Oh. So how many should I hang onto for Dragonborn?
Three. There's a shout you'll need all three words for to finish Dragonborn's main quest.
Another thing about magic: The master destruction spells would have been okay if they either required you to be stationary or had a long charge-up time, but not both.
I've done a ton of stuff in Solstheim, basically finished with Raven Rock and Tel Mithryn, but I've never visited the Temple of Miraak yet as I am being directed to...I've been doing other stuff back and forth in Skyrim and I've never had a single soul stolen from me. So there's probably a trigger, maybe even the very next step of the quest for me.
The trigger is completing the temple of miraak, which is when the main quest starts properly. The part you've done is just the "get the player to Solestheim" teaser/breadcrumb.
Well, while we're still on the subject of mages being fucked over, I just found out something about Enderal. Apparently, it has a new mechanic where casting spells, drinking potions, or going into magically-charged areas builds up some kind of "magic radiation" or something, shown by a bar on your HUD. It gives you penalties and can kill you. It sounds like Magic Frostfall, and I have no patience for Frostfall. I'm going to be punished for playing a pure mage. That's just fucking great.
It's a complete game overhaul so I would be surprised if they didn't change the effectiveness of potions/magic.
The link also says it's not casting any magic, just effects on yourself, like irradiating yourself. Anything cast on others like destruction magic wouldn't apply.
Presumably this would mean attack magic is more effective than before, since you could fill up your enemy's "magic radiation" bar and kill them that way.
Regarding the Miraak soul stealing: I must have also been ridiculously unlucky, something like 90% of my souls were stolen when I was wandering the mainland trying to level up enough to handle the rest of the storyline. I just ended up consoling myself souls when it happened, just wasn't worth it to me.
To be fair though the ending fight also bugged for me and I had to spend a long time trying to figure out how to fix it, maybe that affected my stolen soul rate too. *shrug*
He just would NOT take the dragon soul in the middle of the fight like he was scripted too, by the time I eventually made it work I was literally cheering him on with "YOU CAN DO IT TAKE THAT SOUL BOY TAAAKE ITTTT I BELIEEEVEEEE IN YOU". Made the fight considerably less satisfying but that's a moment I'll always chuckle about.
Outside of that terrible design decision, Dragonborn is really good. Morrowind music, more Daedric Prince stuff, my favorite follower, and quests with interesting rewards. It's all great.
I am rather excited to see Endereal translated into English so I can give it a try, but in the meantime I've started (yet another) new game. I'm giving Perkus Maximus another go as it's gotten a few updates since the last time I played, and so far I'm enjoying my heavy armor / 1-handed weapons / Conjurer build. I generally don't like having companions, so investing in Conjury lets me have allies on the fly, and the combination of PM and Apocalypse Magick adds tons of awesome new spells.
I'm hoping to actually complete something for once... I've never completed the main quest, nor either of the DLC stories despite having thousands of hours played in Skyrim. Buuut... chances are high that if I don't end up wanting to start over because of Endereal, I'll instead somehow corrupt my save or just generally find something else I want to do. That tends to be how it goes with me and this game.
Companions are almost universally garbage in Elder Scrolls games. They get all Leeroy Jenkins while I'm trying to be stealthy, they repeat dialogue, they stand in my way... the list goes on and on.
Companions are almost universally garbage in Elder Scrolls games. They get all Leeroy Jenkins while I'm trying to be stealthy, they repeat dialogue, they stand in my way... the list goes on and on.
Interesting NPCs Companions are way less terrible. I've never had one Leeroy (in fact, there's a thief companion who seems to prioritize stealth above basically all else, and she's gotten off stealth kills!), and I very seldom hear them repeat lines unless I've had to reload because most of their lines are context based and their ambient stuff just... I think they just have A FUCKTON of lines.
I'm using Interesting NPCs but I haven't looked up a guide so I haven't found any potential companions with it yet. I've run into some people who have better dialog than the vanilla game, but they never offer to join me, and I certainly haven't found anyone I would be willing to trust not to throw off my stealth game.
It's just weird that Bethesda is okay with a little wonkiness in how their games work, but they haven't taken a cue from The Last Of Us and let supposedly stealthy NPCs be free to remain undiscovered unless I am found. I would much prefer having that sort of weirdness for the sake of enjoying the game more fully.
I'm using Interesting NPCs but I haven't looked up a guide so I haven't found any potential companions with it yet. I've run into some people who have better dialog than the vanilla game, but they never offer to join me, and I certainly haven't found anyone I would be willing to trust not to throw off my stealth game.
It's just weird that Bethesda is okay with a little wonkiness in how their games work, but they haven't taken a cue from The Last Of Us and let supposedly stealthy NPCs be free to remain undiscovered unless I am found. I would much prefer having that sort of weirdness for the sake of enjoying the game more fully.
That's weird because I bump into NPCs who want to join me all the time with Interesting NPCs. There are at least two in Riverwood alone. Many of them don't start out with the option, mind... you gotta delve into their long, meandering dialogues to get there, but it's pretty amazing how many companions are introduced by that mod... as well as how many new quests! It's pretty much the most amazing mod.
I was just spamming detect life and muffle to level alteration and illusion, because seriously can't be arsed to incorporate them into my normal playstyle for 20 hours or whatever, and it made me think...does anyone do runs focusing on schools like those? Or how far do you really get after deciding to do so and then get jealous of better/easier options?
