Your opinions on which enchantments to get

[oldspice2625]

I'm doing a playthrough as a warrior with weapons one handed and shield and dual wielded as well as some 2handed (but no focus on it, focusing on onehanded). This character also makes use of restoration magic, as well as alteration (until I can get to the armor cap without a spell) and some conjuration when I don't use a follower.

 

My enchanting as maxed out now (as in level 100) and smithing is maxed as well, i'm working on maxing the level for alchemy as well.

 

What enchantments should I slap on my armor and weapons?

 

For weapons, I was thinking absorb stamina and HP always on every single weapon. Paralyze is a bit over powered for me, and pretty much makes the game even on master, a bit too easy, and the monsters I NEED to paralyze never can get paralyzed so it's not so useful for me... that is my reasoning.

 

For my armor, I was thinking about using the Shield of Solitude enchantment on everything I can slap it on with some super powerful enchantment potions in order to max out my magic resist... after that is satisfied, I was thinking about boosting for boots and guantlets one handed damage (if I can pick it two times and double the effect, i'll do that... if NOT, I'll do one handed damage fortify and maybe two handed damage fortify).

 

The rest of the pieces I was thinking slapping on fortify conjuration or restoration, to make healing or summoning cost nothing, whatever makes more sense (probably restoration).

 

I think this would be a decent setup, what are your opinions on this matter?

[babooncru]

Very sensible.

What you want to think about is, Offence and Defence.

Slapping a drain health on your sword, as well as a magika drain might help moreso.

Mabye work on Blocking too as that can help massively.

[xlcr]

@oldspice2625, i'd fortify gear with destruction magic and magicka regeneration then play your character for awhile.

I hate running out of magicka while in combat.

Lightly temper weaponry or add very balanced damage enchantments to prevent them becoming overpowered and no combat challenge or fun.

 

Tempering armor for protection against damage/magic is always a good idea including fortify stamina/health and light/heavy skill for speed.

Be careful with the fortify level of 1-handed/2-handed and marksman enchantments, these can quickly become overpowering.

 

For some in-game flexibility, consider installing mods that enable multiple rings/amulets and multiple enchantments; then,

enchant a few different types of rings/amulets so you can easily unequip these if you discover fortify levels unbalance the game.

I'm currently playing a cautious strategic light warrior so i prefer gear fortified with sneak/muffle and carryweight enchants.

 

Using console commands to add a bunch of super powerful blacksmith/enchanting potions to create one hit kill weapons and

invincible gear renders the game pointless even at master difficulty using enemy enhancing mods lol.

Edited June 18, 2012 by xlcr

[oldspice2625]

That's what I was thinking as well, XLCR.

 

I was only thinking about using the one handed fortify two times at VERY most, and if it goes above 40pct with my enchanting potions, i'll only stick it on there once. With absorb stamina and some full soul gems in my inventory, I don't need to fortify stamina recovery rate since i'm constantly absorbing it for more bashes, pretty much rendering veggie soup useless.

 

I think i need to take into account that the Shield of Solitude magic resist enchant also grants a fortify block enchant if i'm not mistaken, and is much more potent than the stock "just magic resist" enchantment. I also need to take into account the Agent of Mara blessing as well as the Standing Stone when planning out my magic resist enchantments, seeing that I might, with my enchanters potions in effect, only need to use the shield of solitude ehchantment just once to get max magic resistance (Not taking into effect the passive alteration perks for magic resist, my 50 pct element damage reduction in block, 15pct for AoMara blessing, and the 25pct magic resistance from the standing stone). This very well might push me over the 85pct resistance cap (I believe) for magic, so I probably will be able to focus on things like fortifying onehanded, maybe throw on a twohanded, and then focus on getting the school of restoration down to nothing for casting and maybe a few conjuration enchants wherever I can throw them on.

 

I was thinking about getting a mod that allows you to wear two rings because i'm used to that in oblivion. I think it's kind of odd that they don't allow you to have two rings anymore... though you have ten fingers, two rings seems just about "right" so i'll probably take that into account as well. The shield I might have to take into account once I see how much passive magic resistance I can have WITHOUT any enchantments, and then factor in how much I can squeeze out of one enchantment with a potent enchanter's potion. Maybe fortify block and magicka if I can do that with a shield...

