posted
I'm restarting skyrim, because my first character's build priorities turned out to have gamed the system so hard that he is invincible and unstoppable, and there are no challenges left in the world. I may wait until ~the modders~ fix the menu interface before I come back.
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Hah, Sam(p) that's pretty amusing. How long did it take you to become invincible? I mean, are you level 20, or level 50, or what?
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
I'm kinda avoiding scrolling to avoid spoilers, anyone know any potion recipees?
Also, anyway to make dual wielding with my drow elf wearing mythril armor not suck? I can't seem to block anything and on harder difficulties everything seems to kill me in one hit.
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quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: I'm kinda avoiding scrolling to avoid spoilers, anyone know any potion recipees?
Also, anyway to make dual wielding with my drow elf wearing mythril armor not suck? I can't seem to block anything and on harder difficulties everything seems to kill me in one hit.
I think your first problem is playing as a race that doesn't exist. (Unless you meant your Dunmer, or Dark Elf)
You can't block while dual wielding and unless you pour maybe 30/70 into health and stamina respectively, you won't be able to do enough power attacks to be able to fight anything hard.
I would suggest sneaking everywhere.
Posts: 1574 | Registered: May 2008
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Yeah the time that I spent dabbling in dual wielding I wasn't terribly impressed. In general the inability to block when when you have anything but a shield in your off hand is frustrating. My main is an archer who rarely casts spells, but I am sort of dreading it when I try a mage/warrior type of guy. That's about the only thing at all that I miss from Oblivion... the ability to have a spell ready and weapons in your hands.
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I think the thing I currently hate most about the UI is that you can't sort lists the way you want, for example, Apparel. I have about 3 or 4 different necklaces I use, for example, in different situations, and because the list is sorted alphabetically, they are not grouped together.
Posts: 1080 | Registered: Apr 2006
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
quote:Originally posted by T:man:
quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: I'm kinda avoiding scrolling to avoid spoilers, anyone know any potion recipees?
Also, anyway to make dual wielding with my drow elf wearing mythril armor not suck? I can't seem to block anything and on harder difficulties everything seems to kill me in one hit.
I think your first problem is playing as a race that doesn't exist. (Unless you meant your Dunmer, or Dark Elf)
You can't block while dual wielding and unless you pour maybe 30/70 into health and stamina respectively, you won't be able to do enough power attacks to be able to fight anything hard.
I would suggest sneaking everywhere.
I do sneak and its pretty good but there's always something I end up fighting and I can never get out of it without getting hurt and it becomes a race to see who can out dps the other.
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posted
*Realizes Blayne just admitted he is a dark elf who is dual wielding*
... Did you get some scimitars off the Alik'r and enchant one with Frost damage and the other with Fortify Light Armor? Posts: 3580 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
If you're going to dual-wield, I think you'll need an enchantment on your weapons to do some crowd control work-paralysis, if that's possible, but I haven't seen it yet. The problem is that, unless you're at lower difficulty levels I think, you're gonna hit places where there are multiple enemies attacking at once and even groups of enemies in some places (Forsworn, in the Reach, are really good at this).
If you're committed to dual-wielding (and I agree it's weak), you're going to need a follower, and preferably a summoned created that'll last at least long enough to let you thin the herd.
----
To whoever asked, I believe Dragon Priests are supposed to be extremely difficult-they are for me, even now, but their loot-their masks, really-is excellent.
I'm considering going to Master difficulty level, but some fights are still just brutally hard even with my whole crew with me (follower, her summon, my summon), whereas others are sometimes absurdly easy now. For example, I got jumped by an Ancient Dragon in the sticks-he didn't even strafe, just landed right on top of us-so I ditched my conjured sword, summoned a Dremora Lord-whose trash talk is great-and started packing my special sword I just found with a huge damage bonus to dragons. I believe I critter twice on a power attack, because his health just plummeted, like a Bandit Outlaw. Of course he was getting burned, zapped, sliced, and chopped simultaneously and thanks to my panic shout couldn't react.
