Skyrim V: Skyrim

[Blackdrop]

Here's a question: Has it always been if you enchant an already tempered item, you keep the tempering?

[Avilan the Grey]

Difference in difficulty...

I have pulled two of four characters to lvl 5. Silent-Wind did the golden claw, while Ingegard joined the companions directly and went after the Wuthraad fragments. Boy what a difference. It is quite obvious that the Wuthraad dungeon is geared to say lvl 8-12 minimum (even with Farkas!); I had a heck of a time trying to make her survive in Iron armor and steel sword. (I am also not that used to melee, so it took awhile to block correctly). Silent-Wind sailed through the Burrow easily in the meantime.

[Triaxx]

It's all down to strategy. The thing is that the Silver hand is mostly hand to hand, which means you can duck back to avoid attacks.

[Avilan the Grey]

It's all down to strategy. The thing is that the Silver hand is mostly hand to hand, which means you can duck back to avoid attacks.

True; but they are a few levels higher than the monsters you find in Bleak Falls Barrrow. As a lvl 2 character... it was tough. Real tough. Also, here I spotted the difference in AI after modding the game; they (the silver hand) definitely were more alert, and much better at ganging up on me than in Vanilla.

[DiscipleofBob]

A few questions:

1) Where's a good place to get Daedra Hearts? I need to finish my Daedric Armor set. Even if I'm going to reach Dragon Armor levels of smithing in a bit.

2) I'm playing an unarmed Kajit build. I'm already almost done with the Smithing tree. Is it worth anything to do the Enchantment tree as well? I do have the enchantment which adds unarmed damage to my gauntlets, but I was just wondering if investing a ton in Enchantment would make any real difference there.

[Flickerdart]

2) I'm playing an unarmed Kajit build. I'm already almost done with the Smithing tree. Is it worth anything to do the Enchantment tree as well? I do have the enchantment which adds unarmed damage to my gauntlets, but I was just wondering if investing a ton in Enchantment would make any real difference there.

Yes, it's worth it - using the Alchemy/Enchantment loop you can supercharge that enchantment, and then it works double because you can put it on both gloves and a ring.

[DiscipleofBob]

Yes, it's worth it - using the Alchemy/Enchantment loop you can supercharge that enchantment, and then it works double because you can put it on both gloves and a ring.

Not familiar with that loop.

How does the "supercharge" work? What perks will I need?

[Calemyr]

Not familiar with that loop.

How does the "supercharge" work? What perks will I need?

There are two Alchemy/Enchant loops and one trick. One is intentional and powerful, but not too powerful. The other is an obvious bug that can break the game in half and allow your character to do the same to anything.

Legitimate loop: Craft Fortify Alchemy gear, use it to make Fortify Enchanting potions. Repeat a couple times. Unless you pair it with a bug, diminishing returns will cap this out at about +29% enchanting bonus, so it's pretty good, but never gets too insane. I refer to this as "godsmithing", myself, as the result dwarfs anything the daedra can offer, but is still not beyond reason.

Exploit loop: Detailed earlier. Basically, use fortify restoration potions, which (due to an oversight in the code) buffs any Fortify enchantments, including Fortify Alchemy. Make potion, drink potion, take off gear, leave menu, return to menu, put on gear, repeat. Unlike the legitimate loop, this one has exponential growth rather than diminishing returns. It's a good way to influence console games, given the lack of console commands or mods, but it is also too powerful to really consider even vaguely legitimate.

Trick: The falmer helmet and pentius oculus helmet do not fill the circlet slot, allowing you to equip both it and a circlet. This can push the legitimate loop further (about 35%), but it's still capped.

Maxing out enchanting is very useful, because the Twin Enchant perks allows you to craft some very good gear.

Also, for unarmed Khajiit build, you likely won't want to go beyond Daedric, at least for your gloves. The Iron Fist perk from Heavy Armor uses the unmodified armor of your gauntlets to determine the bonus - your skill, perks, and upgrades don't factor into it. So the best you can really get is the +18 from Daedric gauntlets. Since the Daedric gauntlets also have clawed finger, it probably also looks rather badass when using a khajiit's clawing unarmed animation.

[Lord Loss]

A few questions:

Where's a good place to get Daedra Hearts? I need to finish my Daedric Armor set. Even if I'm going to reach Dragon Armor levels of smithing in a bit.

Alright, you know the Companions HQ? There's a Daedra Heart there, that respawns every few weeks. The only trouble is that it's stealing unless you're the leader of the companions. I forget exactly what room it's in, but check all the tables.

Secondly, you can get a ton of Daedra Hearts from the Daedric Quest in which you're asked to come see a museum of Mythic Dawn stuff, including some Daedra that respawn over and over so you can keep getting hearts. Assuming you don't mind murdering some poor chap who's a little too obsessed with the Mythic Dawn, that is.

