Skyrim Master Difficulty Experience

[DraQ]

The game cheats like that-- it knows what your current resists are and the enemies adjust before the encounter accordingly.

Sounds like a reasonable workaround for AI not actually thinking like a human.

Then, of course, bethesda took out the spellmaker, attribs (attribute manipulation effects) and compound spells that would make this feature actually interesting by finally providing INTERESTING mage battles in bethesda games.




Will bethesda ever learn?

 

[Carrion]

dibens & Rhalle: Thanks, that was useful. I'm currently level 48 and my one-handed skill is at 97 or something, so completely switching to two-handed weapons at this point would probably be extremely dumb since I'm also wearing only light armor, but I'm no power gamer so I might try to eventually max out both weapon skills even if that means missing a few useful perks.

 

[Wyrmlord]

He's rough. You know who's worse? A Forsaken Briarheart I encountered last night while doing The Legend of Red Eagle quest at level 50. I have 600 armor and 500 hit points and he literally two-shotted me. I was like WTF!? I thought: Is he using some uber poison or something? And, sure enough, I took a poison immunity potion, and he did very little damage, and even took off running after a couple hits.

The game cheats like that-- it knows what your current resists are and the enemies adjust before the encounter accordingly.

I noticed the same thing as well with Alduin.

When I used Fire Resistance, Alduin used Frost Breath. When I used Frost and Fire Resistance, Alduin just used the bite attack.

Shouldn't the enemy first try to attack with its normal attack mode, see that it fails, and then shift to another attack mode?

It's why stealth and sneak attacks are the best way to deal with certain bosses in Skyrim. They are so beefed up that you NEVER EVER want to be fighting them up close, toe to toe, and face to face. They are meant to kill you instantly, leaving indirect solutions as the only response. Such as stealth or a mage who keeps dancing and running around.

 

[Rhalle]

When I used Fire Resistance, Alduin used Frost Breath. When I used Frost and Fire Resistance, Alduin just used the bite attack.

Shouldn't the enemy first try to attack with its normal attack mode, see that it fails, and then shift to another attack mode?

Yeah-- if they should change at all. The first time I noticed it was when I entered the Star for the Azura quest. I had frost and shock gear on-- but no fire, and the dremora in there just rained those exploding fireballs on me, making it pretty much impossible to win the encounter. So I reloaded and put on fire gear to go with frost and shock, and when I went in that time they didn't even cast a single spell, but only tried to melee me.

 

[Wyrmlord]

See, there's one good reason to get high enchanting. With high enchanting, you can put magic resistance on all your armour, making you effectively invulnerable to any dragon, dremora, hagraven, and archmage. Most dangerous enemies eliminated in a single stroke.

Mages don't need to do that, because they have Lesser Ward, but this is the only right way to survive for pure fighters.

Seriously, now that I think about the incredible benefits of Ward spells, playing as a mage seems to be the most obvious choice, while playing as anything else can seem like deliberately crippling yourself.

 

[dibens]

Enchanting is game breaking even on master difficulty. I made a two-handed weapon wielding guy without any armor; while it was quite challenging until 30ish levels, once you put dual enchants on clothes and get all the perk bonuses from Alteration that increase skin spells, you become a walking god.

 

[DragoFireheart]

Dual-wielding + Dual Flurry Perk + Elemental Fury Shout =

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQyHVyUOBTA

Whoever told you dual-wielding on Master is weak was either lying, ignorant, or a dumbfuck.

 

[DragoFireheart]

See, there's one good reason to get high enchanting. With high enchanting, you can put magic resistance on all your armour, making you effectively invulnerable to any dragon, dremora, hagraven, and archmage. Most dangerous enemies eliminated in a single stroke.

Mages don't need to do that, because they have Lesser Ward, but this is the only right way to survive for pure fighters.

Seriously, now that I think about the incredible benefits of Ward spells, playing as a mage seems to be the most obvious choice, while playing as anything else can seem like deliberately crippling yourself.

Spellbreaker bitch.

The game cheats like that-- it knows what your current resists are and the enemies adjust before the encounter accordingly.

Sounds like a reasonable workaround for AI not actually thinking like a human.

Then, of course, bethesda took out the spellmaker, attribs (attribute manipulation effects) and compound spells that would make this feature actually interesting by finally providing INTERESTING mage battles in bethesda games.




Will bethesda ever learn?

Perhaps they will introduce spellmaking in a DLC. In the DLC, you actually create NEW spells (like how some speculated dual-casting would create new effects) and not just re-creatng fireballs with a candlellight effect attached to it.

But yeah, taking out spellmaking was kinda retarded.

 

[flushfire]

Probably did it for balance. Just look how broken alchemy is.

 

[DraQ]

Probably did it for balance. Just look how broken alchemy is.

That's rather amusing, since alchemy has been broken since Morrowind, while spellmaking worked pretty nice there.

 

[Wyrmlord]

Dual-wielding + Dual Flurry Perk + Elemental Fury Shout =

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQyHVyUOBTA

Whoever told you dual-wielding on Master is weak was either lying, ignorant, or a dumbfuck.