Like I am picturing people who constantly cast bound weapons rather than using the great enchanted options that get showered on you constantly, or always open combat by casting fear so they can chase down helpless enemies and stab them, or regularly use detect life even though most areas aren't that hard to see enemies in and you can generally hear them through walls and the spell doesn't work on undead. Or they make use of the elemental ward spells. I dunno it just seems unlikely, but maybe I only play in boring ways.
Anyone spend a lot of time on a utility spell playthrough? Or any other play styles you think are uncommon, like maybe 2H weapons, or unarmed?
I was just spamming detect life and muffle to level alteration and illusion, because seriously can't be arsed to incorporate them into my normal playstyle for 20 hours or whatever, and it made me think...does anyone do runs focusing on schools like those? Or how far do you really get after deciding to do so and then get jealous of better/easier options?
Like I am picturing people who constantly cast bound weapons rather than using the great enchanted options that get showered on you constantly, or always open combat by casting fear so they can chase down helpless enemies and stab them, or regularly use detect life even though most areas aren't that hard to see enemies in and you can generally hear them through walls and the spell doesn't work on undead. Or they make use of the elemental ward spells. I dunno it just seems unlikely, but maybe I only play in boring ways.
Anyone spend a lot of time on a utility spell playthrough? Or any other play styles you think are uncommon, like maybe 2H weapons, or unarmed?
I've been playing a stealth Mage, and illusion was the first thing I got to 100, followed by stealth. Conjuration is well into the 70s and Alteration is around 40, but I haven't been spamming spells unless I need them for something.
I find myself in the favorites menu a lot more, casting and re-casting lots of things. It's a slower way to play but I'm trying to force myself not to metagame too much, and it's still fun even though leveling takes longer.
I will want to play a heavily modded perk tree/leveling system next time around though. This sort of playthrough isn't something I would do more than once.
0
WhiteZinfandelYour insidesLet me show you themRegistered Userregular
I was just spamming detect life and muffle to level alteration and illusion, because seriously can't be arsed to incorporate them into my normal playstyle for 20 hours or whatever, and it made me think...does anyone do runs focusing on schools like those? Or how far do you really get after deciding to do so and then get jealous of better/easier options?
Like I am picturing people who constantly cast bound weapons rather than using the great enchanted options that get showered on you constantly, or always open combat by casting fear so they can chase down helpless enemies and stab them, or regularly use detect life even though most areas aren't that hard to see enemies in and you can generally hear them through walls and the spell doesn't work on undead. Or they make use of the elemental ward spells. I dunno it just seems unlikely, but maybe I only play in boring ways.
Anyone spend a lot of time on a utility spell playthrough? Or any other play styles you think are uncommon, like maybe 2H weapons, or unarmed?
I don't know about Vanilla, but SPERG conjured weapons are VERY powerful once you start picking up the associated perks. Not carrying any weapons other than a dagger also frees up a lot of inventory space.
Interesting Companions is awesome, so glad I played through it way back when, I should see if they updated it which they almost assuredly have.
I always found when I stealthed, Lydia stealthed. In fact, I think I saw one of my companions slit some Falmer's throat once from stealth. I know for a fact that I always give my companions muffled boots since its one of the few enchants that works for them.
SPERG has a cool thing where you can have summoned arrows if you run out of real ammo. Your current conjuring perks affect their damage.
I did grab immersive weapons and damn, there's some slick ones. I killed some Draugr Deathlord and he dropped this odd staff like battle axe; it's a natural looking wooden staff with a curled wooden knot at one end, and two glass weapon type battle axe blades. I've started to notice a lot of snazzy looking cutlasses, daggers and the like as I smite evil here and there. Even OBIS bandits drop with some of it now, like great looking dark wood bows with nice gold trim.
If you're rabidly against boobplate, just stop right now. I looked at some mods by a guy named Nisetanaka on the nexus, yeah, boob plate etc, but what was slick is the armor isn't one piece- it's a bunch of small pieces so you can attach extra thigh plates or a shoulder targe for good looking asymmetrical appearances. Is anyone aware of any other armor like this? A lot of his stuff uses all the oddball armor slots, so you have to be careful (or not) when you smith, improve and enchant stuff or you wind up kind of overly powerful. He only seems to mod the heavy armor types, and offers a bunch of slick looking gorgets that give you that Auron like appearance of a high collar. I think immersive armor also adds some stuff like that.
I was just spamming detect life and muffle to level alteration and illusion, because seriously can't be arsed to incorporate them into my normal playstyle for 20 hours or whatever, and it made me think...does anyone do runs focusing on schools like those? Or how far do you really get after deciding to do so and then get jealous of better/easier options?
Like I am picturing people who constantly cast bound weapons rather than using the great enchanted options that get showered on you constantly, or always open combat by casting fear so they can chase down helpless enemies and stab them, or regularly use detect life even though most areas aren't that hard to see enemies in and you can generally hear them through walls and the spell doesn't work on undead. Or they make use of the elemental ward spells. I dunno it just seems unlikely, but maybe I only play in boring ways.
Anyone spend a lot of time on a utility spell playthrough? Or any other play styles you think are uncommon, like maybe 2H weapons, or unarmed?
I don't know about Vanilla, but SPERG conjured weapons are VERY powerful once you start picking up the associated perks. Not carrying any weapons other than a dagger also frees up a lot of inventory space.
