Powerful Toon

[XyionUK]

@ManleySteele by Elementals do you mean weapons with enchantments on them? I have a huge problem with the enchanting in this game, at my level I tried it and just seemed stupid. Add 1 point of extra fire damage on hit is terrible what's the point not to mention the fact that gaining soul gems and storing them is a huge up hill struggle. All my mana gone in one cast of Soul Trap and then you get the wrong soul for the soul gem and it's all to fiddly, also if you have weapons with these enchantments they burn out if you dual wield constantly slicing your opponent after 3 enemies your found recharging your weapons.

 

@AaronEh I don't quite understand what you mean?

 

It is apparent to me that I am total noob at this game and there doesn't seem to be any margin for error in the game, I've picked a few to many perks in to many skill trees and I have been utterly punished for it, not being able to kill things a constant struggle to survive which is more or less forcing me to grind or restart. All I wanted was a Stealthy Assassin who was good at Dual Wielding, Archery, Light Armor and had Restoration, Smithing and Enchanting to become fully dependant on his skill set, but it turns out you can't actually have that until you have reached your full potential in your damage output. So you can't craft any cool stuff until you have Archery or One-Handed maxed otherwise as ChanChan05 described you will just become a Blacksmith or an Enchanter instead of an Archer or Swordsman. This also leads me to believe that there is a correct way of levelling spreading your perks to thin causes you to really struggle where as if you specialise you'll have no problem, for a system that allows you to be the char you wish to be I am sure being punished for the choices I have made. Evidently there are wrong choices.

[KratosAurion777]

Light armor are pretty much the same as Heavy armor .

 

The difference in armor is not that big , When you will hit the glass/dragon perk in smithing you will be able to have 567 armor or more ( 80% reduced physical dmg , IT's the cap ) .

[chanchan05]

@ManleySteele by Elementals do you mean weapons with enchantments on them? I have a huge problem with the enchanting in this game, at my level I tried it and just seemed stupid. Add 1 point of extra fire damage on hit is terrible what's the point not to mention the fact that gaining soul gems and storing them is a huge up hill struggle. All my mana gone in one cast of Soul Trap and then you get the wrong soul for the soul gem and it's all to fiddly, also if you have weapons with these enchantments they burn out if you dual wield constantly slicing your opponent after 3 enemies your found recharging your weapons.

 

@AaronEh I don't quite understand what you mean?

 

It is apparent to me that I am total noob at this game and there doesn't seem to be any margin for error in the game, I've picked a few to many perks in to many skill trees and I have been utterly punished for it, not being able to kill things a constant struggle to survive which is more or less forcing me to grind or restart. All I wanted was a Stealthy Assassin who was good at Dual Wielding, Archery, Light Armor and had Restoration, Smithing and Enchanting to become fully dependant on his skill set, but it turns out you can't actually have that until you have reached your full potential in your damage output. So you can't craft any cool stuff until you have Archery or One-Handed maxed otherwise as ChanChan05 described you will just become a Blacksmith or an Enchanter instead of an Archer or Swordsman. This also leads me to believe that there is a correct way of levelling spreading your perks to thin causes you to really struggle where as if you specialise you'll have no problem, for a system that allows you to be the char you wish to be I am sure being punished for the choices I have made. Evidently there are wrong choices.

 

Enchanting - I thought you had perk points in enchanting? And that you leveled it up? How come you are only getting 1 point fire damage? It seems to me you are just looking for ways to be stronger, but then I'm thinking if you are comparing it to other RPGs, because its different. In Skyrim, its normal for enemies to kill you in less than 5 hits if you are at their level and not using exploits while still at level 30-ish or below. To be also soul trap easily, I made a soul trap bow.

 

The character - Well that's almost exactly the character I have right now (the one you described): stealthy archer proficient in dual wielding, light armor, smthing and enchanting, with Illusion magic on the side

 

Crafting - You can craft cool stuff. Its about how you play and how you spend your perks. Lets say level 1-20, you want to be able to craft, yet you want to be able to do damage enough to kill enemies for the type of character you want. You have 19 perk points: You put them in sneak (3), smithing (2-3), archery (5), one hand (2-3), light armor (2-3). You don't need to immediately use up your perk points, if the desired skills you wanted aren't available yet, you don't have to use them. For example, my Bosmer has 100 lockpicking and is very proficient at picking open master locks, but I have no perks anywhere there.

 

Also you took me wrong when I said that you come out as a blacksmith. So what if you come out as a blacksmith? That's what you are, then use your skills. Craft better weapons, craft better armor, just don't expect your toon to be as good as others who specialize. It seems you want the best of all worlds at too early a level. I seem to recall that you said you sucked at RPGs, well its not exactly that. You want to do everything immediately, which isn't possible.

