Request: Early Build advice

[wobbly]

Apologies for 5th post in a row.

Songs are too situational to be of use, sadly. Song of the Trees is a good alternative to the smithing splash in order to guarantee some light midgame, Lorien is useful for stealthy characters and Slaying gets good in the endgame. Mastery is for the most part a trap option for "optimal" smiths.

Is this because you tend to play high evasion? Song of staying is pretty damn good on a high protection/2hnder build. The difference is pretty noticeable if you tank a great drake without a shield + it pushes critical resistance up a notch & lets you use str boosters instead of sustains against the worst stat drainers etc. You don't need sharpness for throne room with enough str behind a big weapon, so it's a viable alternative.

Song of Este is a godsend against spiders on high protection character. I've always got it for free from the ring but it's possibly a reasonable choice if you can do without sharpness. Though there's plenty of ways to deal with them without.

[Infinitum]

Haven't played heavy armor since forever. Usually when I do it's incidental with me aiming for the usual 20 points in evasion and finding quality hauberks or whatever. Likewise for twohanders I generally make do with sword and board until I can comfortably swap the shield for subtlety since I find hitting enemies is generally harder than penetration (with a swap greatweapon for the occasional statue).

Staying does look like the most appealing general purpose song now that you mention it though, and fits into the slaying-for-the-throneroom plan. 4300 xp at minimum for an effective +3 will and +[1d3] armour isn't necessarily better than the approximately +3 evasion that could have been by the midgame though.

Este I've tried to make work, but due to evasion and armor mechanics the amount of situations where enemies just slightly outattritions you over time (and you can't retreat) are too scarce to justify it imo. Poison resistance from the will tree is just so much less of a hassle to get.

Speaking of which, I did finally find a smithing build I like:

Feanor 3443, 9 points in Smithing + Jeweler to start with (4500 xp, 13 effective smithing) and rest into combat stats. Never add points to smithing again. Make +2 evasion/accuracy rings and an amulet of the blessed realm at the 100' forge. Put all available points into accuracy/evasion with the usual clutch ability detours once comfortable. After finding at least +2 worth of smithing/grace gear, pool 2200 xp and then make a +2 smithing hammer with masterpiece and danger. Find another piece of grace/smithing, some mithril, then at the next available forge make a (+2,2d5)[+2] Mithril Longsword with Sharpness and Danger, draining all of your smithing. With a riposte build this is a much better weapon than anything you can conceivably find ingame (Ringil/Celeg nonwithstanding) and can overcome even statue and morgoths defenses with ease.

The reason I like this sequnce is because it frontloads the xp expenditure (removing the guesswork of when forges will show up), the combat rings shores up the skill deficit early on and remain relevant well into the lategame. Surplus early forges can be used to smith light jewels and id jewelry (or feanorian lamps if one is lucky nough to find early mithril). One could fit an artifact feanorian lamp into the sequence, but it'd barely be better than a feanorian lamp of brightness anyhow and getting sharpness in the midgame is a gamechanger.