Quote:
Originally Posted by soopaman2
I never tried an outright smith. I want to, but do not see the point.
I just feel as if I would be gimped if I do not perk up my combats. I find shield skills, and stealth multipliers so much more useful, and by the time I have points to spare for smithing, I am finding better gear on quests, and in dungeons/caves.
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The thing with smithing is that the "better" gear you find is not actually as good as it can be in terms of protection provided or damage done until you improve it at a grindstone or smithing workbench. For the higher end stuff, you need the smithing perks to improve it to its full potential (or at all)... plus the more perks you have, the more stuff you can actually *make* and then improve yourself instead of hoping you can cobble together a good set from loot or what you can buy. Granted this may be more important if you are going to be wearing and carrying a lot of gear anyway. But if you are wearing armor and carrying weapons of any kind, it is well worth getting to the point where you can at least get the best protection/damage from what you are actually going to be wearing and using.
Improved gear is also more valuable for bartering purposes, especially so at the higher skill levels. I'm at 100 in smithing altho I have not taken the Daedric and Dragon perks yet. Nevertheless any lower level stuff that I find can be resold at a huge profit even if I have to outright buy all the raw materials needed to improve it.
The first two skillsets I went after this time around were enchanting and smithing - both are at 100 now with full perks in enchanting which means I can make and/or improve just about everything I want or find, and then double-enchant all of it with the bonuses of my choice. I still have a couple enchantments to learn, but nothing that I will ever use as a combat-based character unless it's just for fun on something I will sell or give to a follower.
Honestly I don't even bother enchanting stuff I'm going to sell any more, unless it's really low-level gear just to get the price up a bit. I don't need the practice any more and for higher level gear adding an enchantment plus the first couple of Speech perks I took makes it all so valuable that I spend way too much time looking for someone with enough money to buy it.
However I have made a lot of coin by pursuing smithing and enchanting and then selling off all the stuff I did along the way for practice. Plus I've provided myself with some really great gear that gives me bonuses in all kinds of (to me) crucial areas and does a great deal of "special" damage to anyone that gets the business end of one of my weapons. I will not need to trade any of it in for a good long while so the last smithing perks can wait while I level up in other areas.