The OFFICIAL Anandtech Forums TeS V: Skyrim Thread

[Markbnj]

I am curious about other people's strategy in taking out mages in the game. most mage battles I get in usually end up with some version of playing cat and mouse while spamming ice storm until they are out of Magicka. Then blast them into oblivion with fireball (my destruction spell of choice).

I just don't find the wards to be that great as they eat up Magicka on top of the casting (to the point where using that Magicka on offensive would be more beneficial) and are relatively easy to overcome. Anyone else find this to be the case? If so, any suggestions on other methods?

I just nuke them a couple of times, draw my axe, and rush them.

 

[Mem]

I just nuke them a couple of times, draw my axe, and rush them.

Especially a good enchanted weapon which makes a meal of them quick time.

 

[shortylickens]

A bow with absorb and/or damage magicka, a lightning staff, or summoned monsters to endure their spells.
This game has no deaf or mute effect that I can find.
Of course trying to paralyze is always nice, even if its just for a second it will screw up their casting. Make a bow with 1 second paralysis and keep shooting.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

The main reason why magic casters are so difficult for melee characters is because magic resistances are still broken in the game as far as I know.

 

[Slew Foot]

I just nuke them a couple of times, draw my axe, and rush them.

Summon dremora lord x2. .....and you're done.

I think the soul trapping with a follower is more reliable with a melee weapon. Bows seem to be bugged a bit.

 

[Markbnj]

I have fond memories of Dremora Lords from raiding Sixth House sanctuaries in Oblivion. It sometimes took two or even three good swings to kill them.

 

[coldmeat]

The only problem I have with mages is that I can't see shit when I'm being attacked by fire or frost. It makes it hard to aim an arrow.

Of course the biggest reason I don't have any trouble with them is because 99% of the time the enemies are dead before they even realize I'm there.

 

[dennilfloss]

Pair o' potent dremora lords takes care of mages for my summoner. When dealing with a dragon outside, I prefer to use a pair of potent storm atronachs (which are my general body guards anyway when I walk the countryside unarmoured as they react to most shit before I even see it).

 

[Concillian]

I also have interests in lockpicking and sneak, but haven't allocated perks yet, as I'm starting to worry about spreading myself too thin again. Basically my playstyle has been to use a bow at distance, preferably while sneaking for double dmg, and then switch to my dual wielding swords when up close. So a couple questions:

1. Am I gimping myself by using Light Armor over Heavy Armor. I've only spent 1 perk in light, so switching over to Heavy wouldn't be a big deal?

2. If I stay with light armor, which smithing route should I go down?

3. Is DW worth it? I haven't put perks into those skills yet, only the base 1H weapons. Or am I better off focusing 1H + Shield?

Any thoughts would be most helpful to this Skyrim Noob.

1) This is definitely not a huge deal, but it makes the early and mid-game a little rougher.

In time, you can rather comfortably, reach the armor cap (567 armor) with light armor and smithing + enchanting. With serious effort you can reach it with elven armor (2 smithing perks) and only a couple light armor perks, but that requires 100 alch / 100 enchanting / 100 smithing, which can take a while.

Smithing adds to base armor, which is adjusted by the other % improvements from the light armor skill, and the light armor % perks. Your BS skill (and having a perk associated with the armor you are using) becomes the most significant factor in your armor with light armor. Heavy armor can survive on it's base, and you can get away without smithing perks (though weapons like smithing perks too)

The armor formula is also a little rough for light armor, as it takes ~330 armor in order to cut incoming damage in half, but it takes only ~520 or so to cut it to 1/4. So the "returns" on more armor are accelerating returns, not diminishing returns. For me, it felt really rough on incoming damage at 200 armor, but got a LOT more manageable around 350-400 armor, and it becomes very easy at 567 (you take only 1/5th damage)
You may want to do some light armor skill "training" by letting things beat on you on purpose for what you can take to help this out. In badit camps, for example, leave an archer for last and get in melee range and he'll pull a dagger. Let him beat you down to 20% before you kill him. Or shout to stun / freeze him and pop out some healing spells.

2) left side for light armor. If you are going to fill the light armor tree & enchanting, then you really only need to take elven or glass and buy some +smithing potions to go with smithing enchants.

3) The combat mechanics strongly favor being able to block. Not only defensively, but being able to interrupt casters and stun opponents with a block punt. Dual wield is definitely more difficult, but if you get 100 smithing / 100 enchanting and appropriate perks, stuff doesn't live very long. The midgame will be rough with DW on a first play through.

