Serafina wrote:You DO get better at improving an item when you have the appropriate perk.
Also, you can actually improve an item past legendary if you have effects that grant +smithing. That can get very broken very quickly, even if you don't abuse the Alchemy/Enchanting-loophole for this. With just a couple of powerfully enchanted items, every kind of armor can give you maximum damage reduction (which can actually be kinda cool, considering that you can choose your looks freely that way). And of course weapons have no damage limit, so that's pretty much a way to killfuck everything.
My advise: Don't use +smithing effects when you are already at high smithing, they make the game too easy. On armor they are fine, since armor has a hard cap, but on weapons they break the game pretty easily IMO.
Smithing and Enchanting are both broken-good.
Both at once might as well just break the game.
Legendary-improved double-enchanted Daedric Armor and a double-enchanted Legendary Daedric Weapon murder just everything ever. I have something like +120% to Archery damage and a bunch of resistance and armor skill on my current armor set, all at once.
Also - Bound weapons, with the appropriate perks, are pretty goddamned strong. I;ve taken to using a Bound Bow to take out most enemies in one-two hits (and filling soul gems without needing to waste an enchantment or charges) so I can save my "real" arrows and double-damage-enchanted Daedric Bow for enemies that are actually hard.
...I haven't actually found any enemies that are "hard," mind you, but I have my good bow and a bunch of good arrows just in case!