How does Bethesda expect people to raise Smith/Enchant legitimately?

[RatcatcherOfKvatch]

Anska has a pretty good bead on the right way to skirt the non-combat-skills-leveling problem. Something else to consider is this: speech = crafting. Selling = speech. Don't sell anything until you're ready to start crafting. Squirrel everything away: steel items for smithing, alto wine for selling, enchanted items for deconstructing, everything gets cached.

 

The key to leveling up Smithing and Enchanting is all or nothing. Don't touch a forge until you're ready to rank up to Glass or Ebony. Don't touch an Enchanting station until you have a huge stockpile of Petty gems and either Azura's or a decent stockpile of Grands.

 

Alchemy is a little different; think of it as getting addicted to performance-enhancing drugs. Your level goes up in exchange for access to some incredibly poweful effects, I mean Fortify Destruction + Dual-Cast Flame Cloak clears entire floors (just stand next to the adjoining walls and listen for the screams from the next room), but if you run out of potions you don't have the skills for your level you would have had you never lit a burner.

 

If it weren't for "Nobody Escapes Cidhna Mine" I wouldn't say there's a bad time to start doing Alchemy, but if you want to take on the King in Rags then Just Say No to Drugs until Level 10. After you show those Forsworn fools what a conjurer-in-rags can do you can start your drug habit. (If you side with the Forsworn just do whatever you want. I wanted to test myself, under Permadeath rules so only one chance, so I had to choose to side with Thonar. Both sides are yuck.)

 

But Alchemy, besides being something you can level with gradually, is also a crafting skill. The reason is Alchemy improves Smithing two ways, first directly with a potion and second by providing a modest boost to the enchanting of Fortify Smithing apparel. The reason to use Fortify Smithing instead of just grinding daggers is that the better the quality of things you build the faster your skill increases. The same pile of metal bars will improve your skills wildly better if you've got 5 Fortify Smithing effects stacked (shirt, gloves, necklace, ring, potion).

 

Piling on the Fortify Smithing gets you to the armor cap sooner as well. The whole point of all that grinding is to hit the cap. If you hit the cap before you hit the bleeding edge of skill improvements it beats trying to bang out those last 10 points from 90-100. If you can hit the armor cap with glass you're done: no more grinding.

If you were wondering why people talk so much about "only looting the steel items" and "stocking up on steel bars" when iron is more plentiful it's the perk bonus. If you take a perk in a line of equipment you get double the improvement quality. As both perk trees start from Steel it's the universal training metal.

 

But back to speech being a crafting skill, all those steel bars and soul gems have to come from somewhere. To actually build anything decent you're going to have to buy a lot of supplies. Selling finished product to the supply vendors (pawnbroker for enchanting or blacksmith shop for smithing) is the most expedient way to restock. Both Speech and Quality affect profit (sale value of products - cost of supplies). Your speech skill will climb as will your level. Trying to outsmart this is ridiculously inconvenient, but if you're going all the way to the armor cap you're aiming for the same armor you'd have at Level 81, so speech skill is just one more reason for the "all-or-nothing" strategy.

 

In the meantime your vow of poverty at low levels leaves you many options, like loading up on MR / MA and playing witchhunter your first few levels (you can get Azura's Star that way) or just conjuring atronachs and healing your follower (Uthgerd has excellent armor by under-level-15 standards) while you hang back away from danger.

 

Once the arrows get sharp enough to be scary it's time to move on to the next phase of your career and build yourself some decent armor. Having a stockpile of loot to sell is a nice way to jump-start your new life. If you got the Clavicus mask of obscene profits during your time of poverty ... well, heh heh, how about that. :wink:

[mirja]

Jewlery is by far the best, expensive jewelry.

 

Get the transmute spell and pick up all iron, steel and silver ore you can find.

Transmute them into gold ore(this will also raise your alteration skill) smelt them into gold ingots.

Pick up all gems you can find.

Now go make jewelry, then go enchant all of it..

 

This will give you tons of money and xp.

 

Also jewelry don't weigh as much as weapons and armor, so you can carry it around until you find merchants with money.

You'll drain merchants money quickly. ;-)

[gizmologist]

I didn't know that.

 

Can the cogs go directly in the Smelter then come out as ingots?

Not everything can be smelted. I've found that only things with names that start with adjectives can be smelted (Large Dwemer Strut, etc), as an easy rule of thumb. The exception is the Small Dwemer Lever.

 

The LEAST efficient scrap to take, in terms of ingots per pound, is the "Solid Dwemer Metal", a 25 pound chunk of metal that only gets you five ingots. If I have a pack mule with me, I'll take them - if not, then they're not worth the trouble.

 

The BEST scrap to recover are the ones that weigh two pounds (or whatever the unit happens to be): the Bent Dwemer Scrap metal, the Large Dwemer Plate Metal, and the Small Dwemer Plate Metal. They actually get you three ingots each, more than their weight!

 

This mod ads a porter, to help you carry all your Dwemer (s)crap: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/34112/ . It's a good mod, but he never shuts up! (I actually moded the mod to take him out of the merchant faction, which did the trick.)

[ZoMHead]

Well, with over 1,000 hours and 8+ profiles, i can say this.

 

Early on, iron is you'r friend. Iron and leather (deer, elk and wolves) are everywhere (Embershard Mine outside riverwood and all around whiterun city).