But Draugr Deathlords, Wights, Scourges can really threaten me, or kill me outright, and those fur wearing lunatics in their swarms (Forsworn) have killed me, proportional to encounters, more than anyone, including generic bandits.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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Rakeesh, what is your build? Hearing your tales of derring-do is quite inspiring. Posts: 3580 | Registered: Aug 2005
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank: *Realizes Blayne just admitted he is a dark elf who is dual wielding*
... Did you get some scimitars off the Alik'r and enchant one with Frost damage and the other with Fortify Light Armor?
I will be acquiring them shortly, I am on that quest right now.
The other sword was anti-demon, so I would either use something good vs daedra or use fire to balance them out.
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Blayne Bradley
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: If you're going to dual-wield, I think you'll need an enchantment on your weapons to do some crowd control work-paralysis, if that's possible, but I haven't seen it yet. The problem is that, unless you're at lower difficulty levels I think, you're gonna hit places where there are multiple enemies attacking at once and even groups of enemies in some places (Forsworn, in the Reach, are really good at this).
If you're committed to dual-wielding (and I agree it's weak), you're going to need a follower, and preferably a summoned created that'll last at least long enough to let you thin the herd.
----
To whoever asked, I believe Dragon Priests are supposed to be extremely difficult-they are for me, even now, but their loot-their masks, really-is excellent.
I'm considering going to Master difficulty level, but some fights are still just brutally hard even with my whole crew with me (follower, her summon, my summon), whereas others are sometimes absurdly easy now. For example, I got jumped by an Ancient Dragon in the sticks-he didn't even strafe, just landed right on top of us-so I ditched my conjured sword, summoned a Dremora Lord-whose trash talk is great-and started packing my special sword I just found with a huge damage bonus to dragons. I believe I critter twice on a power attack, because his health just plummeted, like a Bandit Outlaw. Of course he was getting burned, zapped, sliced, and chopped simultaneously and thanks to my panic shout couldn't react.
But Draugr Deathlords, Wights, Scourges can really threaten me, or kill me outright, and those fur wearing lunatics in their swarms (Forsworn) have killed me, proportional to encounters, more than anyone, including generic bandits.
Yeah the lopsided difficulty in all sorts of encounters bothers me as I can never figure out how to fight them without needing to lower difficulty.
Anyone know a good pure mage build? One That doesn't need to use weapons at all?
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quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: Yeah the lopsided difficulty in all sorts of encounters bothers me as I can never figure out how to fight them without needing to lower difficulty.
Anyone know a good pure mage build? One That doesn't need to use weapons at all?
I'm playing a pure mage who doesn't use weapons at all. Use Destruction a lot, summon atronachs and undead a lot.
I wear the Archmages Robes + Morekei. Also an amulet that increases my magicka by 40, and a ring that increases it by 30.
I put points into destruction, the fire ones, and the half magicka ones+dual casting. Put points into Conjuration working towards the timeless atronachs/undead. Also put very few points into restoration and alteration. For heals and stoneskin.
Posts: 1574 | Registered: May 2008
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I'm an Imperial. Magic in one hand, one handed in the other. Perfect. Summon an atronach, a few firebolts as I rush in with my axe, Lydia taking up the rear.
It takes a little strategy, but I can take pretty much anything. Except the giants. Haven't taken one yet. But I stared a frost dragon in the face as he layed down the cold. And I reamed him with my axe.
Posts: 1204 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank: Hah, Sam(p) that's pretty amusing. How long did it take you to become invincible? I mean, are you level 20, or level 50, or what?
I could have easily had it at level 15 if I had tweaked my build slightly. I planned out my perks ahead of time for the character I wanted. I plotted my build to focus on these things (bolding are the major priorities):
Great build, and it's the Enchanting tree that broke it to hell and back. Once I had Extra Effect, enchanting made it so that spamming impact chain lightning was something I could do forever. On a set of leather armor that had long ago surpassed the armor rating cap.
As exciting as it sounds to spend my time going through the rest of skyrim simply casting permastun chain lightning over and over again in all situations ... nope. My next character is going to forego Impact and any of the crafting skills.
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posted
Killed my first giant at lvl 16. With the help of my companion Lydia, who is all tricked out in Dwarf armor and weapons. I basically let her do all the fighting while I stood behind her and cast a constant dual-wielded Healing Hands every time she went down to one knee.
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posted
I'd love it if there were a monk class, with various tumbling and bare-handed strike options in the perk tree.