Vanilla bound weapons are fucking nuts, especially with the perks and also high weapon skills. In addition, having high conjuration means you can summon sweet daedra to help out which is always useful.
I was just spamming detect life and muffle to level alteration and illusion, because seriously can't be arsed to incorporate them into my normal playstyle for 20 hours or whatever, and it made me think...does anyone do runs focusing on schools like those? Or how far do you really get after deciding to do so and then get jealous of better/easier options?
Like I am picturing people who constantly cast bound weapons rather than using the great enchanted options that get showered on you constantly, or always open combat by casting fear so they can chase down helpless enemies and stab them, or regularly use detect life even though most areas aren't that hard to see enemies in and you can generally hear them through walls and the spell doesn't work on undead. Or they make use of the elemental ward spells. I dunno it just seems unlikely, but maybe I only play in boring ways.
Anyone spend a lot of time on a utility spell playthrough? Or any other play styles you think are uncommon, like maybe 2H weapons, or unarmed?
Pretty much all my mage characters just go straight Destruction. I used to try playing a more generalized style, but it had a few problems: I didn't like keeping track of tons of spells across all schools, it was too expensive to buy ALL THE SPELLS plus the College enchanted robes for one particular school, and having all those different tools makes you horrendously overpowered if you're using any spell mods. And I usually just used Destruction most of the time anyway. I've found that my preferred mage concept is very similar to the D&D Sorcerer, with more of a focus on direct, raw magical power instead of meticulous planning or things like utility spells/buffs/debuffs, which is more what Wizards are about. So now I just go with Destruction for offense, Alteration for defense and some utility like Candlelight, and Enchanting for reducing spell costs and putting some magic into my emergency quarterstaff and crossbow (Side note: Skyrim needs more quarterstaff mods). I'd like to do some staff enchanting, too, but the few mods I've found for that don't really do everything I want, and they can't be combined to work together.
I keep meaning to do a heavy armor battlemage with a mace in one hand and a Destruction spell in the other, but I end up starting it and not taking it farther than level 5 for some reason.
I'm not sure why you think two-handed weapons is an uncommon play style, though.
I was just spamming detect life and muffle to level alteration and illusion, because seriously can't be arsed to incorporate them into my normal playstyle for 20 hours or whatever, and it made me think...does anyone do runs focusing on schools like those? Or how far do you really get after deciding to do so and then get jealous of better/easier options?
Like I am picturing people who constantly cast bound weapons rather than using the great enchanted options that get showered on you constantly, or always open combat by casting fear so they can chase down helpless enemies and stab them, or regularly use detect life even though most areas aren't that hard to see enemies in and you can generally hear them through walls and the spell doesn't work on undead. Or they make use of the elemental ward spells. I dunno it just seems unlikely, but maybe I only play in boring ways.
Anyone spend a lot of time on a utility spell playthrough? Or any other play styles you think are uncommon, like maybe 2H weapons, or unarmed?
Well, yes and no.
Calming enemies with illusion and then back-stabbing them and then immediately calming them again is an utterly broken playstyle that only works for illusionists. You can't do it to every mob, but the ones you can do it to... well yeah, it's hugely broken to the point of being silly and amusing.
Elemental trap spells shouldn't be discounted. They are the absolute fastest way to level destruction magic until you get expert level spells. Fire one into a group of bandits can get you a whole level of destruction. Forget flame bolt, that shit is the slowest leveling past like 25 destruction.
Yes, people do use bound weapons. It might not be your thing, but it's certainly a viable option. Especially bound bow, which is the best bow you can get until you can craft daedric weapons. It also levels marksmanship faster than anything else in the game.
Fear is a dumb spell, but Turn Undead spells will level Restoration much faster than healing yourself. I believe I have recommended this previously, but I'll say it again: Grab turn lesser undead and as many magicka potions as you can and head down into the crypt in Whiterun with the three piddly little low level skeletons and abuse them until you run out of magicka potions. Enjoy having moderately high Restoration early on in the game!
Alteration is tedious to level but armor spells are essential for a mage playthrough. You'll have to work something out to level it. Transmute ore is handy, especially if you use the mod that transmutes all your ore at once. Once you have a decent magicka pool the telekinesis spell will level it very very quickly. Just stand in a corner and pick up a bucket and bring it to you, fling it away, repeat. Don't aim it at any npcs, it is considered assault.
I don't find the idea of intentionally training magic outside of combat to be offensive, because that's kind of what wizards do in just about every fantasy setting. They spend far more time in study and practice than in application, let alone combat application. It makes perfect sense to me.
Detect Life/Detect Dead are also good for leveling Alteration quickly. The more actors it detects, the faster it levels the skill. Go to an inn at night and you'll probably gain a few levels of Alteration before you even run out of magicka.
I find myself in the favorites menu a lot more, casting and re-casting lots of things. It's a slower way to play but I'm trying to force myself not to metagame too much, and it's still fun even though leveling takes longer.
Yeah, that was one of the big things I was thinking about as a roadblock. There should be more convenient ways to keep magic going rather than having to switch spells all the time, I'm picturing something like FF12's gambits. "If out of combat and visible and no friendly NPCs around and mana > 50%, auto-cast invisibility."
I'm not sure why you think two-handed weapons is an uncommon play style, though.
