I need a little help.

[Danisimo]

Hello. I apologize if this is not the right section but I found no better one. Basically I'm trying to play my character as a spellsword/battle mage(never understood the difference between the two) I'm focusing on one handed axes, destruction magic and Heavy armor. The problem is. I only really decent damage with my axe. I'm level 31 and I've got the hack & slash, ciritcal charge and savage strike perks in one handed and my weapon is a legendary daedric axe 25 fire damage enchant. In destruction I've specced all augments at rank one and adept destruction. I've specced blacksmithing up until daedric armor and crafted myself the whole set and I have a couple of points into enchanting aswell. In heavy armor I'm up until well fitted. I've got 270 mana, 250 HP and 220 stamina. The problem is that I can only really kill in melee, I can barely survive and my resources aren't nearly enough to sustain me. 1 hand fireballs do almost no damage, 2 hand fireballs do slightly better damage but its 2 fireballs and I'm out of mana. A couple of swings and I'm out of stamina aswell.

This inability to do anything made me stop playing the game for a lot of time and now that I got back into it I find myself struggling a lot. Just now I got attacked by 2 dragons, frost and regular. I'm out on the open with almost no place to hide, the dragons refuse to land, I die in about two breaths, I'm completely defenseless and I can barely scratch them while they're in the air and I have to drink potions 24/7 which in this game is extremely boring and tedious.

Its like "Oh I cast one spell lets pause for a minute so I can find my mana potion. There. Oh I cast another spell time to pause for one more minute." I realize now that I may have specced my character very badly because he's spread too thin between all these perks. I'm willing to use something to reset my perks as a last resort(if possible) but I really don't know how to redistribute them in order to be effective. That would only be a last resort anyways I'd like to not do it and just gain a few levels maybe?

Any tips on how to make my character from useless trash into at least something semi effective and slightly fun to play are welcome.

[Zalman1337]

You might want to look into enchanting your gear with Fortify Destruction, Fortify One-Handed and Fortify Magicka. Here's an example setup (2nd effect in parentheses if you have the Extra Effect Perk) :

 

Head: Fortify Destruction (Fortify Magicka)

Neck: Resist Magic (Fortify One-Handed)

Chest: Fortify Destruction (Fortify Magicka)

Hands: Fortify One-Handed (Fortify One-Handed)

Finger: Resist Magic (Fortify One-Handed)

Feet: Fortify One-Handed (Fortify Magicka)

Weapon: Absorb Health (Absorb Magicka)

 

You might also want to look into Alchemy (as well as making Enchanting a set of gear with Fortify Alchemy and Fortify Smithing). Here's some recipes that may be useful (most ingredients can be collected from your Garden/Greenhouse/Fish Hatchery if you have Hearthfire:

 

Potions

Fortify Destruction: Glowing Mushroom + Nightshade

Fortify One-Handed: Canis Root + Hawk Feathers (Hawks are abundant in Solitude and around the docks and they're fairly easy to shoot down)

Resist Fire, Frost and Shock: Dragon's Tongue + Hawk Beak + Snowberries

Restore and Fortify Magicka: Creep Cluster + Red Mountain Flower + Tundra Cotton

Restore and Fortify Health: Blue Mountain Flower + Wheat

Fortify Smithing: Blisterwort + Glowing Mushrooms

Fortify Enchanting: Blue Butterfly Wing + Snowberries

 

Poisons

Damage Health and Lingering Damage Health: Imp Stool + Mora Tapinella + River Betty

Damage Health and Paralysis: Canis Root + Imp Stool + River Betty

Lingering Damage Health and Paralysis: Canis Root + Imp Stool + Mora Tapinella

Weakness to Magic: Creep Cluster + Jazbay Grapes

Weakness to Fire: Bleeding Crown + Juniper Berries

Weakness to Frost: Abecean Longfin + White Cap

Weakness to Shock: Bee + Giant Lichen

 

With 100 Alchemy, Enchanting and Smithing any character can become a powerhouse even without using any cheats, exploits or glitches.

 

Also, every buff you can get for Magicka helps. The Shrine of Julianos increases Magicka by 25 for a long time and there's one at the Temple of the Divines in Solitude (or you could make your own if you have Hearthfire and a Cellar). Elsweyr Fondue is amazing (+100 Magicka and 25% faster regen for 12 minutes) but the ingredients can be somewhat hard to come by: Ale, Eidar Cheese Wheel and Moon Sugar. You can steal over 20 Eidar Cheese Wheels from the East Empire Trading Company and it respawns every 10 days. You can buy Ale from most Innkeepers and you can buy Moon Sugar from the Khajiit Caravans (although it's somewhat expensive). If you want to be able to spam power attacks nonstop (for 12 minutes), you might find Vegetable Soup useful and the ingredients are very common: Cabbage, Leek, Potato and Tomato. You could also just use a power attack followed up by a spell or two and repeat to stagger lock most enemies. Make sure to get all the cost reduction perks for Destruction except for Master (it's optional, I rarely use the spells because of the LONG casting time) unless you plan on Enchanting your gear with Fortify Destruction to the point where the cost is 0 for all Destruction Spells (which I would NOT recommend because it makes the game WAY too easy, I only use -29% cost on 2 items). I would recommend that you skip investing further points into Stamina (unless you're hellbent on increasing your Carry Weight in underwhelming increments of 5). I think it would be ideal to put most into Magicka and some into Health (or an even split if you prefer). I would also recommend 2/2 Augmented Flames because most enemies aren't resistant to Fire (with the exception of about 50% of dragons, of course) and some are are even vulnerable to it (notably Vampires and about 50% of dragons). I find myself using Incinerate or Fireball about 95% of the time anyway so the other Augmented perks kind of feel like a waste to me (they're situational). You might find the Flame Cloak spell useful as well since you fight in melee frequently.

Edited January 27, 2013 by Zalman1337

[jack013]

and wards are good against dragon shout attacks.

[Danisimo]

Cool thanks. That's some very useful info. I don't have the second enchant perk but I'm close so I'l get it and get to work on it and see what happens.