a few questions about end game viability of some skills/perk

[callmaury]

ive pretty much decided on a character build, but i have a few questions about the use of perks in some of the skills. i would just look this up in the CS if i had the PC version :/ i know the game has just come out, but i also know tons of people have already spent a ton of time delving into the mechanics of the game via the CS and command console. any input would be appreciated. if there is none yet, ill just be patient or break down and get the PC version on steam.

- smithing/enchanting:

1) are the artifacts in this game seeming to be more powerful than custom made dragon equipment (with two slots in the dragon smithing perk and a maxed enchanting build to confer powerful effects to the dragon equip)? [edit: it seems daedric is better than dragon plate... lawl]

2) do any smithing perks allow you to improve artifacts? likewise with any enchanting affecting artifacts' effects?

3) do the improve fire/frost/shock enchantment perks only affect respective damage on enchanting creation, or do they modify the respective values of *any* enchanted weapon you equip?

i really dont want to dump like 15% of my character's perks into these two crafting skills if the in-game drops/finds are better, or if the crafting perks cant improve artifacts. i bring this up because in morrowind and especially oblivion, even without abusing certain enchanting mechanics (*cough* chameleon, reflect, stacking weakness+damage, etc *cough*), you could make equipment that was all around better than the artifacts. IIRC you can equip your companions, so maybe these skills will get some use either way seeing as im unlikely to give unique items to NPCs. we all know how much NPCs liked sticking around in Fallout 3 :/

- conjuration:

4) unless there is level scaling for summons, atronach perks seems kind of pointless compared to the master leveled raise dead spells. from what i hear, the master level raise dead allows you to resurrect any NPC up to level 40 permanently. from what is gathered so far, does that seem like a far better deal than atronachs, and just how "permanent" is the NPC (ie disappear on fast travel)?

5) i know you can summon dremoras as well; are they better than two atronachs/undead with all relevant perks?

- lockpicking/pickpocketing

6) these honestly seem kind of useless except for RP characters. between mastering the lockpicking game and increasing your skill, it seems unnecessary to get any perks for this. same for pickpocketing. i never really pickpocketed in any RPGs, except quests that required me to. does it seem like you can enjoy all of the games content (thieves guild, locked doors, etc) with just the base skills improved and no perks in them?

again, i know its alot to ask, im just curious and for now ive been kind of dumping my perks into one handed, restoration, and heavy armor because i know those are sure bets for my build. (speaking of which, restoration seems like it has the most god tier perks of any skill... almost all perks benefit any character type greatly... with the health burst, faster magic regen, healing restoring fatigue as well, improving wards which seem to be better than their alteration shield equivalent... etc)

[urthdigger]

I'd imagine that you can enjoy all of the game's content without putting any perks into a lot of skills, not just lockpicking and pickpocketing. It all depends on what you find more difficult, and what convenience factors you may want. There are a few things though, where adding perks gives you entirely new options rather than making current options more useful. One example is the entire smithing skill: Without any perks, your choice of items is quite limited.

Now, as far as perks go, you can actually throw out a number of perks straight up, not because they're useless, but because they're useless TO YOU. When you're fighting, you can't exactly use more than one style of fighting at once. So, pick your poison and stick with it. You have two-handed, dual-wielding, sword+shield, archery, and destruction. Of the melee paths, you can choose between axes (bleeding), maces (ignore armor) or swords (Increased criticals). You can do the same with armor, pick either light or heavy armor and stick with it. Even once you've gone this far, you can choose not to use some simply based on playstyle. Don't use power attacks? Fine, don't put perks there. Don't shield bash? That's a whole path of the block tree you don't have to bark up.

Now, let's talk about power. I don't know how the artifacts are going to compare. However, custom enchanted armor/weapons were better than anything else in Morrowind and Oblivion, and Skyrim now not only lets you enchant things how you want, but you get to make them. I'd say it's pretty silly if they broke this trend, since finding artifacts is, in a way, easier. One thing to note is the smithing tree doesn't just let you create armor and weapons, but lets you enhance them as well, multiple times at higher smithing levels. I'm fairly certain that a maximum fortified dragon equipment is better than any base item, and full enchanting perks will likely give better enchantments than anything you find. On that note, alchemy's something to look into as well. Sure, it might not be creating permanent things, but keep in mind how plentiful ingredients are, and how potent potions could be made in previous games. Poisons too. I think it's probably a safe bet that maxing your item creation skill perks will allow you to make the best things possible.

