Arch-mage robes are pretty crap. You can buy better for 3k and they don't look like you just threw on a fur rug. Mask is cool though. I wish there was a bit of sim element in managing the college after you take it over. Something just menu driven like sending out your assassins in AC: Brotherhood.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim |OT2| Team Edward's Revenge
- Thread starter Blue Ninja
- Start date
Yeah, I mean if you invest perks in Enchanting and fortify you can make some pretty absurd stuff. I don't think the game can be expected to give you rewards on par with creations like that.
I think the rewards are okay from what I've seen, but the quest line - at least at the College - doesn't feel like it should end when it does. Or, maybe more accurately that there aren't enough things that occur leading up to when it does end, at least. There are a bunch of non-misc side quests in the College that for whatever reason are totally skippable, so in some cases it's going to feel completely fucked up how that line resolves.
Early College of Winterhold spoilers:
Is it possible to get the Psijic robes? I'm still early in the quest line, but the dude that talked to me had some awesome freaking robes on. Wish I could get some.
Basileus777
Member
It's more of a problem with the mage gear, where mid-to-late game destruction magic starts to wane if you don't have gear with fortify destruction on it. Non-pure mages are fine without crafting.
Do you mean that series of 3 or 4 quests to retrieve dwarven items for that mage? I was kind of peeved that it ends up with no real reward.
Though seeing him turn himself into a summonable spirit was kind of amusing.
Basileus777
Member
There's no permanent fix, it will always come back unless you don't pair that mask with a robe that has a hood on.
Alright, one question!. Right now I'm level 20 and have the weirdest build. I wear heavy armor and always use a two-handed weapon or bow. But I also do a lot of sneaking and whatnot. I'm going to go mainly on these two paths, but I would also love to try some magic.
Is it possible to actually do everything with one character, or there's a level cap? Also, could I just keep improving skills even after said level cap? (I mean the number at the bottom of each, not getting new 'perks').
Oh, and one question about the Companions quest.
I have finished the quest where you
and right now I can't see anything else to do. Was that the last quest? If so, it's alright because I really enjoyed the whole quest, but I just don't wanna head towards any other city before finishing this. I've spent already 30 hours in the game and Whiterun is the only city where I've been, besides the first small village. I wanna clean up one town at a time, or else I'll be overwhelmed with quests (already got tons of Misc quests because they ask me to go to other cities or areas that I don't wanna visit yet)
Is it possible to actually do everything with one character, or there's a level cap? Also, could I just keep improving skills even after said level cap? (I mean the number at the bottom of each, not getting new 'perks').
Oh, and one question about the Companions quest.
I have finished the quest where you
cure the ex-thief or whatever his rank was (forgot his name, sorry.. Ko..something, argh..), and also cured myself with the witch heads. After that I became the Harbinger (was it?)
Marked for Death is your friend.
Basileus777
Member
You can do everything with one character. If you max out everything you cap out at level 81, so you can get 80 perks. The only problem with using that approach before really late game is that the game's level scaling can hurt you if your spread yourself too thin.
If you want, sure. You'll always get more out of going a specialized route but you can hit 100 in every skill if you want.
Level cap is 81, but levelling is slowed down at level 50. You can continue to get more proficient in the iindividual skill after you reach the cap though
Mmm, I don't think that's right. Enchanting an item with Fortify Destruction reduces Destruction school spell cost, as it does with any spell school via enchantments. Only Fortify Destruction via Alchemy will increase Destruction damage.
Basileus777
Member
I know. But destruction magic damage doesn't scale, so the only way to keep up is to reduce mana costs to the point where you can spam dual casted spells. On master at high levels it can take 8-10 dual casted incinerates to kill a dragr overlord.
You can't get to level 81 until you get to 100 in every skill. The game doesn't really have a level cap, it's just at that point you run out of skills to level.
Well, obviously conjuration is awesome.
