If you play Master difficulty and want to min max your character it seems that the best combo is using the alchemy / Smithing / Enchanting combo. With this you can buff your weapons and armor by 246%. Also from what I have read the best race choices are Breton (25% passive magic resist and Dragonskin) and Orc (Berserker Rage). Here are some notes that I found hope this helps you guys out...
Minimums required to make this work (perks) [skill]:
- Enchanting (8) [100]: 5/5 Enchanter, Insightful, Corpus, Extra Effect
- Alchemy (7) [100]: 5/5 Alchemist, Physician, Benefactor
- Smithing (5) [100]: Steel. Dwarven, Orcish, Ebony, Daedric
- Weapon Skill (5) [100]: 5/5 Armsman or 5/5 Barbarian (1h or 2h)
- Armor Skill (5) [100]: 5/5 Juggernaut or 5/5 Agile Defender (optional, but makes mid-game easier)
Using an Alchemy Enchanting loop, it is possible to make:
+29% Fortify Enchanting enchantments
+29% Fortify Smithing enchantments
+32% Fortify Alchemy potions
+130% Fortify Smithing potions
Your process should look something like this:
1) Fortify Alchemy enchantments 25% x4
2) Fortify Enchantment potions 30%
3) Fortify Alchemy enchantments 28% x4
4) Fortify Enchantment potions 32%
5) Fortify Alchemy enchantments 29% x4
6) Fortify Smithing enchantments 29% x4
7) Fortify Smithing potions 130%
This enables a total of +246% Weapon and Armor Improvement.
Combined with 100 Smithing Skill, and appropriate perks, it is possible to make:
- Any Armor Type with a final set armor rating in excess of 500. For weaker Armor, additional armor set perks may be required.
- Daedric Weaponry with attack damage in excess of 500
- 100 Heavy Armor, No Perks, Fully Upgraded Legendary Daedric is 590 with shield, 475 without.
Regarding the Armor Cap:
- Experiments show that the Armor Cap is above 500, but less than 672.
- It is impossible to get 100% Damage Reduction.
- No known enemy has Armor Ignore abilities, even though the player has access to 75% Armor Ignore.
- Lord Stone is a flat 50 Armor Rating added to your final Armor value after all other effects have been calculated.
- The UESP wiki lists the Armor Cap as 80%, at 567 Armor Rating.
This means that any Armor Rating above 567 has no effect!
Regarding Armor Perks:
- Heavy Armor Damage Reflection does not decrease damage by 10%; it just reflects incoming damage
- It is unknown if Heavy Armor Damage Reflection is before or after Damage Reduction. It appears to be after.
- Testing on the Heavy Armor 50% Anti-Stagger perk has been inconclusive. It may not actually be working right now.
Regarding short-term skill buffs:
- Weapon Skill and Armor Skill potions work as intended
- Archery Skill buff potion is bugged to give a buff to unrelated skills in addition to it's intended buff; expect a patch
- Orc Berserking stacks with all other buffs
- In extreme cases, a fully buffed player can hit for between 3k-6k damage without using a Sneak Attack. Ancient Dragons have 3.1k Hitpoints
Regarding the Magic Resistance:
- Magic Resistance Cap at 85%
- Magic Resistance and Elemental Resistance stack multiplicatively (( Damage * (1 - MR)) * (1 - ER)) = Damage Taken
- Elemental Resistance Cap is unknown, but appears to also be ~85%
- Alteration MR Perk is a flat 30% MR added to current MR.
- Block Perk: Elemental Protection is Elemental Resistance NOT Magic Resistance
- Magic Absorption is applied before Magic Resist is calculated. It acts as a % chance that you will absorb the spell entirely. If it doesn't get absorbed, the MR and ER calc is used.
Regarding Alchemy and Magic:
- Fortify Destruction potion is a +% Damage potion, unlike the Destruction enchants which reduce spell cost.
- Fortify Destruction potion caps at +162%. If you maximize an elemental perk, this will turn a 60 point spell into a 235 point spell
- Weakness to Element poisons act on the entire damage, so the max 97% Weakness poison turns 235 into 463.
- Multiple Weakness poisons stack additively, so 2x 97% Weakness poisons will give them a 194% Weakness (aka 690 damage)
- Dual Casting is applied before Weakness, so the effects scale very quickly into the 1000's.
Regarding Unarmed:
- Unarmed only scales with Base Gauntlet Armor Rating of Heavy Gauntlets.
- Unaffected by ANY perk except Fists of Steel
- Unaffected by ANY enchant except Unarmed Damage enchant (Pugilist Gloves in Riften Ratway)
- Untested using Shouts yet
- Max Damage is 46 or 61 (+14 Fortify Unarmed x2, +18 Base Daedric Gauntlets Armor Rating, +15 for Khajiit (optional))
- For reference, max one-handed mace damage is 536.
Alchemy Progression Chart:
http://bit.ly/tXTbCk
Notes:
- One-handed Weapon Skill enchants don't work on Daggers, so it's damage is limited to 171. Although you can get a total x60 dagger-only backstab bonus.
- Potion-based skill enhancements are time limited, in some cases to as little as 30 seconds. Be quick when crafting your items and enchantments.
- No known enemy has Armor Ignore abilities, but we have not tested whether certain weapon types, such as Daedric, have inherent Armor Ignore.