Enchantment advise sought

MordorMan · Post by **MordorMan** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 1:57 pm

Hello!

I have just breached the 50 barrier for my armorer skill (thank you...thank you) so now I am off to the Arcane Uni to have my stuff enchanted. It did not seem a like good idea to have enchanted gear you can not repair yourself.

So now I am at loss. So many possibilities.... I paricularly want to enchant my fantastic bronze amazon armour and my awesome pirate saber. What would be good enchantments? Feather is nice for armour, or is a strength boost smarter? For the blade, I am thinking about having it absorbing health on strike. Or maybe weakness to fire/frost/shock combined with fire/frost/shock? Which would be more effective? In general, is it a good idea to combine effects? For example, is weakness to fire + fire damage better than just fire damage (but higher damage of course)? Are natural weaknesses to those elemental forces evenly distributed among the creatures and humanoids of Tamriel? Is either fire, frost or shock preferable? Or maybe damage a vital attribute? Paralyze would be nice, but unfortunately I don't have that spell.

I do think the aim should not be to enchant a weapon to be a one-hit killer. That will only work against weak enemies and the weapon will be empty of charges before you reach the end-of-level boss. Especially against the tough enemies the weapon enchantment should be of help, I believe.

Any good advice will be appreciated. I can only enchant my gear once, you know. Better do it right.

Greetings,

M

Belthan · Post by **Belthan** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 7:05 pm

As a rule, the extra carrying capacity you get with a Fortify Strength enchantment is just as much as you would get with a Feather enchantment using the same size soul gem, with the added benefit of doing more damage when you whack things.

Different creatures do have varying natural resistance to different effects. Resistance is much more common among daedra, undead and the like than among humanoids and natural creatures, but you never know when you'll run into a necromancer with a ring of fire resistance or a marauder with boots of grounding. Absorb health is an excellent choice because it works on almost everything (plus it heals you while it hurts them).

Damage attribte can be useful as long as you damage the right attribute and damage it a lot. If you can take somebody's fatigue down to 0, it's the same as paralyzing them without a paralyze spell (plus they do a nice little ragdoll flop to the ground instead of keeling over stiff-as-a-board). Presumably damaging their strength sufficiently would cause them to become over-encumberd (and therefore immobile) but I've never actually tried that one.

MordorMan · Post by **MordorMan** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 2:00 am

Damage strength could be a nice one. It will immobilize enemies if their gear becomes too heavy and it lessens the damage they do to you. It doesn't work well against magic users, but they can be better handled with arrows anyway.

Come to think of it, the 'damage fatigue' effect also has the bonus that the enemy does less damage every time. If I recall correctly, you will do less damage with weapons if you are fatigued.

Between 'damage strength' and 'damage fatigue', I wonder which of the two is more effective. An enemy usually has more fatigue than strength, I believe. But probably taking damaging strength costs more magica than damaging fatigue..

Have you ever seen enemies drop things if they are over-encumbered? I believe you are still able to handle a weapon if you are over-encumbered? At least you can heal yourself when you are over-encumbered, so in that respect 'damage fatigue' would be better than 'damage strength'.

Imposter · Post by **Imposter** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 2:12 pm

MordorMan wrote:I do think the aim should not be to enchant a weapon to be a one-hit killer. That will only work against weak enemies and the weapon will be empty of charges before you reach the end-of-level boss. Especially against the tough enemies the weapon enchantment should be of help, I believe.

Pillage some Elvish ruins to get Varla Stones (these are the white/yellow ones) to recharge all your magic items. So if you enchanted 2 bows and 2 swords of the same stuff. You could run one of each down to 0 charges, switch to the other and run it down. Then use a Varla Stone to bring them all back up to 100% for free. Varla Stones weigh 1 "feather" and typically (for me) come about 2 per ruins. I rarely use them, since I usually kill a whole dungeon before I run out of charges, or I will switch to my regular uncharged bow.