Thanks guys!. I guess for now I will go mainly two-handed, bow, heavy armor and sneaking (weird combo I know, but it works for me lol). I've not gotten any perk on the heavy armor skill tree yet, so if I get some neat light armor, I will just go with it, I'd rather do that...
I will also post what I edited in, on my earlier post:
Oh, and one question about the Companions quest.
I have finished the quest where you
and right now I can't see anything else to do. Was that the last quest? If so, it's alright because I really enjoyed the whole quest, but I just don't wanna head towards any other city before finishing this. I've spent already 30 hours in the game and Whiterun is the only city where I've been, besides the first small village. I wanna clean up one town at a time, or else I'll be overwhelmed with quests (already got tons of Misc quests because they ask me to go to other cities or areas that I don't wanna visit yet)
I will also post what I edited in, on my earlier post:
Oh, and one question about the Companions quest.
I have finished the quest where you
cure the ex-thief or whatever his rank was (forgot his name, sorry.. Ko..something, argh..), and also cured myself with the witch heads. After that I became the Harbinger (was it?)
Arjen
Member
Ok, thanks, just have to wait for a patch then.
Basileus777
Member
Who said anything about relying only on destruction? Conjuration is great, but destruction magic is the only way for a pure mage to deal damage. Unless you like running in circles while your summons slowly kill enemies, you're going to be using destruction magic. And at high levels on master it does pretty low damage, so low mana cost is needed to compensate.
My mage still only has like thirty-something Destruction at level 32, hah. I can't decide if I really even want to bother putting any perks into Destruction at this point. I might fill out Illusion instead, but I am having a hard time finding information as to what the level limits are with perks for Illusion.
I have the same weird build you have, although I'm only at level 10. With the exception that I spend a lot of time on restoration as well. Works very nicely for me so far
. The choice when levelling up between stamina and magic gets harder though; I love to rush into a room, knock the baddies on their head, without running out of stamina, while making it out alive and healing myself, back-paddling out occasionally.
So I'm about 18hours in, level 11, High Elf full on caster (destruction/conjuration). I'm not really happy with it though, playing on PC with a controller and I'm getting so sick and tired of swapping spells every 15seconds (have the keyboard quickslot addon installed so I can use those, but I still find it annoying and I don't really like playing with keyboard/mouse)
Would it be a viable option to start "respeccing" my character or is it better just to start over again and go full on melee from the start? Thing is I don't have much playtime, 18hours is already a lot of time invested in a game for me :-/
Guess there's no way to change my race and swap some skills? (they would probably all be cheating)
Would it be a viable option to start "respeccing" my character or is it better just to start over again and go full on melee from the start? Thing is I don't have much playtime, 18hours is already a lot of time invested in a game for me :-/
Guess there's no way to change my race and swap some skills? (they would probably all be cheating)
It would be so awesome to have all the books you got in-game as downloadable PDFs from Bethesda's site :_D. I got like 60 or 70 books already but I've only read the Beggar - Thief - Warrior (and another book I have not read yet) series. Reading in-game is a bit too much, but I would definitely read all those books on my iPad before going to sleep 
Nose Master
Member
Maybe it's cause I did it late, but man the Companion quest line sucks reward wise.
Is the shield/gaxe seriously the reward?
http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Illusion_(Skyrim)
is your friend.
the perks might just mean higher level than you. or maybe higher level than what the spells can do. how can you even tell what level the enemies are in the first place?!
It would pretty much involve breaking the game rules via the console, yeah.
That said, it may not be necessary. What kind of perks have you purchased, and what kind of investments were you making on each level up? Level 11 all told is not very far so you have plenty of time to change your play style, it's more just up to whether you can still get value out of the perks you have already selected.
That's what I mean - I don't know what the actual level ceilings are with perks included. It would be pretty dumb to level up high enough to where most things would resist the effects. I may just dump them into Alchemy instead.
Summons slowly killing enemies? lol
Dremora Lord takes outright chunks out of their health bar. I'm playing on Master and I have been the entire game. Level 32. Maybe it gets much harder at level 40?!
