What difficulty do you guys play on? cause legendaty is hard

[Lord Garon]

Geez, I gotta re-think this whole Legendary thing. My pure mages were a bust. My archer seemed to be doing better cause I could deal poisons early on and the light armor helped. Actually, it only seemed to help.

 

Was doing an ingredient harvest around Falkreath, minding my own business, when I heard Lydia draw a weapon and the "music" started. Before I could move, I was dead. A good shot, though; the ragdoll previously known as my character slid along the ground with an arrow through his neck. As life faded away, I could hear Lydia threatening to kill someone if she had to. Dear, sweet Lydia, hear my dying words, "YOU FRICKIN HAVE TO KILL THEM ALL WITHOUT HESITATION, YOU DUMB ......."

 

Here I am outside Helgen again, watching Alduin fly off to the north. His day promises to be much better than mine. Can't take any hit at all for about 10 levels. Archers ignore my armor, so I've gotta walk around in a crouch all day hoping to see them first. The best weapon I have doesn't even effect the enemies I hit with it. A cowardly soldier who abandoned his friends is telling me to join a legion which just tried to cut my head off. And my only real friend is the ghost of a dead wolf.

 

Yeah. This time, I know what to do; first, I'll ...

[Relativelybest]

I don't play for challenge, so I usually stick with Apprentice or Adept. When playing my high level character, though, I will temporarily crank the difficulty up to Master when fighting bosses to make the fights more memorable.

[enothehippie]

Ive been playing around on expert with my battlemage. I use ACE combat, and immersive creatures. Just finished Potema's lair, and that was a real challenge, what with undead creatures always having two lives.

 

The challenge seems to be all right most of the time, but I do still feel a bit overpowered as compared to my enemies.

 

I may crank it up to master to see what happens.

 

Dragons on legendary are an issue for me as well. I understand that they are supposed to be really strong, but I'm the dragonborn. At the very least my shouts should do more than just tickle them. I feel like my fus do rah should throw them into the side of a mountain or something.

[DeCapitan]

I play legendary baby and loving every minute of it. I got so bored with master I had to have a bunch of difficulty mods and gimp myself. Now I cant gimp myself( still use the difficulty mods tho! HARDCORE BABY). ASIS- DeadlyDragons.

 

My character is a Archer/ war hammer user/ Alteration mage. The trick is to be very clever with your perks use smithing and enchantments. carry around resist for several types of magic in potions and gear like necklaces and rings. Lastly make you'r class varied to give you the best chance. Archer allows me to exploit stupid AI and get off as many hits as possible before the get to me alteration to not get 1 shot and 2 handed to stagger and kill them before they can counter attack. Hope that helped

[Lord Garon]

Ive been playing around on expert with my battlemage. I use ACE combat, and immersive creatures. Just finished Potema's lair, and that was a real challenge, what with undead creatures always having two lives.

 

The challenge seems to be all right most of the time, but I do still feel a bit overpowered as compared to my enemies.

 

I may crank it up to master to see what happens.

 

Dragons on legendary are an issue for me as well. I understand that they are supposed to be really strong, but I'm the dragonborn. At the very least my shouts should do more than just tickle them. I feel like my fus do rah should throw them into the side of a mountain or something.

 

I finally built a "serious" archer, a technical build, not a roleplay build, to find out where the "sweet spot" is on Legendary. He's at level 14 right now. Without a follower (I like mages and thralls when I can get them) its somewhere around 300 health to stop most 1-shots and a 100 or so damage bow with perks in Alchemy and Sneak. (No, the numbers don't add up; you need some enchanted items or good alchemy skills.) I'm not sure how to generate that much damage output early on with a "pure" mage, without some exploit (which simply ruins the game for me).

 

I know thralls will use summoning staffs, but I've never given a follower one. Will followers use a summoning staff?

[DeCapitan]

 

Ive been playing around on expert with my battlemage. I use ACE combat, and immersive creatures. Just finished Potema's lair, and that was a real challenge, what with undead creatures always having two lives.

 

The challenge seems to be all right most of the time, but I do still feel a bit overpowered as compared to my enemies.

 

I may crank it up to master to see what happens.

 

Dragons on legendary are an issue for me as well. I understand that they are supposed to be really strong, but I'm the dragonborn. At the very least my shouts should do more than just tickle them. I feel like my fus do rah should throw them into the side of a mountain or something.

 

I finally built a "serious" archer, a technical build, not a roleplay build, to find out where the "sweet spot" is on Legendary. He's at level 14 right now. Without a follower (I like mages and thralls when I can get them) its somewhere around 300 health to stop most 1-shots and a 100 or so damage bow with perks in Alchemy and Sneak. (No, the numbers don't add up; you need some enchanted items or good alchemy skills.) I'm not sure how to generate that much damage output early on with a "pure" mage, without some exploit (which simply ruins the game for me).

 

I know thralls will use summoning staffs, but I've never given a follower one. Will followers use a summoning staff?

 

hm haven't played a destruction mage in a long time so i'm not sure about how to utilize them. there is a mod that's pretty old but has been continuously updated since it's release and still works well called "Balanced magic" Not overpowered or a cheat mod in any way but should help you get to the lvl of comparable classes. Oh and ya followers will use the summoning staffs.

[Lord Garon]

 

<In answer to a question about staffs>

 

hm haven't played a destruction mage in a long time so i'm not sure about how to utilize them. there is a mod that's pretty old but has been continuously updated since it's release and still works well called "Balanced magic" Not overpowered or a cheat mod in any way but should help you get to the lvl of comparable classes. Oh and ya followers will use the summoning staffs.

