Skyrim

[Guest ArmaDeFuego]

Yeah, I am trying the Elven side of the smithing tree, but primarily because I think the Elven weapons are a little more powerful than the Dwarven I believe... I think they are like 1 point higher in damage according to the book I have. Of course my goal is to get to the Dragon Armor perk anyway, so either way lets me get there but going this route is a little quicker. I just recently got the Elven smithing perk, the two Elven weapons that I have now I, uh... "found" and managed to upgrade.

I only have the one dragon shout so far, but I managed to kill a second dragon, so I guess I need to find another words of power to get another shout activated. Other than the shout I hardly ever use my magic. I'll probably go back and create a second character and try to do something like a thief/mage combination if I can. We'll see.

Well the best armor in the game as far as armor rating goes (& the most powerful non-magic weapons) are Daedric armor & weapons, which you only can get going up the OTHER side of the smithing tree. But like I said before, looking back on it now from where I'm at in the game, a warrior who wears light armor is a perfectly viable build. Sometimes I feel like my full Daedric is just a little overkill.

Also, I dont know why they decided to make Daedric armor be BETTER than dragonplate. You would think that dragonplate armor would be the best, but its not. Daedric is actually better as far as armor rating goes. All the pieces have higher armor rating, but they weight a lot more too. Dragonplate has lower armor rating but weighs quite a bit less. Although there is a perk in the heavy armor tree that makes your armor not weigh anything so it once you get that its a moot point & Daedric is without a doubt the best armor.

I've got a bajillion shouts (like around 12-15 I think) but a lot of them I never use. I dont know if you would consider them spoilers if I told you what some of them do so I wont mention them, but lets just say that a lot of them I am not really impressed with at all. I hardly ever use magic either. The only magic I ever use is some healing here & there. Other than that, nope.

[mav]

This is the best role playing game I have played. It is absolutely a fantastic way to waste my time.

I haven't really done a lot major quest lines outside the the Winterhold Magic College; I finished that one. So far, I am playing this game as an explorer and opportunist, and I am at level 48. My main talents are in sneak, smithing, lockpicking, and archery. All are maxed out. My enchating, speechcraft, heavy armor, and one-hand are very high as well.

I really like the look of the Daedric armor, so I wear a complete set enchanted with lifting, archery x2, and fortify heavy armor. My Daedric bow has a rating like 388. I laughed when it only took two hits (one was a sneak critical) to kill one of the regular dragons using daedric arrows.

I will spend the next week or so finishing up the game trying to do as much as I can. One regret I have during this game is not doing any training for the first 15 - 20 levels. I missed out on a lot, but I have gone too far and there is no way I am starting over.

[Guest ArmaDeFuego]

This is the best role playing game I have played. It is absolutely a fantastic way to waste my time.

I haven't really done a lot major quest lines outside the the Winterhold Magic College; I finished that one. So far, I am playing this game as an explorer and opportunist, and I am at level 48. My main talents are in sneak, smithing, lockpicking, and archery. All are maxed out. My enchating, speechcraft, heavy armor, and one-hand are very high as well.

I really like the look of the Daedric armor, so I wear a complete set enchanted with lifting, archery x2, and fortify heavy armor. My Daedric bow has a rating like 388. I laughed when it only took two hits (one was a sneak critical) to kill one of the regular dragons using daedric arrows.

I will spend the next week or so finishing up the game trying to do as much as I can. One regret I have during this game is not doing any training for the first 15 - 20 levels. I missed out on a lot, but I have gone too far and there is no way I am starting over.

Yea thats the main reason I stayed away from enchanting. I knew that if I had the best armor smithed all the way up AND then I enchanted it I would be waaaaay too OP. So I didnt really do any enchanting at all. The only thing I have that is enchanted is stuff I've found.

What do you mean you missed out on a lot by not training? I dont like training in the game at all. It makes you miss out on things by leveling it up the "real" way, i.e. doing it. The only thing I trained up was archery a little bit because I didnt use it all that often but I wanted it to still be higher than 25. I think I finally got it to like 55 through a combination of use & a little training here & there. To me training is just buying levels though, & isnt really a fun way to play the game. To each his own I guess.

