to 75% Armor Ignore.
  
• Lord Stone is a flat 50 Armor Rating added to your final Armor value after all other effects have been calculated.
  
• Heavy Armor Damage Reflection does not decrease damage by 10%; it just reflects incoming damage

Magic: Resistances, Absorption, and Support Gear

Magic Resistance is actually a lot simpler than most people make it out to be.

• Magic Absorption is applied first, and is a hit-or-miss chance to completely negate all the effects of a spell.
  
• Magic Absorption has an 80% Soft Cap; Bretons can get it to 100% once per day.
  
• Magic Resistance is applied next. Incoming damage is reduced by the Magic Resistance percentage.
  
• Magic Resistance caps at 85%.
  
• Elemental Resistance is applied to the remaining damage. Remaining damage is reduced by the Elemental Resistance percentage.
  
• Elemental Resistance caps at 85%.

Magic Absorption applies to all effects, including damage, stamina drain, mana drain, slows, burning, Dragon Shouts, weapon enchants, and poisons. Notably, it also effects Conjurations, which actually makes it possible to fail a summon due to this effect.

There are only a couple sources of Magic Absorption:

• The Atronach Stone: 50% - South of Windhelm
  
• Alteration Tree: 30% - Atronach perk
  
• Breton: 50% - 60 second racial ability

There are a number of sources of Magic Resistance:

• Breton: 25%
  
• Lord's Stone: 25% - Southwest of Dawnstar.
  
• Agent Of Mara: 15% - Quest starts in the Temple of Mara at Riften
  
• Alteration Tree: 30% - Magic Resistance perks
  
• Enchant a Ring, Necklace, or Shield: 23% each
  
• Savior's Hide Armor: 15%
  
• Shield of Solitude: 10-30% (leveled) - Quest reward for http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:The_Wolf_Queen_Awakened
  
• Potion of Resist Magic: 32% each

Likewise, there are an abundant number of sources of Elemental Resistance:

• Dunmer: 50% Resist Fire passive
  
• Nord: 50% Resist Frost passive
  
• Block Tree: 50% - Elemental Protection perk
  
• Otar: 30% to all 3 elements - Dragon Priest mask, Heavy Armor
  
• Enchant a Ring, Necklace, Boots, or Shield: 43% each
  
• Potion of Resist {element}: ???%

If you're willing to spend a few extra perks in enchanting, the Fire Enchanter, Frost Enchanter and Shock Enchanter perks can give you an additional 11% effectiveness when creating Elemental Resistance enchants. Combined with Otar, this would mean you only need one of each to reach the Elemental Resist cap. This also has a side effect of better weapon enchants if you choose to go elemental on them.

Becoming a Better Mage through Support Gear:

It turns out, there's a lot you can do with crafting to benefit a Mage. There are really 3 major mechanics for this:

• Reduce the Mana Cost of a Spell School using an Enchantment
  
• Increase Damage / Duration / Effectiveness of a Spell School using a Potion
  
• Make the enemy more susceptible to your magic with a Poison

The most commonly known mechanic is to use enchanting to reduce the Mana Cost of a Spell School to 0%, thereby making spells from that school free. This enchant can be placed on Headgear, Necklaces, Rings, and Armors (including Robes), and each one can exceed 25% mana cost reduction. There is no benefit to exceeding 100% mana cost reduction (I tried; I was sad I couldn't regen mana by casting spells. :-p). With the Extra Effect perk, you can actually reduce 2 schools to 0% Mana Cost. Not too shabby.

The other two improvements are through Alchemy. In Enchanting, Fortify {Spell School} reduces mana cost. In Alchemy, Fortify {Spell School} improves their relative effects:

• Fortify Alteration: Increases Duration of Spells
  
• Fortify Conjuration: Increases Duration of Spells
  
• Fortify Destruction: Increases Damage of Spells
  
• Fortify Illusion: Increases Level of Spells
  
• Fortify Restoration: Increases Strength of Spells (bugged)

My favorite part of this list is the Fortify Destruction potion. +162% Spell Damage! So an appropriately perked destruction mage can throw around 235 point DualCast Thunderbolts regularly, and boost that to over 615 points for 60 seconds with a potion... all without spending any mana! That sounds pretty effective to me. But it get's better.

Alchemy also provides poisons like Weakness to Magic, Weakness to {Element}, and Weakness to Poison.