I agree that dual wielding is strong. A new playthrough I did very much proves it. This game values speed and stopping power over actual damage. If you keep hitting too fast, enemies have no time to react.

However, there is no need to become super powerful in dual wielding One Handed. Stealth is more than enough.

He can kill each giant or mammoth in two to three blows? A stealthy person with much lower One Handed skill can kill each in one blow without ever getting noticed or caught.

And no, it won't be slower. With stealth rolling, you can move very fast and hit people one after another.

I was 15 feet away from Movarth the ancient vampire. Within one second, my blade was in his chest and he died. You can move very fast in stealth and hit and kill people very quickly.

 

[DragoFireheart]

Dual-wielding + Dual Flurry Perk + Elemental Fury Shout =

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQyHVyUOBTA

Whoever told you dual-wielding on Master is weak was either lying, ignorant, or a dumbfuck.

I agree that dual wielding is strong. A new playthrough I did very much proves it. This game values speed and stopping power over actual damage. If you keep hitting too fast, enemies have no time to react.

However, there is no need to become super powerful in dual wielding One Handed. Stealth is more than enough.

He can kill each giant or mammoth in two to three blows? A stealthy person with much lower One Handed skill can kill each in one blow without ever getting noticed or caught.

And no, it won't be slower. With stealth rolling, you can move very fast and hit people one after another.

I was 15 feet away from Movarth the ancient vampire. Within one second, my blade was in his chest and he died. You can move very fast in stealth and hit and kill people very quickly.

Well yeah, stealth + illusion magic has almost always been overpowered in ES games. They did sneak attacks some justice in this one though.

 

[Rhalle]

Elemental Fury Shout

That's the best thing in the game. My current dude is another melee Nord-- this time 2h and Light Armor, with Alchemy/Smithing/Enchanting/Speech and 30% MR from the Alteration tree.

Legendary Nord Hero Sword and lvl 3 Elemental Fury (and Storm Call for the civil war seiges) is win.

walking god

That, basically.

 

[Raghar]

Probably did it for balance. Just look how broken alchemy is.

That's rather amusing, since alchemy has been broken since Morrowind, while spellmaking worked pretty nice there.

Aka you can't abuse Skyrim that much.

Mages don't need to do that, because they have Lesser Ward, but this is the only right way to survive for pure fighters.

Seriously, now that I think about the incredible benefits of Ward spells, playing as a mage seems to be the most obvious choice, while playing as anything else can seem like deliberately crippling yourself.

They can break wards, and when ward breaks it's quite noisy, which is quite bad for stealth approach. They massivelly simpified enchanting. All these weapons that needs to be recharged, and all that easy access broken it a lot more than what you two are complaining about.

 

[wynams]

Excuse the 8 month bump as I arrived at this thread from googling skyrim master difficulty as I am just now at a point in life to have some time to devote to playing.

From a week or so with the game, I am finding a good challenge/reward ratio from my warrior on master (1H/Block/Heavy/Archery/Respite in Resto tree). I tried to level 15ish, a destruction mage, who really began to struggle on master vs most everything. I found the game trivial as a conjurer watching my summons play Skyrim as they say.

From what I am reading here, and link below is that even on master, once smithing/alchemy/enchanting get to 100 the game will become trivial on master.

I am curious as to the findings of others "most viable play-thru to level 81" settings despite all these imbalances:

• difficulty slider affects all NPCs: horses, followers, summoned pets increased mitigation with higher difficulty actually makes game easier on master (solution: don't be a conjurer, use followers or involve guards/horses/allies in fights where possible)
• destruction magic does not scale nearly as well as melee/archery. While there are perks to up damage in destruction, there is no way you will ever approach the melee DPS numbers listed here http://forums.bethsoft.com/topic/12...ng-smithing-alchemy-enchanting-only-31-perks/
• the synergy of smithing, alchemy and enchanting are game-breaking

I hated constantly adjusting difficulty in Oblivion, but that seems to be Bethesda's solution to tailoring playthroughs to one's needs.

PS: Would love to hear from someone who has taken a pure mage that does not use followers and has maxed out alch/ench/smith and does not faceroll master difficulty

 

[Heresiarch]

PS: Would love to hear from someone who has taken a pure mage that does not use followers and has maxed out alch/ench/smith and does not faceroll master difficulty

I'm a pure mage that use followers but do not mainly depend on them, and has maxed out only enchant, and have played through mostly on normal difficulty, but also did some semi-extensive research on the master difficulty.

What I can say is the game is NOT balanced toward master difficulty for a PURE mage, due to:
- Destruction spell damage is fixed (they actually work fine on normal, but definitely not on master).
- The game does NOT increase NPC (including your follower and summonings) HP, it only decreases YOUR damage and increases THEIR damage. Which means you're greatly gimped, but your follower and summonings will do MUCH more damage on master, thus greatly increase their effectiveness.