[xlcr]

@oldspice2625, i'm on a 2nd playthru after abandoning the 1st attempt because of broken buggy quests; and,

i've found myself gravitating back to unenchanted lightly tempered weapons only slightly more powerful than

what my opponents usually have - in my opinion the game is simply more fun this way.

In addition, i'm careful not to enable certain skill perks that grant unfair advantages that unbalance combat.

 

Skyrim is already really very easy (its a kids game), why make it easier? lol.

 

Engaging enemies in melee style combat takes practically no actual gamer control skill (swing, block, swing, bash, power attack, doh..),

archery is tactically like target practice against standing immobile defenseless enemies, and destruction magic is basically point and cast and repeat..

Skyrim's enemy leveling lists were probably a good idea on paper; but, after you've reached a certain level,

enemies presented seem to be no challenge especially bosses and dragons which are basically kinda lame.

 

Anyway, i'm not saying blacksmithing and enchanting isn't fun, it is, and prepping/enhancing gear is a lot of what Skyrim is all about.

I've just learned not to worry much about it except for gear that protects my character/followers.

[oldspice2625]

Yes. I run deadly dragons now just for that reason, vanilla elder dragon killed me four times when I was level 20 because of the mod lol and I never die (might have a close call) as a warrior with shield!

 

I'm looking at some other overhaul mods. I think oblivion had it right, or rather, closer to being right. When I fight an enemy, I want him to be my equal, and a bit more... that's what oblivion did. You never reached a "newbie" area in the map, everything spawned according to your level, so you have a challenge. Of course you can negate magic damage/enchanted damage in that game, physical damage, and only worry about arrows, but not many serious players do that (nice for a collection though!). When I enter an area, I want all the enemies to present a challenge, and for a marauder (WHY DID THEY CHANGE THIS?!?!?!!) warlord or bandit ringleader to smoke me out if i'm not prepared, which they do if you don't have super gear on. Skyrim took the Fallout New Vegas approach, thinking you'd be done in an area and move on to the endgame zone... this is horrible OUTDATED programming. No one should do this anymore, it's terrible. In a SANDBOX game you should be challenged always no matter where you go, in fact, the beginning area should evolve after a while to keep things fresh.

 

I see what you are saying though. I play on master, and it was tough until I enchanted my gear. I didn't want to make potions to over level alchemy, because it's a bad idea for me to level up anything except (for warrior for example) heavy armor, block, weapon skill, restoration, etc... because you can gimp your character so easy by doing that. So having to rely on found potions (meaning I have less magic resistances because great gear is scarce and I don't create gear often) I was outgunned most of the time which was refreshing.

 

I think i'm going to find a balance between having good gear and making the game laughably rediculous by getting rid of NEEDING things like mana/HP/STamina potions, ingredient fetching, soul gem trapping, etc... to NEED things and therefore to make things more realistic and more difficult.

 

I tried the absorb HP and Stamina, I think the trade off vs something like paralysis is that it drains so DARN fast that you need a ton of soul gems, so maybe just for a boss weapon or dragon slaying weapon or something like that. I think unenchanted or elemental enchanted weapons will do and I will still need to heal because of it.

 

I usually stop at high magic resist and don't become immune, so I don't like that they forced you to never have the capability of maxing if you want, but hey, what will you do?

 

I think I like stealth the best because you need to be good at it in the early game, where warriors and mages can nuke things with conjurations and followers where with a stealth character, you can go many routes... use illusion to scatter enemies? Use Arrows from afar with poisons? Use daggers up close and personal, sneaking up behind every enemy? Sneaking around and then conjuring and letting your enemy get confused as to where the daedra came from? So many options and play styles.

[Stemin]

I usually play a pretty well rounded character. My current build is right here: http://skyrimcalculator.com/#140325

 

I don't know what I'm going to do with that last two perks and I still have to level pickpocket, lockpicking, and one handed I believe.

