Are silver weapons still pretty useless. UESP states that they have an extra undead damage quality but doesnt state if the weapon themselves are useful/effective considering they cant be smithed?

*basically, i want to know if I should be discarding these hunks of junks or keeping them for a later time

Despite being top tier in terms of looks, its an early game sword that you will move on from as soon as orcish and elven show up.

The silver weapons have the same stats as the steel sword and greatsword, plus they do an extra 20 damage to undead and lycanthropes. While they're some of the best looking in the game, you'll probably be better off getting rid of them.

Keep them. Make fortify 1H and 2H enchantments and then they become sixy weapons.

They are absolutely deadly against undead. ( did I just write that...)

There was a detailed testing on them and IIRC, it confirmed that while they are not able to be improved, that extra damage becomes quite significant.

I will try to find it...

They're decent at low levels, but they can be quite useful if you enchant them.

Here is the http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1451487-how-do-silver-weapons-work/, thread.

And here is the test done by this very distinguished gentleman...

They are light, I usually pick every silver sword and greatsword up to sell(I lik to do the Companions questline early when that few hundred gold is not as easy to come by as it would be later.) Pretty killer against undead at low levels, especially if you put a fire enchantment on them. It's a shame they can't be sharpened.

I wonder what happened to that guy...

Those are interesting numbers though. Might actually use the Silver Sword more often.

The only undead that weakened against fire are Vampires. Skeletons and Draugr aren't affected any differently than any other NPC.

Me too...

It does seem to have been a while.

This is especially attractive for a character that does not undergo Smithing. A skilled and perked Smith can surpass those figures with normal weaponry.

I quite like the silver weapons, but it seems to me that they do kind of reach redundancy before long if you follow the smithing route - as I do.

I'm kind of surprised they didn't do more with silver weapons in Skyrim.

One of the key features of Bloodmoon in my mind was how the Skaal had all of those 'Nordic Silver' weapons (axes, swords, claymores, battleaxes, etc.) - particularly due to the lycanthrope threat.

Then we got stuck with only 2 types of silver weapons that could not be upgraded - and the only group of 'werewolf hunters' are considered to be evil lowlifes.

Anyways, they're still cool weapons, I just wish more was done with 'silver weapons' in general.

Silver weapons for me were useless because I find the amount of damage I already do to un-dead (Like Draug, or what-ever) was enough to kill them so why carry an extra item when you dont need it.

The only Good thing was that I could sell them for a reasonable amount of gold to any blacksmith.

I hope that someone will find this useful, but if not at least I answered the question.

^Hey man, Your input is welcome.

ALSO, Welcome to the forums!

No kidding...

This one's an interesting build focused on using Enchanting with silver weapons.

http://theskyrimblog.ning.com/group/character-building/forum/topics/character-build-the-sorcerer

That +20 damage to undead isn't lost when enchantments are added.

Also I read somewhere that sneak attacks also multiply the +20, (making sneak damage output huge vs undead)

Now that's a build that will make me play skyrim again, however the question remains, are silver swords viable at high levels?

Do you think its viable to play on master or legendary without smithing at all? I've been thinking about doing this

For us PC users, the unofficial patch allows you to improve silver weapons. My ranger is rocking a silver sword since nearly the beginning. His Epic Silver Sword is doing just shy of 50 damage (70 against undead) with no enchantments.

Which undead enchantment does more damage to vampires; dawnguard axe or silver swords?

i know the DG weapons can be smithed, just wondering about the enchantment only

I have made a character that used Wuuthrad and 515% Fortify 1H, 2H and Archery enchantments. No smithing used.

Master/Legendary with No crafting= HELL NO!

i plan to use other crafting such as enchanting, alchemy etc, but no smithing at all, on master/legendary.

is it viable? no exploits or cheats

515%？

Everything is "useless" in this game. Is how you choose to use anything is all that really matters. My last character, I found it fitting to use a silver sword and kept that silver sword from level 16 that I found it and still have it and use it at level 56. It does 44 damage with 20 life drain and 44(I think) chaos damage. It has about 30 charges. I just choose to use things because of how they look and if it fits the character. And the Silver sword looks good.