Well it was more of a question whether others thought it might be uncommon, I don't use them so I was wondering what others think. I feel like speed is usually king in these games and 2H weapons are slower, and you don't get to equip two different enchanted items like with dual wielding or sword and shield (a lot of devs don't factor this difference into 2H playstyles). SnS lets you level both one handed and block, too, and block has some cool perks.
Yes, people do use bound weapons. It might not be your thing, but it's certainly a viable option. Especially bound bow, which is the best bow you can get until you can craft daedric weapons. It also levels marksmanship faster than anything else in the game.
...
I don't find the idea of intentionally training magic outside of combat to be offensive, because that's kind of what wizards do in just about every fantasy setting. They spend far more time in study and practice than in application, let alone combat application. It makes perfect sense to me.
Sure, I don't really have anything against the option of bound weapons. I feel like I'm missing out when I'm not using some of the cool stuff you pick up with unique effects, and you don't have to cast anything to use them...but bound items have some interesting perks of their own and are probably pretty useful early on.
I don't have an issue with training magic outside of combat either, doing so just made me think of trying to level those schools the other way, i.e. only when you could make use of them.
I did an illusion/conjuration playthrough and it was a lot of fun. Stealth, cast frenzy into a room, wait until sounds of combat end, conjure a atronach/daerdra, wait for sounds of combat to end, summon bound dagger, kill anything left.
My favorite part was the dungeon where you meet Serana, because when you enter the huge cavern at the end, you have a clear line of site to where the massive camp of enemies is, and can frenzy the whole lot and watch them fight to the death for your amusement.
Before following any advice, opinions, or thoughts I may have expressed in the above post, be warned: I found Keven Costners "Waterworld" to be a very entertaining film.
I have a paladin build that uses heavy armor, a shield, bound weapons, restoration and a little alteration for armor buffs. I also use Apoc Spells and PerMa, I can't remember which one adds the Ocato's Recital spell, which casts up to 3 spells on you for free (that you can choose) whenever you enter combat, which removes a lot of tedium from having to cast armor/buffs/whatever every single combat. Doesn't work with bound weapons, more's the pity, but I find that the animation and concept for bound weapons fits so well with a paladin character, since summoning your own sword is badass.
See I always run out of things to buy with gold, so being able to go, "Oh, I never bought all the Alteration spells" gives me an incentive to keep plunging into dungeons and plundering people's homes.
See I always run out of things to buy with gold, so being able to go, "Oh, I never bought all the Alteration spells" gives me an incentive to keep plunging into dungeons and plundering people's homes.
See I always run out of things to buy with gold, so being able to go, "Oh, I never bought all the Alteration spells" gives me an incentive to keep plunging into dungeons and plundering people's homes.
Well it was more of a question whether others thought it might be uncommon, I don't use them so I was wondering what others think. I feel like speed is usually king in these games and 2H weapons are slower, and you don't get to equip two different enchanted items like with dual wielding or sword and shield (a lot of devs don't factor this difference into 2H playstyles). SnS lets you level both one handed and block, too, and block has some cool perks.
Vanilla Skyrim I think it is uncommon. Two-handed weapons block less efficiently, you can't cast spells easily without swapping around multiple slots, and all for pretty much the same amount of damage as one-handed weapons when taking all the perks for each into account. The only benefit is that they have slightly more melee range than one-handed weapons, but that barely matters in any normal combat situation. You can still use two handed weapons and be perfectly viable, but it has to be a conscious decision to do so and not based on any sort of "what is most powerful" math because that always leads to one-handed+shield winning out.
SPERG adds some two-handed perks that give it a different utility than vanilla and so it can end up being pretty cool. Making power attacks do a lot more than just an increased amount of damage, like breaking shields and reducing an enemy's armor. Higher up you even get it so that normal attacks damage multiple enemies at once. Also encouraging the playstyle of just running straight in and beating the shit out of everything by making the perk that increases critical damage from charging power attacks better than how it is in vanilla. It changes things up enough to where if one-handed is either a knight or a duel-wielding finesse whirlwind, two-handed is a charging berserker, making them feel different than vanilla just having everything be the same so you end up just picking how you want it to look when you walk up and hit a bad guy with the heavy thing until he falls over.
There's also the problem that there aren't as many good two-handed artifacts as one-handed, but at least they fixed that bug that made the Ebony Blade benefit only from one-handed perks and fortify spells.
I don't know if it's more powerful, but walloping some jamoke with a shield then skewering them feels soooooo good. Frankly, I just liked toying with some enemies with constant shield bashes. "IMMA SET YOU ON FI* *womp* "Pardon? You're going to..." *womp* "do what?" *womp*
With archers it was just a slow, terrible advance on them as they plinked shit into your shield (with the right perk) before you scythed them down. Casters you kinda had to either FusRohDah or sprint/shield charge to close the gap, then *womp* *womp* *womp* *womp*
Well it was more of a question whether others thought it might be uncommon, I don't use them so I was wondering what others think. I feel like speed is usually king in these games and 2H weapons are slower, and you don't get to equip two different enchanted items like with dual wielding or sword and shield (a lot of devs don't factor this difference into 2H playstyles). SnS lets you level both one handed and block, too, and block has some cool perks.