No, probably not. I imagine it gets easier when you can summon *two* Dremora Lords. Modify your tactics accordingly. The problem with high-level Destro magic is less damage output than splash damage with friendly fire, but Dremora Lord seems to have rather high fire resistance - use Fire AOE attacks with the +50% damage perk and you'll do enough damage as he stays in the game.
Dremora Lord can literally take a Giant out by himself on Master difficulty. If you're summoning that guy and still struggling, I'm not sure what you're doing.
Basileus777
Member
Some of them are online here to read if you want.It would be so awesome to have all the books you got in-game as downloadable PDFs from Bethesda's site :_D. I got like 60 or 70 books already but I've only read the Beggar - Thief - Warrior (and another book I have not read yet) series. Reading in-game is a bit too much, but I would definitely read all those books on my iPad before going to sleep
You are making strange assumptions. I never said anything about struggling or having trouble. I'm not complaining about how the game is working. All I've said is that destruction magic damage doesn't scale and that lower mana costs via enchanted gear is the best way to build a mage using it. My level 54 mage is basically invincible, so using destruction/conjuration certainly isn't a problem.
I picked the basic stuff: novice and apprentice resto, destro and conjuration 50% casting, and destruction dual casting and some in resto (more health cured) that's about it. Basically put all my perks in the casting skills, guess I could still use the restoration perks.
I'm not really feeling my high elf chick as a tank either, but that's pure RP-wise.
Deep inside I know I'll eventually just start over but I guess I'm still in denial.
In that case maybe you should start over just to pick a more appropriate character for the playstyle you're going to switch into. I think you'll be more satisfied that way.
At least in the grand scheme of things 18 hours is not much; you'll probably find that you can get back to a similar level of progression in a much shorter time frame since you will have some foreknowledge to help you along.
Basileus777
Member
Use the console to swap perks and races then. It's not really cheating if you remove the old perks you had. It will save you time and it's a single player game, so there's no harm.
player.addperk <perk ID>
player.removeperk <perk ID>
Look up the IDs on the wiki, for example here are the archery perk numbers.
I mostly ignored Illusion in this playthrough, though I did dabble with every spell type. It's Destruction/Conjuration/Restoration for me, and a bit of Alteration for the armors (though I didn't touch the perks there). Good mix of damage/crowd-control/defense.
Also another thing about the Destruction tree, and why damage not scaling is hardly a big deal - the perk that staggers enemies with dual casts.
That thing is just lol. As far as I can tell, every enemy seems to stagger from a dual cast shot with that perk, even with a lowly Firebolt. You can pretty much catch an enemy in a continous chain of stagger animations as they can't do anything. And people want greater damage on top of that?
yep got that, do you also know how to change the actual skill level; not make it green, but make the game think you have 100 in a skill. so not player.modav <skillID>
edit: using the help command i found this line: SMEN: Increase Level (0005BD79). can't figure out howto use it though
Basileus777
Member
I haven't tested this, but based on what the wiki says, it seems like "player.incpcs skillname" can be used to level up skills without messing things up.
wow i love this wiki: AdvSkill <skill> <nn> just read it.
advlevel to advance your level by 1. sweet time to jack around. wish i could do it by more than 1 though
Yeah I'm just gonna do that, knowing myself if I don't do it now I'll do it in a week or two and have even more time to make up. I always do this when a new RPG launches, atleast I have a feel of what I don't want from the game now
Yeah did some googling about the console commands to change your race and stuff but I doesn't really feel "clean" to me. Thanks for the tip though, didn't know you could swap the perks like that.
+ I'll still be stuck with that race special skill.
Plays great with a controller on PC indeed, might want to check out this mod as well, enables your quickslots while using a controller.
