Skyrim talk:Armor/Archive 3

This is an archive of past Skyrim talk:Armor discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page, except for maintenance such as updating links.

1 Cap at 570 or 670?
2 Armor Images
3 Level and Items Found
4 Do shields count for armor cap?
5 Armor Cap for non-perk armor types
6 The cap
7 Alternate Steel Armor
8 Shellbug Helmet.
9 How can you reach 667 AR with no armor?
10 Dragonhide Physical Damage Reduction and Armor Rating Physical Damage Reduction
11 I'm confused.
12 DLC armor images
13 Removed 100% damage reduction note
14 Please someone clarify the armor cap
15 Mistake in armor formula
16 Fur Armor in forge menu
17 Confusing (incorrect?) sentence in the Armor Cap section.
18 Leveling when wearing both types
19 Hidden Armor Rating
20 Hidden armor rating with ancient shrouded hood and dragonpriest mask
21 Armor rating formula incorrect?
22 Note Armor Value is a 32 bit signed variable
23 Nordic Armor
24 Negative Armor Rating Bug
25 Five Pieces of Hidden Bonus Points?

Cap at 570 or 670?

Where are people getting the number 670? It IS 570 right? Deathsculler 20:04, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Cap is 80% reduction. From the formula on page ( (displayed rating + hidden rating)*0.12 ), that's a total of 666.66..., rounded up to 667 for 80%. Since people normally wear all four parts for the full 100 hidden rating bonus, people typically say the cap is 567. Flamefury 05:22, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

I had heard somewhere that this was no longer true. Is it still? - Mulsivaas 14:18, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm looking for the actual value on the CK(Creation Kit) that adds the mythical '100 AR', however I've been unsuccessful in finding it. What is? How do we know it exists? Who stated it was even there? Dalhan 6 August 2012

possibly derived - one can check damage reduction using known damage sources, and one can thus see that it takes 100 more armor to reach the damage reduction cap when not wearing actual armor, 75 more when wearing one piece, etcetera? it's either that or the getav damageresist value is actually higher when using real armor than it should be.

94.193.221.42 19:37, 9 September 2012 (EDT)

NO CAP just deminishing returns, tested today and found 100% at 2 million armor.— Unsigned comment by 69.174.58.196 (talk) at 10:42 on 2 March 2013‎

Walking around with billions of armor myself I can confirm that the cap does not seem to be a hard cap, if a cap exists at all. On my current character I have around 4.4 billion armor and I literally receive no damage whatsoever anymore. Playing on Legendary, so receiving 300% but even then I never even see my health bar pop up (a sign of receiving damage). -Kharay (talk) 08:56, 16 April 2013 (GMT)

Armor Images

I'm in the middle of redoing the male armor images so their aspect ratio is correct, and they match up with the female ones (which I also created). I want to ask everyone (and put out a request to anyone skilled with tables) how they'd feel about having all the images on the same page again. They were initially removed because they crowded the page, but in the style of the Oblivion Armor page I think it's beneficial to look at all of the armor types, on both genders, on the one page. If it sounds like a good idea I invite anyone capable of making them look neat to go ahead and do it. The Invisible Chocobo 04:42, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

I agree that it would be beneficial to have all the armor images on one page. Gimme the links and I'll try and make it look pretty. • JA ^Talk 04:44, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm about to reupload all the male images, so for now, the female light armor (I can't wiki so I couldn't work out how to hyperlink the image without the image itself appearing on the page, sorry):

Phew. xD The Invisible Chocobo 06:56, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Added. Thanks again! elliot (talk) 07:10, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for the good images! The only minor oversight is that the Steel Armor alternate is not alternate. The other armor has big pauldrons while on the pictures the same one is used twice. Hope you don't mind me writing this. Aran Mafre 00:46, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Hello! Firstly, the images on the page are no longer mine; Dwarfmp provided these better lit ones. The steel armour cuirass/greaves are the same, you are right, but the helmet, gauntlets and boots are a different style. I do recall the armour you mention when I made all of the previous screenshots however, so maybe contact Dwarfmp if you think the other armour should be in the shots too. The Invisible Chocobo 01:43, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Level and Items Found

Are we certain that the 12 levels below is strictly accurate. In an unmodified version of 1.5 on the PC, this player's character recently discovered a Dragonplate Curiass at level 24 (!) in a chest in a dwemer ruin. Are their certain containers that ignore the level limit, or use a different levelled list? And if so, should the information regarding that be added to this page? — Unsigned comment by 81.100.17.137 (talk) at 08:38 on 5 May 2012

Do shields count for armor cap?

