Smithing (Skyrim)

Skyforge.

File:File:A34.jpg	Artificer Make a smithed item, an enchanted item, and a potion
Points	10
Trophy	Bronze

Smithing is one of the new skills introduced in Skyrim. It falls under the Warrior play-style and as such, acts as its crafting skill like the Mage's Enchanting and the Thief's Alchemy.

It moves away from the Armorer Skills of previous games, in that it revolves around improving weapons' functionality and creating new weapons and armor.

Players may find it unbalanced that mage armor is fairly more powerful than regular armor, especially in lower levels, reaching values as high as 320 armor solely with Adept-level spells (Stoneflesh and Greater Ward); however, these players should remember that mage armor is temporary, and somewhat magicka-consuming. It is important to note that for advanced players, smithing can be extremely powerful when enchantments and potions are synergized well in its favour. Done correctly, it is possible to over-smith an item to over 4X base defense and value which is much more powerful than anything achieved solely using mage armor.

You can see a helpful guide video showing how the leveling process of Smithing is : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1nlKo_b37E

Governing Guardian Stone: The Warrior

Tools

• Forge and Anvil - Used to craft armor, weapons and jewelry
• Workbench - Used to upgrade armor and shields
• Grindstone - Used to upgrade weapons
• Smelter- Used to change ores into ingots
• Tannery Rack - Used to create leather/leather strips from animal hides

Locations

The requisite in-game objects to perform smithing (i.e. forges, Grindstones, workbenches) can be found in any main city or village (can also be found in forts and Dungeons) .

• Smelters appear in all major cities in addition to Kynesgrove, Stonehills Mines (near Mzinchaleft), Bilegulch Mine and Shor's Stone to aid in clearing Dwemer ruins.
• Forges appear in all major cities and most mines, in addition to Riverwood
• Grindstones appear in all major cities in addition to Fellglow Keep, and Riverwood
• Tannery Racks appear in all major cities in addition to Riverwood
• Workbench appear in all major cities in addition to Riverwood
• Anvils, used like forges, appear in Fellglow Keep
• All of these tools can be found in Whiterun, near the main gate to the city just off to the right. This is the most useful spot to perform, considering the Skyforge is in the same town, and the house next to it can be purchased, storing extra materials.
• There are also many spots in the wilderness and various caves that also have crafting stations. You do not need an entire forge to craft; even just an anvil will suffice. (the character will start hammering away on a heated rod regardless, even in an ice cave with no furnace)

Books

The following books level up your Smithing Skill:

• Cherim's Heart
• Heavy Armor Forging
• Light Armor Forging
• The Armorer's Challenge
• The Last Scabbard of Akrash

Training

• As a member of the Companions, Eorlund Greymane in Whiterun trains the Smithing skill at Master level (up to 90) to the Dragonborn.

• Oengul War-Anvil increases the Dragonborn's Smithing by one, after retrieving Queen Freydis' Sword from Ansilvund.

Smeltable Items

The following items are smeltable:

• 2 Corundum Ore (1x Corundum Ingot)
• Large Decorative Dwemer Strut (2x Dwarven Metal Ingot)
• Large Dwemer Strut (3x Dwarven Metal Ingot)
• Bent Dwemer Scrap Metal (3x Dwarven Metal Ingot)
• Large Dwemer Plate Metal (3x Dwarven Metal Ingot)
• Small Dwemer Plate Metal (3x Dwarven Metal Ingot)
• Solid Dwemer Metal (5x Dwarven Metal Ingot)
• 2 Moonstone Ore (1x Refined Moonstone)
• 2 Malachite Ore (1x Refined Malachite)
• 1 Iron Ore (1x Iron Ingot)
• 2 Silver Ore (1x Silver Ingot)
• 2 Gold Ore (1x Gold Ingot)
• 2 Quicksilver Ore (1x Quicksilver Ingot)
• 2 Ebony Ore (1x Ebony Ingot)
• 1 Corundum Ore + 1 Iron Ore (1x Steel Ingot)
• 2 Orichalcum Ore (1x Orichalcum Ingot)