Now, let's look into the non-combat side of things, starting with the stealth side. Lockpicking, pickpocketing, sneak, and speech, all of these will be no help in a fight. Now, this might make it tempting to not bother with perks for them, since it can be easy to think that staying alive is all that matters. However, if you'll notice, I mentioned before that perks for your choice of weapon, choice of armor, and item creation, are really all you need. This leaves you well below your limit, especially if you omitted some perks due to playstyle.

First, lockpicking. You're right in that this skill probably doesn't need to be made much easier. Though, you'll also notice each level of lock only takes one perk to make it as easy as can be. This isn't like the base perks for most skills, where you raise it 5 times for a 20% increase. However, lockpicking assumes one thing about you and tailors the perks to fit: You like loot. Branching off from apprentice, you have the ability to pick locks without being seen, and to make a copy of a key for any lock you pick. The former means you don't have to wait to be undetected before you start picking, and the latter means once you pick a lock once, you never need to pick it again. Adept is where the real juicy stuff is: Find more gold in chests, and 50% greater chance of finding special treasure, which I'm assuming means magical items and such. Sounds nice. Expert goes back to convenience, with starting the pick closer to the sweet spot, and making picks unbreakable. For this skill, I'd say get up to adept and take your loot perks. If you've ever re-done a dungeon over and over again hoping to get a certain piece of loot, you probably understand why a higher drop rate might be handy. The rest are all convenience, and can be taken if you have issues with the lockpicking minigame, or with sneaking.

Pickpocketing is nicer than it looks on paper. For starters, it's not that difficult to pickpocket folks. I pickpocketed everything off of everybody in the first city rather easily. However, most of these were light items that didn't cost too much, and as weight and value increase, difficulty does as well. Pickpocketing has another of those 5 level 20% each perks that wind up doubling your success rate in the end, and while I did say pickpocketing is easy, the penalty for failure is a tad greater than most skills. You can quicksave before each attempt, but saving and loading can take a lot of time. Anyway, on to the other perks. Night Thief increases pickpocket rate if the subject is asleep, which isn't too spectacular but it IS a pre-requisite for other perks. Poisoned is one such perk, allowing you to reverse-pickpocket a poison to harm the subject... or possibly kill them. For any who loved using poisoned apples or harmful constant effect items for that purpose in Oblivion, this will be too good to pass up. There is also "Extra Pockets", increasing carrying capacity by 100. Who hasn't wanted to be able to carry more loot? Cutpurse and Keymaster simply allow you to steal gold and keys better, but cutpurse leads to the final perks for pickpocketing. Misdirection allows you to steal an equipped weapon, and Perfect Touch allows you to steal their armor. With those two perks, you can take everything off of an NPC, and leave them none the wiser. Useful if there are any more NPCs like Divath Fyr, who have very nice things, and very big reasons not to kill them.

Sneak has another 5 level perk to increase effectiveness, and as with pickpocket this may be useful due to the high consequence of failure: Once you fail, you're unlikely to have another chance with that NPC assuming you're trying for sneak attacks. This has two branching paths: On the right side is the sneak attack branch, giving bonuses for one-handed weapons, then bows, and finally daggers. You only need to go as far as your weapon of choice: First one for one-handed maces or axes, second perk for bows, third perk for one-handed blades (If you're going to use a blade, may as well be a dagger), and none at all if you use two-handed weapons. The left path all involves ways to help reduce penalties, except for two: One ignores pressure plates (Not hard to avoid while not sneaking, but jumping over them makes a lot of noise if you're trying to sneak up on something), and the last one allows you to drop out of combat, meaning if your opponent cannot immediately see you, you will be hidden and can then sneak attack again. Very handy, from the sound of it.

Finally there's speech. While this skill is VERY handy (if only because succeeding speech checks gives more options), the perks could probably be ignored if you have to. The left side helps you sell things for more money, and increases gold amount of NPCs. The right path allows you to bribe guards and makes the checks easier. You probably won't NEED these perks to pass any speech check.