Vanilla Skyrim I think it is uncommon. Two-handed weapons block less efficiently, you can't cast spells easily without swapping around multiple slots, and all for pretty much the same amount of damage as one-handed weapons when taking all the perks for each into account. The only benefit is that they have slightly more melee range than one-handed weapons, but that barely matters in any normal combat situation. You can still use two handed weapons and be perfectly viable, but it has to be a conscious decision to do so and not based on any sort of "what is most powerful" math because that always leads to one-handed+shield winning out.
SPERG adds some two-handed perks that give it a different utility than vanilla and so it can end up being pretty cool. Making power attacks do a lot more than just an increased amount of damage, like breaking shields and reducing an enemy's armor. Higher up you even get it so that normal attacks damage multiple enemies at once. Also encouraging the playstyle of just running straight in and beating the shit out of everything by making the perk that increases critical damage from charging power attacks better than how it is in vanilla. It changes things up enough to where if one-handed is either a knight or a duel-wielding finesse whirlwind, two-handed is a charging berserker, making them feel different than vanilla just having everything be the same so you end up just picking how you want it to look when you walk up and hit a bad guy with the heavy thing until he falls over.
There's also the problem that there aren't as many good two-handed artifacts as one-handed, but at least they fixed that bug that made the Ebony Blade benefit only from one-handed perks and fortify spells.
You're overlooking the fact that two-handed killmoves are mostly cooler than one-handed killmoves and that's not even touching the one-handed dragon killmoves which are fucking stupid and basically poop from a butt. Meanwhile the two-hander dragon killmoves are great.
It's certainly a nice change of pace for when you get sick of the one-handed animations.
I've always been irritated that dual-wielding in Skyrim makes it literally impossible to block, when historically, the few instances of such involved having a smaller weapon in the off-hand specifically for parrying.
The two-weapon power moves with daggers do look pretty cool, though.
Duffel on
+1
ShimshaiFlush with Success!Isle of EmeraldRegistered Userregular
I've tried dual-wielding builds a couple of times but I could never really get into it. Missing out on having a shield/weapon bash is just not worth the tradeoff of having a second weapon in my estimation. Landing power attacks was tough as the enemy would just get pushed back and the last swings would whiff.
Two-handed mage is my go-to for a fun build. Destruction, conjuration, alteration (armour) and two-handed makes for some fun times. It can be a little glass-cannony, but it's fun pulling out a greatsword and finishing off enemies that have been softened up by magic.
I don't mind the lack of a shield either, the weapon bash is all I need. Vegetable soup essentially gives unlimited power attacks/bashes anyway so blocking is rarely needed.
Well it was more of a question whether others thought it might be uncommon, I don't use them so I was wondering what others think. I feel like speed is usually king in these games and 2H weapons are slower, and you don't get to equip two different enchanted items like with dual wielding or sword and shield (a lot of devs don't factor this difference into 2H playstyles). SnS lets you level both one handed and block, too, and block has some cool perks.
Vanilla Skyrim I think it is uncommon. Two-handed weapons block less efficiently, you can't cast spells easily without swapping around multiple slots, and all for pretty much the same amount of damage as one-handed weapons when taking all the perks for each into account. The only benefit is that they have slightly more melee range than one-handed weapons, but that barely matters in any normal combat situation. You can still use two handed weapons and be perfectly viable, but it has to be a conscious decision to do so and not based on any sort of "what is most powerful" math because that always leads to one-handed+shield winning out.
SPERG adds some two-handed perks that give it a different utility than vanilla and so it can end up being pretty cool. Making power attacks do a lot more than just an increased amount of damage, like breaking shields and reducing an enemy's armor. Higher up you even get it so that normal attacks damage multiple enemies at once. Also encouraging the playstyle of just running straight in and beating the shit out of everything by making the perk that increases critical damage from charging power attacks better than how it is in vanilla. It changes things up enough to where if one-handed is either a knight or a duel-wielding finesse whirlwind, two-handed is a charging berserker, making them feel different than vanilla just having everything be the same so you end up just picking how you want it to look when you walk up and hit a bad guy with the heavy thing until he falls over.
There's also the problem that there aren't as many good two-handed artifacts as one-handed, but at least they fixed that bug that made the Ebony Blade benefit only from one-handed perks and fortify spells.
You're overlooking the fact that two-handed killmoves are mostly cooler than one-handed killmoves and that's not even touching the one-handed dragon killmoves which are fucking stupid and basically poop from a butt. Meanwhile the two-hander dragon killmoves are great.
It's certainly a nice change of pace for when you get sick of the one-handed animations.
I was talking purely mechanically, so yes you're also correct. Two-handed is a billion times cooler than one-handed. It's hard for me to go back to one-handed builds on any of my melee replays, especially if i'm playing as a Nord (which I usually am).
My favorite is the one where you're using a greatsword but the killmove doesn't actually involve chopping any limbs off. Instead you just use the weight to bash both of their shoulders, breaking them, before crushing their head. It's absurd. The decapitation ones are less interesting in my opinion, though I do enjoy the added variety by the time i've unlocked them.
I've always been irritated that dual-wielding in Skyrim makes it literally impossible to block, when historically, the few instances of such involved having a smaller weapon in the off-hand specifically for parrying.
The two-weapon power moves with daggers do look pretty cool, though.
There's a mod specifically for dual-wield (and spell-and-sword) blocking; don't leave home without it!
I did an illusion/conjuration playthrough and it was a lot of fun. Stealth, cast frenzy into a room, wait until sounds of combat end, conjure a atronach/daerdra, wait for sounds of combat to end, summon bound dagger, kill anything left.
