The OFFICIAL Anandtech Forums TeS V: Skyrim Thread

[shortylickens]

Oh no you cant be invisible after getting spotted by a hostile. You get one chance to cast a good spell and then you're done.
I like fire storm. Or guardian circle if its all undead in the room.

 

[shortylickens]

Actually I think thats why people prefer conjuration. You can have ghosts and daedra run interception while you zap them from afar. Doesnt matter if they can see you or not.

Of course summoning was gimped from Oblivion too. Fewer creatures. Maybe mods will help.
I had an Oblivion mod that added a buttload of summon spells to the game, some of them allowed multiple monsters at once. One was for each type of skeleton (5), one for all the ghosts (4), one for each of the elementals (3), one for each of the dremora (5 or 6), one for a buttload of lower level monsters like creepers and such, and there were some stronger monster too.
Lots of mana but it allowed small armies if you wanted. Made conjuration a LOT more fun and more useful too.
Also I made spells that gave me every type of bound equipment all at once. Thats a lot better than casting individual spells.

 

[cytoSiN]

...Also I made spells that gave me every type of bound equipment all at once...

I'm still bummed that they took out spell creation. That's the single biggest reason that I've played archery/sneak.

 

[Markbnj]

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Destruction

Rune spells are tough to use unless you keep swapping between invisibility and the rune.
Enemies have a tendency to rush at you and trip the spell when you are standing near it.

I use runes when I know I'll be kiting a tough mob back down a hall or something. If I am coming down a hall and I see a big open room with a sarcophagus on a dais I know I'm getting either a named or a Draugr Death Overlord, so I drop a rune in the hall, go in the room and pop him, and then kite him back down the hall. It doesn't help all that much, but it's fun and I'm hitting him the whole time with arrows and the stagger archery perk, which also helps.

 

[SMOGZINN]

Beyond that you better have some items that reduce destruction costs cuz you cant have enough mana to fight with spells constantly.

I played my mage with almost no cost reduction (I think I had 11% from a helm). Instead I had like 300 mana and +300% mana recharge. I would run out and just run around for a few seconds and have my mana back.

Its also best to pick one element and then shove perks into boosting it. I like shock cuz it has most of the instant hit spells, which is essential against dragons.

Agree. Chain Lighning is great, and it robs those pesky spellcasters of their mana.

Cloak and the others arent too useful. Walls are OK again if you can reduce destruction costs. Just keep casting them around your enemies and they die quickly. Like a slightly stronger version of the novice spray spells. Dont actually use them as a wall. Enemies pass right through and take minimal damage.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Destruction

Rune spells are tough to use unless you keep swapping between invisibility and the rune.
Enemies have a tendency to rush at you and trip the spell when you are standing near it.

We played very differently, Rune spells and Cloak spells got me through most of my 20-30's.
Cast cloak, and then place a rune and run backwards spaming healing hands and putting down runes. Most things died quick.

Currently I'm nearing 50 and I use wall spells as a primary attack, and I only have about 25% cost reduction (just got enchanting up high enough to make my own enchants that are better then what I find!) Properly used Wall spells do really good damage. 50 damage as soon as you cast it, and 50 damage every second after, and you can often get several to hit at once.

Basicly I keep lightning cloak up all the time, cast a rune in front of me (I don't think your own runes hurt you, but I could be wrong about that, I spend a lot of time running away)
and then fill my path with wall of lightning. If I decide to stop and fight, the walls and roof get a lightning wall as well.

Quick question, does anyone use wards? I don't think I've ever used one in combat. I'm wondering if I should have been useing that instead of healing hands. They just seemed to suck magika so much faster.

 

[zinfamous]

I'm still bummed that they took out spell creation. That's the single biggest reason that I've played archery/sneak.

I just rolled a Breton mage the other night, goes by the name of "Jesus."

I installed the current version of Midas Magic which you can find on Nexus or Steam Workshop (got mine from Steam Workshop--that is quite awesome, btw).

haven't had a chance to craft yet, as I haven't found any gold ingots, but I see some rather clever spells are included.

 

[cytoSiN]

I just rolled a Breton mage the other night, goes by the name of "Jesus."

I installed the current version of Midas Magic which you can find on Nexus or Steam Workshop (got mine from Steam Workshop--that is quite awesome, btw).

haven't had a chance to craft yet, as I haven't found any gold ingots, but I see some rather clever spells are included.

Pfffft...everyone knows Jesus was a Redguard...

But seriously, Midas Magic looks amazing. My next roll will definitely be a mage.

 

[zinfamous]

Pfffft...everyone knows Jesus was a Redguard...

But seriously, Midas Magic looks amazing. My next roll will definitely be a mage.

My Breton is very dark-skinned, though.

I will have to do a console name change--I got a bit lazy and just wanted to be done with the creation process, so he came out as Jesus Jornson (you know: "Yuern-son").


