Armorer

 Armorer is a Strength-based Skill. Higher strength will improve success in using it, and gaining levels in it will count towards Strength Attribute gains at character levelup. It is vital to keeping weapons and armor in top condition, where their effectiveness depends to a large extent on their condition. It is a controllable skill; that is to say, it will not level up by accident, other than by reading books, so it makes an excellent Major or Minor skill for those that want to maximize Attribute gain, assuming the player wants to use it at all. Repairing Bound Items is a means of making them permanent, in versions of the game that prohibit placing them in inventory and thence to the ground to be made permanent. It is a Favored Skill of House Redoran and the Fighters' Guild. And it is pretty much all downhill from there. A player could quite conceivably go through the entire game without a single point in Armorer, and players that find micromanaging troublesome skills a bore rather than a joy are advised to do just that.

There is considerable challenge to be found in the use of Armorer, or more correctly, in finding a way to be able to use Armorer. The best bet is Smiths; after the supply of game Smiths with damaged weapons has run out, players who might have considered using Trainers to be cheap or cheesy may well find themselves rationalizing the use of Armorer Trainers or abandoning the skill altogether. Such is the price of pride when it encounters overwhelming adversity. In a game where 'grinding' (repeating similar actions for skill or level gain) is possible but in most cases not entirely necessary, this skill requires it.

To add injury to insult, there is no way to receive training from the Master Trainer of Armorer; the maximum that can be obtained with training is 70. The code to allow Sirollus Saccus of the Hawkmoth Legion Garrison (not the East Empire Trading Company, as one guide states) in Ebonheart, to give training is missing. There is one way around this; the game only checks the current skill level of the character and the Trainer to decide what skills can still be trained and which are on offer, respectively. So the player can use short duration spells of either Drain Skill on themselves, or Fortify Skill on a Trainer (any trainer, if the Fortify is sufficiently high) to either be of low enough skill to qualify for training, or for the Trainer to be skilled enough to train them. Once the character has bought any of the four Drain Skill spells, this effect is available in the Spellmaking or Enchant menus. Fortify Skill, on the other hand, is only available in the original game version up to v. 1.2, or with the Tribunal and/or Bloodmoon expansions.

In Oblivion, Armorer got a much-needed boost when the Tier system was added to skills; while other skills were nerfed (reduced in power) somewhat by Tier requirements being added for abilities that had been for free in Morrowind, Armorer got additional abilities; a reduction in the wear and tear on repair hammers per Tier, and the ability, at 75 skill, to repair items to 125% of their base condition, with a corresponding increase in damage. The 'number of uses' mechanic was replaced with a 'chance to break' one, and repairing magic items was prevented before skill 50, but these were still significant gains. Disintegrate Armor was fixed in Oblivion, making it possible to repair at will. None of that is available in Morrowind.

In the Fighters' Guild, Armorer is one of six Favored Skills, of which one must be at 90 and two at 35 to reach the maximum rank, with descending requirements for subsequently lower ranks. In House Redoran, Armorer is likewise one of six (different) Favored Skills.

There are three functional trainers of Armorer skill; only Spear, with two trainers, has fewer. Unlike trainers of many other types of less mainstream (read: weapons, armor and magic) skills, Acrobatics and Hand to Hand trainers being good examples, Armorer Trainers do not tend to share the same auxiliary skills.

Race and Standard Class Bonuses
Orc characters receive a +10 to Armorer skill. No classes have Armorer as a Major skill; The Barbarian, Crusader, Knight and Warrior Standard classes have Armorer as a Minor skill. Choosing Combat as your Specialisation gains +5 to all associated skills including Armorer.

Trainers
Players seeking Training in Armorer skill may wish to consider using the Drain Skill method discussed above to avoid the insoluble problem of Training after 70, also discussed above, and in addition, the extreme dearth of Trainers. Other than the afore-mentioned Sirollus Saccus of the Hawkmoth Legion Garrison, who is supposed to, but does not, give Master level Training, there are only three Armorer Trainers:
 * Avus Belvilo in a building marked as Storage Shack on the Dren Plantation, trains characters at 70 skill up to 71, and all levels below that. Belvilo is, bizarrely for an Armorer Trainer, of the Agent Standard Class, which has only Light Armor as a Major and Unarmored as a Minor skill. He also offers training in skills much more appropriate to an Agent: Conjuration and Acrobatics, up to the same level as Armorer.
 * Ababael Timsar-Dadisun, in the yurt bearing his name in the Zainab Camp, trains characters at 68 skill up to 69, and all levels below that. He is perhaps better known (or should be) as the human merchant with the most money in Morrowind, 9,500 drakes, or the Master Trainer in Mercantile. This last skill undoubtedly comes from practicing the merchant trade in the most out of the way and poorest place in Morrowind, the heart of the Ashlander culture, Zainab camp. Nothing that drives up prices: acquired or extravagant tastes, greed as a profession, or proliferation of middlemen any more advanced than simple division of labor is in evidence in Zainab, making Ababael's skill a mystery. Even if he is supposed to have had to try harder for the same result, surely there must be a limit to the maxim that what does not kill us, makes us stronger. His third training skill is Long Blade; he will train characters at 58 skill up to 59, and all levels below that.
 * Wayn 18 feet forward and six to the right from the entrance of the Fighters' Guild in Balmora, trains characters at 54 skill up to 55 Armorer, and all levels below that, and the same for Blunt Weapon and Heavy Armor.

Sirollus Saccus is also a Smith, and does have one of the larger coinpurses amongst merchants, 3,500 drakes. He sells the only Secret Grandmaster tool in the game; Alchemy apparatus and Thieves' tools of that quality only exist in the game if they have been created by the Console or a Construction Set modification.

Tools
If, as seems likely, higher quality tools tend to repair more of an item's Condition than low quality, then if a player wishes maximum skill gain, the best tool is the lowest quality one: Repair Prongs. No other tool weighs less, either, that does not have a lower repair capacity; Repair Prongs still have a 'Capacity', or Quality x Uses value, 12.5, almost equal to Master's Armorer's Hammer, 13, because the number of uses shrinks to 10 with that tool. If not seeking maximum skill gain, the best tool is Sirollus Saccus' Hammer, with an 'Effectiveness', or 'Capacity' / Weight ratio, of 20. Sirollus only sells one at a time, but as with any restocking merchants, selling items they restock back to them increases their stock. Buy a hammer, buy another while at the same time selling the first one back to him. He will then have two for sale; repeat the process and he will have three, then five, etc.

Books
Armorer Skill Books increase Armorer one point when read. This happens automatically when the character picks up a book, unless the inventory is open; open inventory before picking up books to avoid skill gains that are presently unwanted. Skill gains gained with Books and Trainers do not count towards the ten points for a perfect five Attribute gain in some versions of the game.

• 36 Lessons of Vivec, Sermon 6 •  36 Lessons of Vivec, Sermon 25  •  36 Lessons of Vivec, Sermon 29  •  The Armorer's Challenge  •  Last Scabbard of Akrash