Base Damage, DPS, and Skill XP question

[AnnaMolly]

If there was a thread on this I missed it. Basically, I'm playing Skyrim and am trying to get Archery to 100, I am currently 97 and it's down to a crawl. I understand that higher base damage and DPS mean more XP per attack, so I'm assuming a bow would be better for skilling than a Crossbow due to being faster and many bows having higher base damage, so my question is what is base damage? If I have a Bow with 20 damage untempered and I temper it to have 80 damage, is 20 still the base damage or is 80? A few years ago, I got tired of dragon attacks and used the Fortify Restoration + Fortify Smithing trick to make a crossbow with 430~ damage and this is the reason I ask; I barely get any Skill XP with it. Is there some sort of overflow causing this?

I do have Auriel's Bow, Zephyr, Nightingale Bow, and Mystic Binding perk.

Any thoughts or ideas?

[Snail's Pace]

If I have a Bow with 20 damage untempered and I temper it to have 80 damage, is 20 still the base damage or is 80?

The base damage would be 20. Damage added by tempering is not used in the XP calculation.

A few years ago, I got tired of dragon attacks and used the Fortify Restoration + Fortify Smithing trick to make a crossbow with 430~ damage and this is the reason I ask; I barely get any Skill XP with it. Is there some sort of overflow causing this?

As above, only the damage for the untempered crossbow is used in the calculation of XP.

Any thoughts or ideas?

I find getting the last few points of Archery to be a bit of a slog, too. Maybe use a bow with high base damage like ebony or daedric, but don't temper it... that way you have to fire more arrows and can pick up more XP points per kill. Unless, you can get some free skill points through books, the Bard's College quests, or Angi's training, that's about all I know to do.

[AnnaMolly]

That's what I had thought was meant by "base damage" I suppose since Mystic Binding raises the Bound Bow/Arrows to about 94 (for me) that's about the best. Though, I am playing around with Zephyr, I guess an untempered Dragonbone bow would be a good skiller. I have issues with enemies running at me before Bound Arrows are equipped. =(

Thanks!

[Evol]

I'm glad you asked this cause I wondered about this too. I do have another question related. Base damage is for the bow only? What about if I have the first 5 perks of archery which doubles the bow damage or whatever, does that make the base damage of a bow doubled too? Or does it only affect damage output without touching the bow's base damage? Same with enchanted gear, adding archery skill. Does anyone understand what I'm trying to ask?

Basically if I have those perks and enchanted gear with a untempered, unenchanted bow to get the most hits per kill is that gonna let me level up archery (or one handed or two handed) faster than with unenchanted gear and no perks?

I hope this isn't confusing. It makes sense in my head asking it but tying to type it out on my phone at 5 in the morning seems like its gonna be hard to understand, I also have a question about armor rating and armor cap but should I ask here or some thread? I searched like 6 pages but didn't see any relevant thread

[Belthazor]

This is what the Archery page of the wiki says about it:

Skill gain is based solely on the base damage of the bow used (see Leveling). Perks, tempering, enchantments, potions or type of missile have no effect on skill gain. Every arrow that hits a valid target yields the same XP, regardless of critical hits, sneak attacks or bow draw. As a result, the fastest skill gains can be achieved by shooting with minimum power, i.e. minimum draw time, which implies training at (almost) melee range. The reduced damage from the partially drawn bow also increases the number of arrows needed to kill the enemy, which in turn increases XP gain per target.

[Evol]

All my questions answered. Thank you belthazor, I guess if I would of just read the wiki. And I thought I did a lot of reading on it already. Now I can put away my insane tempered and enchanted bow that does like 500+ damage without any alchemic fortifying exploits. Just hard earned smithing crafting and enchanting.

[AnnaMolly]

This is what the Archery page of the wiki says about it:

Skill gain is based solely on the base damage of the bow used (see Leveling). Perks, tempering, enchantments, potions or type of missile have no effect on skill gain. Every arrow that hits a valid target yields the same XP, regardless of critical hits, sneak attacks or bow draw. As a result, the fastest skill gains can be achieved by shooting with minimum power, i.e. minimum draw time, which implies training at (almost) melee range. The reduced damage from the partially drawn bow also increases the number of arrows needed to kill the enemy, which in turn increases XP gain per target.

One thing that was left out of this is that the attack has to do damage. Pretty obvious there. If you want to reduce the damage done, you could also fire Practice Arrows which would only do damage based on the bow, unless there's some no damage script on them. You can also collect Riekling Spears which have a very short range, though this short range may count ans a full draw. Not sure on those.

[Evol]

@oblivionanna do you have the dlc's? I haven't heard of the practice arrows or those spears. I only have hearthfire dlc. Anyway.

Here's a suggestion if you are high level and have conjuring. Not sure if it'll work, if anyone has input let me know but you can put difficulty on legendary so you only do 1/4 normal damage, put on good armor that'll keep you alive, conjure 1 maybe 2 familiars and have your follower too maybe. Make sure they have good armor so they dont die eitherm Have them attack and distract maybe a mammoth. Then back up, pull out the highest base damage bow you can have, no enchantments or tempering. Maybe absorb stamina enchantment so you can get stamina back for the slow time effect if you have the perk, then just continuously shoot said mammoth till he or she dies and move on. Judging from what I've read and what I know this should help level up faster in the last few levels. Let me know if you try it or it works. I'm gonna use my main character later and legendary my archery skill to see if it works or not.

[AnnaMolly]

@oblivionanna do you have the dlc's? I haven't heard of the practice arrows or those spears. I only have hearthfire dlc. Anyway.

Yeah. Practice arrows are vanilla, you get them from Angi and Angi's Camp near Falkreath. Riekling spears require Dragonborn.
Practice Arrows are basically iron arrows with 0 damage.

That said, I just got Archery to 100!

[Evol]

Okay, yeah Ive read about Angi's camp but I've never actually gone there. I have about 600 game hours logged between my first character and a few others and there's still stuff I've never done. I never tried being a vampire either and I created one a couple days ago and only have been playing her and I am liking it. Her name is Assaj and she's a Bosmer Vampire Necro Butcher as I like to call her.