Artistry Start

[ripforareason]

Artistry is bad, the armorsmith + enchantment start is better as you can make items of similar goodness with the added benefit of being resistant to corrosion (cloak of protection, round shield of deflection, corslet of protection, etc.). The quality of items on the floor was increased in 1.3, making Artistry rather useless. With Artifice early enough, you can make a crown with Loremaster (and song of freedom if you're lucky) by 350-400'.

Always get at least 6 perception. On a smither you want Eye for Detail, Rauko-Bane, sometimes Keen Senses, and maybe Concentration (mpa-sil only, prereqs make it bad in vanilla sil).

[Serephina]

Also bane and master hunter are a very cheeky way of basically getting +3/+6 melee, fully worth for casual perception pickups.

[captnamazing]

I'm totally in love with Rauko bane <3

[ripforareason]

Master Hunter is good when you find on boots of Taur-nu-Fuin but not worth the investment otherwise, imo. There are so many good perception skills that it will often cost you 2500-3000 XP for the ability alone, and by the time you can afford 6 perception abilities, you're probably just scumming 950'. It would probably be at its best at around 450-750', but I'm not sure you can really afford to get the ability at that point. The problem is that the game starts to get easier once you get through the 450-750 stretch.

[wobbly]

Why would it be 6 abilities unless you take lore-master? I mean you mentioned eye for detail up thread but it makes no-sense to take it if you plan on going as high as 9 perception in the long-term. Just grab a bit of extra perception early on instead. With keen-senses, bane & hunter that's 3. I wouldn't be able to resist listen there as already enough perception & the pre-requiste, but that's still only 4. & if you want to go concentration for lots of perception based melee bonuses then focus, concentration, bane, hunter is still only 4.

[ripforareason]

It was under the assumption of taking loremaster, you would have lorekeeper, loremaster, concentration, bane, master hunter, keen senses.

Eye for detail is only for smithers, because an early-midgame false floor can completely derail your character, and it is very irritating to put it on a crown only to swap it out for fights.

My perception ability set would be, in mpa-sil 1.3:

Warrior or archer, no smithing:

Always:
Lorekeeper, Loremaster, Rauko-Bane, Concentration
Sometimes: Keen Senses

Warrior or archer with nontrivial smithing:
Always: Eye for Detail, Concentration, Rauko-Bane
Sometimes: Keen Senses
Never: Lore abilities

Stealth/Pacifist:
Never tried this one, but presumably you'd go for Listen.

In Vanilla I would probably drop Concentration, since it has an extra prerequisite in Vanilla making it much less attractive.

[wobbly]

Ah, it's much more reasonable without loremaster & of course on the Finarfin. Though you want to be pretty careful with master hunter as it throws off your sense of progression along the power-curve. You can be hammering dragons, see Smaug & suddenly you're 3 less melee then you think you are. Or you shift from werewolves to greater werewolves & the jump in difficulty is bigger till you down the 1st one.