I want to level up my blacksmithing, but I can't find enough ores to do it. I've farmed all dungeons, that I've farmed so far (I'm level 11) and bought all ores\ingots from NPCs. So are there respawn timers on ore sources, and what are the best places to farm it?
Where can you farm ore in Skyrim
the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim
Related Solutions
Windhelm probably offers the highest convenience factor. The market neighborhood, directly to the South, offers access to a full set of outdoor smithing equipment, as well as an Arcane Enchanter, at least three 'high-value' merchants (two general goods, including Niranye who is a Fence, and a Blacksmith), all without a loading screen. The house itself offers both Alchemy and Enchanting facilities, as well as the highest number of display racks for equipment of any home, and Windhelm offers an additional battery of merchants over in the Grey Quarter on the eastern edge of town.
Downsides include the somewhat high price, long distance from Windhelms fast-travel point, the prolonged string of quests required to buy the house (you basically must resolve the civil war), and the potential for significant bugs related to the Blood on the Ice quest, in which the house is involved.
Riften deserves an honorable mention for Thieves Guild members. While it lacks smelting services, the upgraded Ratway, with it's 4 additional merchants, puts somewhere in the neighborhood of 12,000 Merchant Gold in close proximity - easily the most of any city. Those who choose to take the moral high-ground may find the mercantile climate of Whiterun to be more hospitable however.
Is there anything that I've done incorrectly for my build, in that I shouldn't have tried to get the best gear midway through the game?
This is very subjective - what is considered an "incorrect" build by one player, may be "optimal" for another. If you want to make the game harder, focus your skill points and perks on non-combat skills: Speech, Pickpocket, Lockpicking, etc. You can also put skill points and perks on combat skills that you won't be using in combat. This will level up your character (which will make enemy level difficulty scale to your level), while at the same time, not make your character stronger for combat.
With the Dragonborn DLC installed, perks may be undone and redistributed at the cost of one dragon soul per skill tree.
At the end of the At the Summit of Apocrypha quest, you will have access to different portals (one for each skill) which allows you to clear and regain any perks in that skill tree, at the cost of one dragon soul. You remove all perks from a single skill perk tree and can use these reclaimed perks on unlocking any perks you wish, including perks taken from said perk tree. By reading the Black Book, Waking Dreams, you can return to Apocrypha and alter the skill trees whenever you wish.
Are there any hard quests that I've completely missed, or do you think that now if I start new questlines with my increased stats, the game would level up the difficulty for me?
It is subjective to state which quests are "Hard quests". Just have a look here for a list of all quests and see which ones appear to be hard for you. As for the second part of your question, the unmodded game only checks your current level and the difficulty settings in the options to compute how difficult the enemies will be for you.
Excerpts from UESP wiki's "Leveling - Effects of Leveling" article:
Various aspects of the game are leveled. This means that as your character increases in level, some enemies become more challenging but also the quality of the items you find becomes better. However, the leveling system in Skyrim has been altered from that used in Oblivion, in response to criticisms of Oblivion's leveling system.
Different locations in Skyrim have different inherent difficulties. In other words, some dungeons are designed to be too difficult for low-level characters to enter. More challenging dungeons are generally located at higher elevations, meaning that early in the game players may want to avoid mountainous regions. However, more difficult dungeons contain better rewards. In addition, some high-quality items can be randomly found even early in the game.
... Bandit NPCs are always a fixed level for their name (Bandits are level 1, Bandit Thugs are level 9, Bandit Highwaymen are level 14, etc). The player's level affects the range of possible bandit types generated within a bandit dungeon, and probably the frequency, but does not seem to affect the resulting stats except in a few rare cases. Lower variant bandits remain reasonably common even when more dangerous bandits are available.
v1.9 Patch - 'Legendary' difficulty
Patch 1.9 adds a sixth difficulty level: Legendary. It reduces damage dealt by the player to x0.25 and increases damage taken by the player to x3.
Mods
If playing on the PC, you could also make the game harder with mods:
The mod, Pluto's Improved Skyrim Experience (PISE) has a "More Intense Level Scaling" component. It makes enemies more stronger relative to your level, compared to the vanilla enemy scaling. PISE also features harder sneaking, more enemy spawns, harder enemies and an overhauled enemy AI. The mod, Path of Shadows, a major stealth overhaul mod, also makes sneaking harder.
Other mods that may make the game harder:
- DFB - Random Encounters - adds different random encounters from vanilla: Vampires, Falmers, Werewolves, Dwarven Spiders, Spheres, Centurion, etc.
- High Level Enemies - has a feature that allows certain or all enemies to scale with your level
- Deadly Dragons - overhauls dragons to make them more challenging to fight
- Balanced Magic - designed to 'balance' the game's magic spells - make the spells do damage and consume mana appropriate to your magic perks, and lessens the effect of abusive perks like the 100% stagger change of the 'Impact' perk. It also affects enemy mage NPCs, making them more challenging
- Auto-cast Racial Powers Plugin - "Auto-cast racial powers will activate for NPCs, both enemy and friendly, making fights much more interesting and adding a new element to prioritizing targets in larger fights!"
Creature mods that increase creature spawn points, number of spawns, and also improves creature AI:
(I recommend using only one creature mod, to avoid conflicts and other issues.)
Best Answer
I've found that fast traveling between blacksmiths as they restock is much more efficient than mining as a method of leveling smithing. Ore veins are few and far between and as far as I know, the respawn time is when the area resets. Furthermore, the act of smelting does not by itself give you experience.
For that reason, I found bouncing between War Maiden's in Whiterun, Alvor in Riverwood and Beirand in Solitude, buying their entire stock of usable ore, ingots and leather, turning it into weapons or armor then selling those back to them was the fastest method.
Since you gain experience in smithing proportional to the value of the items you create, there are a few items that can make the process more efficient. Those are the Forgemaster Fingers and the Notched Pickaxe. You can use the enchantments on these items to improve the items you create beyond you current skill level.
I also found that for each type of item you can create (Orcish, Elven, etc.) there is an item with the highest input to value ratio. If you are going to grind smithing, it is best to grind whatever item this is for your level. You can refer to the tables on the relevant type. For instance, for Dwarven smithing, the bow has by far the highest ratio as it requires only two dwarven ingots and an iron ingot.