How does weapon improving add to damage really?

[chelz0r]

Right, so I got to smithing 100. Now I created and improved a glass mace with a smithing necklace and ring on. The damage is 30 points lower than the current glass mace I made many levels ago and improved several times as my smithing skill was improving.

How can I not match what I made with less skill if I'm at 100?

I was actually hoping to exceed the current mace in damage output and put two enchants on it.

They are both 'legendary' which means no more improvement or does it not?

This sux

 

[dunklunk]

Your perks in smithing might have something to do with that. And yeah, legendary is as far as you can go. I've got legendary stuff, too, and that's it for them. But in the process, they all increased in damage and value. Just their weight stayed static.

 

[Kuurus]

Legendary is the top label, but you can have many different "grades" of Legendary.

Read this info here: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Smithing

If you scroll down to item quality, you will see the formulas for how smithing affects your final displayed damage including perks, enchantments, smithing potions etc.

 

[chelz0r]

I get all of that. I just don't get how I created the same weapon now as I did before, with a much lower skill and the maximum output on the new one is 30 points lower. I did improve the other mace several times as I was getting to smithing 100 from about 70, but it still doesn't make sense that I can't match that weapon now with the skill maxed out.

 

[Kuurus]

There isn't an answer you will get from someone on a forum that can tell you that. It always follows that formula. If the weapon you produced earlier is displaying a higher damage, then you did it while wearing better smithing gear, or under the effects of a better potion - or you forgot to don a piece of gear or drink a potion this time. Otherwise, it is not mathematically possible for higher skill to give you lower results.

Edit: and to clarify, yes you can still improve something again even though it says "Legendary". There are many levels of Legendary.

 

[chelz0r]

It somehow is though, that's what I'm saying.

I didn't do any potions, just the same bits of enchanted jewelery. The only difference with the old one is I improved it on a grindstone several times after making, say once every time my smithing skill went up by 5 points. This in the end gave this weapon 30 points over the brand new one built and improved with skill at 100. I just tried to improve both after a bit of use since that first post and I can't do anything further.

 

[Kuurus]

I'm sorry, but that's not mathematically possible. They started with the same base damage. The exact same formula is applied to them for displayed damage. Four things affect your ability to improve them - smithing skill, whether or not you have the specific smithing perk, fortify smithing enchanted gear, and fortify smithing potions. There is nothing else taken into account.

Your skill and whether or not you have the perk cannot go backwards or reduce. The difference has to be in fortify smithing, via either gear or a potion.

Are you sure you are looking at their displayed damage under the same circumstances? I ask this because I momentarily made the same assumption while improving a new Daedric bow I was going to double enchant to replace the Daedric bow I had found with only 1 enchant. I looked at the "new" damage number while in the smithing window and thought, that's strange, it's lower than my other Daedric bow - then quickly realized that was because while wearing my +smithing gear, I was NOT wearing my +47% archery damage gauntlets.

 

[chelz0r]

I think it's to do with how it applies the extra smithing boost you get from wearing enchanted items. I had a ring and a necklace both with +16% equipped each time I did anything with the weapons.

The older mace was made and improved about 5 times, the boost adding * 1.16 to whatever my max skill would allow at the time. So doing this 5 times added the bonus 5 times and eventually reached the damage cap for the glass mace, which I think is final. With the new mace I smithed and improved with the same gear, but could only improve once since my skill can't go beyond 100. So the jewellery boost got applied only once, far below the cap.

Last night I enchanted a blacksmith's apron with +25% smithing and a new set of jewellery with +25% too and reached the exact same damage as the old mace, which is around 136 on its own or 213 with my new armor.

 

[Kuurus]

It did not add the bonus 5 times. Each time it just brings it to your current maximum with that skill/perk/enchanted gear/potion setup.

And your effective skill can go beyond 100. The formula is:

((Smithing Skill - 13.29) * (1 + Perk) * (1 + Enchant) * (1 + Potion)) + 13.29

That is your effective skill while smithing. The resulting number determines how much you can improve a piece of gear. If you have 100 skill, the relevant perk and +75% from your 3 pieces of +25% gear, your effective smithing skill would be 316, well into Legendary. If you don't have the glass smithing perk, the number would be 165, just short of Legendary (168).

Exactly how much you can improve a weapon is determined then by putting that 316 skill into the calculation for improving which is:

ROUNDDOWN((SKILL-5)/(103/6))*3.6+2

((316-5)/(103/6))*3.6+2=34 when rounded down. This number is for armor, weapons are halved. So you would improve the base damage of a weapon by +17. Base damage of a glass mace is 14, so the new base damage would be 31 which is then plugged into another formula which includes skill, perks, gear enchants etc. to reach your displayed damage.