If my armor rating is already past 567, do shields not help at all? If I'm not mistaken, they have their passive armor boost + block. I was thinking of a build that wields Spellbreaker (heavy armor shield w/ward effect) plus light armor and destruction for damage. If I cap my armor rating, does the shield not count? After all, you have to raise the shield for it to be effective, so would it really be much more than a ward or am I better off just casting a traditional ward with a 100% Magicka reduction towards those two schools? Also, is Spellbreaker affected much by the heavy armor skill? Because I want to make it work with a set of light armor if viable. Shield's defense + ward > Glass shield with light armor perks (if it benefits) with no enchantments? --Licht 15:22, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, equipping a shield after you have hit the armor cap does not reduce damage from incoming attacks, unless you actively block. If you are below the armor cap, just equipping the shield will raise your armor value.

As far as the perks, most, if not all, state that they apply when you equip the appropriate armor type on head, chest, hands, and feet. Shield isn't mentioned. Hope this helps. --Xyzzy 15:41, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Strange. I'm going for the exact same build and had the same question. I've looked at lot of forums and it remains unanswered. It seems we have no clue about the formula for active blocking. To rephrase the question: How are the damage reductions from Armor Rating and Active Blocking related to total DR?

We know that the cap on DR from Armor Rating is 80%. It's also often stated that the cap for DR from active blocking is 85%. Does this mean that at 667 AR, Active Blocking adds only 5%. It is stated in the link below that the DRs stack (additively?). This should mean that any DR from Active Blocking over 20 is useless at 667 AR, and that Active Blocking would prevent 100% of physical damage. I don't think the last has been seen, so what is the formula?

http://www.gameskyrim.com/complete-character-design-freedom-damage-resist-caps-and-t236211.html

Krebtron (talk) 21:18, 13 October 2012 (GMT)

Armor Cap for non-perk armor types

In section Armor Cap, two paragraphs appear to contradict each other:

With Fortify Smithing enchanted apparel and Smithing potions you can boost Smithing even further, which can potentially allow any material for which a Smithing perk exists to reach the cap. At the extreme end, you will need about 126 Smithing to make Steel Armor hit the cap, and about 154 Smithing for an Elven set. Unfortunately, Fur, Hide, Studded, Leather, and Iron armors are not affected by any Smithing perks and so cannot be improved as much.

With the aid of enchanting (fortify smithing) and pre-made enchanting and smithing potions, and of course the appropriate armor perks, you can reach the armor cap with any style or type of armor in the game, even hide and iron armor. All without even using a shield.

So, um, which is it? E.g. Hide does not have a smithing perk. Is the first underlined sentence correct and Hide armor can never hit the armor cap even with fully boosted smithing (100 skill, Fortify Smithing enchantments, Blacksmith potions)? Or is the second paragraph correct and any non-perk armor types can hit the cap if using fully boosted smithing? Or, another distinct possibility, am I missing something and the paragraphs are not contradicting each other after all? Any guidance would be highly appreciated. --87.79.211.98 16:11, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I believe that I typed that (it was in reference to how Elven Armor could be upgraded throughout the game I think), and it (meaning the second paragraph) was a response to the first paragraph without a new secondary headline, plus I noticed the confusing line "and of course the appropriate armor perks," by which I referred to armor types that have them, which was kinda stupid/redundant, considering how that's somewhat obvious and because it implies there are perks for iron, hide, etc.

But anyhow, with 100 smithing and a ridiculous high fortify smithing potion or enchanted gear set, you can get most armors, even without the specific or related armor perk, either, near, or beyond the cap (I also think that I left out you need a pretty high smithing/alchemy/enchantment skill...I doubt that anyone assumed it was possible with all at level 20 or anything though), but I've also found certain items do not go past a certain point in being tempered (e.g. leveled items and artifacts like the Nightingale Bow and, I think, the Mace of Molag Bal, Nightingale Blade, etc.

