Yes, right side is better. There's no arguing it. But is it worth the extra perk spent?

Both sides provide Light and Heavy armor. Right side provides all Heavy and ends with Light, while left side provides all Light and ends up with a Heavy. Dragonplate Armor is weaker than Daedric Armor, but it's irrelevant as you can reach maximum protection even with Steel Plate armor, so obviously Dragonplate will be enough as well. So there's no real advantage going right side, armor-wise.

It's weapons that make the difference. Without Dragon weapons, the best weapon class available to left side is Glass. It is worse than Daedric. But how much worse?

Here are some of the damage values. First is glass, second is Daedric.

Dagger - 9/11
Axe - 13/15
Mace - 14/16

So the difference, as you see, is pretty small - 19% damage in case of the dagger, 13% in case of the Mace. With higher numbers(2H versions) the percentage will decrease further.

But these are unupgraded versions. What if they're all Legendary?

Dagger - 19/21
Axe - 23/25
Mace - 24/26

Since upgrading applies a flat, linear bonus no matter the weapon's initial damage or type, this drastically decreases the damage difference between weapons. The Dagger differs now by only 10%, and Mace by less than 8%.

So going left side instead of right you save yourself one perk point, still have maximum possible armor damage reduction, have a weapon that's way easier to upgrade(no Daedra hearts), at the cost of less than 10% damage difference.

Thanks for the thoughtfull anolysis.

Go right side, left is useless. Nuff said :disguise:

Left side is not all light. It includes a fairly decent heavy armor in Steel Plate.

I dont get why they put in studded/imperial steel in the left one, studded is worse than elven, yet requires 10 more smithing lvls... Waste of perk

A 10% chance of no damage is better than a 10% chance of reflecting melee damage. So, clearly, the right side is not guaranteed to be better in every conceivable circumstance. I must have missed the thread where we all decided that heavy armor is superior to light armor.

I meant the right side is better because it provides both best armor and best weapons. I agree that Light is better.

Neither. Bs is going for easymode even in master.

I think you're confusing Studded Imperial with Scaled. Scaled is definitely better than Elven.

But going through the right side you don't need to spend an additional perk if you stop by Ebony. As you said, you don't need Dragon armor to reach armor cap, and even Ebony weapons are stronger than Glass, so in the end you'll have spent the same perks and still have better weapons.

The advantage of going right side vs. left side isn't really significant for most people. Only if you obsess over getting even stronger when you can already beat every enemy in the game is it a good choice to go right side when you use light armour. Left side of the smithing tree is all right.