Stumbled across some info about item quality: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Smithing and i noticed you don't even need the perks to create high quality weapons. When your smithing skill is around 100 you can make flawless weapons of any kind according the wiki. You only need to find weapons in the game, you can't create them without perks. My plan was to unlock some perks in it to create some good bows but after seeing this info i'm (again) in doubt. What are the chances to find original weapons ( not enchanted) in the game? very high i quess. For example, just found an elven bow, i upgraded it to superior without any perks.
Am i missing something here?

Um, lol. You can only craft weapons of a specific type if you have the perk.
You can IMPROVE weapons based on skill. That's not the same as crafting.
Not to mention it's absurdly hard to find Daedric items. This is not like OB - every bandit isn't decked in Daedric. And dragon armor can ONLY be crafted by you.

So you can create better Weapons and Armour instead of just being able to improve those you find.

Like double base damage of weaponry... nothing too dramatical (super sarcasm, smithing is essential for any melee character ESSEEEENTIAAAAAL)

If you notice the chart below, the highest you can upgrade without perks is flawless. To get higher you need the perks or some boss +skill items/enchants/potions.

No you can't create new weapons, but you can improve any weapon (dwarven, elven steel etc) to flawless and beyond with a high smithing perk and without any perks.

You guys are missing the point in his poorly worded post.

I think he realizes he can't create those weapons. What he's asking is if there is any point to obtaining perks for those types of advanced weapons/armor, when all you "technically" have to do is go find them in dungeons. Then you can improve them without bothering with the perks.

I have to say, I'm kinda wondering this as well. I would "like" to create my own armor and weapons, but as an explorer, I wonder if I'll just end up finding a never ending supply of the stuff from bad guys and chests. It's good that you can only craft dragon armor, but that doesn't totally justify spending all the points to get to it.

They should've made it so you needed the perk to improve the relevant piece of armor/weapon.

You need perks to improve beyond a set level. Skill alone is not enough.

No, you can go beyond 100 with smithing. It only takes a while. if i'm correct the only benefits of the perks are that you can create good stuff with a lower smithing skill and create them from raw materials. Pushing your smithing skill to 200 will grand you with the ability to upgrade any weapon you like to legendary. But again, you only need the luck to buy or find them.

The only way you can upgrade those world drops to the level a smith can is if you have fortify smithing items/potions/enchants that give you 100 points of smithing. To achieve legendary quality upgrade you have to have 100 smithing with the relevant perk OR 200 smithing without the relevant perk.

Because if you want unique armor for your and your follower, you'll need to have the smithing perk for Dragon Armor unlocked, and to do that you have to unlock the perks in the perk tree before it. I personally have every perk in smithing unlocked, and now I'm working on enchanting. In Oblivion, when I finished most of the game, I focused on getting powerful armor and weapons and enchanting it all for different playstyles, so I still had stuff to do when it was all said and done.

Just wait for a mod that adds npcs you can give the materials to and spits out an item.

Also: Dragon Armour. I'm pretty sure you can only make it, and if you're struggling with survival it's totally worth making (I'm struggling with survival because I'm mixing heavy and light armour, for example, as well as using the heavy armour perk of doing more unarmed damage with gauntlets. Punching dragons to death is fun, though I would have preferred a proper unarmed skill.)

The best equipment on the game is made by the player with Smithing and Enchanting.

A mod that completely destroys an aspect of the game...joy

@ kazlowe, thanks for clarify my post. english is not my native language.

@ sweet tooth: you invested in the perks to get the dragon armor, ok i can imagine. But i'm not that interested in armor. More in one handed weapons and bows.

I've found Dragon armor laying around in dungeons, so no you don't need smithing for it. It's all just random, for example the only deadric items I've ever found where a few daggers here and there and I've got 80 hours put in.

What really ticks me off is I wasted a point in smithing to make dragon armor thinking hell yeah this stuff is going to be amazing. Just to find out the deadric I could already make was better...

Uh, is it just me or do people have a serious problem with reading comprehension?



If you don't have the perk for Dwarven armor, then when you upgrade it, it upgrades by, say, 20. When you have the perk, your upgrades to Dwarven armor are 40.

This is irrespective of the "label" of upgrade (e.g.: Flawless), which is based on your Smithing skill.


This hits you full-force when you're sitting on 100 Smithing skill, and you have a set of Shrouded Armor and Glass Armor in your inventory. There is no perk for "LEATHER SMITHING", so your awesometastic super backstab Shrouded Armor can only be upgraded by HALF of the Smithing upgrade to your Glass Armor.

I find this sentiment rather amusing given Smithing's current state of ridiculousness.

yes, i guess you can find all armor in the game then with a bit of luck. That will stress my question even more i think. What are the real benefits of investing in the perks besides a shortcut in time?

as far as i've been able to work out so far the only real advantage of the smithing perks are:

- if you find a nice enchanted weapon/armour and you want to upgrade it (if you're enchanting it yourself just make sure you upgrade before enchanting, that way you don't need the arcane smithing perk)
- and to craft dragon-based items. (which requires investing a fair number of perk points on previous skills to unlock it)

however, self crafted items don't seem to have anything over found/bought items, and upgrading only adds 1 point of damage to a weapon.

overall, smithing seems to be superfluous in how it's implemented, and probably is best to be wholly ignored (just like the whole cooking/preparing of food is similarly a fairly pointless endeavour considering the bonuses food gives when compared to potions, and considering how almost every recipe requires the same ingredient: salt piles)


if the smithing skills had passive bonuses such as a 10% bonus when using items related to the perk (e.g. 10% armour bonus for glass armour when using the glass armour perk), or even better getting a lower durabilty decrease rate on items you've unlocked perks for (if durability hadn't been axed from the game that is. personally i feel that was a bad move, at most all it needed was to be reduced in how quickly it decreased), then i think it'd be more useful overall.


whilst on the topic of items, i'd like to mention that i feel that the whole "increased damage for increased weight" system seems a little odd.
in the past games a steel sword's advantage over an iron one was more to do with it being lighter than having a greater damage potential...
the way things are now, it's just a lil too... i dunno... "gamey"?

wait a minute you are right!

quote from wiki: Values higher than 100 can be attained using "Fortify Smithing" equipment thus allowing any item to be made Epic or Legendary. With the appropriate perk, values continue to increase at the rate of about +0.2 per skill point for Armor, and +0.1 for other items.

ok here we go. there's the benefit. You can't go beyond 100 unless you fortify. With no fortify i can't create legendary weapons. Only with the perk values increase. Great! Think that will answer my question. Still interested in opinions of others here.

Weapons and armor have no maximum upgrade, once you reach 'Legendary' and gain 20 more bonus to fortify Smithing, it'll be improveable again to Legendary (+10% base dmg/arm).
Using the console, I can verify that the cmd 'player.modav smithing 9999999' works fine, and lets you get an iron dagger that deals hundreds of thousands of damage no problem.

To people saying you can't find Dragon Armor and it's only craftable, that is incorrect you can find them.

Seriously stop spreading misinformation that it's only craftable around.

That's insane, but with +0.2 per skill point for Armor, and +0.1 for other items it will take you ages