My favorite part was the dungeon where you meet Serana, because when you enter the huge cavern at the end, you have a clear line of site to where the massive camp of enemies is, and can frenzy the whole lot and watch them fight to the death for your amusement.
That sounds pretty fun, I do remember having a great time in Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag using frenzy darts and taking bets on who would kill who. Not optimal speed or anything but that's not why you do it!
I have a paladin build that uses heavy armor, a shield, bound weapons, restoration and a little alteration for armor buffs. I also use Apoc Spells and PerMa, I can't remember which one adds the Ocato's Recital spell, which casts up to 3 spells on you for free (that you can choose) whenever you enter combat, which removes a lot of tedium from having to cast armor/buffs/whatever every single combat. Doesn't work with bound weapons, more's the pity, but I find that the animation and concept for bound weapons fits so well with a paladin character, since summoning your own sword is badass.
This sounds great too, exactly what is needed to take advantage of all the nice spells that are just a little too cumbersome to recast all the time.
I've always been irritated that dual-wielding in Skyrim makes it literally impossible to block, when historically, the few instances of such involved having a smaller weapon in the off-hand specifically for parrying.
They ran out of buttons. Console controllers just don't have enough. They might have been able to solve it with a lesser power for dual wield parrying, but then you'd be switching between it and your shouts all the time.
I've tried dual-wielding builds a couple of times but I could never really get into it. Missing out on having a shield/weapon bash is just not worth the tradeoff of having a second weapon in my estimation. Landing power attacks was tough as the enemy would just get pushed back and the last swings would whiff.
It's really annoying that attacking with both weapons at once forces you to stand still. It kind of defeats the purpose of dual wielding.
+4
MortiousThe Nightmare BeginsMove to New ZealandRegistered Userregular
I was just spamming detect life and muffle to level alteration and illusion, because seriously can't be arsed to incorporate them into my normal playstyle for 20 hours or whatever, and it made me think...does anyone do runs focusing on schools like those? Or how far do you really get after deciding to do so and then get jealous of better/easier options?
Like I am picturing people who constantly cast bound weapons rather than using the great enchanted options that get showered on you constantly, or always open combat by casting fear so they can chase down helpless enemies and stab them, or regularly use detect life even though most areas aren't that hard to see enemies in and you can generally hear them through walls and the spell doesn't work on undead. Or they make use of the elemental ward spells. I dunno it just seems unlikely, but maybe I only play in boring ways.
Anyone spend a lot of time on a utility spell playthrough? Or any other play styles you think are uncommon, like maybe 2H weapons, or unarmed?
For my mage archer build I used bound bow exclusively.
Early game I used the frenzy type spells a lot, but once you hit higher level enemies and undead I stopped.
Included summons for the bigger ones.
Used muffle a lot and eventualy invis.
My skill focus was on alteration, conjuration, illusion, archery, and stealth. (along with enchanting and alchemy)
edit: it helps that there's a static spawn for the bound bow book, so you can start using it early.
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Three. There's a shout you'll need all three words for to finish Dragonborn's main quest.
Another thing about magic: The master destruction spells would have been okay if they either required you to be stationary or had a long charge-up time, but not both.
The trigger is completing the temple of miraak, which is when the main quest starts properly. The part you've done is just the "get the player to Solestheim" teaser/breadcrumb.
Here's the thread on Reddit where I heard about this: https://www.reddit.com/r/skyrimmods/comments/4rfj6e/germanspeaking_players_hows_enderal_so_far/
The link also says it's not casting any magic, just effects on yourself, like irradiating yourself. Anything cast on others like destruction magic wouldn't apply.
Presumably this would mean attack magic is more effective than before, since you could fill up your enemy's "magic radiation" bar and kill them that way.
To be fair though the ending fight also bugged for me and I had to spend a long time trying to figure out how to fix it, maybe that affected my stolen soul rate too. *shrug*
I'm hoping to actually complete something for once... I've never completed the main quest, nor either of the DLC stories despite having thousands of hours played in Skyrim. Buuut... chances are high that if I don't end up wanting to start over because of Endereal, I'll instead somehow corrupt my save or just generally find something else I want to do. That tends to be how it goes with me and this game.
Interesting NPCs Companions are way less terrible. I've never had one Leeroy (in fact, there's a thief companion who seems to prioritize stealth above basically all else, and she's gotten off stealth kills!), and I very seldom hear them repeat lines unless I've had to reload because most of their lines are context based and their ambient stuff just... I think they just have A FUCKTON of lines.
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
It's just weird that Bethesda is okay with a little wonkiness in how their games work, but they haven't taken a cue from The Last Of Us and let supposedly stealthy NPCs be free to remain undiscovered unless I am found. I would much prefer having that sort of weirdness for the sake of enjoying the game more fully.
That's weird because I bump into NPCs who want to join me all the time with Interesting NPCs. There are at least two in Riverwood alone. Many of them don't start out with the option, mind... you gotta delve into their long, meandering dialogues to get there, but it's pretty amazing how many companions are introduced by that mod... as well as how many new quests! It's pretty much the most amazing mod.
Like I am picturing people who constantly cast bound weapons rather than using the great enchanted options that get showered on you constantly, or always open combat by casting fear so they can chase down helpless enemies and stab them, or regularly use detect life even though most areas aren't that hard to see enemies in and you can generally hear them through walls and the spell doesn't work on undead. Or they make use of the elemental ward spells. I dunno it just seems unlikely, but maybe I only play in boring ways.
