Best one handed weapon?

[Jwalker224]

Im a level 53 wood elf and i currently have the Mace of Malag Bal, this is a good weapon and i like it but i have yet to find a one handed weapon that does more damage. I have 100 one handed and have all 5 damage perks and have enchanted my ebony gauntlets to make one handed attacks do 13% more damage. Even with all this it only does 80 damage and iv heard of people having one handed weopons that do upwards of 200 or 300 damage. Is this even possible or do i pretty much have the best one handed weapon out there?

 

[Dagmar]

....iv heard of people having one handed weopons that do upwards of 200 or 300 damage. Is this even possible or do i pretty much have the best one handed weapon out there?

It's possible but it's irrelevant to your question. That damage is (1) from improving the weapon through Smithing enhanced with Fortify Smithing enchantments and (2) wearing 4 pieces of equipment with strong Fortify One-Handed enchantments.

To determine what weapon has the highest potential to do damage per hit you need only look at the weapon's base damage and whether it gets any Smithing bonus from any Smithing perks. You can get a weapon's base damage by looking it up at websites like UESP Skyrim Wiki.

The Mace of Molag Bal has the same base damage as a Daedric Mace which has the highest base damage of any one handed weapon, but it gets no Smithing bonuses from any Smithing perk so a Daedric Mace has more potential damage from a single hit. However, maces are the slowest one handed weapon and if your mace does 80 damage in your hands then a sword like a level 46 Chillrend, which has a higher base damage than a Daedric Sword and gets a Smithing bonus from the Glass Smithing perk, will deliver more damage over time getting in 11 attacks for every 8 attacks with the Daedric Mace.

 

[Jwalker224]

My smithing is 100 and my mace of malag bal is flawless, my enchanting is 74 so will get that up and dual enchant things, also i have legendary ebony armout, the armour stat for my ebony mail is 182, which is higher then daedric, is daedrcs higher after i improve it?

 

[Fourshakes]

From what I understand daedric is the best heavy armor and dragonscale is the best light armor. Other then that just read what dagmar wrote

 

[Ironclad]

My one-handed weapon does 600 points of damage.. but that's a backstab with benefits.

Brief sidetrack: Does it matter what number my one-handed is, I mean if I have 70, how does this compare to 100? Other than to open Perk options, that is.

 

[Brother Pootis]

To OP: I'd suggest the use of a daedric mace for the simple reason that maces generally have the best associated perks, absolutely wrecking armor resistance, although swords come in a close second, whereas war axe bleeding damage will become insignificant relatively quickly. I've hit around 400 damage a shot with gauntlets, boots, an amulet, and a ring, each with +40% one-handed.

Alternatively, you can use the restoration loop glitch (http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Fortify_Restoration#bugs) to level items to absurd levels; through this, I now possess unarmed damage of 30k and two maces of 300k damage with a 100k fire and shock enchantment. Be warned that this will take the fun from the game.

To Ironclad: Elder Scrolls Wiki gives the formula for damage calculation at http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/One-handed#Damage

 

[Ironclad]

Daggers don't get the one handed bonus! Dayum..

 

[Dagmar]

....maces generally have the best associated perks, absolutely wrecking armor resistance....

Which the vast majority of enemies in Skyrim lack. Most enemies have no physical damage resistance, a small amount have weak physical damage resistance (less than 20%) and an even smaller number of them have moderate physical damage resistance (20-35%). With Bladesman giving a disappointing damage bonus when you crit (50% of the base damage of the sword) and Bone Breaker only delivering a small to moderate damage bonus against a small percentage of enemies it's more of a wash comparing the two perk groups.

 

[Thomas Janes]

Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong, bolars is 3rd best that ive found and im only lvl 76, The best weapons at 76, trumping bolars, and daggers and molags, are kind of a tie, i dual wield them, and at 76 without full 100 1 handed each does over 500 dmg a piece. The names of these weapons are. Eduj and Okin, they both drop from the same boss, they can be found in the ruins of Volunruud, Right now at 76 with 6 points into 1 handers and 91 points into 1 handed leveling, Eduj is a 1 handed sword and does 508 damage, Okin is an Axe and does 516 damage, both weapons proc frost damage on your enemies as well and a lesser gem will refill them, very inexpensive

 

[Dagmar]

...The best weapons at 76, trumping bolars, and daggers and molags, are kind of a tie, i dual wield them, and at 76 without full 100 1 handed each does over 500 dmg a piece. The names of these weapons are. Eduj and Okin, they both drop from the same boss, they can be found in the ruins of Volunruud, Right now at 76 with 6 points into 1 handers and 91 points into 1 handed leveling, Eduj is a 1 handed sword and does 508 damage, Okin is an Axe and does 516 damage...