In any case, I got way too into the fortify restoration loop and juicing up my gear (including the unique leveled stuff) in my first game and pretty much ruined it (the Dragonbane did like 150 damage...Dragonscale Armor, just the armor, mind you, had a rating of like 250, and the boots etc were like 160...did the same thing with the Nightingale Armor, Shrouded Armors, and even the Savior's Hide!), I started a new game that I STILL screwed up, and then started another, and ceased all over-smithing and over-enchanting stuff, with the exception of shields (I might add an extra 20 or 30 to...kinda confused about how Block Skill and Armor Skill/rating are related to how much damage is absorbed), high enchantments that are found on in-game items, like the ____ boots with 40, maybe even 50 point Fortify Carry Weight--I did some experimenting and figured out to how get the 37 point enchantments up to 50, Absorb Stamina/Magicka/Stamina past their limits up to 30 and 40 (whatever it is on the Nightingale Blade), and Turn Undead/Fear up to Level 40 (which is the highest I've seen it on anything I found or bought). On weapons and armor I don't go past good old-fashioned vanilla Legendary, and on lots of other enchantments, I actually use the weaker soul gems so my fortify archery is identical to the Ancient Shrouded Cowl's, etc, etc...sometimes I've had WAY TOO MUCH free time and used high fortify enchantment potions WITH SMALLER SOUL GEMS to get what I wanted, and it's actually kinda...fun...?

If you wanna try to make a set of super duper Hide or Leather Armor, experiment starting with a potion that adds 90-93% to smithing (that gets it to legendary if you have 100 or close to 100 smithing), and just about that much via enchanted smithing equipment. I may have been a bit quick to say that you can reach the threshold and was plain wrong about all types of armor and weapons (I think I was confused about the threshold and thought it was 400-something and not 567), but I have made leather and Wolf Armor sets that were both much higher than Legendary Daedric, by FAR, and tempered unique weapons without specific perks to comical, game breaking damage ratings.

Anyhow, sorry about the errors and any confusion. Hope I explained it much better this time.--76.121.163.168 21:42, 17 May 2012 (UTC) (Timfever)

Thanks for the explanation. Would you mind editing the article to clarify this?

I did some experimenting and figured out to how get the 37 point enchantments up to 50 -- By stacking different enchanting potions? --87.79.229.108 02:04, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

I will edit the article but it will have to wait until after I get some sleep :p

I will say that I just did a test run with a 384% Fortify Smithing Potion that I made to see how high the Spellbreaker shield could get. I had already gotten it to a Legendary Rating of 88 (and that is with Heavy Armor = 98, 1 Level of Juggernaut and [inactive] Well-Fitted) using the 50% Blacksmith's potion you can buy, the Necklace/Extreme and Ring/Eminent Smithing, so right at 192%.

I got the Spellbreaker up to 108 (it got to 122 with the ring and necklace still on), but I got a Falmer Helmet to 69, Falmer Shield to 89, Foresworn Armor 144, Headdress to 71, Stormcloak Fur Boots and Gaunlets to 56, one of those weird Fur Helmets to 69, a set of Hide Armor to 309, Leather Armor to 289, and a set of Glass Armor to -- get this -- 598 (718 with a shield).

Re: the Fortify Carry Weight Enchantment, I use a 59, 60, or 61% Fortify Enchanting potion; you need to have Fortify Alchemy Gear that totals 299-302% (I might be a little off but it's a margin of 2-3% to reach a certain number in Enchanting). I used Muiri's Ring, the Necklace of Alchemy and one of the 20 and 22% fortify Alchemy Necklaces (alternating them as I went) to get the right Fortify Restoration potion, which is a bit tricky to arrive at, but can be done. It won't help much, but I can't tell from what I scribbled down that it's between a 730% Fortify Restoration potion (stacked with 265% potion = 50% Fortify Enchantment potion) and a 1,726% potion :) (the latter --> 86% F. Enchantment).--Timfever 11:06, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

The cap

I was wondering why this line "If you are wearing all four pieces of armor, this occurs at 567 displayed armor rating." was removed from the Armor Cap back in April. Surely this is good, relevant information no?--Valadez 07:47, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

I would agree, so I've re-added it. The user who removed it removed a bit of irrelevant information at the same time, so I'm not sure if the removal of that specific bit was intentional or not. ABCface^◥ 05:12, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, I would've re-added it myself but I wasn't sure if there was a valid reason for removing it. --Valadez 01:59, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Alternate Steel Armor

The alternate steel armor screenshot does not show the alternate steel body (with shoulder plates). I don't have the patience to replicate the situation presented in those shots, otherwise I'd take the shot my self. - Mulsivaas 06:11, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Shellbug Helmet.

What exactly is this helmet? I've seen it posted here and seen in on the smithing menu, but I've never found any reference to a shellbug creature let alone a helmet made of one. Am I just having a blond moment and missing something here or is the info just not up yet? 82.132.214.244 21:38, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

It's from Dawnguard. The Silencer speaks^Talk 21:51, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

You can find the Shellbug in Forgotten Vale Cave it can't be killed anyway except "mining" the Shellbug Chitin from it so bring a pickaxe. ~~(sorry the cave doesn't have a page at this post but I will get to working on it once I get my new character to the Forgotten Vale)~~ --SPMcKinney 22:06, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Added information to Forgotten Vale Cave page with basic directions and heres a link to the Shellbug page --SPMcKinney 05:44, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! Will have a look in the morning. AyaHawkeye 01:29, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

How can you reach 667 AR with no armor?