• Weakness to Magic: Magic Damage taken after the poison is applied is increased. Max is 100% from Vendor (???), 97% crafted.
  
• Weakness to {Element}: Elemental Damage taken after the poison is applied is increased. Stacks with Weakness to Magic. Max is 97% crafted.
  
• Weakness to Poison: Poison Effects applied after THIS poison is applied are increased. Stacks with any unique poison effect-list. Max is 67% crafted.

While we still need to do more controlled testing, the numbers seem to indicate the ability to two-shot an Ancient Dragon (Roughly a 2.5k Dualcast Thunderbolt). Hit them with an arrow coated in Weakness to Poison / Weakness to Element combo. Hit them with another arrow coated with Weakness to Magic. Drink your Fortify Destruction potion, and call down wrath from the heavens. This is even more exciting if you're a Fire Mage with the Disintegrate Perk.

While it's a bit of a juggling act at first, and it requires quite a bit of preparation... you don't need to use it all. Just carrying around a few Fortify Destruction potions should make your Evoker a lot more fun to play. You can also go the other direction, and make a number of unique Weakness to Poison variants, and they will all stack, so you can create some truly epic damage numbers... if your target lives that long.

As a last aside, Destruction Damage Increase perks, and Fortify Destruction potions, also improve the damage of your Elemental Enchants.

Damage, Weapon Styles, Weapon Enchants
in progress...

Bugs and Exploits, Other

Marksmanship Potion
It appears that the Marksmanship potions increases damage from ALL weapons, not just bows.

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/615803-the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim/61142033
Using this, you can stack multiple piece of enchanted armor, thereby increasing your alchemy or smithing effectiveness.

Restoration Loop
Reminiscent of the Morrowind Alchemy glitch, restoration potions enhance the effectiveness of equipped enchants. Effectively gives you unlimited power. A number of people have used this to roll over from 2147483648 to negative values... which indicates Skyrim uses Signed 32-bit Integers for storing certain values.

Ancient Knowledge bug
Ancient Knowledge is a quest reward Perk you get for finishing the http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Unfathomable_Depths quest. It is supposed to give you a bonus to armor rating when wearing Dwarven Armor, and make it so you learn Smithing 15% faster. Instead, it appears to boost the Improve Smithing effectiveness, and it stacks with all the other crafting synergies we've created thus far. It may also be impacting other skills.

Below is the Armor Value chart when you have the Ancient Knowledge perk bug.
The chart below is read: {Type}: Perk Count / Armor without Shield | Armor Perk Details | Crafting Perk Details

Heavy:

• Deadric: 5 / 589 | None | Daedric Smithing
  
• Dragonplate: 6 / 579 | None | Dragon Armor (from Heavy Armor Side)
  
• Dragonplate: 5 / 579 | None | Dragon Armor (from Light Armor Side)
  
• Ebony: 4 / 570 | None | Ebony Smithing
  
• Orcish: 4 / 670 | 1/5 Juggernaut | Orcish Smithing
  
• Steel Plate: 4 / 664 | 1/5 Juggernaut | Advanced Armors
  
• Dwarven: 3 / 648 | 1/5 Juggernaut | Dwarven Smithing
  
• Steel: 2 / 634 | 1/5 Juggernaut | Steel Smithing
  
• Iron: 4 / 604 | 3/5 Juggernaut, 1/1 Well Fitted | None

Light:

• Dragonscale: 7 / 655 | 1/5 Agile Defender | Dragon Armor (from Heavy Armor Side)
  
• Dragonscale: 6 / 655 | 1/5 Agile Defender | Dragon Armor (from Light Armor Side)
  
• Glass: 5 / 643 | 1/5 Agile Defender | Glass Armor
  
• Scaled: 4 / 619 | 1/5 Agile Defender | Advanced Armors
  
• Elven: 3 / 609 | 1/5 Agile Defender | Elven Armor
  
• Leather: 4 / 606 | 2/5 Agile Defender, 1/1 Custom Fit, 1/1 Matching Set | None

The chart below is read: {Type}: Perk Count / Armor with Shield | Armor Perk Details | Crafting Perk Details

Heavy:

• Deadric: 5 / 731 | None | Daedric Smithing
  
• Dragonplate: 6 / 717 | None | Dragon Armor (from Heavy Armor Side)
  
• Dragonplate: 5 / 717 | None | Dragon Armor (from Light Armor Side)
  
• Ebony: 4 / 705 | None | Ebony Smithing
  
• Orcish: 3 / 691 | None | Orcish Smithing
  
• Steel Plate: 3 / 686 | None | Advanced Armors
  
• Dwarven: 2 / 665 | None | Dwarven Smithing
  
• Steel: 1 / 651 | None | Steel Smithing
  
• Iron: 3 / 621 | 2/5 Juggernaut, 1/1 Well Fitted | None

Light:

• Dragonscale: 6 / 676 | None | Dragon Armor (from Heavy Armor Side)
  
• Dragonscale: 5 / 676 | None | Dragon Armor (from Light Armor Side)
  
• Glass: 4 / 663 | None | Glass Armor
  
• Scaled: ???
  
