How to craft the perfect Skyrim character for resistances.

Eugene

If you want an explanation as to how I arrive at these findings, then keep reading, if you want to know just what to do look below.
Assuming no Racial resistances:

Quote:

Stone: Lord (25% magic resist and armor bonus)
Agent of Mara: 15% magic resist
Head: Anything you want, it doesn't matter. NOTE: Archery is the only DPS boost available for this slot.
Neck: 20% Magic Resist and 25% Magic Resist
Chest: You can go for stat boost, or if you really want get half way to disease and poison resist.
Hands: Stat and DPS boosts
Finger: 2x FIRE/FROST/SHOCK resistance (42%)
Feet: 2x FIRE/FROST/SHOCK resistance (42%)
Shield: 2xFIREFROSTSHOCK resistance (42%)

Now let us get to the down and dirty. You will need at least these perks for:
Heavy Armor
Light Armor
This is in order for you to reach the Armor cap along with all of the resist caps. If you want numbers then here you go:
The respective cap for each defense

Quote:

Magic Resist: 85%
Elemental Resistance: 85%
Poison/Disease Resistance: 100%
Armor Cap: 80%

For Armor cap you need:

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567 when wearing 4-peices
667 if not wearing any peices
You need 135 temperance rating to hit the cap, for light armor you need a shield. Heavy Armor needs at least a full steel set. (NOTE: You need 100 in both Smithing and <blank> Armor even if you don't grab all the perks.)
Alteration Master Level Spell: Dragonskin (80% less physical damage)

Note: Using foritfy Smithing potions and enchants can lower what you need.

I won't go into poison and disease resistance because they are less common and you can reach cap just by being a vampire or werewolf if you so choose.

For Magic you need to do the following:

Quote:

Grab the Lord Stone for 25% passive
Do the Agent of Mara questline in Riften for 15% passive

You CAN do the following

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Go to Solitude and do the Wolf Queen questline to get the shield of Solitude. It will give you a 25% max magic resistance (if using grand soul gem) and stacks with the vanilla 20%
-or-
Put enough points into alteration and grab 10/20/30% magic resistance from it's tree

Elemental resistances are tricky, because they stack with magic resist you can get away with being a bit lower under the cap and not feel much if you so wish. For these simply enchant your gear with them, and at 100 enchanting with all perks and a grand soul you will get 42% resistance. If you only want 2/3 then do the following:

Quote:

Meele Character: Frost and Fire
Mage Character: Shock and Fire
Ranged Character: Frost and Fire
Dragonslayer: Frost and Fire

However you can simplify things further! You can get racial resistances which will reduce what you need, the most useful are:

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Breton: 25% magic resistance
Dunmer: 50% Fire Resistance
Nord: 50% Frost Resistance
Bosmer: 50% Poison and Disease
Redguard: 50% Poison
Argonian: 50% Disease

However, we can go a step further if you don't mind a little blood.

VAMPIRES!
There are three important things about vampires.
At all levels of vampirism:
100% disease immunity

At level 4 of Vampirism:
Vanilla: +100 Frost -100 Fire (Attacked on Sight)
Dawnguard: +50 Frost -50 Fire (Not attacked on sight)

Restoration! Yes, restoration at 70 gives you the necromage perk which means that all effects (25% added effect and 50% duration increase) are stronger. This applies to certain perks to. This means that you can reach caps for less. This does not work if you have the unofficial skyrim patch installed.

So with that, I hope you have enjoyed reading this as much as I did writing it. I will leave you with a word of warning: This can break the game for you, so use it on higher difficulties only.

Also Ideal Setups.

Non-Vampire:

Quote:

Breton
Agent of Mara
Lord Stone
Head: Waterbreathing and Lockpicking -or- reduced magicka costs
Neck: Frost and Shock resistances
Chest: Either reduce magicka costs or +health and +stamina regen or poison and disease resistance
Hands: DPS boost/Useful reinforce skill such as block or sneak
Finger: Fire and Shock Resistance
Feet: Frost and Fire Resistance
Shield: Block and Health or poison and disease resistance

Vampire:

Quote:

Nord
Necromage
Agent of Mara
Lord Stone
Head: Waterbreathing and Lockpicking -or- reduced magicka costs
Neck: Fire and Shock resistances
Chest: Either reduce magicka costs or +health regen and +stamina regen
Hands: DPS boost/Useful reinforce skill such as block or sneak
Finger: Fire and Shock Resistance
Feet: Fire Resistance and regen Stamina
Shield: Block and Health

Mage non-vampire:

Quote:

Breton
Lord Stone
Agent of Mara
2/3 Alteration Magic Resist
Atronarch Stone
Head: reduced destruction cost+Magicka
Neck: Frost and Shock resistances
Chest: reduced magicka cost and fortify magicka
Hands: +Magicka and Carry Weight
Finger: Fire and Shock Resistance
Feet: Frost and Fire Resistance

The vampire one is exactly the same.