I agree that it is the best roleplaying game I have ever played also.

[Metalhead]

My main char is now lvl79. I think I can eek out another level or two, but will require alot of farming alchemy reagents and using alteration bleh. Not that he isnt God of Skyrim atm anyway.

[Metalhead]

On a more funny note, had a dragon attack me last night. Fire breathed me from the sky, and just before I was going to use Dragonrend he swooped off and started attacking a giant.

Dragon - 0, Giant 1

Was funny to watch.

[mav]

My main char is now lvl79. I think I can eek out another level or two, but will require alot of farming alchemy reagents and using alteration bleh. Not that he isnt God of Skyrim atm anyway.

79? Wow. I couldn't imagine what it takes to get to that level.

What do you mean you missed out on a lot by not training? I dont like training in the game at all. It makes you miss out on things by leveling it up the "real" way, i.e. doing it. The only thing I trained up was archery a little bit because I didnt use it all that often but I wanted it to still be higher than 25. I think I finally got it to like 55 through a combination of use & a little training here & there. To me training is just buying levels though, & isnt really a fun way to play the game. To each his own I guess.

I can understand that. All of my max skills have been through me using them. The only two skills I have trained are enchanting and speechcraft. I would have however, if I could go back, train on all of the things I don't use (magic stuff). Go figure, I am the Arch Mage of the College and I hardly ever use magic and I only use my shouts when I have to.

Has anyone noticed that the game levels with you (one thing I do like)? It is as the bandits and monsters increase in difficulty as you level. It doesn't matter a whole lot if I stay hidden and attack, but if I get seen and start getting hit, my health drops very rapidly.

[StPatrick]

I've been playing as a straight opportunist...I'm at 38 right now, and all the skills are at or near minimum except for lockpick, sneak, archery, heavy armor, smithing, block, and one-handed. Basically, if I can't shoot and scoot, then hide for another shot, I get right up close and try to finish fast. It's working well. I'm starting to wish I had spent some time enchanting, but I assumed that soul gems would be available at an Oblivion level, so have ignored it till now. I need to go collect crap gear and start enchanting with all the soul gems I've collected, now that I see how many there are. I should have been enchanting all the gear I made at smithies from day 1.

[Guest Victor9er]

Well the best armor in the game as far as armor rating goes (& the most powerful non-magic weapons) are Daedric armor & weapons, which you only can get going up the OTHER side of the smithing tree. But like I said before, looking back on it now from where I'm at in the game, a warrior who wears light armor is a perfectly viable build. Sometimes I feel like my full Daedric is just a little overkill.

Also, I dont know why they decided to make Daedric armor be BETTER than dragonplate. You would think that dragonplate armor would be the best, but its not. Daedric is actually better as far as armor rating goes. All the pieces have higher armor rating, but they weight a lot more too. Dragonplate has lower armor rating but weighs quite a bit less. Although there is a perk in the heavy armor tree that makes your armor not weigh anything so it once you get that its a moot point & Daedric is without a doubt the best armor.

I've got a bajillion shouts (like around 12-15 I think) but a lot of them I never use. I dont know if you would consider them spoilers if I told you what some of them do so I wont mention them, but lets just say that a lot of them I am not really impressed with at all. I hardly ever use magic either. The only magic I ever use is some healing here & there. Other than that, nope.

That is wierd, I was expecting the Dragonplate to be the best.... but it looks like you're right...

Daedric Armor = Rating 49 / Weight 50

Dragonplate Armor = Rating 46 / Weight 40

oh well, have you looked at the Glass weapons though? I believe they are the most powerful... at least from what I've seen...[EDIT: correction, see post below]

Daedric Sword = Damage 14 / Weight 16

Glass Sword = Damage 20 / Weight 14

And the Elven weapons are better than the Dwarf ones...