...it doesn't quite fit. :\

 

[Atomic Playboy]

I have a quick question for those starting out with Destruction mages. What spells do you tend to use after the "starter" spells? Also are you guys using companions immediately or just going it on your own. I wanted to start out primarily Destruction and then eventually ease into conjuration.

The main thing for destruction is to get the Impact perk as quickly as possible. It makes it so dual-wielding a missile spell (any of the flame, frost or shock spells above the Novice level ones) will stagger any opponent, which means they can't hit you while you charge your next spell, stagger them again, etc. Makes it so you can take on basically anything regardless of your level and win easily (unless you run out of magic, so keep a lot of restore magicka potions on you). Favoring one skill tree in destruction isn't a bad idea, but I find fire and shock to be equally useful for different reasons (fire does a bit more damage, especially with the Illusion perk "Aspect of Terror" which makes all fire-based spells do an extra 10 points of damage, but fire spells travel pretty slow; lightning spells are instantaneous and also drain magicka from your opponent, but they're not as cost-effective for the damage as fire spells; frost spells are the slowest, weakest and generally not worth it as very few things are succeptible to frost but not fire or shock). Chain lightning is an excellent spell to use on most enemies since you can stagger two people at a time with it. Don't bother getting any of the "lower cost of destruction spells" perks past Adept; by the time you get that high in level, you should be able to custom enchant armor that makes your spells free anyway, so those just become wasted perk points.

Focus on lowering the cost of your spells early on. Get some low-level robes of destruction and disenchant them to learn the "fortify destruction" enchantment, then custom enchant a ring, necklace and headpiece (circlet or helmet) with fortify destruction (use only grand souls for your own gear). Get some Master Robes of Destruction to wear as well; they'll be better than anything you can custom enchant for quite some time. Farily early on I was able to get by with destruction spell costs reduced by about 60% or so (you'll want to spend some points in Magicka as you level up, but you don't need more than 300 or so; as you level up enchanting, you can keep reducing spell costs, and having extra magicka becomes meaningless). Once you reach level 100 enchanting, you can make custom enchanted gear with two enchantments (use your skill perks on the middle branch of enchanting and get all 5 levels of the enchanter perk); my custom "destruction" set has fortify destruction and fortify conjuration on 4 pieces, for an effective magic cost of 0 for all destruction and conjuration spells (which is why I didn't bother continually dropping levels into magicka).

Don't forget to activate the Mage Stone so your destruction and conjuration will level up 20% faster. And I wouldn't waste money buying conjuration spells; you can make the important ones at the atronach forge in the midden under the college of Winterhold. You can get the recipes from various Skyrim wikis. It's not a bad strategy to level conjuration and destruction at the same time. Conjure an atronach or dremora, let your enemies attack them, and lay back and fire lightning or fireballs at them.

 

[Qbah]

Added the HD DLC, several mods via Workshop and now the game stops in the bigger areas Seems my card is running out of VRAM...

 

[zinfamous]

Don't forget to activate the Mage Stone so your destruction and conjuration will level up 20% faster. And I wouldn't waste money buying conjuration spells; you can make the important ones at the atronach forge in the midden under the college of Winterhold. You can get the recipes from various Skyrim wikis. It's not a bad strategy to level conjuration and destruction at the same time. Conjure an atronach or dremora, let your enemies attack them, and lay back and fire lightning or fireballs at them.

I discovered this morning that summoning my familiar and killing it with fire levels both for me, if but minimally (familiar dies quite fast).

Is that what you're saying?

I've been stuck with the novice destruction robes--any idea of a dependable spot to find some better ones?

And I suppose circlet/helmets are better than hoods, because those tend to be reduce cost enchants, and hoods are increase majicka enchants?

 

[zinfamous]

Added the HD DLC, several mods via Workshop and now the game stops in the bigger areas Seems my card is running out of VRAM...

try some of the fan made texture packs. Those seem to run better, and in several reviews, appear to be just as good as the official one. :/

From what people have said here, a minimum of 1.2gb VRAM is needed (despite what Bethesda claims)

 

[Markbnj]

try some of the fan made texture packs. Those seem to run better, and in several reviews, appear to be just as good as the official one. :/

From what people have said here, a minimum of 1.2gb VRAM is needed (despite what Bethesda claims)

I have a 1GB card (560ti) and the HD textures run smooth as glass. I also have a fast proc (2500k) and lots of ram (16gb).

 

[Slew Foot]

Destruction by itself is kinda tough until you get a bunch of fortify destruction enchantments. Destruction + conjuration is retardedly easy. If youre going for 100% fortify destruction, Id go with boosting up the lightning perks (but not the last one that causes your opponents to run away), the extra mana doesnt matter since the casting cost is zero anyway. Dual cast and impact with chain lightning and youre basically untouchable.