Smithing Perks

The following are the perks that become available to select as the skill is leveled up

Perk (Ranks)	Requirements	Description
Steel Smithing	Smithing 20	Can create Steel Armor and weapons at forges, and improve them twice as much.
Elven Smithing	Smithing 30, Steel Smithing	Can create Elven Armor and weapons at forges, and improve them twice as much.
Dwarven Smithing	Smithing 30, Steel Smithing	Can create Dwarven armor and weapons at forges, and improve them twice as much.
Advanced Armors	Smithing 50, Elven Smithing	Can create Scaled and Plate armor at forges, and improve them twice as much.
Orcish Smithing	Smithing 50, Dwarven Smithing	Can create Orcish armor and weapons at forges, and improve them twice as much.
Arcane Blacksmith	Smithing 60, Steel Smithing	You can improve magical weapons and armor.
Glass Smithing	Smithing 70, Advanced Armors	Can create Glass Armor and Weapons at forges, and improve them twice as much.
Ebony Smithing	Smithing 80, Orcish Smithing	Can create Ebony armor and weapons at forges, and improve them twice as much.
Daedric Smithing	Smithing 90, Ebony smithing	Can create Daedric armor and weapons at forges, and improve them twice as much.
Dragon Smithing	Smithing 100, Dragon smithing	Can create Dragon Armor at forges, and improve them twice as much.

Weapon and Armor Enhancement

Weapons and armor can be improved using either a Grindstone (Weapons) or a Workbench (Armor). The level of improvement is based off whether you have the skill relating to the item (i.e. Steel Smith for improving a Steel Sword). Legendary is the final named upgrade, but you can continue to upgrade the armor/damage of your equipment with smithing levels over 100. You can use smithing armor enchantments and smithing potions to raise your smithing level over 100. Smithing skill can potentially reach 600+ with a perfect setup.

The chart below shows bonus damage for improvements between 14 and 600+ smithing levels with and without perks for upgrading weapons .

The numbers below for One-Hand weapon bonus damage might be incorrect. A steel one-handed sword has a base damage of 9. Upgrading the sword with 45 smithing skill (exquisite level) results in a total damage of 14. this is an increase of 5 and not the 9 the chart shows. Additional testing needs to be conducted as the values listed might have been based with damage perks for the weapon type.

Numbers for One-Hand weapons confirmed incorrect. With zero perks in both One-Handed and Two-Handed, both at level 100 and a Smithing level of 623 achieved through console commands (the maximum amount via the enchanting-alchemy loop), both types of weapons improved by 112 damage. Chart below needs to be reworked for accuracy.

Smithing level		Upgrade name	Weapon bonus damage
w/o perk	with perk		One-Hand	Two-Hand	Bows
14	14	Fine	2	1	1
31	22	Superior	5	3	3
65	40	Exquisite	9	5	5
100	58	Flawless	12	7	7
134	74	Epic	16	9	9
168	91	Legendary	19	11	11
203	108	Legendary	23	13	13
237	125	Legendary	27	15	15
271	143	Legendary	30	16	17
306	160	Legendary	34	18	20
340	177	Legendary	37	20	22
374	194	Legendary	41	22	24
409	211	Legendary	44	24	26
443	228	Legendary	47	26	28
477	246	Legendary	51	28	30
512	263	Legendary	55	30	32
546	280	Legendary	58	32	34
580	297	Legendary	62	34	36
615	314	Legendary	65	36	38
	...	Legendary	...	...	...
	623	Legendary	129	71	76

