Smithing is useless?

[greatest grandest giga bangers]

Im on my second playthrough, the first i stopped at about level 36. And for both playthroughs, smithing seemed to be completely useless. It was just stupid expensive to try and power level and even when i spend all of my gold on spamming daggers and jewelry, I was looting better gear than i could make. Is anybody else having the same issue?

[A Rock Seller]

90% of the game's mechanics are useless if you don't roleplay. And that's what you should probably do aswell. Skyrim wasn't designed with function in mind, it was designed with roleplay in mind.

[♥ Barney ♥]

No i find smithing essential if you play on higher difficulties or when using combat mods. The ability to make armors and weapons is only really useful at the beginning. Later on as you say you level up and start to find good equipment in loot and on enemy npc's, but even stuff like ebony or daedric aren't that good at higher levels unless you can temper them stronger, and you can't temper them that well without the relevant perk. Thats what the smithing skill is most useful for later in the game, the 2x tempering bonus.

If you're playing on Adept or lower, then yeah smithing is pretty useless, but try using harder difficulties or use some combat mod and you'll soon see the benefits. You want to be playing on a difficulty where combat is challenging, and you need to make stronger stuff to survive, which is where smithing and enchanting come in.

[fran25]

Smithing can really inprove your Weapons you can go legendartyl without too many loses in weapons skills and armor skills. It is a long process but with the uncapper especially rewarding.

And I have played this game a long time. It never really ends.

[HoneyDrake]

lategame smithing is like the best choice you have, to get the best dmg/armor.

but for sure it's lame early/mid game

[LinkMx]

Smithing give you the best weapons and armors, of course you need a lot of materials and gold

[XenolithicYardZone]

It might seem useless early game but once you level up and invest some points in it, you can start crafting some powerful stuff.

[Balderhunt]

Once you find the mines with the right materials, smithing is very inexspensive to level up. With all the animals that attack you, you have a near limitless supply of leather. You just need to be willing to spend the time collecting materials instead of buying them.

[Heather]

Originally posted by Velox the quest giver:

90% of the game's mechanics are useless if you don't roleplay. And that's what you should probably do aswell. Skyrim wasn't designed with function in mind, it was designed with roleplay in mind.

I'd argue otherwise. It simplified or removed much of the mechanics from previous TES and making a simple combat, skills, and dialogue system. Players don't have the ability to go in depth about who they want to be, what specific things they want to specialize in, or read into the deep lore through paragraphs.
The game seems to be built more with creating a more simple TES than a game such as Morrowind in a way that would not annoy or confuse players. Skyrim is more about aesthetics, simplicity, and fuctionality on a console format (i.e inventory menus) than roleplay.
Most of the game's functions are indeed useless if you do not roleplay, because much of the game was not designed with roleplay in mind. If you do like both TES and roleplaying, I'd suggest Morrowind.

[Heather]

Originally posted by Balderhunt:

Once you find the mines with the right materials, smithing is very inexspensive to level up. With all the animals that attack you, you have a near limitless supply of leather. You just need to be willing to spend the time collecting materials instead of buying them.

That's not a very good idea. Animals are somewhat sparsely poplated across Skyrim, and hunting a sufficient amount to grind smithing is too time consuming, as you'd need hundreds of leather worth of leather straps. It's more advisible to purchase these straps instead and reset vender inventory by waiting 2-3 days, or much more effectively, quicksave, attack until they're hostile, then quickload, which refreshes vender gold and inventory. As to where you'll get the gold? Up to you. Raid a dungeon, I suppose.

[Archnecrotyr]

Playing on Legendary, with quite a few mods to make things harder. Currently level 74. I'll tell you right now, that Smithing was essential to get there on Legendary. So was Enchanting.

My advice, up the difficulty if you think something is useless. Unless it's speach, it will quickly become essential.

If you are into using mods, I can suggest a few to make things much harder;

Duel Combat Realism

Deadly Dragons

Dragon Combat Overhaul

SkyRe/Perkus Maximus

These are my go to mods that I use to turn my tedious Legendary experience into a Masochist's wet dream. They also tend to make quite a few skills essential for survival, Smithing being one of them.