My math with all the alteration perks and spells still leaves me way short. Could anyone please specify if and how it is possible. — Unsigned comment by 24.57.73.23 (talk) at 10:09 on 9 July 2012

The Dragonhide spell puts you to the Armor cap. The Mage Armor perks are wasted with it tho as it will hit the cap regardless. However it only lasts 30 seconds and uses a lot of magicka. The time can be increased to 45 seconds with the Stability perk or using the Alteration Dual Casting perk it will last 60 or 99 seconds depending on if you have Stability. The cost is the main problem but this can be over come with magicka cost reducing perks and gear or lots of magicka potions. — Kimi the Elf ^{(talk | contribs)} 11:06, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

To avoid confusion refer to the discussion below regarding the mechanics of Dragonhide. It functions outside of the mechanics of armor rating. One can't actually achieve 667 armor rating without armor. The reference in the article about 667 armor rating without armor is a little misleading but it's meant to convey the idea that the sum of hidden armor rating and displayed armor rating must be 667 to achieve 80% physical damage reduction from armor rating.--DagmarH (talk) 03:28, 24 April 2013 (GMT)

Dragonhide Physical Damage Reduction and Armor Rating Physical Damage Reduction

I just ran some damage tests with armor exceeding the required armor rating for the armor rating based physical damage reduction cap and Dragonhide running. Apparently Dragonhide reduces physical damage by a different game mechanic than armor rating and the two work together much like magic resistance and elemental physical damage resistance, i.e. 80% physical damage reduction of one of them is applied first and then the other 80% physical damage reduction is applied to the remaining damage for a net effect of 96%. The testing parameters were displayed armor rating of 987 from 4 pieces of armor (no shield) tested against attacks from a Giant on Master Difficulty setting both with and without Dragonhide running. Damage from regular attacks from the Giant without Dragonhide running was approximately 60 per hit. Damage from regular attacks from the Giant with Dragonhide running was approximately 12 per hit or approximately 20% of the 60 damage taken from attacks without Dragonhide running. I have not tested which applies first yet but a few other things to note.

Unlike the other Alteration spells which actually affect displayed armor rating, Dragonhide only changed displayed armor rating by 1 point;
The AI value DamageResist was 0 with no armor and Dragonhide running, and was 987 (not the displayed armor rating of 988) with the armor equipped and Dragonhide running;
The effects only work together when Dragonhide is cast while wearing the armor. If you remove the armor or cast Dragonhide without armor on and then equip armor, respectively, your displayed armor drops down to or stays at 1; and
The damage reduction from Dragonhide was slightly greater than the physical damage reduction from the armor. Damage from regular Giant attacks were approximately but consistently 53 instead of 60. I'm not sure what's accounting for the marginal but consistent higher damage reduction.

Given all of this, I'm not sure if this is a bug or working as intended, but I'll leave this section here and cross reference it in the Alteration skill and Alteration spell discussion pages for the time being and let others who are inclined, test and look further into this. If no one contests the results of my tests in a few weeks I'll add in a note about the duality of physical damage reduction from armor rating and Dragonhide in all three articles.--DagmarH 04:41, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

I test it myself ，and it can't work together anymore.

The armor simply shows 0 when I cast Dragonhide.

When I get hited,it feels only one type damage reduction functional too.

Although I use concole to test them. — Unsigned comment by 61.219.36.86 (talk) at 14:38 on 24 August 2012

You are correct, Dragonhide does not use the same mechanic as other Flesh spells and Armor. While Armor and Flesh spells increase the Armor Rating, Dragonhide works by temporally add a hidden perk to you. This perk multiplies incoming damage by 0.2 and set your Armor Rating to 0. For that reason, casting Dragonhide always grants you 80% damage resist, wearing armor or not will not have any further effect.117.5.16.97 08:27, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm confused.