 

Personally I really can't seem to see the problem anymore with your toon. You are complaining about how hard it is to kill, but then I remembered you mentioned Giants and Mammoths, level 35-45 monsters, but you are just level 20. How exactly were you supposed to kill creatures twice your level and not get burned? I'm starting to think that you are comparing this to other RPG where most monsters at your level takes forever to kill you.

 

Needing to take 15 shots to kill something that needs only 2-3 shots to kill you (at early leves) is for me one of the best features of this game, it makes it challenging, and exciting, and makes you play smart. Actually for the heck of it, I went into a dungeon on my level 60 Bosmer wearing nothing but un-upgraded, unenchanted glass armor, and unchanted legendary glass bow. I needed like 20 shots to kill the boss, and he could kill me in 4 shots, but it was just awesome for me, it was such an adrenaline rush.

[ManleySteele]

@ManleySteele by Elementals do you mean weapons with enchantments on them? I have a huge problem with the enchanting in this game, at my level I tried it and just seemed stupid. Add 1 point of extra fire damage on hit is terrible what's the point not to mention the fact that gaining soul gems and storing them is a huge up hill struggle. All my mana gone in one cast of Soul Trap and then you get the wrong soul for the soul gem and it's all to fiddly, also if you have weapons with these enchantments they burn out if you dual wield constantly slicing your opponent after 3 enemies your found recharging your weapons.

 

@AaronEh I don't quite understand what you mean?

 

It is apparent to me that I am total noob at this game and there doesn't seem to be any margin for error in the game, I've picked a few to many perks in to many skill trees and I have been utterly punished for it, not being able to kill things a constant struggle to survive which is more or less forcing me to grind or restart. All I wanted was a Stealthy Assassin who was good at Dual Wielding, Archery, Light Armor and had Restoration, Smithing and Enchanting to become fully dependant on his skill set, but it turns out you can't actually have that until you have reached your full potential in your damage output. So you can't craft any cool stuff until you have Archery or One-Handed maxed otherwise as ChanChan05 described you will just become a Blacksmith or an Enchanter instead of an Archer or Swordsman. This also leads me to believe that there is a correct way of levelling spreading your perks to thin causes you to really struggle where as if you specialise you'll have no problem, for a system that allows you to be the char you wish to be I am sure being punished for the choices I have made. Evidently there are wrong choices.

 

I should have been more precise in my language. By elementals on a weapon, I mean specificly fire damage, frost damade or spark damage. I don't do any elemental enchantment, myself, even at higher levels of the game. There are weapons with elemental damage points on them, lying around everywhere in skyrim. Just pick them up and use them. Some of them are quite powerful and all are usable. If you are enchanting weapons with petty souls, that is why you are getting no charges. Also, if you are trying to recharge, say, the Axe of Skyrim with petty souls it will take about six. When I started playing, I played the first ten levels about a dozen times. I have now played them about a hundred times. When I see something I want to understand, I replay it until I figure it out. I neve look at a guide or online walkthrough until I feel like I understand what is going on in the game. I play through the entire game at least twice before I look at a guide. You may need to start again with a more focused character or carefully pick your fights for a while. Play the first ten levels a couple more times and develop a style of your own. On leveling, remeber that skill points in any skill are seperate from the perks. Your total unbuffed skill points, determine your level. Not perks and certainly not the armor you are wearing. I'm not sure what effect saving leveling has on monsters, even though I have slow played leveling many times. I hope this helps you. BTW, one of the reasons for playing early levels many times is to master the control sequences tor the type of character you are playing. Have you done everything you can to maximise dagger damage from a playing stand point?

[AaronEh]

With regard to Smithing if you take a look at the chart here with the Steel smithing perk the move from Superior to Exquisite happens only when you reach level 40 smithing. So, each smithing level increase between 22 and 40 only raises your character level and won't contribute to improved weapons and armour. I generally will mine ore, save ingots and wolf pelts and improve my smithing only when I have enough save to get me to the next tier; for example from 22 to 40.

[Moredhel]

*Snip* Which brings me to a quick question... Under One-Handed the "Bladesman" perk says that Attacks with Swords have an increased chance of doing critical damage, does a dagger fall under this category?

Thanks for the responses, I appreciate it. :)

 

Sadly no it doesn't :down:

 

See if you can get Valdr's Lucky Dagger, that gives you an extra 25% chance to land a critical IIRC.