• Elven: 2 / 625 | None | Elven Armor
  
• Leather: ???

Please change the last line to 10 glowing mushrooms. It's bugged me every thread.

Edit: I love you <3

Cheshyr for president, err... High King! Your work is much appreciated.

Just got to the point where I can start to play around with this on a character. The info and presentation is premium!

11/10

dropped in to read a little on duel wielding, and i see weapon styles is still in progress. i was actually curious which of the 3 one handed specialized weapon perks is the best? or is it just situational? is armor the same for all hostile npc's.

Listing the Sources of Magic Resists it seems you forgot about the Shield of Solitude. That enchants adds more then 23% Resist. But that you can actually disenchant it, is prolly Bug.

Why are you giving the code for cave bear pelts and not directly for leather btw?
Leather: db5d2
Saves time

Also, how is this impacted by the fortify smithing/enchant bug reported here?
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1306209-fortify-enchanting-potions-make-lessworse-weapon-enchantments/

One little addition: You list the Elemental Resistances @43% but it might be worth noting that you will get 54% with the respective Enchanting Perks. Since Otar gives +30% Elemental this might be useful for melee Characters since they can (almost) cap Elemental Resistances by wearing Otar and enchanting fire, frost and shock.

Would be nice if you added a part for better destruction/magic combat and add to it the 0 mana cost enchants, poison stacking, destruction damage pots. Adding info about destro 50% more dmg perks and destro dmg pots afecting weapons enchants dmg would be nice too.

I've been reading about "the ancient knowledge" bug a lot - but I still don't get how it works and where I can get the perk. Can someone enlighten me?

In my opinion, the Mace perk is the best, since it creates consistency in your damage. Other people like the Sword perk, since swords are much faster than maces, and the extra speed and crit damage makes up for the lack of armor pen. I don't think we have a definitive 'best' yet. Armor is not the same, but it is related to the Armor they're wearing. We don't have numbers on monster and dragon armor ratings yet.

We'll have to look into that. Thanks!

It was a remnant from Jerich's first post in his first thread. It's a good suggestion; I'll update it to Leather. As for the potion bug... I don't know. Thanks for pointing it out. We'll dig into it. it sounds like a normalization bug to me, not a stealth nerf.

These numbers seem to skew a lot. I remembered 47%, then someone said it was 43% and I tested it and... it was 43%. Now I'm hearing 54%. I think we need to do some controlled tests against, and include our active perks and such, so we can nail this down. Otar is in the Elemental Resist list.

That was where I stopped last night. It will definitely get in there.

Ancient Knowledge is a quest reward Perk you get for finishing the http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Unfathomable_Depths quest. It is supposed to give you a bonus to armor rating when wearing Dwarven Armor, and make it so you learn Smithing 15% faster. Instead, it appears to boost the Improve Smithing effectiveness, and it stacks with all the other crafting synergies we've created thus far. It may also be impacting other skills. I will update the Bugs and Exploits post with these details.

Sorry guys; worked called me in yesterday regardless of taking the day off, so I didn't get as much done as planned. I'm finishing this up today, although these pages are now a living document that we will update as we find new info. Thanks for the proofread, suggestions, and the hard work.

Breton's dragon skin racial ability is just 50% magic absorption.

Atronach stone + dragonskin racial ability makes you 100% immune to dragon breath and spells casted by dragon priest. And make all your summons (except the necromancy ones) fail 100% of the time.

Thanks. I'll update the list. Does it actually make you 100% Immune? Have we verified this? I thought there was an 80% cap on Absorption.

I'm 99% sure it is 100% immunity for that 60 seconds while dragonskin is active. There is no hard cap. My summon spells fails 100% of the time, dragon priest did zero damage to me.