My in-game cap with daedric+Perks shows up as 1087 armor rating. I've even tried a lower-tempered Daedric cuirass and it's the same number. So what's this about the cap being in the 500-600's?-Zydrate[][] 04:00, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

The numbers can go as high as you want but the damage reduction is capped at 80%. This happens at 667 I think? Once you are past the cap making it any stronger is just a waste of time. — Kimi the Elf ^{(talk | contribs)} 06:00, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Well, interesting. That makes my light-armor wearers somehow more impressive.-Zydrate[][] 19:54, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

DLC armor images

This page has images of all the game's craftable base armor. Should this be expanded to include the unique sets of armor, like the Blades or Wolf armor, as well as all the armor added by DLC? --68.35.158.74 22:05, 9 February 2013 (GMT)

Removed 100% damage reduction note

Okay so i just removed this from the page: At 2842035 defense you can achieve 100% physical damage reduction!!!! I have it please someone verify I can stand in front of 2 giants on Master and take no damage."

I don't think it really needs to be featured on the page but still, if this is true I guess it needs to be verified, right? I'd gladly do it but yeah, no PC :( Elakyn (talk) 13:11, 1 March 2013 (GMT)

It was done on ps3 with enchant and alchemy and smithing — Unsigned comment by 66.87.97.40 (talk) at 13:36 on 1 March 2013‎ (GMT)

Testing for hours and was able to reach 2830405 defence and had 100% Physical Reduction against anything. Fall damage still kills you though — Unsigned comment by ‎ 69.174.58.196 (talk) at 10:39 on 2 March 2013

Ok so it was found with one verification Alchemy Make resto with alchemy gear and keep going till you can make smithing 800000% better with gloves workbench some armor with gloves on and them put on master and let giants hit for no damage — Unsigned comment by 66.87.96.50 (talk) at 13:59 on 2 March 2013‎

We generally don't take exploits into account when adding information to articles. Achieving these levels of armor requires use of exploits. I think the note should be added back, but maybe with new wording to reflect what has been discovered. --Xyzzy ^Talk 06:35, 6 March 2013 (GMT)

(←) The note was added back. I started a discussion on the Glitches page to maybe add this information there. --Xyzzy ^Talk 06:53, 6 March 2013 (GMT)

Please someone clarify the armor cap

The page is very confusing to me. I understand that damage resistance caps at 80% and at one point (when the page was far less confusing than what is written there now) I remember reading about the exact displayed armor ratings you needed to achieve 80% DR depending on how many pieces of armor you were wearing. Basically I want to know exactly what displayed armor rating I need to achieve the DR cap when wearing only 3 pieces of armor (i.e. no helmet or shield). This way I can reset my perks and only take what I need to achieve the cap so I can use those wasted perks somewhere else. 71.181.103.194 21:10, 21 August 2013 (GMT)

Mistake in armor formula

Formula on the page states armor value is multiplied by (1 + unison_set + matching_set). This is incorrect! Perks are applied independently, and each perk's bonus is multiplied to the base value. Bonusses for unison and matching set are not added together before being multiplied. It's quite easy to check with the use of console. With addition, coefficient from two perks would be 1.5, but with multiplication, it's 1.5625. Comparing with real game data, the second value is a much better fit. For example, with Heavy Armor skill 100, one Juggernaut perk, Well Fitted and Matching Set perks a suit of untempered Dwarven Armor gives 90 listed armor.

Fur Armor in forge menu

why can't you make these in the forge? Grelaria (talk) 20:10, 18 December 2013 (GMT)

short answer: because bethesda

long answer: there is no COBJ (Constructible Object = Recipe) in the skyrim files that results in any of the fur armor items. This is because bethesda simply didn't create them (if you want to know why, ask them :-P ). It is relatively easy to create a mod containing such a recipe using the Creation Kit if you're on PC, but I don't know any right now... -- SarthesArai ^Talk 20:26, 18 December 2013 (GMT)

Confusing (incorrect?) sentence in the Armor Cap section.

"You can increase your tempered armor rating by 1 roughly every 2 points of Smithing with the appropriate perk, or every 4 without. Therefore, at 100 Smithing you will need 85 base armor with the appropriate perk, which is not achievable without a shield with Light Armor (though Dragonscale comes close at 82 for the set) and requires at least a Steel Plate set for Heavy Armor."

This seems to assume a total of plus 50 to your armor with 100 smithing skill and the right perk. But looking at the smithing section reveals that 100 in smithing with the perk is enough to grant +20 to each piece of armor, resulting in a total of +80 to your armor with all four pieces equipped. I also calculate 129 "tempered" armor needed to achieve the cap, not the stated 135. This results in needing a mere 49 base armor (not the claimed 85) to achieve the max with all relevant perks and skills at 100, which is easily achieved by wearing a matched set of Elven armor, while the section indicates that even Dragon Scale armor can't reach the cap without a shield.

