z22
2921
The patch address the horrible quick keys problems when trying to use dual weapons, not to mention the off-by-one error in the UI lists? Ack.
At least they are releasing more mod tools. I’ll fix the damn thing myself.
Imryll
2922
I was sorry not to see any rebalancing, but it looks like this patch is all about getting things to work at a basic level. I imagine “improvements” will come later.
My problem here is that the highest level spells (at least at one point) are all AoE, which means going out w/o a companion or having to take some chances. It’s a pain.
Fortunately, it’s not all that hard to generate the gold to train it up rather than be forced to level by use only.
Hammet
2924
I think it would be wonderful if followers that are mages could equip something that wasn’t a helmet. I may be Arch-Mage of the College and The Chosen One of Azura but I can’t get mah li’l priestess of Azura to put on that awesome awesome (and purty) tiara of Magic if my life depended on it.
OTOH - I just picked her up again and now she’s soloing Frost Trolls and Bandit Marauders all of a sudden so I guess I’ll let her keep that Scaled Helmet and enchant it when she’s not looking.
What I hated was that one of the best pieces of loot in the game for a mage, the Dragon Priest mask you get from the College questline, is counted as light armor!
I’m a cloth-wearer, dammit! My double-strength stone/ebonyflesh spell perk is useless if I put armor on, but it’s too awesome and useful not to wear it.
If you’re talking Adept level, the Cloak spells will do the trick.
Which element(s) are you focusing on? If you use a lot of fire, bring a Dunmer, they’re 50% resistant. If you’re using Frost… why the hell are you using frost? Like half the enemies in the game are resistant to Frost! Lightning, well Chain Lightning isn’t AoE. You just have to make sure there’s at least two enemies, and hit the one furthest from your companion so it arcs to the other.
Once you get to expert, you’re good to go, since you have the Wall spells AND the direct damage spells. Use them both on the same enemy for double efficiency!
Then get master as soon as you can. The Master spells for each school are supposed to be available at 90, though one of them only unlocked for me at 100, and right now I can’t for the life of me remember if it was Destruction or something else. :\
Hammet
2927
Yeah well, my high elf mage specializes in 1H, Light Armor, Destruction, Smithing and Restoration and The Mask works just fine for him ;-)
Even if I wish Glass Armor didn’t look like as silly as it does. If someone could just remove those humongous shoulder pads I’d be fine with it, now I’m tempted to go crazy on smithing and get me that Dragon Scale armor already. Just because I fry and decapitate people and burn zombies to a crisp on a regular basis doesn’t mean I don’t want to look good. Y’know?
Heh, picked up Mjoll as a follower and man, she’s awesome. After a bloody battle in a tower where we’re standing next to a pile of four dead bandits with another slumped up against a wall with his head rolling over the floor, Mjoll cheerily tells me how happy she is and how she really missed this life. Atta girl.
Just wanted to mention that “Summon Dremora” is awfully fun in a pinch … especially when you can summon two of them.
You’re more of a battlemage, then. I always play a pure mage my first time through games like this. If I can succeed, and even thrive, with no armor and never touching a physical weapon, then I know the magic system was well designed. With some minor caveats, Skyrim was successful in this.
Last week I finally encountered a guard in Skyrim who told me that he took an arrow to the knee. I’d heard the meme so many times that I actually stopped playing for a second and cheered! Yay! I encountered an arrow to the knee comment! Finally!
On the same topic, Game Theory tackles the topic from a historic perspective and uncovers the culprit behind the arrows.
The skyrim wiki states that the cloak spells don’t harm allies. Is that true? I’ve not tested it.
Had a great dragon fight last night. Sometimes they can be a little anticlimactic but this one was terrific. I attacked a Forsworn camp and about halfway through the battle a (high-level) dragon came roaring over the mountains. I had to dodge flames and finish off the Forsworn while Lydia harassed the dragon with her bow. It was a long fight. It started in the middle of the night and lasted well through dawn. I ran through every healing potion I had and almost all of my glass and ebony arrows. Finally I had the thing on the ground. And then I got greedy. I wanted to be a hero. I rushed in with my dragon-killin’ sword. Hit it with a FUS RO DAH, then power-attacked. It lunged; I blocked with my shield. It was down to the tiniest sliver of health–I went in for the final swing and CUT to animation of dragon snatching me up and tossing me aside like a ragdoll. Fade to black.
Next time, dragon.
jemann
2933
It’s true. Unfortunately you have to be pretty close for it to work, and the damage output is minimal - best used for that extra edge in melee.
The following is a potential spoiler, so I normally wouldn’t bring it up here and as such I’m hiding it. However …
minor spoiler
… there is one quest-oriented usage of a cloak which can hurt your allies.
I finally get some decent offensive spells, and keep killing Lydia…
Which of the dialogue options lets me let her go temporarily, and try out someone else, but with the option to get her back later?
Squee
2936
The one that isn’t “Wait here”. Something like “I no longer need your services”. She’ll just go back to the jarl’s house in Whiterun, or if you have a house, there.
With perks and high destruction, the damage is more “moderate” than “minimal”. It saved my mage countless times. Anyone my spells didn’t kill before they reached me would be low on health, so at most they’d get in one or two hits before my cloak finished them off.
Heh, I see this said a lot, and while it is true that like half the things in the game resist frost damage there is still a reason for using it: frost damage has a secret passive where every time you hit someone with it their movement and attack speed is slowed by 50% for a few seconds no matter how much damage you actually did. A weapon with frost damage is like having a permanent slowing poison on it, which I quite like for my bow.
Yep, and fire does “burn” damage over time and lightning does magicka damage. I’ll never know why they didn’t spell out the frost benefits.
They do on the loading screens, but nowhere else.
Also, you figure it out yourself anyhow when you get hit by every single magic wielding person in the game, since they all seem to use frost on you.