If you're playing as a pure mage, I don't recommend you play on master or even hard, because the game is not balanced on such a combination. Actually the whole game is most balanced if you're playing as a mage on normal.

 

[Edwin]

I'm a pure mage that use followers but do not mainly depend on them, and has maxed out only enchant, and have played through mostly on normal difficulty, but also did some semi-extensive research on the master difficulty.

What I can say is the game is NOT balanced toward master difficulty for a PURE mage, due to:
- Destruction spell damage is fixed (they actually work fine on normal, but definitely not on master).
- The game does NOT increase NPC (including your follower and summonings) HP, it only decreases YOUR damage and increases THEIR damage. Which means you're greatly gimped, but your follower and summonings will do MUCH more damage on master, thus greatly increase their effectiveness.

If you're playing as a pure mage, I don't recommend you play on master or even hard, because the game is not balanced on such a combination. Actually the whole game is most balanced if you're playing as a mage on normal.

mage is best just summon a lot

get necromancer dead thralls(2) they will raise their own thralls too,steal a companion(with active quest and equip him/aela with high stealing skillz),your normal companion with daedra summoning wand+the daedra(sheogorats staff or wtf),+barbas+shadowmere and you can probably find other nasty tricks too

if you have an army destruction is just for the show

 

[Heresiarch]

Summon is best because using it is essentially exploiting the whole game.

AI would ignore you while keep whacking at your summonings. You're exploiting the AI.

Your summonings are stronger at higher difficulties. You're exploiting the game difficulty setting.

There's no banishment spell (that the NPC will use anyway) and summoning stuffs are instant. You're exploiting the game's spell system.

So yeah, relying on conjuration is powerful but not fun at all.

 

[abnaxus]

Does "pure mage" include wearing robes? Since it would mean your mages getting one-shotted by every enemy archer on Master, considering max armour rating you can get is 350 which is zilch.

 

[sea]

Does "pure mage" include wearing robes? Since it would mean your mages getting one-shotted by every enemy archer on Master, considering max armour rating you can get is 350 which is zilch.

Yep, playing pure mage with robes sucks and is extremely unbalanced. My mage got one-shotted even by most high-level archers on normal. I stopped playing that character or just turned on god mode because it was just idiotic after a while. Combined with a lack of any benefits with Enchanting or Smithig for mages, lack of spell creation, lack of spell damage scaling, and potions, mages are just exceptionally broken in Skyrim. Better to play a spellsword, you literally suffer no benefits whatsoever from wearing heavy armour etc.

 

[Zed]

Does "pure mage" include wearing robes? Since it would mean your mages getting one-shotted by every enemy archer on Master, considering max armour rating you can get is 350 which is zilch.

Yep, playing pure mage with robes sucks and is extremely unbalanced. My mage got one-shotted even by most high-level archers on normal. I stopped playing that character or just turned on god mode because it was just idiotic after a while. Combined with a lack of any benefits with Enchanting or Smithig for mages, lack of spell creation, lack of spell damage scaling, and potions, mages are just exceptionally broken in Skyrim. Better to play a spellsword, you literally suffer no benefits whatsoever from wearing heavy armour etc.

aren't there any good armor spells?

 

[Average Manatee]

Does "pure mage" include wearing robes? Since it would mean your mages getting one-shotted by every enemy archer on Master, considering max armour rating you can get is 350 which is zilch.

Yep, playing pure mage with robes sucks and is extremely unbalanced. My mage got one-shotted even by most high-level archers on normal. I stopped playing that character or just turned on god mode because it was just idiotic after a while. Combined with a lack of any benefits with Enchanting or Smithig for mages, lack of spell creation, lack of spell damage scaling, and potions, mages are just exceptionally broken in Skyrim. Better to play a spellsword, you literally suffer no benefits whatsoever from wearing heavy armour etc.

aren't there any good armor spells?

The problem is that Skyrim (and Oblivion/FO3 before it) use a crappy armor system where you get a static amount of damage reduction % per armor. Getting 300 armor only provides 36% damage reduction, or a 50% increase in survivability. A 600 armor warrior/thief (which only requires you to wear 500 armor, each piece adds a hidden +25 on its own) provides 72% damage reduction, or a 350% increase in survivability. And keep in mind that 300 armor for a caster is end game level. A starting caster who uses half their mana on a low level spell might get 80 armor, for a whole 10% damage reduction.

 

[Spectacle]

TES has always had the "battlemage" archetype, a mage that wears heavy armor. That appears to be the only viable mage in Skyrim. Enchant that armor to reduce destruction spell cost and you can go to town with lightning bolts!

And yeah, skyrim's armor system is retarded, the damage reduction should scale with incoming damage rather than being an absolute percentage.

 

[DraQ]

How does Skyrim's armour system work exactly? I know MW's had pretty nice way of calculating damage depending on AR (shame about no locations), I know oblivious used shitty percentage, but I thought Skyrim tried a hybrid of sorts?

 

[Icewater]

Actual damage reduction is 12% of your total armor rating, so yeah it's a shitty percentage too. They just thought they'd be clever if they hid it.