At the end of the day though, if you are playing on anything less then Master Difficulty, most things will seem useless. Due to vanilla Skyrim putting a hard level cap on all NPC's aside from a select few, once you are past level 80 or so, everything will be useless anyway lol.

[The Kim Jong Illest]

play as an orc, a nord, a cyrod, or a redguard. then you'll have use for this wonderful thing that I use to make my weapons do 80 base damage

[Bomb Bloke]

Originally posted by 2703239293:

i spend all of my gold on spamming daggers and jewelry

Don't craft daggers. Once upon a time that was a good idea, so you'll sometimes see it being recommended, but later official patches to the game rigged things such that less valuable items get you less smithing XP.

Go for Dwarven Bows or Dwarven Crossbows at earlier levels, then work you way up to stuff like Ebony Bows.

Jewels are always good. Transmute any iron ore you find.

Learn to smith items using just your keyboard and without involving your mouse. Spamming items this way is dramatically faster.

Remember that both potions and enchants can be used to buff your smithing ability further. Enchant everything you make and sell it; you'll get all your gold back and then some.

Originally posted by 2703239293:

I was looting better gear than i could make

... which you straight away could've tempered into even better gear. You'll never find pre-tempered loot without certain mods, and eventually you'll get your hands on the strongest base items and never find any "better" loot ever again.

[GIJoe597]

I am a patient sort, when I first started, I leveled Smithing with animal hides.

I would go on hunting trips, pitch a tent, and stalk Deer, Elk, Wolves and Sabre Cats. Cook some of the meat, eat it, save all the hides. It does not take long to skin the animals, you get better and faster at it as you progress. Once I had a large stock, I pack up my tent, load the horse and head home to the Tanning Rack.

Two or three hunting trips and you have 300 Leather. I started "forging" Leather Armor, usually the Braces, I think. They have the lowest Leather/Strip requirement.

I stopped doing that after I realized it levels your character as well as your skill. Did not like that, but it certainly leveled my skill fast. I did not spend a single Septum on ore. I looted all the Steel Arrows I used from random bandits and roving patrols of Stormcloaks/Imperials.

[VILLAGE PILLAGE ⊕]

Originally posted by SamtheNurse:

Originally posted by Velox the quest giver:

90% of the game's mechanics are useless if you don't roleplay. And that's what you should probably do aswell. Skyrim wasn't designed with function in mind, it was designed with roleplay in mind.

I'd argue otherwise. It simplified or removed much of the mechanics from previous TES and making a simple combat, skills, and dialogue system. Players don't have the ability to go in depth about who they want to be, what specific things they want to specialize in, or read into the deep lore through paragraphs.
The game seems to be built more with creating a more simple TES than a game such as Morrowind in a way that would not annoy or confuse players. Skyrim is more about aesthetics, simplicity, and fuctionality on a console format (i.e inventory menus) than roleplay.
Most of the game's functions are indeed useless if you do not roleplay, because much of the game was not designed with roleplay in mind. If you do like both TES and roleplaying, I'd suggest Morrowind.

Another elitist?
Go rant on the morrowind forums.
These are the SKYRIM Forums.

[Heather]

Originally posted by God:

Originally posted by SamtheNurse:

I'd argue otherwise. It simplified or removed much of the mechanics from previous TES and making a simple combat, skills, and dialogue system. Players don't have the ability to go in depth about who they want to be, what specific things they want to specialize in, or read into the deep lore through paragraphs.
The game seems to be built more with creating a more simple TES than a game such as Morrowind in a way that would not annoy or confuse players. Skyrim is more about aesthetics, simplicity, and fuctionality on a console format (i.e inventory menus) than roleplay.
Most of the game's functions are indeed useless if you do not roleplay, because much of the game was not designed with roleplay in mind. If you do like both TES and roleplaying, I'd suggest Morrowind.

Another elitist?
Go rant on the morrowind forums.
These are the SKYRIM Forums.

I'm not much of a talker on either, and I don't like one game more than the other, but I suppose, looking back, that my argument was a bit biased. My argument was supposed to reflect how Skyrim didn't seem to be designed around roleplay.