Dragonplate

Thanks to the Ars Metallica mod for Skyrim, I've got my Smithing skill to 100 for the first time. Ars Metallica takes away so much of the grinding from smithing, offering skill increases for pretty much everything related to making your own weapons and armor (mining, smelting, tanning, as well as the base game's method of crafting only), in addition to the ability to reverse-smelt weapons back into ingots, making stripping weapons off of corpses much more lucrative.

On the Xbox 360 version of Skyrim, I always stopped at the Daedric armors, only requiring a skill of 90, because for some reason, the Dragonplate armor, requiring a max skill of 100, is a few pegs below when it comes to armor rating.

But that could be because Daedra, and their hearts needed for crafting Daedric items, are considerably more scarce than dragons and their bones and scales, especially in the mid-to-high level 30's, where I currently am.

I'm armored in the bones of your deceased brethren, you scaly maggot. Time for you to join my pile.

Thinking about grinding the enchanting skill next, so I can get some ridiculous perks onto these pieces.

Comments

[EchoWolf31]

For Smithing, I just went around to all of the shops, bought as much leather as I could find, and made them into leather strips and then made leather bracers and helmets. Took me awhile, but I was able to max out Smithing.

[re- Yamsmos]

The Enchanting Tree is fun. Some of my greatest memories in that game were hunting down the right enchantments so I could have an OP weapon.

[Winter Storm]

After a dozen characters, I just don't bother with leveling up skills like smithing and enchanting legitimately.

Also, vanilla Dragonplate armor looks silly. Especially with the different-colored helmet.

3183088

Jewelry nets you the most XP. Just get the Transmute Mineral Ore spell, grab a fuckton of iron ore, turn it to gold ore, and make a billion jewelry items.