Posts: 1087 | Registered: Jul 1999
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:: laugh :: Yeah. Maybe restrict it to dodging, or have it pop to a 3rd person view for the duration of the tumble.
Posts: 1087 | Registered: Jul 1999
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Mirror's Edge did tumbling in 1st person; anyone want to comment on how it worked? (I never played the game)
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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posted
Got my first giant around 15ish. The character build was mostly sneak/backstab oriented, but for the giant I mostly just kept hitting it with poisoned arrows until it went down.
If I sprinted away at a different angle at the last moment, I could avoid taking damage from that massive smash of his. After that, I'd have a few seconds to get some distance, then shoot him with a poisoned arrow and repeat until he's dead.
This was the giant for a quest, though, so I'm not sure if he's different from the normal ones. Since he killed me in one hit the first time I fought him, I'd assume he's on par with the others.
Posts: 2437 | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Jake: :: laugh :: Yeah. Maybe restrict it to dodging, or have it pop to a 3rd person view for the duration of the tumble.
Bethesda's animations are so bad that I cringe just thinking about how they'd animate a tumbling monk...
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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posted
How are you getting poisoned arrows? I've been playing this game intentionally without any summons, followers, etc. Dragon fights are bleeding hard because you have to find a way to dodge those breaths while simultaneously attacking all without any third party to take the heat. I've killed four of them, but it's been an epic struggle each time.
The game gave me one magic item at level 2 that benefits my pickpocketing, and then hasn't given me a single magic item that benefits sneaking, lock-picking, speechcraft, archery, or light armor. I've had truckloads of magic items that help other skills, it's kinda frustrating. Though today I happened on one of many thieves' dens, and sniped my way through with ease got to the chest near the chief thief but was disappointed by the contents. Just for the heck of it I wandered around the entire cave, and happened on this tiny little tunnel. After traveling through I happened on an underground stream, and followed it upstream. I happened on another chest with a lock requiring master skill, I went through about 10 lock picks but I got the thing open and there was a spell book that makes you completely silent while moving, 500g, and a magic axe worth about 700g. Awesome.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
They definitely add a nice bit of extra punch against tough opponents.
The base poisons probably won't scale well enough to be useful at higher levels. So keeping up with this strategy probably requires points into alchemy as well.
Posts: 2437 | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: [QUOTE]Originally posted by Dan_Frank: Hah, Sam(p) that's pretty amusing. How long did it take you to become invincible? I mean, are you level 20, or level 50, or what? [/QUOTE Great build, and it's the Enchanting tree that broke it to hell and back. Once I had Extra Effect, enchanting made it so that spamming impact chain lightning was something I could do forever. On a set of leather armor that had long ago surpassed the armor rating cap.
As exciting as it sounds to spend my time going through the rest of skyrim simply casting permastun chain lightning over and over again in all situations ... nope. My next character is going to forego Impact and any of the crafting skills.
Kind of funny, this is the exact build I was making. Now that I've read your post, I may go a different route. I'm level 13 right now and have been working on getting enchanting up.
Posts: 1937 | Registered: Nov 2006
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posted
So in my game, dragons have taken to doing this thing where they just circle above a location, and never attack. I take potshots with my bow and Unrelenting Force (and I've even hit them a couple of times) and...nothing. They eventually just fly away.
Is this happening to anyone else?
Posts: 2907 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
My tip to everyone is to play WITHOUT crafting skills. This is win-win. You aren't gaming the system to become invincible by doing a dull grind, AND the enemies you fight will be more level-appropriate to what your actual combat skills are and you can still fight them without THEM being a dull grind.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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Heh, that's nice of you to say, because I realize I'm nerdin' out entirely too much!
Let's see. My build, or rather the skills I use in combat: 1. Conjuration-100, just now in fact. This didn't take any tweaking at all, actually-just constant use. Summon up an atronach at the start of a fight (they're tough, and have ranged attacks-I've not done anything necromantic), followed by a bound sword. I seem to actually get Conjuration skill bumps just for my creature being active in combat, not just the spellcasting-so it leveled extremely quickly for me. I took the perks for improved atronachs and improved bound weapons, but haven't dropped a point in the Master Perk-I I'm just not sure I'll need it. Perhaps I will if/when I bump to Master difficulty.
