School me in armor improvements.

[Ragnvaldr]

So, I haven't been concentrating on smithing much in the game, choosing to work on combat skills instead, but I finally managed to get it high enough that I could improve enchanted items. Question is, how do I keep improving them? I see pictures of guys with armor ratings of like 500+ and am befuddled on how to get that high. Do I just need to get my smithing higher so I can create the other types of armor?

I took Alduin down with about 4 good whacks from my ebony war axes, but I couldn't make a decent pair of ebony underwear right now.

 

[dunklunk]

I got my smithing and enchanting skills up to 100, whilst picking all the perks in both constellations. After that, you can craft dragon and Daedric armors, and even put two enchantments on one item. Like weapons, rings, armor, necklaces, etc. Not to mention sell just about anything you don't need or want. Pretty good coin that way.

 

[dunklunk]

Oh yeah, sorry about forgetting this part. You can't, unfortunately, enchant an item if it's already enchanted. Alas, I tried that on the assassin's and Nightingale's armors, and well, no dice.

You can also destroy magical items to "learn" their enchantments. That builds up your inventory for enchantments to put on items. Happy forging!

 

[wakka]

So, I haven't been concentrating on smithing much in the game, choosing to work on combat skills instead, but I finally managed to get it high enough that I could improve enchanted items. Question is, how do I keep improving them? I see pictures of guys with armor ratings of like 500+ and am befuddled on how to get that high. Do I just need to get my smithing higher so I can create the other types of armor?.

to improve the items you need to lvl up smithing, you also could use the smithing alchemy enchanting loop

 

[Dagmar]

S...Question is, how do I keep improving them? I see pictures of guys with armor ratings of like 500+ and am befuddled on how to get that high. Do I just need to get my smithing higher so I can create the other types of armor?...

Each Smithing perk has a minimum skill requirement to unlock it so yes you do not need to increase your Smithing skill to the required minimum to take a Smithing perk.

The legitimate way to get your armor ratings and weapon damage high through Smithing is to max out your Smithing skill to 100, and max out the relevant armor or combat skill tied to the weapon taking all the respective armor rating bonus perks or damage perks (other than critical damage perks).

You can increase it further by wearing chest, hand apparel and necklace and ring enchanted with Fortify Smithing enchantments. These can be obtained as loot or bought from Merchants with enchantment strengths as high as 25% (Peerless Smithing) or you can enchant your own apparel with the strength of the enchantment depending on your Enchanting skill and perks and maxing out at 25% without augmentation of your enchanting abilities with a Fortify Enchanting potions. The cap with lootable/buyable Fortify Potions is 28% and with player made potions it's 29%.

 

[Harperlarp]

Don't forget, you can smith your gear then a few levels later you can improve the same gear further. Wish someone had told me that back in the day.

 

[Harperlarp]

Bear in mind if you make ultimate armour using the alchemy/enchanting method the game will be hyper easy. I killed alduin in 3 hits from my daedric sword on adept difficulty, kind of anti climactic.