I only did that quest once, maybe two years ago... I did NOT find the peaceful solution, and I was completely bummed by the whole thing, so I never did it again.

You can solve it peacefully if you take Maurice with you. Well, mostly peacefully, as you still have to hack away the roots.

First time I did the Gildergreen quest, I was attacked by Miraak cultists as soon as I stepped out of the temple after picking up Maurice, he got killed before we even left Whiterun. With my second character I made sure to protect him and went the nonviolent route. I was fine either way.

Thanks everyone for the replies. Got a little sidetracked, but that's perfectly fine for me XD I don't mind sidetracks on topics I create as long as they aren't like miles apart from things XD

Anyways, for Lydia. Right now she has full Orc, Ebony Shield, and Elven Sword.

I am not going to enchant anything on her until I get the Enchant skill 100% filled out so I can make her a God.

Also, to those of you talking about giving her a good bow....I did that and she automatically switched back to her hunters bow. Anyone know why?

I had her using a Falmer Bow for a long time, and somewhere along the line she decided "Nah" and switched back to her Hunters bow. This was after I gave her Falmer Arrows and then Elven Arrows. She never runs out of arrows btw. You can give her just 1 arrow and she will infinitely use it. I tested this and it is true for me.

Anyways, thanks everyone If you guys have anymore suggestions I'd like to hear them. Especially about why she won't use a better bow. O.o I even gave her an Elven and Orc bow and she won't switch from her Hunters Bow. Thanks guys.

Maybe she goes back to the hunter's bow because she prefers speed over damage.

In a way she does, but only if the two bows in particular have the same damage. Otherwise it′s damage over speed. What I did find out however is that followers don′t like certain enchantments on bows. A bow with paralysis is pretty much a guaranteed ignored one. I was never able to get a follower to use such a one. Another one they tend to ignore is damage vs nords and animals. And then theres the bug where they completely ignore other bows altogether, enchanted or not. But that one only happened once to me. Dismissing the follower in particular solved that one for me though.

My current character is towing Lydia around, and is a mage herself, so Lydia can have any weapon she likes.The game prefers swords, providing many more of them, with better enchantments, so we go with the flow. Lydia is now using Dawnbreaker, which will get tempered up once we have the Smithing skill to do so.

My question is: what shield goes best with that?

I would say a http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Dragonborn:Nordic_Shield#Nordic_Shield or why not add the entire Nordic armor equipment while you're at it. I always do that for Lydia and my other followers as soon I have the required Smithing Nordic Armor perk.

Right now, she's in Chitin Heavy, as we just got back from Solstheim, but there's a full set of Nordic sitting on a mannequin waiting to be improved. I didn't come across a boss bandit/reaver yet with a shield, or we'd have one in use already. We just seemed to find two-handed ones every time.

Thought bows were the same speed? O.o I wouldn't think bows have different speeds.

Anyways, all the better bows I've tried are way better in damage and unenchanted. Maybe I'll try dismissing and then get her back.

I've read somewhere (UESP talk page actually) that Lydia does wonders when equipped with two different Destruction staves.

Personally, I'm quite content with her using a one-handed sword and a shield.

Early game I find she likes big hammers quite often and almost as much, battleaxes. Later game she seems to prefer a good sword, ebony or glass. But I try not to force her preference, unless she makes a real bad choice. Other than that, her skill is weighted to one handed, but her two handed skill is also very high, which is why she's good with hammers.

Mostly I give her selections she likes and let her choose, then I smith it up as a gift !

I always just give her a feather duster and a mop. Remain at home, clean my house, and stay the [censored] out of my way.

Can someone confirm, (and preferably point out the source), that a follower picks their equipment based on their unenchanted stats, but including any improvement made by smithing?

I'm having issues now that ebony weapons are dropping, as Lydia will prefer a plain ebony sword to Dawnbreaker, due to the base damage.

I can't confirm, but I guess that Lydia will pick a weapon that's attached to her weapon skill.

Dropping of what? Is it dropping from a mannequin or is it dropping from a http://afkmods.iguanadons.net/index.php?/topic/3669-overhauling-the-weapon-rack-scripts/?

I believe the idea was, "Now that ebony weapons are starting to appear in the loot I gather... "

Yeah, all companions, from what I've seen, especially from Lydia lately, is that she will pick whatever weapon has the HIGHEST base damage.

It was why she kept using Greatswords and greataxes compared to regular swords and such for me. I had to physically take the weapons from her to get her to equip what I wanted because the base damage was higher.

Least, that's my experience. If the base damage is higher (Not taking enchantments into place) then she will equip that. I gave her a greatsword with 20 base damage, and an enchantment on it that did 15 fire damage or something, and she preferred her Honed Ancient Nordic Greatsword (Fine) to that even though the Nordic sword did 23 and the enchanted one would've done more with the enchantment. So yeah, base damage is what they choose over anything. I think anyways. That's what I got from it.

If it's just a question of DPS, doesn't heavily enhanced (maximum enhancement on smithing and double enchanted) dagger do even better than sword?

(Granted dagger doesn't have much range in melee)

What I've seen is that she'll equip improved Chitin boots (14->18), for example, over unimproved Nordic carved (15), and if only base defence were considered, it should be the opposite. Now weapons may be different from armour in that respect, but I don't see why.