The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

[Butts]

So uh, I've never really understood but, can one of you guys explain the fun in min/maxing? I'm not hating on it, it's just never a playstyle I really understood.

[Shirtless Crackhead]

I do plan on playing with the Restoration thing when I get my get set.

 

I also have plans to have multiple sets of scaled equipment.

 

I.e. unimproved weapons, normally improved, stack improve, restoration glitched.

[renketsu0]

So uh, I've never really understood but, can one of you guys explain the fun in min/maxing? I'm not hating on it, it's just never a playstyle I really understood.

 

I've done maxing before. The thing is it's pretty fun to use your imagination to try and create the most broken character in existence. After doing this about 3 times however I realized the one thing I hated about it was that the fun was only temporary. Once the dude was maxed the game was no longer fun. Everything dies in 1 hit and there really isn't any thinking or caution needed to beat anybody. Now I prefer to specifically limit my character so that enemies can still give me a hard time in numbers of 2-3, and at 4-5 I stand a good chance of dying. I also limit the number of health and magicka potions I carry to 3 each. To me being close to death is pretty thrilling, and even more if you survive and beat the enemies with some witty on-the-fly strategy. Maxing is still occasionally fun, but it's short-lived so I try not to.

[Shirtless Crackhead]

Even @ level 81, without improved armor and weapons on master difficulty, you can get smoked; particularly by mages.

 

Not to mention, if that's not enough, I can use light armor and two-handed weapons.

[Vincent210]

I've done maxing before. The thing is it's pretty fun to use your imagination to try and create the most broken character in existence. After doing this about 3 times however I realized the one thing I hated about it was that the fun was only temporary. Once the dude was maxed the game was no longer fun. Everything dies in 1 hit and there really isn't any thinking or caution needed to beat anybody. Now I prefer to specifically limit my character so that enemies can still give me a hard time in numbers of 2-3, and at 4-5 I stand a good chance of dying. I also limit the number of health and magicka potions I carry to 3 each. To me being close to death is pretty thrilling, and even more if you survive and beat the enemies with some witty on-the-fly strategy. Maxing is still occasionally fun, but it's short-lived so I try not to.

 

You see, this is why I never do maxing until I'm done making completely legitimate characters entirely. You kill the game for yourself without drastic measures.

 

I mean, Conjuration abuse really killed it for my buddy Matt. He has a Storm Thrall, an Undead Thrall, Aela the Huntress, Meeko the Dog, and possibly anyone who might follow him for the duration of a given quest, all surrounding him at any given time. Even on maxed difficulty, nothing with ever happen to him since all of his follower either can't die or can be easily replaced. All he has to do is pop Ethereal whenever an enemy decides to pay attention to him and wait until enough swings from a follower take the aggro off. Never has to lift a finger. He's won fights without looking at the screen. Add to that should he finish the file up and do Alchemy/Smithing/Enchanting stacks. what could possibly happen? Make yourself immune to damage by spells Oblivion style (With either resist magic or resist each element 100% or more. Though in Oblivion I had 102% Reflect myself legitimately) and keep stocked on potions. Ethereal any possible one shot. There goes the whole damn game, ya know?

[renketsu0]

Even @ level 81, without improved armor and weapons on master difficulty, you can get smoked; particularly by mages.

 

This is exactly the reason I didn't go that route. Mages doing 2x damage tend to smoke characters with low health since armor doesn't matter, and I only have 250. I'd rather not be forced to stack magic resists just so I can have a legendary armor rating. With that said, I've made much progress at finding "the sweet spot" of how good to make my character on default difficulty to enjoy the battles and get killed every now and then. I'll post my setup soon for reference.

[Shirtless Crackhead]

Well, there's nothing to worry about.

 

I already got my replacement warrior with the speech perks.

 

Which btw, are the shit.

 

I got ~30k just from Mehrunes Razor and Trouble in Skyrim.

 

Riverwood Trader becomes your best dude, w/ Investor and Master Trader, which gives him a default of 12k; plus he's a fence.

 

PROTIP: Get an invisibility potion and dupe daedric arrows in Solitude.

[renketsu0]

OK here it is

I wanted to design a balance point so that my battlemage using one-handed,

First I defined a set of battle characteristics I wanted to follow:

1. I die with around 10 normal melee hits from an average enemy

2. Average enemies die in around 10 hits of my normal melee

3. Limited to 3 dual-cast Icy Spear before out of magicka

4. Ward lasts long enough to block about 3 spells while flinging a few spells and not completely kill magicka reserves

5. Magicka recharges fast enough to use ward again after a short while

6. All of this at 100 one-handed, heavy armor, destruction, and restoration

 

I decided to start with an arbitrary amount of magicka, 500, to make this happen. It's easy to obtain with leveling and/or enchants and is easy to derive calculations from. With 500 magicka in order to dual cast (280% cost) 3 expert destruction spells I needed

 

(3 * 2.8 * 320 (base cost) * 0.41 (reduction @ 100 skill) * x) = 500, where x is additional reduction from enchants (additively)

 

That gave me x = 0.45, and I decided to settle on 40% since it's a nice number and I'll have some recharge between spells anyway. So I equipped Nahkriin and another -20% restoration and destruction in enchants. At 40% cost reduction Greater Ward costs 15/sec, which turned out perfect after testing.