I took 2H my first time through and it's more difficult than 1H + shield. You can still do some blocking (and block punting for interrupt / stun) with a 2H, but it's much slower than with a shield. DW has no blocking at all, and I imagine you will be doing some reloads, especially on casters.

You have about 40-50 perks before leveling gets really slow and you have to start using stuff you don't usually use to level. You need ~10 perks per tree to max out a skill, which means you need to focus on 4-5 trees. You can afford a few perks in another tree if you don't completely fill trees.

 

[Martimus]

At times I find staggering my opponents a huge advantage. To stagger enemies I either need to power attack or what I call pommell(block+attack) because I do not use a shield. To do this I need Stamina so I have been leveling stamina over health at a 2:1 ratio. Just my preference though YMMV.

I also find stamina more useful than health as the game goes on. Once you have good skills and armor, nothing really hurts you anyway, but you still need stamina to run after people, do power attacks, or zoom in while using your bow.

Plus stamina is what governs your carry weight.

 

[dennilfloss]

Every time a dragon walks on the ground towards me, I still find it scary as it looks so much like Vermithrax Pejorative in the movie Dragonslayer. It's a startling effect in fact. Makes me freeze for a fraction of a second.

 

[zinfamous]

I also find stamina more useful than health as the game goes on. Once you have good skills and armor, nothing really hurts you anyway, but you still need stamina to run after people, do power attacks, or zoom in while using your bow.

Plus stamina is what governs your carry weight.

I shield bash 90% of the time. I'm at about 260 health and 210 stamina, base, right now. I think I'm going to be putting everything into stamina from now on, as it increases my ability to kill faster, thus negating need for health.

The only time casters give me problems is when they are able to get about 3 or 4 ice spikes in me and really slow me down. Once I'm close enough, they are generally too stunned to move. I hope the 50% magic resist with shield perk isn't broken, b/c they would sure make my life easier.

I've actually only put 2 or 3 perks into heavy armor and 1 into light, while mostly using heavy armor. I figure this gives me room to choose later on. Problem is, I've opened up all but Daedric and Dragon armors, so those are probably a few wasted perks going with both heavy and light on that tree. :\

 

[Mem]

I have fond memories of Dremora Lords from raiding Sixth House sanctuaries in Oblivion. It sometimes took two or even three good swings to kill them.

Summoned Dremora lord with incinerate attack spell and nothing much stays alive long .

 

[pandemonium]

You'll be able to lift the curse off you at the end of the quest chain. The only negative side is no resting bonus. Also, turning into one makes everyone around you hostile. On a positive side, you get to turn into a big werewolf and rip stuff to pieces! Also you're immune to disease all the time.

Has zero impact on anything else.

On the contrary, being a werewolf has a tremendous amount of negative impact and I haven't used it since level 20ish. Aside from what you mentioned, while you're transformed you can't use the map, any items, any spells, your health isn't scaled according to how much health your character has, and you can't cancel the transformation (you have to wait its duration out). Ever try to fight a dragon as werewolf?

The only purpose I ever found for lykin form was the large amount of stamina for traveling long distances on foot. Since I have over 400 stamina, the light armor stamina regeneration perk, and stamina regen bonuses from armor/items, I see absolutely no reason to use werewolf now.

I never modified my carrying capacity. I can carry 410 atm (pickpocket perk + stamina), and it's more than enough.

I first had trouble with it when I started playing the game, but it stopped being an issue when I realized that, unlike other RPGs, you're not meant to loot everything. There's a ton of junk in the game, and you should keep an eye on weight/value ratio when looting (DQ Inventory does wonders for this).

I unloaded all my books at the house, and after installing the sorting mod, I'm finally beginning to use potions now. So I usually only carry ~200 when going into dungeons, and can kill 1-2 dragons without getting overencumbered. And if I do, I have strength potions to help with that.

We're doing about the same except I started carrying around a heavy armor suit to skill it. On a fresh unload and a kiss from Lydia (take that as you will), I'm at 270/485.

Thanks guys for your quick response.

I was going DW to take advantage of dual weapon enchants later on as Borealis pointed out. The only limitation to DW is that you can't block right? I believe when I press M2, it just swings my offhand.

And thanks for the reassurance on light armor, I'll keep going down that path, and work my way towards Light Armor smithing.

One final question before I go back to playing:

On level up, what do you recommend for balancing between more Stamina and More Health? I mean, I can always see having more health as a good thing, being light armored melee character, but how much stamina do I really need to be effective?

Dual-wield is great if you're using sneak. If you're running around without sneak then you're literally without any defense and I couldn't imagine how many countless reloads against mages you'd be doing.

