I went smithing to get really good gear early on, but I didn't have enough gold to do it until I was around level 15... I leveled my smithing completely, all I use from it is my Daedric Bow and enhancing my Nightingale armor... but I would rather have my nightingale armor than the dragonscale for multiple reasons... reason 1: It looks cooler... dragon armor looks lame .... to be honest... reason 2: It's enchanted with all the stuff I want (other than the headpice which I use Krosis instead anyway)... and reason 3: I don't have to waste time getting enchants for the dragon armor...

If I were a hack and slash warrior, smithing would have been great considering how amazing the daedric armor is, both look and actual armor rating, but I'm a light armor sneak crazy guy... I spent a crapload of my perks on smithing considering that you can't even make anything other than imperial/leather armor if you don't... and now that I'm level 31 and it's actually starting to become hard to increase my level, I want my perks back to put in other things...

To be honest... I'm just ragging about how you have to use perk points in order to make a better item in smithing... personally I would have liked actual smithing perks... like "Forgemaster: 50% Armor Increase if wearing all forged armor." or "Heavy/Light Blacksmith: Forged Heavy/Light Armor is automatically upgraded." rather than "Steel Smithing: Smith steel" "Daedric Smithing: Smith Daedric"...

If your not a warrior... don't put too much into smithing... I learned this the hard way...

what do you need to upgrade uniques? what are they considered in game? or is it just the Arcane smith perk, or whatever its called, that lets you upgrade uniques?

So... You used an exploit and now you're complaining that it ruined your game? Your point is?

depends on the type of unique... Shrouded/Thieve's Guild armor were both leather and needed the Arcane Smithing perk... but Nightingale needed Void Salts... which I found quite weird... and Korosis needed an Iron Ingot...

weirdest upgrade was Blade of Woe... didn't need anything... just went to grindstone and upgraded it...

I regret stealing stuffs from houses and stores, now I went to stores and stares at the blank, sterile store ... Damn this light finger of mine!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=squcpm4awEM

So the uniques dont need a perk designated to a certain type of armor? Cool.

So there's no real reason for somebody who only wanted to upgrade uniques, to take anything but arcane smithing?

look on the bright side u can make weapons if u ever wanna train your blades and such and if you get the materials and do some enchanting the amour and wepons willsell for a fair bit more with selling say a dedric greatsword enchanted with fire then a normal one. so u can use it for a money making basis =)

Several posts went away. Please do not derail threads if you have an issue that is unrelated to the topic at hand. Just use the report button and move on. Thanks.

On topic: You had free reign to develop your perks however you wanted, so it seems unfair to be annoyed by the consequences of that. I'd rather have choices and the freedom of making mistakes and working around them.