Here's my math: 29+8+8+13=58 for a full set of non-gilded elven armor. +20 for each piece thanks to 100 smithing and the elven smithing perk (allows for the legendary quality, but is not enough to reach the next (hidden) level beyond that), and you get 138.

138*1.4(100 light armor skill)*2(maxed out agile defender perks)*1.25(custom fit perk)*1.25(matching set perk)=603.75

That's the displayed rating, but add the invisible +100 for wearing four pieces = 703.75 Each point of armor grants .12% damage resistance, so 703.75*.12 = 84.45%, already breaking the 80% cap, which is the most that can be seen without exploits.

Either the person who wrote that section is wrong, the description for smithing bonuses on the smithing section is wrong, or my math is wrong.

--216.40.143.28 07:30, 29 December 2013 (GMT)

The unison perk (custom fit) and matching set are added together before multiplying, thus 1.25 and 1.25 becomes just 1.5. That only brings the total down to 579.6, still above the threshold. The tempered rating of 135 is correct, thus you only need 55 base armor made legendary. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 13:53, 29 December 2013 (GMT)

Looking at this again, it turns out that the 85 base armor rule is correct. The confusion was caused by the way the smithing page refers to "armor vs. non armor". Now that I realize "Armor" refers specifically to the chest piece, and that gauntlets, boots, and helmets only get half improvement, it's clear that it really is +50 with 100 smithing and the right perk.--72.21.143.31 19:50, 8 June 2014 (GMT)

Leveling when wearing both types

So, I wear a Ebony body part (heavy) and the rest of my armor are the nightingale parts (light). But I only level light armor, not heavy armor. Solutions?? --SRX2 (talk) 20:36, 18 January 2014 (GMT)

If you want to level up your Heavy Armor skill, you should equip more pieces of heavy armor as opposed to only wearing one piece. While you should still gain experience in Heavy Armor while only wearing one piece of it, the rate at which you gain experience will be much slower than if you were wearing primarily heavy armor or a full set of it. Also note that you have to take damage in order to gain experience in the armor skills, as noted here. I would recommend equipping a full set of heavy armor and then enter a battle to see if you are still not gaining any experience in that skill, at which point you may be experiencing some kind of a bug. Forfeit (talk) 21:19, 18 January 2014 (GMT)

Hidden Armor Rating

Moved from article:

??(+100 hidden armor rating)?? No, it's not. No hidden. 667 - a 80%. Checked. — Unsigned comment by 86.62.84.49 (talk) at 06:25 on 1 April 2014

I remember looking into this some time ago, and at the time, there definitely was an invisible bonus to your armour. I'll have to check if that's still the case in 1.9. – Robin Hood ^(talk) 08:46, 1 April 2014 (GMT)

With a level 1 character, 15 in both Light and Heavy Armor, with the heal rate set to zero, and an NPC hitting me for a consistent 7 damage (ignoring criticals when he got them) I got the following results using player.getav health to get accurate numbers:

# Pieces	Armor Rating	Expected Resist with no bonus	Expected Damage with no bonus	Expected Resist with hidden bonus	Expected Damage with hidden bonus	Actual Damage Taken
0	0	0.00%	7.00	0.00%	7.00	7.00
1	19	2.28%	6.84	5.28%	6.63	6.63
2	38	4.56%	6.68	10.56%	6.26	6.26
3	39	4.78%	6.66	13.68%	6.04	6.04

I think this fairly conclusively proves that there is indeed a hidden armour bonus of 25 per piece still present in 1.9. – Robin Hood ^(talk) 11:19, 1 April 2014 (GMT)

Hidden armor rating with ancient shrouded hood and dragonpriest mask

I know it's sort of an exploit on console but I was wondering if it counts both 25 hidden armor ratings if you are wearing them at the same time making them 50 hidden or if it only counts as 1 head gear making it 25. — Unsigned comment by 136.1.1.113 (talk) at 17:29 on 21 May 2014

Armor rating formula incorrect?

I am finding in my own tests that the term in the Armor rating section refering to the player skill is surprisingly not continuous. It looks like the skill term can only be 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 or 1.4, rather than 1+0.4*skill/100 as advertised. Can anyone confirm this? — Unsigned comment by Ragunr (talk • contribs) at 22:10 on 29 May 2014

I had noticed the same thing, so I'm glad to see someone else has already brought this up. However from my - albeit rather crude - testing it seems that it's the skill coefficient (given as 0.4 in the article) that changes. I don't believe that the whole skill term (or even just the coefficient) has only a few possible values. I think it changes depending on certain factors such as armor skill and improvements to armor.