However, 80% is the soft cap. Unless you are Breton, 80% is the max one can achieve since there are only three source of spell absorption. Breton Once per day racial, the stone, and the perk.

This needs to be tested! Where's Domilasa!?

Most players seem to assume that the armor penetration perk for Maces is only useful against heavily armored humanoids, but I suspect otherwise. For instance, a fully clothed player has a "hidden" armor rating of 100, even if he's in full cloth with 0 armor rating. I also wouldn't be surprised if beasts have different natural armor values; such as thick-skinned Bears being more resistant to physical damage than a Wolf, for instance. Just because an enemy isn't wearing "armor" doesn't mean they have an armor rating of 0.

Do enemy Mages cast things like Ebonyskin?

Anyway, my back-of-the-napkin math indicates that Bone Breaker is superior to Bladesman against enemies with an Armor Rating of 145 or greater. I agree with Cheshyr that it's likely the best choice of the three, but we won't know for sure until we establish what kind of Armor Rating most enemies in Skyrim have.

43 is the base value with perks and potion and Fire Enchanter, Frost Enchanter and Shock Enchanter will give you +25% => 53.75 = 54%. I mentioned Otar since fortifiy one-handed is no head enchant so this would add up to 84%. This might help a little for melee players who'd like to max out Magic Resistance and Elemental Resistances. Even w/o a shield you could almost cap magic and elemental and still have the maximum damage enchants. If you can live with 30% to shock you could even max out Magic, Fire and Frost with an Orc...

That's a very good point re: hidden armor. I'd be interested in where the 145 came from. The difficult part of determing 'Best' is deciding on a measurement metric. Are we talking about max dps? If so, swing speed also comes into play, as well as likelihood to trigger a finisher.

That's... a good point as well. It hadn't occurred to me to use those perks to influence Elemental Resist enchants. Since Otar is enchanted, would these perks apply retroactively, or only at time of creation? Either way, I'll edit this into the post.

Here some information, since I just finished the quest.

- It increased my armor value in Daedric from 530 to 633. This is a 19.4% increase. But my Armor Skill in Heavy Armor is only 76 so this might be the reason for not adding 25%.
- It does indeed affect Smithing: My Deadric Bow had 562 Damage w/o the Perk but 593 with the Perk
- It does not affect Alchemy. Smithing and Enchanting Potions were still at 130% and 32%.

Max DPS is a fair measure of "best", don't you think?

Here's my math. Bladesman gives you a 30% chance to deal 150% damage, which evens out to a 15% increase in DPS over time. So, we need to calculate the armor value at which Bone Breaker grants a 15% damage increase for comparison.

A displayed armor rating of 108 grants 15% physical mitigation. Bone Breaker ignores 75% of an enemy's armor rating/ mitigation, so 75% of X= 108 should give us the inflection point where Bone Breaker becomes more effective than Bladesman. X= 144; thus Bone Breaker is more effective against armor ratings of 145 or higher.

The question then is how many enemies in Skyrim have at least 20% physical mitigation/ 145 "displayed" armor rating/ 245 "hidden" armor rating?

I have no idea how to factor swing speed into the calculation. If One-Handed power attacks all have the same swing speed, then that should decrease the disadvantage of using maces considerably; if swords and axes have faster power attacks as well as faster normal swing speeds, then that's probably a compelling argument against maces.

It increased your Daedric Armor value without you Improving your Daedric Armor? This is just an increase before and after the perk?
I assume for the Bow numbers, you Improved the Bow before the perk, then again after the Perk, without a significant change in Smithing Skill level?
Glad that it only affects Smithing and Armor Rating. It sounds like buggy implementation then, not a complete cluster-f.


Max DPS is a most fair assessment, and I could find no flaws in your math. It sounds like 145 Armor Rating is a solid starting place.

Do enemies have Armor Skill? If so, this could get very complicated (or very simple) pretty quick. I think it's pretty hard to be a Heavy Armor wearer with 50+ Heavy Armor skill, and somehow stay below 145 Armor Rating.

Weapon Type Power Attack speed variations... hadn't even considered that. Time for more testing.

The interesting question would be how much Effective Health (sorry for the MMO lingo) opponents have on Master. Especially Opponents like Draugr Overlords, Master Necromancers etc. I am fairly sure I could not one-shot the overlords as an archer dealing ~1700 damage (though I assume this is divided by 2 on master). So I am fairly sure you won't one-shot them with swords either unless hitting critical. Maces on the other hand MIGHT do the trick.