Smithing - General Tips

Increasing your Smithing Skill

• The easiest and least expensive way to level up your smithing skill is to collect as many pelts as you can and use a Tannery Rack to craft the pelts into leather and Leather Strips. Make sure you have twice as many Leather Strips as you do Leather. Use a Forge to craft Leather Bracers using the Leather and Leather Strips. You can also sell the Leather Bracers crafted to a nearby merchant for a small amount of gold.
  • Leather Bracers is recommended for this as it only requires one Leather to craft and the value of each Leather outweighs the value of Leather Strips. Most other Leather items require two Leather to craft.
• ​Another easy (although not the quickest) way to increase your Smithing skill is to Dwemer ruins and clear the enemies but don't pick up any of the metal laying around the ruins. After the enemies are cleared, fast travel back to your house or somewhere where you can store most of the items in your inventory but take along any enchanter armore that increases your carrying capacity and any strength potions you may have. Return to the Dwemer ruins and collect as much Dwemer Metal items as possible, fast traveling back to where ever you stored your inventory as many times as necessary. Bring the Dwemer Metal to a Smelter and smelt all the metal into Dwarven Metal Ingots to use on Dwarven daggers or bows. Use the Ingots to refine any Dwarven bows or daggers you have as well. It will take some time, but is probably one of the fastest and cheapest ways to level and skill up smithing. Also, the cost of any extra materials will be offset by gold for selling the crafted items.

• A smilar method to increasing your smithing skill is a bit more expensive. At level 20 to 30 it is very easy to find Iron Ingots or Iron Ore from trading and smith shops. Buy all you can from every town and craft and refine iron daggers, as they are the cheapest item to create at 1 ingot. It will not give as much skill, but you can create many more daggers from the same amount of materials as the Dwarven items.
• Another good sort of fast Smithing experience bonus is to head to the mine East of Markarth and mine all the gold. Smelt it down to gold amulets and you'll have 1,000+ gold if you sell it all. The mine yields somewhere around 40 gold ore.

• Or, if you so choose, you can convert them into gold rings (2 rings/ingot) to use as enchanting materials provided you have the soul gems. The total will always result in a net gain from the value of the gem and the value of the gold rings.

Profiting from Smithing

• Most profitable items with smithing (work in progress): Glass Bow 820 - 2 Refined Malachite, 1 Refined Moonstone (upgrade in workbench with 1 Refined Malachite to double it's value); Steel Plate Arnor 625 - 1 Iron Ingot, 3 Steel Ingots, 3 Leater Strips, 1 Corundum Ingot; Gold Rings 75 (x2) - 1 Gold Ingot (especially profitable with Transmute spell).
• Transmute Mineral Ore: How to easily obtain gold ingot from iron ore.
• A very good way to make money and get skills up is to smith iron daggers for very little cost, then enchant them bringing their sell price from 10 to 109 [untrue, iron daggers with banish enchantment can reach as high as value 2635, without weapon enhancement] (depending on the spell). Then you can sell the daggers back one at a time with ease. This method increases your speech, smithing, enchanting and not to mention the money in your pocket, though keep in mind that with high value enchantment you will easily render merchant broke.
• The fastest/easiest method I have used with a little profit on the side is to get the transmute spell, start in Whiterun ( not necessary just a suggestion) buy all the iron ore, leather, leather strips, alternate between bracers and coifs depending on your strips to leather ratio, and during your wait times and right after you travel to another city to replenish stock in the other towns Transmute the iron ore to gold, make rounds to Whiterun, Dawnstar etc., save up all your gold ore while making the leather and then with all the gold make whatever you can necklaces / add gems if you have them for some extra profit this way your not wasting money and its effective fast training. if you have the magicka i recommend duel wielding transmute and adding the best magicka regen equipment you have to speed along the transmute for higher profit rates, and if the exp is too slow for you you can sacrifice a slight bit of profit and also buy up all the iron ingots there cheap and more things to smith.
• Also before having sold any weapon or armor you have just forged, buy some piece of armor that has the enchantment of improving items you refine by some certain percentage, so you can create more of a profit than you would with your regular skill, sometimes adding an extra 200 value, and you'll gain experience while doing so.
• Actually, it's better to buy the ore from the shop keepers, as then you can smelt it, increasing your skill even more, and it's cheeper. Then hunt down animals for pelts and use them to make leather, and craft a bunch of iron daggers/leather braces. Additionally, if you have Azura's star (either finished version), you can enchant stuff all the time without wasting soul gems. Then sell and repeat. It might take a bit of hunting, but it's effective.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Skills

• See: Skill (Skyrim)