On this play through I'm a level 46 warrior, around level 30 I noticed almost no one stood a chance against me. i could clear out dungeons without losing almost Any health the entire time, even dragons were easy so I raised the difficulty to expert and for the past 15 levels (50 hours or so)I've been on expert, but I'm at that point again where i destroy just about everything in my path, but I don't want to raise the difficulty because elder and ancient dragons [censored] me, so what should I do?

Don't smith past flawless.

EDIT: Or just higher it to master, but lower it to expert/adept when fighting Ancient Dragons?

Raise difficulty and use magic resist to protect you from Master vampires and dragons.

Smithing past flawless only adds about 10 damage which isn't that much of a difference and then I thought about lowering the difficulty for dragons but that feels cheap, but I think it's my only option

Why does it feel cheap? Who's watching you? Betheda made it so you can adjust the game to what you feel appropriate. That's why you can change the "difficulty" at will.

Well I mean it feels like it should be all or nothing with the difficulty, I've put it to adept before for an ancient dragon and I didn't feel like I deserved the kill

Get more magic resistance, then raise it to master.

Then get more magic resistance, and don't melee engage them without a shield to block. Having at least 40ish magic resistance should keep you from getting out-right burned/frozen in one breath.

Change the difficulty setting to Legendary, visit Forelhost and then tell us how it went.

Same issue as TS playing on expert before I made a change. What I did is I left my bracers and boots un smithed. Everything else like helmets stays smithed. Game is a lot more enjoyable now. My armor rating was just too high for a good fun challenge in combat. Just nerf one or two armor pieces back to its default armor rating so that its not improved with smithing.

Lol, keep it on master and learn from your failed encounters with dragons. Magic resist, frost/fire resist should become your best friends.

You'll adjust and before you know it you'll be playing on legendary

Get up to Level 50. After that, you will frequently encounter ridiculously strong enemies like Falmer Shadowmasters, Draugr Deathlords, and Bandit Marauders.

And don't even get me started on the vampires. . .

Best thing to do is get your ass kicked a bunch of times on the harder difficulty and try to help develop more strategy

He won't return from Forelhost on Legendary to tell the tale.

When you see a dragon...... RUN!

just play the damn game in Legendary!

True

Develpoing stratagy makes the game more fun anyway.

It sounds like it's too late for this play-through, but next time, you can try limiting your access to enchanted weapons/armor to loot. Don't buy anything from the vendors. Also, don't enchant, don't invest in either armor skill tree and ditch your shield (if you have one).

Nah, no need to go that far. Simply using some self control when crafting or improving should be enough, even on legendary. I still use 5 pieces of crafting gear ( gauntlets, smiths clothes, necklace, ring and circlet ) enchanted with fortify smith and alchemy at 25%. Craft a couple fortify smith potions and away you go. All improved legit. Keep the game on master or legendary and your good, just enough punishment that you think things through yet not hard enough that you get frustrated fast.

This is my limit when playing, simply use everything as intended in-game.

The main issue is not smithing but the +damage enchants. That is unless you max out all the crafting skills but in this case he probably have 4*48% damage enchant.

I never use the +damage enchants, tis too easy to make you a " god " when using them IMO. I simply rely on smithing and improving, I also set a limit for myself when improving. I never exceed 200 damage on my weapons, if I do by mistake then I start over and craft a new weapon, same for my armors I never go over 450 armor rating. Set a couple limits to how good you can improve things, don't over do it but don't slack off to the point where your frustrated with the battles. A little self control

Get rid of all your gear and weapons. This will remove any enchantments you have on them and any smithing you've done to them.

Then, make or buy new gear and weapons and leave them alone. Don't do a thing to them.

Now, go play. You'll see this game can do some leveling with decency, even with Adept.

The problem is Skyrim uses a childishly simplistic armor system of having your armor reduce damage by a fixed percent, capping out at 80% damage reduction.

This creates balance issues because by end-game, they have to accomidate for both truly powerful characters and modestly mediocre ones. To do so, they either have to choose letting everything hit like a truck, thus leading the mediocre characters to get oneshot, or they have to make it possible to compete end-game with clothing or only one 20% cooler perk in your armor of choice or what-have-you, which means that powerful characters will be overprepared and find everything to be a cakewalk.

The base formula is flawed in this sense, because balancing combat out in a way that allows for both fully armored and unarmored characters becomes downright impossible without shattering the fun factor for one or the other.

So yeah, once you hit 80% damage and magic resistance, NOTHING will kill you, no matter how high you set your difficulty.

It is the players choice to get 80% damage and magic resistance, It doesnt happen automatically. It can be easily avoided.