The OFFICIAL Anandtech Forums TeS V: Skyrim Thread

[Slew Foot]

I dont think summons are supposed to level, youre supposed to increase your conjuring skills and perks to make them stronger. The next level gets you Dremora Lord and Storm Atronach. It essentially puts the game on auto play.

 

[shortylickens]

I have killed 6 bunnies.

 

[Atomic Playboy]

I dont think summons are supposed to level, youre supposed to increase your conjuring skills and perks to make them stronger. The next level gets you Dremora Lord and Storm Atronach. It essentially puts the game on auto play.

You can create the spell tomes for conjuring all three atronachs at the Atronach Forge in the Midden (the basement of Winterhold College). It'll save you some serious coin since all it takes is a ruined book, some special salts and a few other random ingredients which can be found everywhere. I did this when my conjuration skill was still pretty low, but with some enchanted gear to reduce the cost of conjuration spells, I can summon any atronach I want and let them tear shit up for me. It's pretty cool actually... I wasn't even considering getting perks in conjuration until I saw my storm atronach set upon some draugrs in a dungeon. Now I figure I need to get perks so I can summon two atronachs together and watch them rain death on everything.

 

[Concillian]

after further research online I found out that the "matching set" bonus is bugged for ebony armor. too bad cause I think it looks pretty cool... daedric is a little overkill IMO

The damage reduction cap for armor is 567 armor if you're wearing 4 pieces. My melee character is at 700+ armor in Elven without all the light armor perks.

You can wear Ebony and reach the cap without the matching set perk bonus. Pretty easily, actually. Wear whatever you like the looks of. Just buy some +smithing items when you see them and craft up whatever you want. It doesn't take much to get 567 with Ebony minus the matching set perk.

 

[Atomic Playboy]

I'd stopped playing it a while ago. Fired it up recently only to find Steam had updated the game despite me turning that off, so it broke the Skyrim 4gb. Oddly enough the game did seem to be running smoother than before though (despite the fact that I was no longer overclocking anything). It might have been that I wasn't as used to it so it just seemed smoother though.

The 1.3 update made the game large address aware, so you no longer need the LAA mod to utilize more than 4GB of RAM.

 

[Kev]

The damage reduction cap for armor is 567 armor if you're wearing 4 pieces. My melee character is at 700+ armor in Elven without all the light armor perks.

You can wear Ebony and reach the cap without the matching set perk bonus. Pretty easily, actually. Wear whatever you like the looks of. Just buy some +smithing items when you see them and craft up whatever you want. It doesn't take much to get 567 with Ebony minus the matching set perk.

yeah i'm at 740 now, basically invincible even on master difficulty

 

[Markbnj]

I have killed 6 bunnies.

I will admit to killing a few bunnies. I will also admit that I tried to hurt the first kid I saw, in Riverwood, just to see if I could.

I'm evil.

 

[JackSpadesSI]

You can create the spell tomes for conjuring all three atronachs at the Atronach Forge in the Midden (the basement of Winterhold College). It'll save you some serious coin since all it takes is a ruined book, some special salts and a few other random ingredients which can be found everywhere. I did this when my conjuration skill was still pretty low, but with some enchanted gear to reduce the cost of conjuration spells, I can summon any atronach I want and let them tear shit up for me. It's pretty cool actually... I wasn't even considering getting perks in conjuration until I saw my storm atronach set upon some draugrs in a dungeon. Now I figure I need to get perks so I can summon two atronachs together and watch them rain death on everything.

Two Storm Atronachs (for range) or two Dremora Lords (for melee) is pretty much overpowered. Really nothing is going to get past that. Sometimes I feel a little bad casting two summons at the start of a fight and then just sitting back while I watch the carnage.

Sometimes.

 

[you2]

bunnies are good food; why shouldn't you kill bunnies ?

 

[dennilfloss]

Yup. My mage constantly has 2 potent storm atronachs as bodyguards on the outside. They're a great alarm system too. Inside I switch to 2 potent dremora lords (also when I attack a fort where enemies take cover from ranged attacks). The DLs just rush inside and kill kill kill. They sense weakness...

Plus there's Aranea/Illia as my destructo mage companions. They too like to summon a fire or frost atronach.

Draugrs and dragons hate my little mage posse. Most trouble I get is from bears that sometimes appear out of nowhere, ignore my minions and manage to reach and one-shot me before I fus ro dah them back.

 

[dennilfloss]

bunnies are good food; why shouldn't you kill bunnies ?

I kill bunnies, elks, foxes, eagles, everything I can to increase my destruction and pratice my aim and get money. I stand on mountain peaks and blast fireballs at unsuspecting critters hundreds of feet away. Why? because I can!!!

 

[thespyder]

I kill bunnies, elks, foxes, eagles, everything I can to increase my destruction and pratice my aim and get money. I stand on mountain peaks and blast fireballs at unsuspecting critters hundreds of feet away. Why? because I can!!!

It's also a good way to fill all of those petty soul gems you accumulate early on if you do it correctly.

 

[dennilfloss]

Well, sometimes after fast traveling Illia's robe reappears, sometimes it disappears, like on a whim. Aw well, what's life without whimsy?

Edit: Ha! Now her face has vanished!

 

[shortylickens]

It's also a good way to fill all of those petty soul gems you accumulate early on if you do it correctly.

I miss custom spells. Putting soul trap in a wide range fireball was super efficient.

 

[dennilfloss]

Ha! Illia finished an ancient dragon by punching it to death! Twas like the thief plunging his knife into the elder god at the end of Conan the Destroyer, except the dragon was still alive. And her robe disappeared when she switched from magic to fisticuffs. She stood in front of it, letting it breathe full blast on her, then stopped spearing and started punching

I just love little fun bugs/equipment conflicts like this.