The other thing to note while leveling smithing (even if you're going with light armor) is if you go the left route you'll get glass then dragon (which has both heavy and light armors,

Spoiler

but NO weapons

), but you'll miss out on daedric weapons (which are 2 tiers higher than glass weapons). I ended up completely filling out the smithing tree even though I'm using light armor. I figure I'll respec with a mod later on if I really need the perk points, but so far I have more than I need at level 59.

Health is easily the least important stat to increase. If you really want more health you can supplement it with enchantments on items.

Finally went ahead with the main quest and nailed my first dragon, at level 50.

Wow. You sir, have been missing out on stocking up scales and bones. Not to mention, I enjoy the break in adventure questing when a dragon appears. You hear the roar in the background, then the music starts to play and I get all excited.

I am curious about other people's strategy in taking out mages in the game. most mage battles I get in usually end up with some version of playing cat and mouse while spamming ice storm until they are out of Magicka. Then blast them into oblivion with fireball (my destruction spell of choice).

I just don't find the wards to be that great as they eat up Magicka on top of the casting (to the point where using that Magicka on offensive would be more beneficial) and are relatively easy to overcome. Anyone else find this to be the case? If so, any suggestions on other methods?

I'm guessing you're a magicka build? I'd recommend summoning a pet to keep them occupied while you blast them down with fireballs. I never cared for the wards, either.

 

[ManBearPig]

anyone know what the best character is to use dead thrall on? also, does the dead thrall count as your companion or one of your 2 (after perks) possible summoned creatures?

 

[Locut0s]

How many hours in and what level are you? What's you progress roughly?

43 Hours Level 23.

I've barely done any of the main quest. Have yet to see the graybeards. But I've done the whole thieves guild quest line, the entire companions quest line, and most of the stuff in Markarth.

 

[Borealis7]

any news/rumors regarding expansion packs or DLC for Skyrim? there is so much game and not enough plot!

 

[PrayForDeath]

How many hours in and what level are you? What's you progress roughly?

57 hours, level 40. I've finished the thieves guild and mage's college questlines. Currently in the middle of both the main questline, and the dark brotherhood questline. I haven't finished the content in any of the major cities, though I did a lot of quests in Riften and Whiterun.

I still feel like I've barely scratched the surface, which is cool.

I have a question about having a bounty on your head. If you choose to go to prison, what are you supposed to do? I tried breaking out, but when I left the prison, I got arrested right away. I tried waiting in prison for several days, but nothing happened. How do you leave the prison? Is there any advantage to getting arrested rather than paying off your bounty? (and losing your stolen items, which sucks)

 

[Borealis7]

you can fast forward your jail sentence by sleeping on the bed in the jail cell. but you lose progress in skills and all your stolen items.

 

[PrayForDeath]

you can fast forward your jail sentence by sleeping on the bed in the jail cell. but you lose progress in skills and all your stolen items.

Can you elaborate on this? What do I lose exactly?

 

[Borealis7]

you lose the progress, not any skill points.
for instance, if your Destruction is at 50 and the progress bar for that skill is at 33%, then depending on the time spend in jail you will lose part of those 33% but your skill would remain at 50.

 

[qwertyaas]

Just got the game over the weekend and I up to Level 7 Nord now. Heading towards the Grey Beards now and ran across that Mage 'outpost' in the mountains, and then the cave with all the vampires. Just running into random things like that adds so much compared to what I remember of Oblivion, where every cave/dungeon was the same (I will say though, I lost interest in Oblivion pretty quickly).

I'm trying to go for 2H and Battlemage (just switching back and forth). Is that a bad idea in terms of skill leveling?

As for level points, I'm just dipping them in Health and Stamina now.

For some reason, I have a feeling my build is going to be all messed up.

 

[Powermoloch]

How many hours in and what level are you? What's you progress roughly?

43 Hours Level 23.

I've barely done any of the main quest. Have yet to see the graybeards. But I've done the whole thieves guild quest line, the entire companions quest line, and most of the stuff in Markarth.

60 hrs lvl 47 ish. I Barely touch most of the content which is AWESOME, then I ramped it up to master difficulty so the game wont be easy on me (at least ancient dragons gave me a run for the money).

 

[homercles337]

Finally went ahead with the main quest and nailed my first dragon, at level 50.

Just to let you know, i also did something similar and regretted it. I did the main quest up to High Hrothgar, but stopped and did side quests when i was sent out to find an item (a horn of some sort). I really should have gotten that horn ... really regretted that one.

 

[Mem]

Level 50 myself and played around 134 hours,still got a lot to do since it seems the more you go over the old ground the more you find new stuff you have missed.