As far as magic goes, I generally don't use magic much in the Elder Scrolls games, so take my input with a grain of salt. Most of these perks simply allow you to use the spells more effectively, and can pretty much be ignored if you don't plan on casting those kinds of spells. The exception to this are a few perks which affect you regardless: Quiet Casting from illusion (Good for if you want to cast while sneaking), Necromage (Makes all spells more effective versus undead), Recovery (enhances magicka regeneration), and Avoid Death (heals you when near death once per day), all from restoration, and Magic Resistance (resist magic) and Atronach (absorb magicka from spells) from Alteration. Also, due to how required restoration magic can be, earning a place in just about any build imaginable, Regeneration is perhaps a good perk to take, especially if you run, block, or use power attacks often.

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Anyway, that's my two cents.

[callmaury]

I'll clarify, it's a semi-RP character based on my Morrowind and Oblivion builds, the general idea being a classic dunmer velothi hero (aka what nerevar originally was). I'm not going entirely for 100% content/powergaming, but at the same time I want to avoid skills that take away from the idea.

This is what it looked like in Morrowind
Maj: Long Blade, Speech, Medium Armor, Mysticism, Conjuration
Min: Athletics, Heavy Armor, Axe, Restoration, Sneak

Oblivion:
Bladed, Speech, Heavy Armor, Mysticism, Restoration, Conjuration, Sneak

and this is what im looking at for Skyrim, taking into account the themes of my previous characters:
One hand (12-13 perks, maximize dual wield+blade damage, long swords. also, knock off savage strike, making it 12 total, if the dual wielding power attack isnt modified by this perk)
Heavy Armor (12 perks, maxed)
Restoration (11 perks, no dual cast and necromage)
Conjuration (depends on how powerful summons are, leaning towards daedra. might not take atronach perks of dremora are that much better. no bound equipment. so five if atronachs suck, or 9 if perked up dual atronachs are better than dremora)
Enchant (8.. no soul trap or elemental bonuses, id rather choose which creatures i soul trap than every kill automatically trapping something)
Smithing (6, up to daedric, + arcane... what does plate/scaled armors mean on the light armor branch?)
Speech (4, just the speech benefits, you always find a way to make alot of gold even without glitches so the barter bonuses seem overkill when im this spread out for perks lol)
Sneak (6-7, base bonus + standard backstab only, the seventh being the armor noise reduction unless the heavy armor no weight perk cancels that out)

so im looking at a minimum of 64 if atronachs suck, savage strike (standing power attack bonus) doesnt apply to dual wield power attack, and the heavy armor perk cancels out the noise reduction stealth perk.

straight up 70 if atronachs are the bomb, savage strike/noise reduction do end up having uses, etc.

its a tight fit but it works with the semi-rp playstyle and seems to allow me to do most things in the game, though i am having trouble with dragons right no. i was thinking of subbing in destruction somewhere just because of the dragons and awesomeness of the spells, but i realized with proper planning and more advanced dragonshouts, as well as a decked out range companion, i should be fine.

i guess on this note, ive kind of figured out what i want to do. thinking about it, youre probably 100% right about the custom equipment crafting+improvement+enchants. i might just save smithing and enchant as lower priority perk dumps just in case UESP gets info out relatively quickly showing that artifacts are superior to legendary-improved daedric/dragon equip.

refining my requests for information with anyone screwing around with the technicals of the game, or people who already possess the perks:

1) does the dual wielded power attack decap people with the savage strike perk?
2) again, are dremora just that much better than perked up dual atronachs? (decided im not gonna do undead)
3) does heavy armor no weight perk cancel out the stealth no armor noise perk?
4) what exactly does the "advanced armors" smithing perk let you create?

[dkjestrup]

Some personal advice I have is don't put any points into weapon specific perks (axes/maces/swords etc), just put them into general one hand perks. That way you don't have to commit to your weapon type until late in the game, at which point you will have a good idea which weapons have better artifacts/have more important bonuses etc.

I'm going 2H Battleaxe with Heavy Armor on my Nord, and I wish I hadn't put a point into the battle axe bleeding perk, because chances are the greatswords will have better artifacts such as Umbra etc.