I've ignored Destruction and Illusion, with my focus being almost entirely Conjuration and Alteration. Restoration is my secondary tree which I am finding extremely difficult to level because I don't get hit enough; I need to take a companion out someday and just heal the shit out of them for a while I guess. I always play my mages super defensive like this in TES, but this time it has worked out for the best since Paralyze was moved to Alteration. Had Paralyze still been under Illusion I probably would not have wound up quite so lopsided towards my specialization schools, but it's worked out well. Not quite up to 100 Alteration yet so I don't know if Mass Paralysis is really worth it, but I can't imagine needing it anyway. I do, however, want Atronach just so I can be a complete mage-tank.
Edit - I might join you in making a new character there koji. I was going to make an Orc for my heavy armor & blocking wall of metal, but I want to add some Restoration on top of that which sounds like a job for an Imperial. More fitting for the story, anyway! Time to bring back Quadratus.
Are you trying out any of the Wards? I've found them very effective against certain attacks, like some dragon sprays and certain spells, which they outright eat. They can also be effective for taking the brunt of one huge attack. They usually shatter afterwards but it doesn't hit your health and it's quick enough to put a ward back up. If you have the perks that halve their respective Magicka use then they also don't suck up much mana.
Wards should also get your Restoration skill up there pretty nicely, along with the healing spells (remember you can heal your companion - when they're kneeling and you start healing them they get right back up)
The only reason I was able to beat Morokei without just cheesing him around corners is because I would use a Lesser Ward to block his lightning attack and then fire back. The wards can be nice. I have Greater Ward now and it's pretty effective.
The one that converts health into mana...? Hah, hadn't even dawned on me. At the very least I can use it to recover mana (since my health is rarely in danger) and I'll level Restoration and Alteration faster. Thanks!
Actually Wards are about the only thing from Restoration that I get to use regularly. For whatever reason it feels like Greater Ward gives a very low amount of skill experience. I don't know if that is because I'm so resistant to magic that the ward is only having to block what is left over or not, but I used Greater Ward throughout the entire encounter you just mentioned and did not even gain half a skill point.
Can't say I'd pay $150 for it, rare or not. Most of it seems tied up in the statue which is the kind of bauble I have no interest in. I really wanted the art book, but it's only included in that version unfortunately. I'd just get the standard edition personally.
Hm, interesting. Some of the skill raising for certain spell types seems noticeably faster/slower than others. Conjuration for example levels up considerably faster than Destruction even if you use both roughly the same amount, and especially after you get the Dremora Lord, who seems to level your Conjuration up tremendously quickly. Going from Conjuration 75-100 is considerably faster than 0-25, 25-50 or 50-75.
Oblivionmancer
Member
I can only speak for myself, but from where I stand it isn't a matter of the game becoming difficult or anything, it's the problem of having a 35 hour progression curve for a game with 150 hours of content. Obviously you hit plateaus with all skills but it happens with destruction extremely rapidly. There's no next sword, or better enchantment or even really anything new to do with it once you get to expert level spells (the master spells are basically worthless, kind of a huge troll after the cool quest to unlock them). Once I got the ability to spam expert destruction spells for zero cost, the feeling of growth was gone. Maybe worse is the fact that the expert level spells are the most boring--shoot damage at single enemy, woooo. Yeah there are other support spells at that level, but I sure would like some more aoe options like the adept spells or something. Also, the other issue with the magicka reduction enchantment options is that they made my 25 levels spent on magicka boosts, as well as the perks I dumped into lowering costs in destruction an almost complete waste. So yeah, destruction in particular is a pretty disappointing skill tree, regardless of it's viability late game.
I made another character to play anyway, but guess what; I can spend almost all of my playthrough focusing on bow/melee up until I max enchanting, spend 3 perk points buffing out the damage on a destruction element of choice, and with a little time spamming spells to boost my skill level, be exactly as effective a destruction mage as I am with a character that spent 50 hours, lots of perks, and lots of stat boosts in the effort. To me, that's lame.
Sorry that got a little long, let me get the point: HELL YEAH I want more damage on top of that!