Elven Sword = Damage 11 / Weight 13

Dwarven Sword = Damage 10 / Weight 12

So I guess if you take the Dwarven armor route you get better rated armor but taking the other route gives you better rated weapons. Plus, after the Elven perk you get access to the Advanced Armors perk which let's you craft Scaled armor if you choose to go light or also Plate armor if you want to go with heavy. And the Dragon Armor has the option of Dragonscale (light) and Dragonplate (heavy) as well.

So you don't have to use light armor taking that side of the smithing tree... my character is using Heavy armor right now.

Edited November 29, 2011 by Victor9er

[Guest Victor9er]

oh well, have you looked at the Glass weapons though? I believe they are the most powerful... at least from what I've seen...

Daedric Sword = Damage 14 / Weight 16

Glass Sword = Damage 20 / Weight 14

Well, I take that back....

One of the charts I have has it listed that way, but another has the Glass Sword listed with a Damage rating of only 12. The other one must be a typo... my bad.

[Guest ArmaDeFuego]

My main char is now lvl79. I think I can eek out another level or two, but will require alot of farming alchemy reagents and using alteration bleh. Not that he isnt God of Skyrim atm anyway.

Does it really become noticeably slower to level after level 50? Do you still get to pick a perk every level after 50 or not?

[Metalhead]

You still get perks, and I really didnt notice it getting much harder at all.

[Guest ArmaDeFuego]

You still get perks, and I really didnt notice it getting much harder at all.

Thats good to know. I remember something before the game came out about people saying that you dont get perks after 50, etc. I've been too lazy to actually read about leveling since the game came out so I have just been kind of planning my perks with that assumption in mind. I am level 43 now so I was assuming that I only have a few more perks left. Its nice to know that they keep coming after 50. I'm not so worried about my perk trees now.

[mav]

You still get perks, and I really didnt notice it getting much harder at all.

I didn't really write what I meant correctly. I haven't noticed the game getting harder, but I have noticed that it isn't really getting easier either. I had suspected that as your character level increased, the enemies would become too easy. It doesn't seem to be the case. Even though I have have enchanted smith-maxed daedric armor, I can't still be forced to load a previous save if I am not paying attention and get attacked by multiple bandits (especially magic ones) or a dragon.

Is anyone playing as a mage?

[Metalhead]

I've got a mage thats... 23? Somewhere around there. Alot harder playing a mage than a melee character imo. Destro magic doesnt seem to scale well or nearly as much as weaps do.

[Metalhead]

[Verne]

Now that is funny!

[Jonnin]

Heh I got it on christmas and already beat it. Pretty easy main quest, I don't think its possible to get to 100 in any skill before beating the game and before all the content becomes trivial. Im just now hitting 75 in my main stuff. Still a lot to do in the world but the only thing that has managed to hurt me so far are those darn high level fire mages. I like the new system but the content needed to be much deeper so you can still be challenged past level 40. I don't like the nerfs to enchanting & spellmaking. Part of what I loved was the spellmaker and the custom enchantments.

I am going to try a spellsword next, probably use a touch of archery & one handed with conjured weapons and magic and some sort of armor. Sort of a mage, but not a pure one. I may try a pure one if that also gets boring. Im sure that destro magic is powerful enough, if not as good as a 200+ per hit melee attack. I have been one shotted several times by mages and I have well over 500 health.

Edited January 8, 2012 by Jonnin

[TN_Hiker]

I will never... look at dragons the same again...

I was working a lot when it came out and with all the games out like Saints Row 3 and Battlefield 3 to name just a few, it was hard to play them all. I'm slowly working my way through them now though I've not been powering through the main quest but just kind of jumping around everywhere just enjoying the game. I love just walking around exploring and finding random things. I keep thinking about how I'd love to do a second play through, but I can't even finish a first one yet lol.

I'm glad there are people around here who enjoy gaming as well.

[Guest ArmaDeFuego]

Skyrim - Unnecessary Censorship

[mav]

On first play-through I tried to do everything before I went into the main questline. I think this has been the longest and best rpg I have ever played. Now, I am waiting for Mass Effect 3 to come out in March. Hopefully it will be as long and as good as Skyrim.