 

[NoSoup4You]

I had to disable a ton of high res texture mods and drop to 2xAA to get the game to run smoothly. With that said, I still have a few texture mods installed - High Quality Eyes, Realistic Water, and Real Ice. VRAM hovers around 1050-1100MB in most areas, I could realistically start adding back some of the other high res packs but many of them are simply no longer needed now with the DLC pack.

High Quality Shields, Enhanced Night Sky, Improved NPC Clothing, Millenia Weapon Retexture, No More Blocky Faces, Skyrim HD Retexture Landscape, Skyrim HD, Skills Interface Retexture, Mountain and Rock Textures.

All those mods I've now left disabled since the DLC addressed all of them, except the last one. Are the mods better quality? Quite possibly, but overall not worth it at the moment plus I want to get a feel for just how high quality this DLC pack is. So far it's quite awesome (the shields and weapons in particular).

 

[cytoSiN]

I have a 1GB card (560ti) and the HD textures run smooth as glass. I also have a fast proc (2500k) and lots of ram (16gb).

Based on this and other stuff I've read, it seems to be about more than just the GPU. A fast, multi core proc and at least 8GB of ram seems to help a lot. My card has 1280mb ram, but others with 1gb seem to be doing just fine as long as they have a SB proc and 8gb+ ddr3.

 

[zinfamous]

I have a 1GB card (560ti) and the HD textures run smooth as glass. I also have a fast proc (2500k) and lots of ram (16gb).

hmm, we're pretty much in the same boat, only difference is I'm running a Phenom II 960. 4 cores and all, but not nearly in the same stratosphere as you. Oh, and this is more nVidia happy, isn't it?


....but this isn't a CPU-limited game, correct?

:hmm:

I guess I'm perfectly satisfied with what I have going right now, though I'm not a homer for tweaking this stuff after a certain amount of time. (not that you guys are--I'm just impatient about hardware. )

 

[zinfamous]

Has anyone tried sounds of Skyrim mod? looks pretty awesome; at least if the volume truly is downscaled below what you see in the demo vid, (as so described)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAmYNTJDCsk

 

[Markbnj]

I guess I'm perfectly satisfied with what I have going right now, though I'm not a homer for tweaking this stuff after a certain amount of time. (not that you guys are--I'm just impatient about hardware.

I'll tweak a little bit, for stuff that really bugs me. Walk speed, for example, which has been ridiculously slow since Morrowind. I'm sort of strict with myself about modding the game, though. I want to play it through once more or less as they intended it. My last play through in Oblivion, though, was with Oscuro's Overhaul and a few other mods, and it was a blast.

 

[zinfamous]

I'll tweak a little bit, for stuff that really bugs me. Walk speed, for example, which has been ridiculously slow since Morrowind. I'm sort of strict with myself about modding the game, though. I want to play it through once more or less as they intended it. My last play through in Oblivion, though, was with Oscuro's Overhaul and a few other mods, and it was a blast.

with 2nd playthrough, I have added Midas Magic (not that I really spent much time with magic in first play through), faster horses, and arrow fletching--not so easy to make, and since it is available through the tanning hide, they do not improve smithing--so it shouldn't be unbalanced.

 

[Fenixgoon]

question about soul gems: when you enchant or recharge an enchanted item, do you lose the soul gem, or just them soul within the gem?

 

[cytoSiN]

question about soul gems: when you enchant or recharge an enchanted item, do you lose the soul gem, or just them soul within the gem?

You lose them gem.

 

[RavenSEAL]

I might have been out of the loop for a while but just started playing again.

One of the things that is pissing the living **** out of me is how stupid the partner AI is. Has anyone come out with a fix to improve their movement?

 

[Markbnj]

I might have been out of the loop for a while but just started playing again.

One of the things that is pissing the living **** out of me is how stupid the partner AI is. Has anyone come out with a fix to improve their movement?

Yeah, they're not smart, but they are persistent. I don't take one with me very often anymore. When I do I am always aware of where I am walking and whether they will follow me. In a couple of instances I have jumped down a cliff, which I knew Arlis wouldn't traverse, only to have him catch back up with me ten minutes later. I have also seen cases, in dungeons, where there was no path from the follower to me without exiting the cell, and after a couple of seconds of jerking back and forth he despawned and appeared next to me. So there is some corner case code kicking in under certain conditions.

 

[RavenSEAL]

Yeah, they're not smart, but they are persistent. I don't take one with me very often anymore. When I do I am always aware of where I am walking and whether they will follow me. In a couple of instances I have jumped down a cliff, which I knew Arlis wouldn't traverse, only to have him catch back up with me ten minutes later. I have also seen cases, in dungeons, where there was no path from the follower to me without exiting the cell, and after a couple of seconds of jerking back and forth he despawned and appeared next to me. So there is some corner case code kicking in under certain conditions.

Yeah, that really got to me yesterday when I was doing the Lighthouse abyss quest and the only way to the final boss was a cliff. He just got stuck up there and I got caught off guard by a bunch of minions and ended up having to re-do the whole thing.