Finally, you can buy them off the illegal stuffs merchant at the Mage College, I can't seem to remember his name. He's an elf, and he sells for a high price, but that's one way of getting things.

Just got my full set myself. Also a question of my own: Is dual-wielding Daedric Axes a good idea? I've been using magic (restoration, Conjuration, a tad bit of destruction) in the other.

[Calemyr]

Also a question of my own: Is dual-wielding Daedric Axes a good idea? I've been using magic (restoration, Conjuration, a tad bit of destruction) in the other.

It would look awesome, that's for sure. Dual wielding is very effective if you're going for an all-out aggressive style, but the loss of any defensive or arcane options can hurt. There's also the animation glitch for dual wielding, where the idle stance doesn't match any of the animations, resulting in a lot of jittering. That might just be swords, though, in which case it wouldn't matter to you.

[A Rainy Knight]

1) Where's a good place to get Daedra Hearts? I need to finish my Daedric Armor set. Even if I'm going to reach Dragon Armor levels of smithing in a bit.

In addition to the ones Lord Loss mentioned, if you happen to be Listener of the Dark Brotherhood, I think Babette starts selling them as well.

[The_Jackal]

Any dual wield build should, IMO, use a dagger in the off-hand, and a longer weapon in the main hand. That's because the dual-attack speed, including your power attack, is determined by the speed of your offhand weapon. You'll lose a bit of reach in the off-hand, but the gain in speed is more than worth the sacrifice.

Oh, and Deadra Hearts?

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Daedra_Heart

[Calemyr]

Any dual wield build should, IMO, use a dagger in the off-hand, and a longer weapon in the main hand. That's because the dual-attack speed, including your power attack, is determined by the speed of your offhand weapon. You'll lose a bit of reach in the off-hand, but the gain in speed is more than worth the sacrifice.

That's only a factor if you're going to min-max it, and even then utterly fails to account for the dagger's curious absence from the Fortify One Handed enchantment and specialization perks (for what they're worth). If you're going for style or sheer power, a little speed isn't a big sacrifice.

With care and cleverness, you can forge a character that can effectively fight in any style, really, even unarmed or pure destruction. Probably not all that powerfully, but still sufficient to the needs of an Adept difficulty setting. If you up the difficulty, of course, you get what you deserve in terms of shifting balance.

[Triaxx]

One of the reasons I favor heavy armor for dual wielders, counter intuitive as it sounds, is because of the way the attack animations work, you simply don't have the maneuverability available to take advantage of the lower weight of light armor. So having the much heavier armor early on to absorb the blows you'll take is really helpful.

And for unarmed, basically you want Khajiit, Heavy Armor perk and the unarmed damage boost enchantment. Which means you're essentially set.

Now for me, I've found a new favorite quest. Which happens to be Light's Out. That's the one in Solitude for Jaree-Ra. And it's not the first two parts that are that impressive, though hunting in the fog is quite entertaining. No, it's the last part. Hunting Blackblood Marauders in the huge cave is fun beyond belief. Especially for a steatlh archer. It's possible to whittle them down to just two people.

There are a couple of mods that make this more fun. One of these is Craftable Water Arrows. It lets you take one ale, and thirty iron arrows and create thirty water arrows. These will put out the activatable torch sconces. The ones from which you can remove the torches. This means you can shoot out the lights and be the only one that can see. The other mod that makes it fun is one that allows you to toggle the Khajiit Night eye on and off. It also gives you a very short duration Detect Life.

It's just such an atmospheric quest. It almost feels more fun for a sneak thief than the actual Guild Quests.

[DigoDragon]

Now for me, I've found a new favorite quest. Which happens to be Light's Out.

Light's Out you say? As a stealthy Khajiit archer, I'll have to make a note to head out to Solitude after my current quest. That sounds like my kind of mission!


I do a lot of jewelry crafting for cash and always seem to run out of available merchants to buy my items, but recently I found a hilarious use for these trinkets. What I do is quietly drop one in a dungeon and then wait for a bandit/guard/etc. to walk by on patrol. They'll see it and pick it up, exposing their back to me.
I sneak attack them, loot the ring, and drop it again for the next victim.

I love this game.

[Lord Loss]

How should I enchant my dual axes? And I,ve upgraded my Daedric Axe to Legendary, without enchanting it. I have Arcane Blacksmith, does that mean I can re-upgrade it once I enchant it? Or what?

I'm thinking something like Fire on one Axe and Life-Stealing on the other, that or bringing my enchanting up to 100 for the Dual Enchanting Perk and then just going crazy.