- With 80 heavy armor, 5/5 Juggernaut, well fitted and matching set, I looked at the armor rating displayed for steel, orcish and daedric armor sets (excl. shields). Three different levels of improvement: none, exquisite and epic. With no improvements all three seemed to have a coefficient of approximately 0.4875, with exquisite it was steel at 0.2232, orcish at 0.2500, daedric 0.2787, and with epic level it was steel 0.1517, orcish 0.1898, daedric 0.2201.

- I then repeated the above but this time with 100 heavy armor and only comparing two levels of improvement - none and epic. For the former it was steel 0.4722, orcish 0.455, daedric 0.4845. For the latter, steel 0.1976, orcish 0.2194, daedric 0.2424.

- I very quickly had a look with 50 heavy armor (kept perks due to using modav in console), and it seemed to result in a larger coefficient than with 80 and 100 skill when using unimproved armor but a lower coefficient with improved gear.

All in all, it does seem that improving gear results in a lower coefficient (though of course still a positive gain in overall rating). Not so certain about higher/lower skill but it does seem to have an affect. Again I want to stress that this was just a quick 20 min check and by no means rigourous testing, the numbers are approximate as I was plugging the displayed armor rating into the formula, which is rounded after being calculated. Despite that, I feel confident enough to state that the 0.4 given in the article is very misleading at best and outright incorrect at worst. For now I'm going to make a quick note/warning in the article, but it would be good if someone could check in game themselves to confirm/disconfirm even if it's just a quick bit of testing. Chowchilla (talk) 23:41, 6 June 2014 (GMT)

After some quick testing it would seem that the formula is CEILING(1+0.4*(skill/100)).

The effect of this is that EACH piece of armor is rounded up to the next whole number. So with a Light Armor skill of 20, Elven armor (excluding shield) has Calculated/Rounded values of Cuirass 28.08 / 29, Gloves 7.56 / 8, Boots 7.56 / 8, Helmet 12.96 / 13 giving totals of 56.16 / 58. It is this 58 which is displayed in-game. Factoring in the first Agile Defender (20% increase), the calculated totals become 67.39/69.6. In game, this is displayed as an Armor Rating of 69, however using the console, the DamageResist value is 69.6.

I have checked this with various skill levels and other types of armor, and those that i tested, held true to these calculations.

Heilghast — Unsigned comment by 109.156.244.130 (talk) at 22:09 on 25 August 2014‎

CEILING[ (base armor rating + item quality) × (1 + 0.4 × (skill + skill effect)/100) ] * MODIFERS is the value displayed for each individial armor piece in inventory. – Tested with Dwarven, Hide and Dragonscale-Set. –

(1 + unison perk† + Matching Set) is wrong... It is ( 1 + unison perk† ) * ( 1 + Matching Set ).

— Relay (talk) 10:16, 2 October 2014 (GMT)

Note Armor Value is a 32 bit signed variable

PC Version.

My mother discovered crafting early on, and managed to take it to an whole new level.

For the record, the maximum armor value appears to be 2,147,483,647. If you got past that it rolls over and stops at -2,147,483,648 (aka b1000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000). Item Value also rolls over. These armors are not useful (The issue came up when she was trying to figure out why she couldn't defeat Alduin - or even survive 10 seconds), and it turns out no even if you pickpocket the armor onto a merchant they won't 'sell' it back for 'negative' septims - it treats the value as 'zero', and I suspect the armor value is 'zero' as well.

I frankly didn't think you could get to those numbers without cheating, but evidently "Yes We Can!"(TM). — Unsigned comment by Jonnan001 (talk • contribs) at 11:45 on 9 June 2014

Well actually it is cheating, as it exploits the fortify restoration/alchemy loop. The maximum value being a 32 bit variable makes a whole lot of sense, as the same applies to breaking merchants gold supplies (with a lesser value but still a 32 bit variable). The numbers are wholly useless when it comes to armor as it has a hard cap of around 600, so it only makes sense when trying to make gold and/or leveling speech. If you want a suggestion on using the cheat, use it to enchant something with fortify health to a ludicrous degree, then you can take thousands of points of damage without a care. This is all on the Glitches page if the method is unclear. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 17:57, 9 June 2014 (GMT)

Well, given that we have all the unofficial patches, No. I confess I don't quite see how she *did* manage it - We play on the same Computer (She lives with me) so we have all the same DLC installed. It's entirely feasible some *else* has introduced a glitch, but if so I haven't figured out what.

All that said - as nearly as I can tell she hasn't done anything except craft fortify alchemy/fortify enchantment gear a *lot*.