 

 

Thx. I have a problem with a lot of mods; I run vanilla Skyrim cause I won't do business with Valve/Steam and I don't have any DLC.

 

Its off to the atronach forge to make some staffs; if you can't beat em, bring a lot of friends.

[Afromelon]

Adept is the most balanced, use mods for real challenges, not just "click this and enemies take longer to kill" lol

[Lord Garon]

Adept is the most balanced, use mods for real challenges, not just "click this and enemies take longer to kill" lol

 

Well, it probably "seems" most balanced in terms of damage dealt/damage taken, but it is hugely unbalanced in favor of the player. I mean, you can easily beat the game on Adept without taking a single perk. I guess its demographics; there's a much wider appeal for OP characters which can lay waste to any/everything they come in contact with. I like to struggle a little, for whatever reason.

 

As far as I can determine, most mods work pretty much the same way; the new mobs simply deal more damage and have more health; exactly the same concept as the difficulty slider. Smarter AI and/or totally unique mobs are few and far between.

 

But, I'm about done with Skyrim anyways; I've pretty much gotten most of what I was looking for in the game. I had to back out of my favorite character class on Legendary, but its probably more from boredom than any real limitations. (My new archer, with only ten taken perks, and J'zargo just wiped out the Forsworn at Karthspire and cleared that cave where Eola sends you, with no problems. Its basically over.)

 

Think I'm gonna play around with some AI scripts and see if I can grind my machine to a complete stop. I mean, make some "smarter" or more unique bad guys.

[RatcatcherOfKvatch]

Hah hah, "Alduin's having a better day than I am," I so know how you feel, that made my day.

 

That "sweet spot" (the no-1-hit-kill spot) level inches downward if you have maybe 200+ points of armor. Under 200 does almost nothing; 200 is almost almost nothing but if you can survive that 1 hit you can survive.

 

There are some "dead man's curve" levels too, though, like the level where Ice cats replace Ice wolves. I've never actually died from one, come to think of it, just been brought extremely close to death by a single swipe a few too many times.

 

Sorry about the bandits. Dying unexpectedly is always the worst. Awareness is so important. Bandits are chatty; you'll usually hear them before you see them. Bears growl before they strike. I think the cats are probably the deadliest wildlife creatures; they don't make a sound until they're chewing on you. A paranoid awareness level can keep you from dying outdoors ... most of the time.

The last time I died outside it was inevitable; there were 6 wolves and 3 bandits all chasing me east of Halted Streams and I hadn't bought any spells yet, so all I had was a familiar. As a final nail in the coffin it was a night so dark I couldn't find Volenruud, which maybe I could've ducked into to escape. I'd never seen six wolves before, but I'd never seen that strongbox chest east of Halted Streams before, either. I think it triggers a big pack of wolves.

I'll also mention that sprint rather than sneak is my preferred defensive tool outdoors. Archers take a very long time to flank you if you get yourself some cover, and while you're sprinting for cover you're pretty hard to hit. Sprint in the open; fight from cover. The last time I died to bandits outdoors I was surrounded by the Treasure Map I trio and it was pretty stupid of me to just charge in there and let that situation develop that way. That was a long time ago. Now I use Ralof to take those guys out!

Outdoors if it's not going to be gravity it'll be a giant. I almost had a heart attack when I was fighting a mammoth and out of nowhere a giant comes up on my 5 o'clock. A split second after I hear him *BAM* I'm flying ... instantly dying you see isn't so bad. Hearing what's about to instantly kill you, now that's truly scary.

 

"Impact" is the right way to use destruction mages, that and the Fortify Destruction potion which being Alchemy I guess makes you more of an "impure mage" than a pure one. Mage on the juice, heh.

If I didn't have a follower ... hmm, I think I'd need a shield until I was pretty well-established. Any mage career would happen post-30 most likely.

You asked about followers using a particular staff. After the patch it seems like some followers use some staffs and others use different ones.

 

I think of bows as more offensive and spells as more defensive, at least once you get the Impact perk. I admit I've never used the bow perk much that lets you stun enemies with arrows. How well does that actually work?

Impact is only bested by Paralyze. It's almost never resisted, and when it is there is almost always time to fire a second and usually even a third shot before the meat cleaver comes down on your head.

Impact also works extremely well on dragons. Dragons in mid-Toor-Shul will be stopped short.

 

At the highest levels your spell damage becomes trivial without an FD potion. Paralyze on the left and a ridiculously well-made weapon on the right makes more sense most of the time. The transition between spells and 1H weapons is pretty smooth compared to bows. But of course you can make a ridiculously well-crafted bow that puts spells to shame, so it's probably worth the extra fumbling around during weapon changes to use it.

 

I suppose "pure mage" just doesn't work on Legendary difficulty. You either need to borrow FD potions or weapons from other skillsets to make much of a dent. And of course armor to survive being dented. I think of myself as "pure mage" because of perks more than anything, but "pure mage" is a transitional phase. You'll either end up a hybrid or you'll end up going crazy bringing stun darts to gunfights.

Blam blam blam blam ... "Hmm, looks like RIM is down another 10 points. Glad I cashed out last year." ... blam blam blam ... "How about those Knicks?" ... blam blam blam ... "Now our Eyewitness News 5-day forecast. Monday, fair-to-partly cloudy, 20% chance of scattered showers" ... blam blam blam ... "Hey, there any coffee left? I'm going to be here a while" ... blam blam blam ... BEAR PELT! Yay!

Yeah, it's definitely the Impure Mage life for me.