High Willpower/Low Intelligence bad?

[Ghoulz]

I have a combat mage that's built to take hits and dish out a little pain in return. Will a low growth in intelligence kill me later on? As she's mostly endurance and willpower.

 

And would it be beneficial to carry a melee weapon to make up for a smaller magicka pool? Does it matter if I haven't majored blade or blunt?

 

Would be bad to find out 10 levels later that im running naked through Diablo II's hell difficulty.

[Veugaroth]

As you wrote you are endurance/willpower based I assume you are going to wear heavy armor. I made it through Oblivion three times as heavy tank/warrior style character with restoration as one of the major skills. All of them could be classified as crusader, paladin or templar. It was mostly restoration that pushed my willpower up, but I had to spam a low level alternation spell from time to time simply because restoration would not be able to get it to 100 by itself.

 

Having low magicka may be a real pain later in levels simply because you will need/want strong burst spells or long duration self buffs/heals over time. And those will drain your magicka bar very fast, even when you will be a master in the particular magic school.

 

My advice is to carry any weapon you are familiar with. Use restoration for healing, fortify skills and restoration of damaged attributes, alternation for damage shields. You also have an option to use conjuration for bound items. Choosing a race with better magicka modifier may help as well as choosing a birthsign with such modifier, but I never really felt a need to do so on my characters. Unlike endurance and health, magicka is simply recalculated each level up as 2*Intelligence*AnyRace/BirthsignModifier, so it won't matter too much when you start to increase intelligence, but it still stands - the sooner, the better. Simply train conjuration and/or mysticism so you get at least 10 points in any combination of those two for +5 intelligence per level (you can even keep them as minor skills).

 

Other notes:

- if you are skilled enough in use of armor, you probably won't need to worry about spell effectiveness, I never got bellow 95% even in heavy armor

- fortify skill spells and enchantments are generally better than fortify attribute

- you will probably want to use heal over time spells most of the time, so you can focus more on actual combat, but keep a burst heal spell just in case of an "oh ^*(#@ !!" moment

- alternation and shield spells, just keep in mind shield simply adds to your existing armor value and can't get it higher than the 85% maximum, but you can still use elemental shields

 

This is probably all I can think about right now.

Edited April 26, 2011 by Veugaroth

[Ghoulz]

I guess combat was a terrible word to use. She's just a pure tanker mage.

 

Im redoing it. Will 2 skills that benefit intelligence be enough in the long-run?

 

Or maybe I should consider some kind of magicka mod?

[Lazilot]

If you want to Mod Magicka, use Cheats. If you want to increase it by actually working for it, Increase Mysticism. Or if you have Soul Gems (and required skill) you could enchant some clothing/armour with Magicka Boosts. (Try Fortify Magicka)

[Ghoulz]

Wait, I don't have to major them..?

 

.....What cheat?

[Balakirev]

You don't have to major any skill you want to raise--they just rise faster. And Mysticism rises very quickly.

 

In fact, you don't even need to major a skill whose attribute is Intelligence. Just get into Alchemy. It's essentially broken: cheap ingredients and an investment in some apprentice equipment, and you'll never fail at making a potion. (In Morrowind, success was tied to your Alchemy skill.) Join the Mage Guilds. Grab the free edibles--their ingredients. Just keep making potions. Sell what you don't want to the Mage Guilds, buy more very cheap ingredients, and keep what potions you do want to use. At 25, 50, 75, and 100 in the skill, there's a dramatic increase in the quality of the potions you make, and also in the money you get from them.

 

Your Alchemy skill will go through the roof, very quickly.

[Ghoulz]

+5 for a stat is the highest right? So overleveling certain skills is a bad thing.

 

Still all tricky, especially for a mage when you have to depend highly on willpower and intelligence and you can only choose 3 stats. Not to mention you have to treat your health some too.

 

Recommend any stat gain regimen? Also, does willpower boost your magicka regen quite a bit after a while? I really want to pump into it but iunno if it's worth it. I have terrible regen right now.

 

And my heavy armor major levels up slowly. Getting bashed in the head is the only way to level it? Since I can't flee attackers I need to take care of my defensive skills.

Edited April 27, 2011 by Ghoulz

[Veugaroth]

Yes, +5 per level to single attribute is maximum, so don't overlevel your skills. Basically one thing I've learned after I finished oblivion for the third time was the fact going for a heavy armor/armorer/warrior type character from the beginning will make it much easier for him to change into other class later like mage or even a rogue/assassin. It's simply because of how Endurance affects health. Characters which started as mages or rogues have it much harder to switch to a warrior at high levels. There are only two attributes I've always had problems with and those were Agility and Speed.

 

Heavy armor increases only if you get hit by a melee or ranged physical attack without blocking (unless you block unarmed) and it also depends on which part of your body is hit. It won't increase if you get hit on a part not covered by armor, so it's best to wear a full set.

 

Magicka regen rate is a bit tricky part, hard for me to explain, you may want to read more here http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Willpower. In short, it seems the best way is to increase Intelligence so that your magicka pool is 75+2*willpower and focus on fortifying magicka once willpower reaches 100.

Edited April 27, 2011 by Veugaroth

[Ghoulz]

I guess I'll work willpower mostly. I installed Supreme Magicka to make up for tougher enemies and I believe is does boost the effectiveness of regen from willpower(.034 compared to .02), but my magicka regen is even more horrid now starting out.

 

If I boost my block skill high enough, will I negate more damage while blocking with a staff?

[Balakirev]

I guess I'll work willpower mostly. I installed Supreme Magicka to make up for tougher enemies and I believe is does boost the effectiveness of regen from willpower(.034 compared to .02), but my magicka regen is even more horrid now starting out.

 

Be sure to check out the ini file for SM. It lets you reconfigure a hell of a lot of the spells in the mod. So you can set how many summonings an enemy conjurer gets at higher levels, for example, and how many you do, separately. Or how quickly your experience advances for using Mysticism, etc.

 

If I boost my block skill high enough, will I negate more damage while blocking with a staff?

 

Not as far as I know. Block only uses the shield for this, or shield-like objects created by modders (some weapon-lookalikes that really aren't, but act as shields).