2. One-hand-80s. This sees a lot of use because before my daedra became more useful in their own right, instead of as distractions, I did most of the damage myself, with a one-handed weapon. I've got the perks which lower power attack stamina cost, raise their damage, and add crit/finisher chance. A couple of points into straight damage boost.
3. Smithing-100. Not a combat skill, and this one I cheesed (very easily done). I'm not proud of it, but I really wanted Ebony armor! Now I've got a point in Daedric Smithing, and I've never worn that armor. But it gets a mention here because with Ebony (Legendary) upgraded gear, my armor rating...class?...is very high, even with no shield.
4. Restoration-65-75. Also sees a lot of use, and with careful use of shouts and sprinting, I have enough time-barely, in some fights-to use it back to full. I've got the perks for stamina healing, heal spell boost, and the magicka regen boost.
5. Heavy Armor-75-85. This one sees a lot of action because again until recently, my daedra were more of an initial distraction followed by being the thing smacking the bad guy in the back after a few power attacks. I've got perks for armor boost when wearing heavy, a couple of points in the first perk, and the perk which makes it weightless and doesn't hurt stamina-man, do I like that one! Makes my decision not to use a horse more positive, since I now can sprint for...hmm, I'll hafta check, 10-15s before I'm down to a quarter.
I use Unrelenting Force almost exclusively-other damage dealing shouts, even fully upgraded, just don't compare. Using it in the right place gives me plenty of time to pile on the damage (in front of a wall) or heal (in the open, or in front of a hallway).
I also make use of a follower who herself summons daedra. She was a happy accident found on a very useful Daedra quest, though not quite so useful to me given my build. Before I had an extra two NPCs as distraction, I had to use potions quite a bit, but I used the ones I found-my alchemy is still pretty low. My Enchantment skill is very high, but I don't use it on my weapons, but rather as a tool for making money to afford 5 ranks of training/level. I've only got the one house and no horse.
I've been playin' too much really, heh, but a large part of why my skills are that high with almost no cheese (Smithing is the only one) is because I've done very little of the main quests, trained every level, and traveled a *lot*, meaning lots of fights with little downtime. I can't seem to refrain from taking up bounties, just because they're on top of a darkened map icon-or going after Word Walls and dragons, even though I really only use three or four shouts but have learned a dozen.
I'm not quite sure how the enemies work, but it seems like I can chew through the first and second steps all creatures with ease-bandits, bandit thugs, bears, wolves and pit wolves. That seems kosher to me though-why should the slack-jawed inbred fur-wearing drunken bandit with an iron sword pose a threat to the Dovakiin, Thane of Whiterun, Dragonslayer, Master of Dremora and Atronach (the Conjuration mastery mini-quest was really cool), etc.?
But when those bandits bring along some of their marauder, plunderers, cave bears, much less frost trolls and chieftains, then things get sticky. I need to watch myself, even with my 50% more powerful Atronach or Dremora Lord, my faithful companion who was on first-name basis with a god and a daedra of her own.
Anyway, I've been writing this in stages on my mobile and I suspect it's way too long already! That's how I roll, dawg! It still feels hard where it should, mostly, but I think I need to bump it up soon.
Also, Dwemer ruins are badass.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
Juxtapose, sometimes that dragon-in-a-holding pattern thing happens to me, too. I think it has something to do with the terrain, as I was at the entrance to an excavation that had a large, cluttered pit as its main feature for dozens of meters in any direction.
I've also had something similar happen to me when they didn't fly overhead long-this meant their was a roost somewhere nearby, probably up a mountain. Or some structure they were enroute to attacking.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
anyone have a guide as to what sort of order to do perks and leveling for your builds, and do you do all main quests first, a mix, or only side questsÉ
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quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: anyone have a guide as to what sort of order to do perks and leveling for your builds, and do you do all main quests first, a mix, or only side questsÉ
Aw, don't metagame.
Just pick what perks you think would fit your character, do the quests in the order your character would do them, and so on.