 

Once you reach level 30, iron armors can still work to push to 40, but really dwarven comes next. Loads of ignots can be smelted from scrap metals and what not in ruins, that will easily push you to 50, where orcish comes in. There is a mine in Falkreath (can not recall the name), that has 5-7 oricalcum ore veins, orcish armor has a value of 1000, so it really boost you to 60+.

 

Once you get Ebony perk, things just skyrocket from there, since all my characters where already mining ebony at Nazelburg (i think its called that), gloobber mine? south east of windhelm, 40 ebony ores can be mines there. By the time you hit the ebony smithing perk, yous hould have well over 80+ ebony ingots (3 days respawn time in that mine).

 

As for enchanting, whatever has the highest value. I got banish just yesterday, adds an easy 1500+ value to a simple iron dagger-

 

So yes, you can do it all legit, but reset them all (legendary) and do it again? i am not sure, such a grind.

[ZoMHead]

 

I didn't know that.

 

Can the cogs go directly in the Smelter then come out as ingots?

Not everything can be smelted. I've found that only things with names that start with adjectives can be smelted (Large Dwemer Strut, etc), as an easy rule of thumb. The exception is the Small Dwemer Lever.

 

The LEAST efficient scrap to take, in terms of ingots per pound, is the "Solid Dwemer Metal", a 25 pound chunk of metal that only gets you five ingots. If I have a pack mule with me, I'll take them - if not, then they're not worth the trouble.

 

The BEST scrap to recover are the ones that weigh two pounds (or whatever the unit happens to be): the Bent Dwemer Scrap metal, the Large Dwemer Plate Metal, and the Small Dwemer Plate Metal. They actually get you three ingots each, more than their weight!

 

This mod ads a porter, to help you carry all your Dwemer (s)crap: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/34112/ . It's a good mod, but he never shuts up! (I actually moded the mod to take him out of the merchant faction, which did the trick.)

 

Bent Dwemer scrap metal

Large Dwemer plate metal

Small Dwemer plate metal

 

Are the best you can smelt. Weigh only 2 and smelt into 3 ingots.

 

Solid Dwemer metal

 

The heaviest, at 25 weight but smelted into 5 ingots, still like the first three. Cogs can not be smelted.

[ZoMHead]

Maybe but if you do it on the vanilla you get in trouble if you cant craft the highest gear and enchant it with good spells because without combat skills yah there is not much to say about that haha.

That is maybe the thing how they thought about that, that it will be self-adjusting it because that you will lack in combat skills and perks.

For the record, i stop at advanced armors. Glass may have higher rating than scaled (light armor), but damn if that green horrible colored armor looks like crap (my opinion).

 

I never took dragon or glass perks. I always went left to advanced armors, then left all teh way to daedric. The dragonbone weapons for dawnguard are just 1-2 values stronger, but much heavier, not worth it.

 

Also, if you have issues finding deadra hearts, you can also visit enthir at the college of winterhold, he always sells two deadra hearts daily (or every other day, depends on what time).

[RatcatcherOfKvatch]

Addendum: re: don't sell anything to vendors until you're ready to start crafting:

 

You can train Alteration by itself and make big money turning in gold ore to the Kolskegger guy near Markarth. (Working for wages doesn't level speech. Never mind you've collected more iron than a 19th-century railroad tycoon then transmuted it into gold for massive profits ... it still doesn't level speech.)

 

Forsworn are some tough mothers, relatively speaking; their only weakness seems to be poison. Clear out the mine, though, and you have an early-game option for making really good money, enough to buy houses and stuff, while staying in the early-game.

[ZoMHead]

 

Iron?

 

Iron and leather can only get you so far. Honestly, with over 1,000 hours and 12+ profiles, i never grinded those daggers. It was mostly steel, elven, orchis, dwarven and once ebony was chosen. Also jewlery, lots of silver and gold around skyrim.

Then you play it like an roleplayer.

 

 

>How about enchanting?

Craft only iron daggers, enchant them with a cheap stone and a enchantment who get you max profit out of it when you sell it after that. You rise speech craft , blacksmithing and enchantment with it and also you get a lot of money. You will get much more gold and rise faster your skills with that. You even don't must run around because everyone sell you iron ,leather and some soul stones.

 

I play for max XP for as little effort.

 

To get the max for Smithing, the higher the value the more the XP. Enchanting has a system in it, supply/demand. Enchant too much of one thing, and the value drops. True the most expensive enchantment on weapons is bannish, and i guess fortify sneak/twohanded/waterbreathing are the most valuable for armor (not sure) but again value drops.

 

Personally, i use greater/common soul gems to enchant, more XP. Those petty soul gems are just not worth putting into enchantment, only when charging a weapon. Grand and Black are saved for items i intend to keep for myself.

[ZoMHead]

Addendum: re: don't sell anything to vendors until you're ready to start crafting:

 

You can train Alteration by itself and make big money turning in gold ore to the Kolskegger guy near Markarth. (Working for wages doesn't level speech. Never mind you've collected more iron than a 19th-century railroad tycoon then transmuted it into gold for massive profits ... it still doesn't level speech.)

 

Forsworn are some tough mothers, relatively speaking; their only weakness seems to be poison. Clear out the mine, though, and you have an early-game option for making really good money, enough to buy houses and stuff, while staying in the early-game.

They are weak to fire as well, those looters/melee characters are like bandits, ice works best. But those weird ones that use magic, they spam ice and shock,

 

Remember, only two enemies resist shock spells, those are shock atronach and that weirdo inside the ruin for the dadric quest The Only Cure.