 

I chose 250 health and 250 stamina. I wanted to have at least some amount of health so I wouldn't get 2-shotted by mages if I did get hit, and enough stamina to match it.

 

Next on my list was the issue of my survivability and that of my enemies. I didn't do any math here, just threw on some armor and counted how many hits it took for me and a bunch of different enemies to die. I settled on listed 350 armor rating from 4 pieces and 30 listed weapon damage with Juggernaut 5/5 and Armsman 5/5.

 

Lastly was my magicka recharge. I didn't want to be out there burping and farting high level spells indefinitely so I do want this limited, and preferably with reference to my Greater Ward. I wanted my recharge to be slightly lower than the drain from Greater Ward so that if I genbust, 3 seconds of recharge will give me 2 seconds of ward. The base recharge is 3% of your total magicka per second out of combat and .99% in combat. Since combat is the only thing I care about here, I need

 

(0.0099 * 500 magicka * x = 10 ( 2/3 the drain of the ward), where x is additional magicka regen bonus from enchants and perks(additively)

 

Rounding .0099 to .01 that gave me x = 2, or 200%.

 

The results of these restrictions were near perfect. I can die very quickly if I have 2-3 enemies aggro'd, I don't kill them too quickly for my fragility to not matter, and thus I need to take some extra caution at every step. I like being forced to take extra measures such as placing that fire rune before I engage, making melee dudes walk through multiple lines of Wall of Frost to get to me, and still being able to get trampled over if I don't switch to heal at the right intervals. Missing any of my potential advantages could easily be the death of me and keeps the thrill at its peak.

 

For reference my equip is

2 Blades Sword

Head: Nahkriin (Flawless)

Armor: Blades Armor (Flawless)

Hands: Blades Gauntlets (Flawless)

Feet: Blades Boots (Flawless)

Various custom enchants totaling -20% restoration and destruction, +150% magicka regen, + 100 magicka (to reach 500)

Archmage Robes and Otar as alternates

 

Relevant combat perks:

Armsman 5/5, Fighting Stance, Savage Strike, Dual Flurry 2/2, Dual Savagery

Juggernaut 5/5

Novice Destruction, Apprentice Destruction, Adept Destruction, Expert Destruction, Augmented Flames/Frost/Shock 2/2, Destruction Dual Casting, Impact

Novice Restoration, Apprentice Restoration, Adept Restoration, Expert Restoration, Respite, Regeneration, Restoration Dual Casting (strictly for wards), Recovery 2/2, Ward Absorb (dissapointing absorption amount though)

 

The End

[Shirtless Crackhead]

I got 70 grand, time to buy houses.

[renketsu0]

More like time to buy hotels. I got enough to buy the solitude house with just selling all my dragon bones and scales. That's basically all the money I need.

[Shirtless Crackhead]

I plan to buy and upgrade all the houses.

 

Windhelm's is actually supposed to be the biggest and nicest.

[renketsu0]

Woah didn't know that. Guess I'll have to go ask Ulfirc if an Imperial legionnaire can buy a house in his town

[Vincent210]

I just bought the Solitude house and cleaned it up (upgrades) and now I'm content. I went from like 40-50k down to <10k after all was said and done. The money will come back to me though, most definitely.

 

And I basically ended up with a unnervingly similar character to Ren's just going by ear. Though I don't mind if he becomes GDLK through legitimate play, so the limits he is self-imposing probably won't make there way to my game. I'll probably have 150 Stamina, 200 Health, and 750 Magicka. Nav' and Otar are my current masks of choice, alongside Mask of Clavicus Vile, just because they're perfect for a Spellsword build.

 

Well, made 100 Destruction legit. Surprising it took this long, but somewhere along the lines I started using it as a secondary mode of attack so leveling had slowed to a crawl. Now I just have to figure out that whole "Power of the Elements" thing to make it worthwhile.

 

Also, if you're using a character who you did not build with Smithing, Ebony is the limit, right? Daedric and Dragonplate can be be built, not found, iirc.

[renketsu0]

I got a Daedric Shield as a quest reward. I don't know if you can find them randomly though, so far I haven't.

[Shirtless Crackhead]

You can always use potions and enchantments to raise your smithing, but yeah I believe w/o Smithing perks the best you can make is Ebony.