Anyone spend a lot of time on a utility spell playthrough? Or any other play styles you think are uncommon, like maybe 2H weapons, or unarmed?
I've been playing a stealth Mage, and illusion was the first thing I got to 100, followed by stealth. Conjuration is well into the 70s and Alteration is around 40, but I haven't been spamming spells unless I need them for something.
I find myself in the favorites menu a lot more, casting and re-casting lots of things. It's a slower way to play but I'm trying to force myself not to metagame too much, and it's still fun even though leveling takes longer.
I will want to play a heavily modded perk tree/leveling system next time around though. This sort of playthrough isn't something I would do more than once.
I don't know about Vanilla, but SPERG conjured weapons are VERY powerful once you start picking up the associated perks. Not carrying any weapons other than a dagger also frees up a lot of inventory space.
I always found when I stealthed, Lydia stealthed. In fact, I think I saw one of my companions slit some Falmer's throat once from stealth. I know for a fact that I always give my companions muffled boots since its one of the few enchants that works for them.
SPERG has a cool thing where you can have summoned arrows if you run out of real ammo. Your current conjuring perks affect their damage.
I did grab immersive weapons and damn, there's some slick ones. I killed some Draugr Deathlord and he dropped this odd staff like battle axe; it's a natural looking wooden staff with a curled wooden knot at one end, and two glass weapon type battle axe blades. I've started to notice a lot of snazzy looking cutlasses, daggers and the like as I smite evil here and there. Even OBIS bandits drop with some of it now, like great looking dark wood bows with nice gold trim.
If you're rabidly against boobplate, just stop right now. I looked at some mods by a guy named Nisetanaka on the nexus, yeah, boob plate etc, but what was slick is the armor isn't one piece- it's a bunch of small pieces so you can attach extra thigh plates or a shoulder targe for good looking asymmetrical appearances. Is anyone aware of any other armor like this? A lot of his stuff uses all the oddball armor slots, so you have to be careful (or not) when you smith, improve and enchant stuff or you wind up kind of overly powerful. He only seems to mod the heavy armor types, and offers a bunch of slick looking gorgets that give you that Auron like appearance of a high collar. I think immersive armor also adds some stuff like that.
Vanilla bound weapons are fucking nuts, especially with the perks and also high weapon skills. In addition, having high conjuration means you can summon sweet daedra to help out which is always useful.
Pretty much all my mage characters just go straight Destruction. I used to try playing a more generalized style, but it had a few problems: I didn't like keeping track of tons of spells across all schools, it was too expensive to buy ALL THE SPELLS plus the College enchanted robes for one particular school, and having all those different tools makes you horrendously overpowered if you're using any spell mods. And I usually just used Destruction most of the time anyway. I've found that my preferred mage concept is very similar to the D&D Sorcerer, with more of a focus on direct, raw magical power instead of meticulous planning or things like utility spells/buffs/debuffs, which is more what Wizards are about. So now I just go with Destruction for offense, Alteration for defense and some utility like Candlelight, and Enchanting for reducing spell costs and putting some magic into my emergency quarterstaff and crossbow (Side note: Skyrim needs more quarterstaff mods). I'd like to do some staff enchanting, too, but the few mods I've found for that don't really do everything I want, and they can't be combined to work together.
I keep meaning to do a heavy armor battlemage with a mace in one hand and a Destruction spell in the other, but I end up starting it and not taking it farther than level 5 for some reason.
I'm not sure why you think two-handed weapons is an uncommon play style, though.
Well, yes and no.
Calming enemies with illusion and then back-stabbing them and then immediately calming them again is an utterly broken playstyle that only works for illusionists. You can't do it to every mob, but the ones you can do it to... well yeah, it's hugely broken to the point of being silly and amusing.
Elemental trap spells shouldn't be discounted. They are the absolute fastest way to level destruction magic until you get expert level spells. Fire one into a group of bandits can get you a whole level of destruction. Forget flame bolt, that shit is the slowest leveling past like 25 destruction.
Yes, people do use bound weapons. It might not be your thing, but it's certainly a viable option. Especially bound bow, which is the best bow you can get until you can craft daedric weapons. It also levels marksmanship faster than anything else in the game.
Fear is a dumb spell, but Turn Undead spells will level Restoration much faster than healing yourself. I believe I have recommended this previously, but I'll say it again: Grab turn lesser undead and as many magicka potions as you can and head down into the crypt in Whiterun with the three piddly little low level skeletons and abuse them until you run out of magicka potions. Enjoy having moderately high Restoration early on in the game!
Alteration is tedious to level but armor spells are essential for a mage playthrough. You'll have to work something out to level it. Transmute ore is handy, especially if you use the mod that transmutes all your ore at once. Once you have a decent magicka pool the telekinesis spell will level it very very quickly. Just stand in a corner and pick up a bucket and bring it to you, fling it away, repeat. Don't aim it at any npcs, it is considered assault.
I don't find the idea of intentionally training magic outside of combat to be offensive, because that's kind of what wizards do in just about every fantasy setting. They spend far more time in study and practice than in application, let alone combat application. It makes perfect sense to me.