The displayed damage of Eduj and Okin in your hands is irrelevant. As I stated before it's base damage of any weapon and whether it benefits from any of the Smithing perks which is determinative as to its ultimate damage potential from any level of smithing, weapon skill, and/or fortify weapon skill enchantments. Eduj's base damage is 11 while Okin's base damage is 12 which are the same as an Elven Sword and a Steel War Axe respectively. As such there are several weapons that can out-damage them.

 

[Thomas Janes]

theres no irrelevancy, they do the work, and hit hard and fast, however u wanna break it down, end-game these are the 2 best 1 handers and are obtainable early if u know where to look, by the way, with my practice destruction set on, and when my swords are all hanging on the wall, all having the same upgrades, without any bonuses equipped toward 1 handers, the eduj and okin are nearly double every other weapon damage still

 

[Dagmar]

theres no irrelevancy, they do the work, and hit hard and fast, however u wanna break it down, end-game these are the 2 best 1 handers and are obtainable early if u know where to look, by the way, with my practice destruction set on, and when my swords are all hanging on the wall, all having the same upgrades, without any bonuses equipped toward 1 handers, the eduj and okin are nearly double every other weapon damage still

You clearly have no grasp of how the mechanics for displayed damage calculation works but since a picture is worth a thousand words:

In summary (once again) they are not even close to being the best one-handed weapons in the game.

 

[Thomas Janes]

and u clearly are probably potioned up, and u dont even have the eduj, and okin listed, and i have chillrend and several others who all tie in the same damage range of around 200-300 without being potioned.

why did u change your first picture u posted with all the weapons, which looked 130% potioned up, i have chillrend, its right about tied with bolar or whatever the quickblade, post a fully upgraded eduj and okin up there with that potioned out chillrend, and im on ps3 so theres no consoleing here

 

[Dagmar]

and u clearly are probably potioned up, and u dont even have the eduj, and okin listed, and i have chillrend and several others who all tie in the same damage range of around 200-300 without being potioned.

Chillrend is a leveling weapon. It's base damage is determined by when you get it. Since you're clearly in denial lets try this with a comparison of 3 weapons plus a plain old Glass Sword I enchanted:

A Glass Sword does less damage than a Daedric Sword and War Axes do more damage than Swords as do Maces. You can claim whatever you want but the cold hard fact is that displayed damage is determined by an equation that uses base damage as one of the multipliers and all other numbers in the equation hold true across the board no matter what one-handed weapon you have equipped. It's mathematics and not even up for debate. There are lots of weapons with a higher base damage than Eduj and Okin. If you want to think otherwise that's your prerogative but I'm not going to sit idly by while you try to disseminate misinformation on this forum.

...why did u change your first picture u posted with all the weapons, was it because your pickaxe was sittin on 60 dmg which is 198% potioned up from 20....

I changed it to show Chillrend in isolation. A pickaxe is classified as a one-handed weapon. It gets the same benefits from perks, fortification enchantments and one-handed skill as any other weapon.

 

[Thomas Janes]

regardless, i have the chillrend as well and it doesnt compare to the okin or eduj, u must not have used your 130 smithing potions when u legendaried them

 

[Dagmar]

regardless, i have the chillrend as well and it doesnt compare to the okin or eduj, u must not have used your 130 smithing potions when u legendaried them

I used the exact same process to smith all 4 weapons.

Chillrend has a base damage which ranges from 10 to 15 depending on what level you are when you acquire it. You must have gotten it at a relatively low level.

Notwithstanding that you seem to be incapable of understanding the mechanics of displayed damage in the game, it's really simple for even you to disprove your theory to yourself if you have the Glass Smithing perk or the Ebony Smithing perk. Just make a Glass or Ebony War Axe or even better yet, a Mace, and then improve it exactly the same way you did with Okin and compare their displayed damage in your hands.

 

[Thomas Janes]

makes sense now, didnt realize putting points into glass smithing helped weapons as well, thought it was strictly armor based, jus got this a week ago so im still tryin to figure everything out, glad we had this discussion, i only have 5 levels left and i didnt plan on putting anymore into smithing

 

[Straumgald]

If you do no tradeskills, I would say Mace of Molag Bal is close to the best. It technically has 3 enchants on it, which causes it to eat through charges quick, but it fills soulgems with every kill to make up for it. If you are a smith, a Daedric mace will reach higher damage than MoMB because the latter isn't effected by the tempering perk.
With all 3 tradeskills you can make any weapon do ungodly damage and one hit everything, so its kind of a moot point.

 

[Thomas Janes]

I used molag until i got my alch/ench/smith to 100, but i play the archery tree so i wasnt gonna go up smithing, but now it seems more important

 

[Straumgald]

I used molag until i got my alch/ench/smith to 100, but i play the archery tree so i wasnt gonna go up smithing, but now it seems more important

I'm taking smithing with my archer just so I can temper bows to be stronger. Wont even use armor other than Shrouded.