 

I've been picking up like nothing but glass armor and weapons, which works for me since it's light and costs a bunch.

 

My level 81 Ubereem Orc btw, is decked out as follows.

 

500 Health, 500 Stamina, 100 Magicka (I despise all practitioners of the black arts - Korgoth)

 

Smithing: Steel, Arcane, Dwarven, Orcish, Ebony, Daedric, Dragon

Heavy Armor: 5/5 Juggernaut, Well Fitted, Tower of Strength, Well Fitted, Matching Set

One Handed: 5/5 Armsman, 2/2 Dual Flurry, Dual Savagery, 3/3 Bone Breaker, Fighting Stance, Savage Strike, Critical Charge, Paralyzing Strike

Archery: All 16

Enchanting: 5/5 Enchanter, Insightful Enchanter, Corpus Enchanter, Extra Effect

Sneak: All 13

Alchemy: Alchemist 5/5, Physician, Benefactor

Speech: 1/5 Haggling, Allure, Merchant, Investor, Fence, Master Trader

 

ATM, I currently have just normally upgraded Dragonplate armor, Daedric mace, Mehrune's razor, and Daedric bow + arrows. I have yet to bother constructing a goober set.

 

Btw, if you want to be an awesome Destruction user, try the Turn Ethereal shout; because you can charge up master spells while Ethereal. You can also cast cloak spells, turn Ethereal, and damage foes. It's also generally useful as a get-away/stop dying move.

[renketsu0]

Btw, if you want to be an awesome Destruction user, try the Turn Ethereal shout; because you can charge up master spells while Ethereal. You can also cast cloak spells, turn Ethereal, and damage foes. It's also generally useful as a get-away/stop dying move.

Woah, that's actually a pretty big deal to me. I may consider using master spells now.

[Shirtless Crackhead]

Shouts are boss, no matter what you do.

 

Elemental Fury + One Handed Dual Wielding = Insane Melee

[renketsu0]

My fav is still Unrelenting force by far. You can hit multiples with it, and it keeps them out of combat for nearly 5 seconds at lv 3. Plus low cooldown.

[Shirtless Crackhead]

Low as compared to what?

 

Elemental Fury is quicker to refresh, as are a great number of shouts.

 

I like the ones that are not attacks, but buffs and/or effects.

[renketsu0]

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

 

I'm just assuming the refresh times there are correct.

[Shirtless Crackhead]

Well, Elemental Fury is just barely slower, and Become Ethereal is just barely quicker to recover.

 

Disarm/Marked for Death are two favorites of mine that work great at lower levels.

 

Slow time is slower, but you really don't need to use the whole shout.

 

Throw Voice can be pretty good for stealing/sneaking. Super fast like Clear Skies/Dragonrend.

 

Dragonrend btw is ungodly useful as at lvl 81, most Dragons fly around FOREVER before doing anything.

 

Whirlwind Sprint is always good too, and with a really fast recovery time.

[Vincent210]

I use Whirlwind Sprint when I run out of Solution/Elixir/Potion(s) of Strength and end up so very far from the store in the current town.

 

Anyone of you find the chest in Dawnstar? If you go into the cluster of trees and rocks nearby the entrance to the mine owned by the female mine owner and look very carefully around the edges of the most prominent rock there, you should see the words "open chest" appear. You get RIDICULOUS amounts of level scaled loot the continues to respawn with random selection each visit. There is probably a video on youtube somewhere on the subject, so I won't bother making one myself to illustrate.

 

Blizzard acts wack. Normally it works the way it should, but sometimes it will count as an enemy spell; it won't follow me around and it will start destroying my health/stamina. I remember Art posting a vid where, on the PC version, Blizzard simply has no effect on the target at all. If a patch gets here for any of the relevant problems in Skyrim for once, I hope that falls near the top of the list. I don't even think they've patched the issue of 100% reduction of cost for free spells.

[Shirtless Crackhead]

They goofed the resistances in Patch 1.2, I do believe.

[Misk]

 

Aha, oh wow.

 

Let me top that...

 

I haven't, but I heard they aren't so good.

 

Not like being level 3 in Oblivion, and having it stack +5s in all attributes and becoming some unstoppable monster.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4pIqNhSYkM

Dragons, dragons everywhere.

 

That PC must be a beast if it's running that smooth with all those dragons everywhere.

[Shirtless Crackhead]

I think at some point I'm going to roll a destruction thief, and that'll probably be the last character I make.

 

I just need to figure out of it's possible to run through Transmuting the Mundane without perking into armor and destruction, I suppose; early on.

 

I imagine if I hash out enchanting and alchemy early on, along with smithing; I can fudge my way to Level 81.

 

If I have to, I can dish into Destruction without much of a problem, it's just if I can do it without; I can save alot of perks by just relying on enchants to make my destruction magic free on magicka.