Jonnan001 (talk) 00:39, 10 June 2014 (GMT)

Nordic Armor

I wouldn't want to edit it without asking, but shouldn't the Nordic Armor be on this page too?

After all the steel plate is, and that counts as Advanced Armor as well. The Nordic weapon are on the Weapons page too as, for that matter, are the Stalhirm ones - so maybe that armor could be on here too? — Unsigned comment by 2.123.112.173 (talk) at 17:24 on 9 August 2014

Nordic armor is part of the Dragonborn DLC, so it's listed in the Dragonborn namespace. Zul se onikaan^{Laan tinvaak} 13:27, 15 August 2014 (GMT)

Negative Armor Rating Bug

Haven't seen this listed but has anyone else seen a bug where your armor rating is somehow a negative number when you are naked? I can't seem to find a specific Actor Value to adjust it back to zero using the console and I'm not even sure how it happened. Maybe having used the Enchantment/Alchemy exploit to make Godly armor caused something strange to STICK on my player character. Tiger8u2 (talk) 00:17, 10 September 2014 (GMT)

Once you've used an exploit, all bets are off. Negative numbers appearing where you wouldn't expect them is a common issue when using this type of exploit. – Robin Hood ^(talk) 16:45, 10 September 2014 (GMT)

Five Pieces of Hidden Bonus Points?

". . . or 542 if wearing 4 pieces of armor and a shield."

The implication here seems to be that the shield provides a hidden 25 point AR bonus just like the other four armor pieces. That is the shield, as such, reduces the goal an additional 25 points regardless of its actual armor value which is included in the 542 figure. I don't believe that is the case.

I have found the following to work quite well for calculating actual damage resistance:

1.  Look at the inventory apparel screen for the displayed Armor Rating (AR)
2.  Count the pieces of equipped armor (on Head, Body, Hands, and Feet)
3.  Multiply step 2. by 25  (this is the Hidden AR)
4.  Add steps 1. and 3.
5.  Divide the result by 667
6.  Multiply by 80 and call it a percent (or divide by 100)
7.  If step 6. is more than 80% reduce it to 80%

Notes: 1. The screen displayed AR is the same as the console command: getav damageresist which includes the armor value of any equipped shield.

2. Hidden Armor Rating posted on the talk page by Robin Hood stops at three pieces. In reading through the archives I see no claims for five pieces and 125 points in hidden bonus, but I do for four: ". . .I distinctly remember that the sum of the four pieces gave an effect equal to 100 points of armor rating . . ." -Evil4Zerggin I agree with Evil4Zerggin's experiments.

3. The 667 figure comes from: fMaxArmorRating / fArmorScalingFactor = 80 / .12

Remedy: This page has undergone a storm of confusion from its inception. Either strike the phrase or provide some proof for five pieces of hidden bonus points which includes the shield. If none is forthcoming in a week, I will do so. Kalevala (talk) 05:38, 1 October 2014 (GMT)

Shields appear to benefit from the hidden bonus of 25, just as armour does. Equipping only a helmet with an AR of 16, I took more damage than equipping a shield with an AR of 22. That implies that the shield gets the same bonus as the armour does. I'm not sure why I didn't check that the last time or why I stopped at three pieces. So, unless the bonus itself is capped at 100 points, which I didn't think to check, it appears that the hidden bonus can be 125 points. I'll go check on that last one now and report back. – Robin Hood ^(talk) 19:20, 1 October 2014 (GMT)

Yup, just confirmed with all four pieces of Iron Armor and an Iron Shield equipped and I'm getting the expected 125 point bonus. The nearest bandit was dealing a whole 2.8 damage when I had nothing equipped, and it went down to 2.09 with all armour equipped. Displayed AR was 87, so:

Cap = 100: 2.8 * (100 - (187 * 0.12))% = 2.8 * 77.56% = 2.17

Cap = 125: 2.8 * (100 - (212 * 0.12))% = 2.8 * 74.56% = 2.09

Since I took 2.09 damage, there's obviously no cap of 100, the only "cap" being the fact that you can't wear more than five pieces of armour. – Robin Hood ^(talk) 20:21, 1 October 2014 (GMT)

Where exactly is this "hidden bonus" defined? — Unsigned comment by 66.58.218.84 (talk) at 22:14 on 24 June 2015

It isn't, that's why it's hidden. The formulas are not documented either, so they are reached after looking at results, and no formula has been able to accurately track expected damage without this extra bonus per item. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 21:44, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Prev: Archive 2

Up: Skyrim talk:Armor

Next: None