Posts: 1574 | Registered: May 2008
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posted
Here's what I can suggest, generally speaking: when in doubt, wait. Perks can wait, and *don't* pick any just because you're having a rough time in a given dungeon, for example the axe or mace bonus in one hand-I've got a point dropped on axes that is wasted. If you're itching to use that point, use it on something you know will be useful, a power attack bonus, carry bonus, mana cost bonus, from a skill you predict you'll be using for the whole game.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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Oh, I discovered this tonight. Get a horse before visiting the graybeards. It's pretty hilarious that horses in Skyrim make any modern day 4X4 look like a Wright Brother's bicycle. I managed to climb up the entire mountain, by just tacking and jumping up inclines easily ninety degrees. There were moments where my horse stopped acting like it's feet were actually doing anything, stretched them out, and just flew (yes flew) up for about ten seconds at a time.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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Well. An unexpected fight with a big bad certainly addressed my concerns about my guy being broke, at least for the time being! Had to chug many max healing and stamina potions.
Giants still pose a serious potential threat, mammoths slightly less. I can them head on in a melee fight, but their hammer blows still deal serious damage. Perhaps that'll change once I've leveled enchanting in perks.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
Turns out even without a horse you can still climb basically any obstacle in the game. Jump mechanics for a first person game showed up with Quake, you'd think by now we could get them right.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
I can only assume Falmer archers use poison on arrows and blades, because I was fighting them when I abruptly heard my own heartbeat and realized I'd gone from 300 health to about 50 in only a few seconds against a couple of them.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank: Hah, Sam(p) that's pretty amusing. How long did it take you to become invincible? I mean, are you level 20, or level 50, or what?
I could have easily had it at level 15 if I had tweaked my build slightly. I planned out my perks ahead of time for the character I wanted. I plotted my build to focus on these things (bolding are the major priorities):
Great build, and it's the Enchanting tree that broke it to hell and back. Once I had Extra Effect, enchanting made it so that spamming impact chain lightning was something I could do forever. On a set of leather armor that had long ago surpassed the armor rating cap.
As exciting as it sounds to spend my time going through the rest of skyrim simply casting permastun chain lightning over and over again in all situations ... nope. My next character is going to forego Impact and any of the crafting skills.
Maybe I'm missing something. How does all the dual wielding stuff synergize with the spellcasting stuff? Did you just swap between them a lot?
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posted
Well, it would synergize exceptionally well with the Enchanting. Two weapons, twice as many hits with extremely powerful weapons.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank: Maybe I'm missing something. How does all the dual wielding stuff synergize with the spellcasting stuff? Did you just swap between them a lot?
Most of that is irrelevant, that's just my FULL build.
If you want to break the game, you only need Impact and enough enchanting to reduce Destruction costs, in sum, by 100%. With extra effect, it can be zero mana costs for two schools.
Fun, huh.
Dual Wielding with enchanting would be its own bag of fun, since the Dual Flurry + Extra Effect would have you sucking life and stamina out of enemies far faster than even gangs of them could kill you.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
I've finally got a guy just starting to explore the mage's college. Am I right in thinking there is no longer any mechanic for designing your own spells? That's kinda sad, but... also possibly for the best. Designing your own spells made everything in Oblivion easy mode.
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posted
So, does it take effort to break the game through stat building, or does it happen relatively easily?
Posts: 684 | Registered: Aug 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank: I've finally got a guy just starting to explore the mage's college. Am I right in thinking there is no longer any mechanic for designing your own spells? That's kinda sad, but... also possibly for the best. Designing your own spells made everything in Oblivion easy mode.
Correct. Custom spells are no longer in the game.
Posts: 2437 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
Ah well. Those 3-second duration 100% Weakness to Magicka + Any-Magic-Damage-Who-Cares-They're-Dead-Regardless cocktails were fun while they lasted.
Posts: 3580 | Registered: Aug 2005
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That's right, Dan. Furthermore, spell tomes won't even appear in most merchant inventories until you reach a certain skill level.
As for game breaking, I think I was approaching that area when I was constantly using Conjuration-it meant that in every fight, there were four people on my time, one of them a very powerful Dremora Lord who was cheap to cast.
But now that I've topped out Conjuration, I don't do that anymore. Instead I use Destruction (with Impact) until I'm dry, and then switch to one-hand. Fights are trickier now-enemies focus on me sooner and have less damage dealt to them while they're on me. If I'd stuck to Conjuration after maxing out (and where would the fun have been in that?), things would've gotten very tedious PDQ.
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