 

[NoSoup4You]

I jumped into the water and what did I behold...

Right as I snapped this the orc (the one with the top knot) said, "I'll show you what a real orc is made of."

Not joking.

 

[cytoSiN]

Right as I snapped this the orc (the one with the top knot) said, "I'll show you what a real orc is made of."

Not joking.

I have no idea what is going on here, but I like it.

 

[dennilfloss]

Underwater patty-cake?

 

[Borealis7]

bunnies are good for filling Petty Soul Gems. did lots of those to up my Enchanting

 

[PrayForDeath]

I'm at the point where I'm pretty tired of the game but don't wanna stop until I see everything worthwhile.

I'm at 60 hrs played. Finished the Dark Brotherhood, Thieves' Guild, Mage's College, and halfway through main quest. I'm planning to stop once I'm done with the main quest.

Is there anything else I should check out before I stop playing?

 

[s1njin]

I know this is a open game, but I can't help but wonder if I'm supposed to hop back on the tracks or not. I'm still in Riverrun (RiverEnd?). I have been wandering around, found some caves, found a really cool cave where you go through and kill a bunch of bandits and end up on a beautiful overlook of the countryside. No quest tied to it, but it SEEMED to feel like there SHOULD have been a quest (and I obviously missed it). Stuff like that makes me wonder if I'm doing this 'wrong'. There wasn't a whole lot to do in the first town directly, aside from the claw quest. I felt like at level 1 I shouldn't be taking on a quest like this, but again - maybe I'm supposed to?

 

[PrayForDeath]

I know this is a open game, but I can't help but wonder if I'm supposed to hop back on the tracks or not. I'm still in Riverrun (RiverEnd?). I have been wandering around, found some caves, found a really cool cave where you go through and kill a bunch of bandits and end up on a beautiful overlook of the countryside. No quest tied to it, but it SEEMED to feel like there SHOULD have been a quest (and I obviously missed it). Stuff like that makes me wonder if I'm doing this 'wrong'. There wasn't a whole lot to do in the first town directly, aside from the claw quest. I felt like at level 1 I shouldn't be taking on a quest like this, but again - maybe I'm supposed to?

I actually skipped that town and went straight to Whiterun, so I dunno. But from what I've heard there's an infamous quest there involving a feud between a 'Sven' and some other dude.

 

[dennilfloss]

I decided to enchant similar gear for Illia so she matches close to me in terms of magical defense. While I only wear cloth (exception being the falmer helmet), I did give her some light armour for her hands and feet. Otherwise we match and look alike. Destructo Twins, Power Up!!!'

It's nice that one can wear a falmer helmet over other headgear. Means I can wear a circlet under one and not have my face hidden by a dragon priest mask. The result is more potent than a dragon mask too (four enchantments in total on two pieces of head gear).

So I have a circlet and a falmer helmet (almost wrote flamer LOL) that enhance my destruction & conjuration by +27% &+25% for me and +25% & +25% for Illia. We each wear a Master robe of destruction. My cloth gloves are +40% sneaking & +62 magicka whereas Illia wears light armour bracers (40% sneaking, +40% bow damage). My cloth boots offer +42% fire and +42% shock resistance whereas Illia's glass boots are 37% frost & 37% shock. My ring is +41% frost & +41% shock while Illia's ring is 37% fire & 37% shock. My amulet offers+42% fire & +42% frost resistance whereas Illia's is 41% fire & 41% frost.

Neither of us uses a shield but I did give Illia an unimproved ebony sword that does +50 fire & +50 frost additional damage. She also has a glass bow that does an extra 46 fire & 46 frost damage.

The main result is that Illia is now darn resistant to elemental damage, almost as much as me. Means I can now machinegun fireballs at close quarter and she will survive while draugr death overlords croak. Means also I can use the stormcall shout outdoors with impunity. She gets zapped repeatedly, her health bar goes down a smidgen and goes back up in a couple of seconds, and she says "Stop that!" but doesn't get angry or really hurt.

Of course, being level 49, I have access to higher level spells than Illia does (she's limited to expert stuff) but she probably has more hit points than me as I am still at 100 (~650 magicka though).

 

[Martimus]

I'm at the point where I'm pretty tired of the game but don't wanna stop until I see everything worthwhile.

I'm at 60 hrs played. Finished the Dark Brotherhood, Thieves' Guild, Mage's College, and halfway through main quest. I'm planning to stop once I'm done with the main quest.

Is there anything else I should check out before I stop playing?

The funny part is that I have I think 95 hours in the game, and I have only done one quest line - the mages college, and I stopped playing once I finished that questline. I just became arch mage, and my last save is from me checking out my new archmages quarters. I haven't gotten almost anywhere in the main quest, and I haven't started any other major quest line. Mostly I have been doing all the little quests that popped up throughout my little time moving around in the game. I still haven't been to most of the major cities, for whatever reason.

I have also been completely addicted to Ultima 7 the last week. I dont' know why, but when I sit down and have some tim eto play something, I always choose that game. It has all sorts of flaws, but it is addicting right now, even though it is ~17 years old.

 

[dennilfloss]

I'm at over 230h, close to level 50, and I still haven't done the Diplomacy quest or started the Civil War. I just roam the countryside and explore/kill/loot. And I'm making a point to not read books that pertain to skills I don't want to raise (e.g. armour,smithing, pickpocketing...), so I raise more slowly.

And I was almost a full month away from the game when I visited my parents.