 

I usually do the following:

 

Head: Waterbreathing/Magic Regen

Armor: Health Regen/Magic Regen

Hands: One-Handed/Carry Weight

Feet: Sneak/Carry Weight

Ring: Magic Resist/Carry Weight

Necklace: Magic Resist/Carry Weight

Shield: Block/Magic Resist

 

I put 250 into stamina, 300 in health, and the rest in magic. My carry weight is 551 I think currently. Most of my weight is generally potions and soul gems and then whatever I pick up along the way. I don't like to stop between dungeons so I try to keep it up to a decent level.

 

You can never have too much magic resist, IMO, particularly when you come across an ancient dragon or a dragon priest.

 

Sneak is a personal preference. Waterbreathing could be subbed for Archery, and you don't necessarily need the magic regen perks as a warrior, but you're limited by what you can do with what slots.

 

If you're doing a pure warrior, then your build will be different then mine.

[xlcr]

@oldspice2625, lol yep, i've got deadly dragons set to practically max difficulty also,

it can get pretty exciting whenever anything spawns, run! hide!

I know you like the Shield of Solitude, I got the Spellbreaker shield early in the game and stuck with it,

modded its appearance (smaller/darker), bumped up the stats (spell deflection ward) and spawned copies for all followers.

 

Prefer not to complain much about Bethesda trying something new with the enemy leveling list system,

just my opinion that it seems kinda broken for longterm gameplay after leveling up, enemy/boss/dragon stats in general get wimpy.

 

I've sufficiently enchanted balanced gear or use spells to replace any need for potions,

not much into gathering ingredients and alchemy thing, too lazy lol and use console additem for anything.

Equipped all followers with a comprehensive set of potions for all occasions and I rarely notice them using them.

Unlike many other RPG games, Skyrim's follower system seems very incomplete and not much fun to me.

Skyrim is more about a single player role and not a party of characters unfortunately. Gawd i miss Dragon Age.

I don't use poisons but did mess around with arrows of magicka mod for awhile because it has effects that are fun to watch using archery.

(was getting too much friendly fire from followers also lol).

Used low level paralyze enchantments sparingly mostly because its an overpowering advantage.

 

Prefer playing light stealthy well-armed/protected warrior characters focusing on tactics/strategy,

not much into heavy tank types for Skyrim.

 

Tired of the soul gem charging system and use this mod to get rid of it:

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/8987 - Everlasting Weapon Enchantments by Wolves425

also, it morally bothers me using souls for something like this.

 

@Stemin, your list and logical gear locations look a lot like mine, i use a high carryweight also and

clear all loot whenever encountered mostly to fight savegame bloat if a location doesn't get cleared by the game properly.

I value fortifying sneak, muffle, and stamina also mostly because these complement my preferred gameplay style.

[oldspice2625]

Well, to be honest, Illusion magic is obscenely useful. I use illusion for a Mage Assassin type of character. With quiet casting, you can use fury double cast to start a fight over and over again till there is one guy left and just kill him, if he is tough, just use fear on him and then pelt him with arrows/spells or chase and beat him to death. Calm is also applicable here, you can use calm on them when they are fighting you, go hide, and then reset yourself to sneak attack again. Illusion is beastly.

 

I use carry weight mods because it doesn't add difficulty like some people think... it just makes me annoyed and angry that I have to choose between what loot to get. I usually only get arms and boots since I can enchant and get a lot of money out of them but I don't like running back to town every dungeon to de loot myself, especially when markets don't have infinite gold... oblivion's system was unrealistic, yes, but some videogame like things need to be in place to have a good game... is infinite market gold real? No... but it makes the game less annoying. Is jumping up a mountain real? No... but it makes travel less bothersome.

 

I don't mind hunting for souls, it makes things more balanced for me and it gives me something to go maintain, though the daedric artifact charge would be nice to get rid of, seeing that they are supposed to be all powerful and god like.

 

When I play assassin theif kind of characters, I use destruction magic outside and summons, and inside I use illusion and daggers that way it's not all the same exact thing over and over again and I utilize all the skill trees (warrior/mage/thief) and leave nothing unused.