True, that dagger is nice :) Take it to an enchanting table, disenchant it and put the effect on a good dagger (although I don't know if you'll retain the 25%, since I more often than not end up with half the % for the new item, even when my enchant skill is quite alright, and I use the best soulgem there is :\ )

[XyionUK]

So after reading through everything about 3 times just to get everything into my brain... I have decided to start again and start a more specialised character and work on getting a few skills higher and perking to higher tier within the skill before branching out to other skill trees. I will give a an overview of my new character build the best I can and you can tell me what I can change or how I can improve also when I can start Smithing and Enchanting.

 

I'll start by writing all the skills, weapons, armor, perks and so on and then comment on them afterwards.

 

Class Name: Battlemage

Race: Breton - Female

Statistic Focus: Health 40% / Magicka 40% / Stamina 30%

Primary Skills: Conjuration, One-Handed

Secondary Skills: Heavy Armor, Block

Stone Ability: Mage Stone

Essential Perks:

Conjuration Spell Ranking Perks

Summoner

Atromancy

Elemental Potency

Twin Souls

Mystic Binding

Soul Stealer

Armsman

Juggernaut

Well Fitted

Shield Wall

Weapons: One-Handed Weapons (Bound Swords) and Spells

Armor: Heaviest Armor that provides the most Armor + any enchantment that increases Magicka Regen or boost to skills.

 

With the perk selection you can get an idea of what I am going for basically a Mage that take some melee damage but will have Atronach's to help defend herself.

 

A few things I would like to get help with are the Stone Abilities, I don't know if the Mage stone is the best choice but I thought maybe for early game to get Conjuration higher and then switching, to increase other skill trees faster. Another thing is whether to Dual Wield and drop Block, if I summon creatures to help fight for me and possibly take a follower along I might not necessarily be tanking most of the time and if I dual wield I can do higher DPS. Conjuration is it best to completely max the tree and take both Necromancy and Atromancy paths? I've not got the experience to say which is better, but I can only "assume" that atronach's tank for you thus allowing me to avoid damage and get as many blows in with my swords. Also as you guys know I am a lover of Smithing and Enchanting which as you can see I left out completely, I did this to allow for me to get a better foothold on other skills first (Conjuration) before doing Smithing or Enchanting. I will slowly increase these skills but any levels (if any) gained through these skills I will hold onto the perk points and save them and spend them where they count.

 

I guess the whole build needs neatening up with experience but it sounds and looks fun I made the character it's level 3 and so far I am enjoying it. Any alterations that you guys think I can make can still be made as I haven't spent any perk points.

 

Again thanks to all that have helped me understand this game. Let me know what you guys think.

[chanchan05]

Mage Stone - level up your magic easier if you plan on being a sorcerer (TES meanings, sorcerer = armored battle mage with no physical weapons). I've actually just built a new character now almost exactly like your plan, with the difference that I still haven't decided if I will be wearing armor or not. The problem I'm encountering is that its actually difficult to build a sorcerer in Skyrim (I just started, still level 3). Using armor early in the game derails the mana regen, so if you focus on mage perks early but use armor and weapons, you deal too little damage, but the armor is good if you have alteration, but you can't cast often enough. But if you focus on the armor and damage ability early, the mage trees are left behind. I've decided that I'll probably be more warrior at first then branch off to mage trees at around level 12-ish.

 

EDIT: After having a bit of trouble with a Draugr mob couple of minutes ago, I decided to go just use the novice robes and hood while wearing heavy armor boots and gloves and a shield. I need the mana. LOL :P Would probably depend very much on your play style though.

Edited January 28, 2012 by chanchan05

[XyionUK]

I've not actually encountered (at this level) any problems with Mana, as all I am doing is casting a Summon and then focusing on One-Handed side of things. One of the things I forgot to mention was whether I should take some perks from Destruction also which would increase damage output but then I would run the risk of having low Magicka but I think this could easily be countered by Enchanting at later levels, so this build has a huge amount of versatility at late game but for early game it would be wiser to just put points into the Primary Skills.

 

I also think Dual Wielding is definitely something that is viable especially for late game as the better spells in Conjuration means you can drop the spell in one hand and use to bound swords.

 

I think I am going to stick with Atromancy.

 

It's a character that I have come to really enjoy and I excited to explore the character and it is one I can definitely tailor and tinker with at various points throughout the game, but my main focus is getting Atronachs and obtaining a really good follower. I am leaning towards Lydia.

[chanchan05]

My old character preferred Erik the Slayer since he has better sneak than Lydia. Then you'll still meet Jzargo from the Mage College, and that summoner Dunmer from Azura's Shrine. Janessa is also a good follower. Then there's this guy in the Riften tavern who has excellent destruction skills according to some.