Just as a side note, Welkynd Stones recharge your magicka, weigh 1 "feather" and sell for about 100 gold. Varla Stones recharge your "charged" items, weigh 1 "feather", and sell for about 1000 gold.

v3nomblade · Post by **v3nomblade** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 8:53 am

Soul Trap

if you have completed an Oblivion Gate use the Sigil stone to enchant Soul Trap on a blade or bow the spell only lasts 1 sec but casts on each attack and because it lasts such a little time it has numerous charges also paired with Azures Star brilliant. I use the bow option here and have great fun picking creture off from a distance just got to get myself some black soul gems before i carry on with the dark brotherhood quests.....mwahahaha

Cyrinn · Post by **Cyrinn** » Wed Jun 20, 2007 7:48 am

My absolute favorite enchantment is Absorb Health on a quick weapon like a short sword. Now, I haven't played too far into Oblivion yet, but this was like a powerful vampiric weapon in Morrowind. I recall taking out high level daedra at a relatively low level (8-10).

I carried a couple weapons with this enchant, one with soul trap, and a couple with paralyze through all of Morrowind and never needed anything stronger until the end of the main quest.

And I didn't add any other effects, just maxed out Absorb Health.

Greg. · Post by **Greg.** » Wed Jun 20, 2007 7:51 am

As v3nomblade says, Soul trap works really well on a weapon - preferably with some enchanted damage as well. This means that as long as you are fighting monsters, you can use azuras star to recharge your weapon. However, head into an oblivion gate where there are mainly dremora, and you will have to summon something to get a soul. Black soul gems can help, but you will tend to run out.

As for elemental damage, nords are resistant to frost, dunmer resistant to fire etc. However undead and possibly daedra are resistant to damage/drain/absorb health type spells. Paralyze would be good for a secondary weapon though.

Use a grand/black soul to enchant weapons.

As for armour, spell effects like fortify strength, water walking, shield etc are all fairly good.

Vigilante · Post by **Vigilante** » Wed Jun 20, 2007 8:21 pm

Ever got the the named sword above? Somethin like 15 frost damage pionts and 30% weakness to frost. That sword is what got me into 1hd swords. Used a deadtic claymore for 60%(screwed myself because first time ever played I ?power leveled I think its called? To 30+ within 3 hours.) of my game. After that day I set out to make my own. now that other 40% I've refined it over and over. And I feel pretty confident at 43 in oblivion grabbin that sigil stone.

Clothing:
Enchantments I'd say anything that is attribute related (nice and safe) or resistances (reliable) everything else is not recommended by me but yea...

Cyrinn · Post by **Cyrinn** » Wed Jun 20, 2007 9:54 pm

Vigilante wrote:Ever got the the named sword above? Somethin like 15 frost damage pionts and 30% weakness to frost. That sword is what got me into 1hd swords. Used a deadtic claymore for 60%(screwed myself because first time ever played I ?power leveled I think its called? To 30+ within 3 hours.) of my game. After that day I set out to make my own. now that other 40% I've refined it over and over. And I feel pretty confident at 43 in oblivion grabbin that sigil stone.

Clothing:
Enchantments I'd say anything that is attribute related (nice and safe) or resistances (reliable) everything else is not recommended by me but yea...

Chillrend? It has similar stats to what you mentioned. I got it at lvl 1 from the quest in Chorrol

Spoiler

where you help farmer what's-his-name's sons fight off the creatures plaguing his farm.

It works pretty well from experience, for an enchanted weapon you you don't create yourself. I prefer to create my own, and use what I mentioned above as my bread and butter

But, there are going to exceptions to most enchantments such as fighting Nords with Chillrend...

Vigilante · Post by **Vigilante** » Wed Jun 20, 2007 10:32 pm

Its leveled I think... can't remember. But anyway my weapon now is a deadric longsword with 35 shock dmg and soul trap. Azuras star and a lighning spell(100pts) with weakness to lighning(50%). Cheap and fast when I'm out of magicka whack them with the sword. That rips the deadra a new one especialy cause they have a weakness already. Correct me if I'm wrong tho.

Cyrinn · Post by **Cyrinn** » Tue Jun 26, 2007 7:37 pm

Yeah, electricity is good against most daedra, so I imagine your weapon does rip them apart :devil:

Make another with the same stats in fire damage and you can take out undead just the same.