Basically, one can get armor/weapons up to:
- Full Daedric Armor: 2125 Armor
- Daedric Bow: 562 Damage
- Daedric Dagger: 171 Damage
- Daedric Two Handed Sword: 605 Damage
- Daedric One Handed Sword: 518 Damage
Perks you need (33 perks):
- Heavy Armor (Juggernaut 5, Well Fitted, Tower Of Strength, Matching Set)
- 5 Weapon Perks (base, damage raising) of your choice
- Smithing (Steel, Dwarven, Orcish, Ebony, Daedric)
- Enchanting (5 X Enchanter, Insighful, Corpus, Extra Effect)
- Alchemy (5 X Alchemy, Physician, Benefactor)
Instructions:
- Get max perks and 100 in each skill.
- Enchant fortify alchemy helm, ring, gloves + necklace. The buff should be +25 on each for + 100 total.
- Put on the gear and make 4 fortify enchant potions (+ 27ish?)
- Use those potions to make better fortify alchemy gear. Note: you have to be quick because you only have 30 seconds per potion.
- Use that gear to make better fortify enchanting potions.
- Keep repeating 4 - 5 until you can make fortify alchemy + 29 on each piece (116 total)
- Use 4 +32 enchanting pots to create fortify smithing rings, neck, gloves and chest.
- Make some fortify smithing potions (+130% with your alchemy gear)
- Craft daedric armor, shield and weapon.
- Put on your smithing gear, drink the potion (130 + 116 = +246% to smithing), then improve your weapons.
- Make about 10 enchanting potions (+32)
- Enchant a ring gloves and neck with fortify heavy armor and fortify one handed. (I believe the number was 29 for armor 47% for weapon? Not in front of computer).
- Enchant health / heavy armor to chest.
- Enchant one handed / stamina to boots.
- Enchant helm with whatever you want.
Source
Ran some console commands in the name of Science!
First, I leveled light armor to see the effect that skill has on armor rating.
Imperial Armor chest
- 25 armor at 15 skill.
- 33 armor at 100 skill.
Well, that's underwhelming. The rest of the numbers in this post are with 100 light armor skill.
Then I maxed smithing and started crafting.
- 74 - 4 piece leather - no perks
- 119 - upgraded with 100 smithing
- 238 - agile defender 5/5 (cleanly doubled the value)
- 357 - custom fit, matching set (and another 50% on top)
So much for unperk-able leather. How about elven?
- 297 - 5 piece elven armor, agile defender 5/5, custom fit, matching set
- 528 - upgraded with 100 smithing, elven smithing perk
- 610 - upgraded with 130 smithing by using Ring of Smithing (+15) and Necklace of Smithing (+15), elven smithing perk
- 537 - same, but shield-less
Elven armor is the lightest armor I'm aware of. 4 piece is 7 units of weight. 5 piece is 11 units of weight. With this low weight, you can easily skip armor weight reducing perks.
Then I headed off to the enchanting station for one last test. I enchanted with fortify armorer and saw no change to armor rating after the enchant. I recommend skipping the arcane blacksmith perk if you are planning to wear only your own crafted armor. Just upgrade before enchanting. (Ignore what the enchanting table tells you about armor rating, it's wrong.)
That's 2 smithing perks, and 7 light armor perks. With 100 skill in light armor and smithing, you'll be level 26 and easily able to afford these perks.
Can you skip the 2 smithing perks? Possibly. You'll need to compensate by raising smithing skill (much) higher, but if you're already choosing enchanting perks and/or alchemy perks for other reasons...
TLDR:
You can reach 610 armor rating with 9 perks and minor un-perked assistence from alchemy or enchanting. 567 is the armor cap.
Best Answer
When you make the choice, you get a shield, chest, legs, hands and boots according to:
Note1: The Imperial shield is a heavy armor item.
Note2: The Imperial studded chest is a light armor item.