[Jonnin]

By the way stealth is way, way out of balance. If you want an easy game, go stealth. If you want a standard game, go with melee. If you want a harder game, go with magic. Or if you go with stealth or melee push the difficutly slider up to make it interesting. I dunno if a mage could stand taking double damage while doing 1/2 at the master level, not easy....

[Metalhead]

Yeah I remember playing my mage and moving the difficulty slider all the way to hard. First bandit with a two-hander I encountered one shotted me. I toned it down a little after that.

The mods so far have been a bit on the hack-job side, though. Once the dev kit is released in... a week I think? The mod scene will explode. There is already a huge overhaul project being worked on.

[Jonnin]

I decided to try a pure mage so I started one sunday and played it off and on all day. I think it is playable, some thoughts, since most of the online guides are either "how to exploit" or very ignorant about the game mechanics:

1) Its going to be harder early on, as you must choose between being defenseless (robes etc) and powerful or weak but in armor. The best option early on seems to be 3 perks in summoned weapons, see below, rather than trying to "flame thrower" everything to death.

2) You pretty much are going to HAVE to study enchanting and alchemy to around 50% or better. Its nice on anyone but enchanting to reduce casting costs so you can put points into health instead of magic is going to make or break the build, and alchemy to provide stacks and stacks of healing potions (you do not want to burn your magic power to heal in combat!) and magic potions (unless you studied combat stuff, you are defenseless without them if drained or run out).

3) Once you can enchant regular armor (and jewelery) to have the "mage robe" bonuses, you should be very powerful. Taking it all the way up to have a set of destruction/conjuration armor would be a big winner. I think trying to use the "stoneskin" type spells instead of armor is making life hard on yourself, these are nice spells but armor does not expire halfway into a fight with a dragon & get you killed. Also, using only robes means no heavy/light/block training which would give you levels.

4) I think you are expected to summon a zombie or elemental guy to help, which is probably why destruction damage is a bit low for damage output.

5) Not 100% sure but I think a "revived" enemy (zombie!) has the powers it had when alive, so endgame those are probably more powerful than the elementals, though I think you can summon a daedra maybe later (?). Not sure which type is best though you can use a zombie as a pack mule at higher levels.

6) Conjuration to get summoned, high quality, soul stealing weapons is also going to be important. The sword does very high damage at low levels, about like ebony (?) maybe, and fills your gems to study enchanting easier, and rapidly unlocks your ability to summon a powerful ally. End game the weapons probably fall behind but by then you have been rewarded 10 times over from using them at the start as you earned many levels off one handed weapon use, enchanting, and conjuration all at once, and probably some armor/block as well.

7) You probably want to use the exploit/bug/feature/???? of illusion that makes fire damage bigger, aspect of terror perk. This makes dual casting the flames spell do some 50+ damage per second, maybe more...

8) Lightning is probably the best damage type (apart from the above illusion trick?), almost nothing resists it and the long range attacks do not have to "travel" so its easier to hit your target.

Definitely the hardest playstyle. Without some use of arms and armor (IE using robes and shield spells), I would say it would be a major challenge. With armor, it is still going to be rough: you will have lower health than most, weaker damage, and always be vulnerable to running out of magic in a long battle (there are a few). Astronach stone bonus lets you absorb a lot of things, including dragon breath and hits from magical weapons. That is probably the choice to make once you no longer need the lover/mage/warrior/thief stones.

[Guest bkelm18]

Decided to play a bit and borrowed a friend's copy (Xbox 360). Too much game for me. I'd never played any of the previous games so I think I was behind the ball. I enjoy an open world game but having every little detail in the game purely up to me to build on is too much for my puny brain to handle and takes away from the enjoyment. I also found the graphics to be a bit lackluster, though I fully understand that to fit something that big on one disk, something's gotta give. I could definitely see where it could be fun if the player wasn't 110% at the helm, but it just wasn't my cup of tea.

[mav]

What major quest did you like most? I thought the Dark Brotherhood questline was good. The second playthough I decided to eliminate the Dark Brotherhood. That was really a downer. I thought there would be more to it.