Yeah, that was one of the big things I was thinking about as a roadblock. There should be more convenient ways to keep magic going rather than having to switch spells all the time, I'm picturing something like FF12's gambits. "If out of combat and visible and no friendly NPCs around and mana > 50%, auto-cast invisibility."
Well it was more of a question whether others thought it might be uncommon, I don't use them so I was wondering what others think. I feel like speed is usually king in these games and 2H weapons are slower, and you don't get to equip two different enchanted items like with dual wielding or sword and shield (a lot of devs don't factor this difference into 2H playstyles). SnS lets you level both one handed and block, too, and block has some cool perks.
Sure, I don't really have anything against the option of bound weapons. I feel like I'm missing out when I'm not using some of the cool stuff you pick up with unique effects, and you don't have to cast anything to use them...but bound items have some interesting perks of their own and are probably pretty useful early on.
I don't have an issue with training magic outside of combat either, doing so just made me think of trying to level those schools the other way, i.e. only when you could make use of them.
My favorite part was the dungeon where you meet Serana, because when you enter the huge cavern at the end, you have a clear line of site to where the massive camp of enemies is, and can frenzy the whole lot and watch them fight to the death for your amusement.
was pretty fun
See I always run out of things to buy with gold, so being able to go, "Oh, I never bought all the Alteration spells" gives me an incentive to keep plunging into dungeons and plundering people's homes.
What? Game? No.
Vanilla Skyrim I think it is uncommon. Two-handed weapons block less efficiently, you can't cast spells easily without swapping around multiple slots, and all for pretty much the same amount of damage as one-handed weapons when taking all the perks for each into account. The only benefit is that they have slightly more melee range than one-handed weapons, but that barely matters in any normal combat situation. You can still use two handed weapons and be perfectly viable, but it has to be a conscious decision to do so and not based on any sort of "what is most powerful" math because that always leads to one-handed+shield winning out.
SPERG adds some two-handed perks that give it a different utility than vanilla and so it can end up being pretty cool. Making power attacks do a lot more than just an increased amount of damage, like breaking shields and reducing an enemy's armor. Higher up you even get it so that normal attacks damage multiple enemies at once. Also encouraging the playstyle of just running straight in and beating the shit out of everything by making the perk that increases critical damage from charging power attacks better than how it is in vanilla. It changes things up enough to where if one-handed is either a knight or a duel-wielding finesse whirlwind, two-handed is a charging berserker, making them feel different than vanilla just having everything be the same so you end up just picking how you want it to look when you walk up and hit a bad guy with the heavy thing until he falls over.
There's also the problem that there aren't as many good two-handed artifacts as one-handed, but at least they fixed that bug that made the Ebony Blade benefit only from one-handed perks and fortify spells.
It depends on a number of things, like whether you're using a dual wielding blocking mod, dual weapon or shield enchantments, etc.
And don't call me Shirley
With archers it was just a slow, terrible advance on them as they plinked shit into your shield (with the right perk) before you scythed them down. Casters you kinda had to either FusRohDah or sprint/shield charge to close the gap, then *womp* *womp* *womp* *womp*
You're overlooking the fact that two-handed killmoves are mostly cooler than one-handed killmoves and that's not even touching the one-handed dragon killmoves which are fucking stupid and basically poop from a butt. Meanwhile the two-hander dragon killmoves are great.
It's certainly a nice change of pace for when you get sick of the one-handed animations.
The two-weapon power moves with daggers do look pretty cool, though.
Two-handed mage is my go-to for a fun build. Destruction, conjuration, alteration (armour) and two-handed makes for some fun times. It can be a little glass-cannony, but it's fun pulling out a greatsword and finishing off enemies that have been softened up by magic.
I don't mind the lack of a shield either, the weapon bash is all I need. Vegetable soup essentially gives unlimited power attacks/bashes anyway so blocking is rarely needed.
I was talking purely mechanically, so yes you're also correct. Two-handed is a billion times cooler than one-handed. It's hard for me to go back to one-handed builds on any of my melee replays, especially if i'm playing as a Nord (which I usually am).
My favorite is the one where you're using a greatsword but the killmove doesn't actually involve chopping any limbs off. Instead you just use the weight to bash both of their shoulders, breaking them, before crushing their head. It's absurd. The decapitation ones are less interesting in my opinion, though I do enjoy the added variety by the time i've unlocked them.
There's a mod specifically for dual-wield (and spell-and-sword) blocking; don't leave home without it!
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
That sounds pretty fun, I do remember having a great time in Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag using frenzy darts and taking bets on who would kill who. Not optimal speed or anything but that's not why you do it!
This sounds great too, exactly what is needed to take advantage of all the nice spells that are just a little too cumbersome to recast all the time.
They ran out of buttons. Console controllers just don't have enough. They might have been able to solve it with a lesser power for dual wield parrying, but then you'd be switching between it and your shouts all the time.
It's really annoying that attacking with both weapons at once forces you to stand still. It kind of defeats the purpose of dual wielding.
For my mage archer build I used bound bow exclusively.
Early game I used the frenzy type spells a lot, but once you hit higher level enemies and undead I stopped.
Included summons for the bigger ones.
Used muffle a lot and eventualy invis.
My skill focus was on alteration, conjuration, illusion, archery, and stealth. (along with enchanting and alchemy)
edit: it helps that there's a static spawn for the bound bow book, so you can start using it early.
It’s not a very important country most of the time
http://steamcommunity.com/id/mortious