I’ve been playing it over the last week and I’m having fun with it, but I’m starting to get my ass kicked pretty bad in some fights, and I need some help. Non spoiler if you can.
My guy is a custom class, who uses restoration, hand to hand, and destruction for attacks. Right now I’m using a spell that knocks out fatigue and one that takes off health,but either one isn’t doing much right now. I’m also using heavy armor which could be the reason.
So I’m lvl 11 right now, what should I do spell wise to help me out? More importantly I’ve read in pcgamer about some mods, and was wondering what are some mods the people here like? I got a coupon for the horse armor for free from eb, are the other chargeable mods worth it? Lastly did I screw my self up by choosing hand to hand( which is at journey man right now)?
Have you done any of the Mage’s guild quests? Without any spoilers, you will be given some pretty decent spells (and be given access to purchasing better ones as well) as you work through those.
Also, I always suggest the Arena missions for combat practice if you haven’t done them either. They force you to get good, and let you prepare yourself beforehand so you can intentionally try new strategies each time.
My personal experience with the purchasable expansions has be one of dissastisfaction to be honest. They give you more “stuff” (and the Mage’s Tower and Pirate’s Cove gives you some pretty good stuff) but nore really more things to do. shrug Depends on what you want, I guess. The Mage’s Tower in particular is worthwhile if you don’t plan on progressing far in the Mage’s Guild quest line anytime soon, as it gives you access to some perks you wouldn’t get otherwise.
Don’t know about hand-to-hand. I chose big swords myself. Remember in Oblivion you’re not stuck with just your most proficient skill. Maybe getting yourself a nice dagger of explosiveness (+burn damage or something) or a staff with some powerful destruction spells charged in it would be helpful for those particularly difficult battles.
The best advice I ever saw in here on Oblivion is not be afraid of the difficulty slider.
Oblivion on its default difficulty seems rather geared towards heavily-armored, sword-swinging melee types, or some kind of seriously-twinked mage. Playing it sneaky, as I prefer to do, isn’t quite as well-supported; I found that even sneak attack wasn’t doing me a lot of good around level 10.
So far I’ve had some luck running backwards and shooting fireballs. I had to do that when 3 trolls attacked me at once. I did punch an orc to death . I’m getting close to finshing the fighter’s guild quest.
My pure mage spent quite a bit of time running backwards casting spells during combat, even with a summoned creature to help. Reminded me of playing a rogue in the original Diablo.
Yeah, running backwards and casting fireballs is actually a pretty good strategy at early levels. Also, I don’t think that knocking out an opponent’s fatigue will help you that much. Go after their health and elemental weaknesses instead. Better to kill them than tire them out.
Also, if you’d like to do more melee, you might want to spend a few levels going through the arena quests. That can give you good practice in melee skills, though you may want to go in with some healnig potions.
Yeah, seconded. About the only stat-killer item I recommend is the Poison of Severing, which is a big fuck-you to any spellcaster you encounter. Anything else is really a waste of an action that you could be using to do more damage.
Debuffs aren’t much good in Oblivion, sadly. You do not want fights to be going on for so long that debuffs are an issue.
I’m still playing my first character, only at level 11 right now, using a thief/assassin who pretty much sneaks everywhere. I can hit most characters with my bow from a pretty long distance. One very helpful item is a helmet of life detection (or some such description) - I keep wearing it even though its armor rating is down to zero, because it allows me to see the “evil-doers” around corners, etc. and set us sneak attacks on them. Luvvin’ it.
The main thing is that as soon as you hit level 10 the difficulty spikes. You go from imps and goblins to mountain lions and regenerating trolls. Unless you are Combat McSwordy, expect to spend some time in the cities catching up to the world.
I also chose Destruction for my custom class. In order of importance: Shock, Fire, Frost. These are the types of damage you want to do the most often. Later on, you’ll discover that certain damage types are better against some enemies than others, but in the beginning, fire spells are your best weapon against most everything you encounter.
So what is a good number for intelligence to use spells? I have intell around 51, and will power 48 and I can barely cast 2 fire bolt spells before I run out of magic. Also does anyone know how strong your fist become depending on how high your strength is?
More Intelligence is always better, but it’s just as (if not more) imporant to increase your Destruction skill. The higher your Destruction, the less magicka those Destruction spells will cost you.
I’m having a problem figuring out the stat bonuses when you level. I use spells all the time for my mage, and still his int and will hardly ever show +5. What am I doing wrong?
I’d also like to add that becoming proficient at repairing your own armor is VERY useful. When dungeon romping especially it’s a great idea to fix up your weapons and armor after a very heavy encounter which can damage both quite a bit sometimes. It’s also a lot cheaper to fix your own stuff once you get better at it.
Every attribute is affected by three skills. For Intelligence it’s Alchemy, Conjuration and Mysticism. To get a +5 modifier when you level up you have to have increased those three skills in combination a total of 10 times. Any combination will do.
So if you improve Alchemy by 4, Conjuration by 4 and Mysticism by 2 you’ll get the +5 when it comes to leveling up. If you improve just one of them by 10 it’ll have the same effect.
Note also that if you get the message to rest and level up then any skill improvements after that will not contribute to your bonus. You have to train up all your skills before the level up message for them to count for that level.
Yeah, a handy hint is to carry a load of repair hammers and when you kill an enemy pick up all his armour/weapons, repair them, and then throw the stuff you don’t want away.
One thing that I’m noticing is that the only easy to build up a spell skill is to just have one as your major. With destruction and restoration, it’s taking forever for them to raise up. I think I might just make a spellcaster with destruction and conjuration spells.
I’ve been thinking and from a logistics point of view, it’s got to be maddening to try and play a pure mage(all spell line major skill) Just with the fact that you only have 8( or9?) hot keys. Also I think it’s annoying that you can’t hold a shield without a weapon in your hand.
After remaking my custom class 5 times, I’ve come to the conclusion that you screw yourself if you go for all melee, or all magic. Which is a bit disapointing for me. I’ve settle on a 2h sword user who uses illusion and destruction magic, which seems to be working so far.
Thanks for the info, Daly. It seems like that system makes it hard to get the bonuses if you are a straight mage (for example). I mean you have 3 skills that use INT in your majors. Assuming you only level them, you will level as soon as you get them to the +5 point, and that’s without leveling any of your other majors, right? So, the best system would seem to be to create a custom character that had only one or two of the three possible stat-set skills as majors. That way you can raise the third to get the bonus without raising a level before you are able to get it.
I’m not trying to min/max necessarily, but I don’t want to get screwed either. The current system makes that easy. Plus, I had no idea how it works. It’s in the manual, but reads pretty vague.
