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The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Hints
How can I get my armor rating as high as possible?
1 of 10: The obvious way is to practice up your Heavy Armor skill and wear only heavy armor.
2 of 10: Daedric armor is the most protective type of heavy armor, so be sure to upgrade all five of your armor set's pieces (chest armor, helmet, gauntlets, boots, and shield) to Daedric versions as soon as you can.
3 of 10: To make your Daedric armor pieces even more effective, improve them at a workbench in a blacksmith's forge area. See the Smithing Practice Tips to learn how to maximize your armor improvements.
4 of 10: For further improvements, get your Heavy Armor skill up to 100 via practice and training (and Skill Books), and get all five ranks of the Juggernaut perk plus the Well-Fitted and Matching Set perks.
5 of 10: Even after your Heavy Armor skill is 100, you can increase your armor rating by enchanting your Daedric chest armor and gauntlets with Fortify Heavy Armor effects. The magnitude of the effect can be up to 29 if you max out your enchant potential. See the Item-Crafting Tips for more about that. (Note that you can also put the Fortify Heavy Armor effect on a ring and a necklace.)
6 of 10: If you want another 50 points of armor rating, visit the Lord Stone and get its blessing. (See the Standing Stones List.) The armor rating increase may not seem like much by this point, but you also get a nice +25% to your magic resistance.
7 of 10: With the above-mentioned Heavy Armor skill perks, the maxed-out Daedric armor set, and the Lord Stone's blessing, your armor rating should be 2175 (or 2181 if you're wearing the Konahrik mask instead of a Daedric helmet). If you use your maxed-out Alchemy-enhancing gear to make some Fortify Heavy Armor potions, you can raise that to 2469 (or 2475 with Konahrik) temporarily by drinking one of the potions.
8 of 10: Since you're using a shield as part of your armor outfit anyway, you might as well practice your Block skill and take some of its most useful perks so you can reduce incoming damage even more.
9 of 10: If you're also using the 100% Magic Resistance tips to get your magic resistance up to 100%, you may want to enchant your Daedric shield with the Resist Magic effect instead of using the Shield of Ysgramor. With maxed-out enchanting power, you'll get a +23% magnitude on it, which is way more than you need.
10 of 10: NOTE: I've heard there's a "secret cap" on armor effectiveness that makes armor ratings above the cap (estimated at 567) useless. I've seen no real evidence of that, unless you count the fact that some enemies can kill me fairly quickly even with an armor rating of 2000+. It is clear that the higher armor ratings give diminishing returns, so you might want to use lighter armor than Daedric, and put other enchantments on it in place of Fortify Heavy Armor. Just make sure your armor rating ends up over 600.