[nhbdy]

Light's Out you say? As a stealthy Khajiit archer, I'll have to make a note to head out to Solitude after my current quest. That sounds like my kind of mission!


I do a lot of jewelry crafting for cash and always seem to run out of available merchants to buy my items, but recently I found a hilarious use for these trinkets. What I do is quietly drop one in a dungeon and then wait for a bandit/guard/etc. to walk by on patrol. They'll see it and pick it up, exposing their back to me.
I sneak attack them, loot the ring, and drop it again for the next victim.

I love this game.

that actually sounds feasible, leaving a shiny out where a greedy outlaw can see it, just to lure them into a trap.... I'm so glad that bethesda thought to include them going for stuff like that!

[Avilan the Grey]

that actually sounds feasible, leaving a shiny out where a greedy outlaw can see it, just to lure them into a trap.... I'm so glad that bethesda thought to include them going for stuff like that!

Funniest is to see when someone discovers it by accident. At least two let's plays I have seen a person have just dumped stuff in a bandit dungeon and then to their amusement watched the bandits starting to kill each other over a magic axe.

[Rake21]

This was actually prety damn funny:

So, last night, while playing as Kral the hammer-wielding orc, I came across a miner named Perth asking for help clearing out a tunnel. Apparently, while mining, they'd dug into a Drugar ruin and **** had gotten bad fast. Kral, being a friendly and somewhat smash-happy kind of guy, agreed to deal with the undead. What followed was the usual crushing that happens during his quests.

Upon exiting the now safe mine, if a little more corpse-y, Perth paid my orc for a job well done. And then a frost dragon landed and tragically bit Perth in half. Kral, having none of that, charged the dragon. After a brief fight, Kral dodged a frost breath and stumbled into the mine (because I kind of suck at this game).

So, after waiting through another loading screen, Kral comes back out to find that the dragon is gone. In it's place is a naked courier with a message for the orc. A letter of inheritence 200 gold, to be specific.

From Perth.

Who had known Kral for less than 15 minutes.

Who had been dead for less than 2 minutes.

That... that's some postage system they have in the reach.

[Avilan the Grey]

So I gave the most important tip to a friend about to buy Skyrim: ALWAYS carry a bow, no matter what class you are. Even if you only use it to shoot sleeping Draugr.

[The Underlord]

I have a question. How many mods at once is normal for people?

[Calemyr]

I have a question. How many mods at once is normal for people?

I generally average around 50. More than that and stability starts to suffer.

[Morty]

So far I've only installed a mod that changes the Ward spells so they only drain mana when something hits them. I prefer to get a feel of the game before modding.

[Lord Loss]

So I gave the most important tip to a friend about to buy Skyrim: ALWAYS carry a bow, no matter what class you are. Even if you only use it to shoot sleeping Draugr.

So true! My axe-wielder with an aptitude for magic has been saved so many times by his trusty bow (named IN THE KNEE )... which I recently lost and haven't got around to making a new one. I should do that.

[The Underlord]

Also does anyone know of a mod that removes the requirement that you have to have completed the main quest to get the ebony blade? Preferably one that does not change the stats of the blade itself(I already have a mod that makes it one-handed)

[pffh]

Also does anyone know of a mod that removes the requirement that you have to have completed the main quest to get the ebony blade? Preferably one that does not change the stats of the blade itself(I already have a mod that makes it one-handed)

Well with the editor you can easily edit the quest triggers yourself.

[Calemyr]

Also does anyone know of a mod that removes the requirement that you have to have completed the main quest to get the ebony blade? Preferably one that does not change the stats of the blade itself(I already have a mod that makes it one-handed)

Ebony blade shouldn't be a post-game item. It's available in the teens (12 or 15, don't remember which - looked it up and it's level 20) and is attained via the barkeep at the Bannered Mare. no dragons are necessary.

Edit: I take that back - One dragon necessary, the one at the watch tower.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

So far I've only installed a mod that changes the Ward spells so they only drain mana when something hits them. I prefer to get a feel of the game before modding.

Oooh, can you link to the mod? Does the amount of mana drained depend on the damage of the attack?

[Calemyr]

Oooh, can you link to the mod? Does the amount of mana drained depend on the damage of the attack?

Here. And yes it does.

[The Underlord]

Ebony blade shouldn't be a post-game item. It's available in the teens (12 or 15, don't remember which - looked it up and it's level 20) and is attained via the barkeep at the Bannered Mare. no dragons are necessary.

Edit: I take that back - One dragon necessary, the one at the watch tower.

*facepalm* When I look at Skyrim Wiki, I thought it just said under requirements "Main Quest Completed'. Missed the 'Dragons rising' Part.