Game: Skyrim

[Ryllharu]

I then tried to raise Enchantment too, but finding and filling gems are hard. I even went down to Blackreach and mined every vein I could find, but I'm still at lvl88 or so in enchantments. Current strategy is just to keep recharging my Soul-trap dagger whenever I trap someone into my re-usable black gem. It's slow.. but it'll get there eventually.

Filling them is a piece of cake with Conjuration and Bound Weapons. Just buy dozens and dozens of petty, lesser, and common gems. Save Black Gems for your own Enchanting (since humanoids are always Grand Souls). Grab every iron dagger you find on enemies, because Banish enchantment sells the best, which makes it easy to buy more empty gems. It quickly starts paying for itself. Use Absorb Health/Stamina if you don't have Banish yet.

Bound Weapons do a lot less damage than properly smithed weapons, but situationally, they are far more powerful:

- Soul Stealer is awesome. Every hit recasts Soul Trap, and the duration is long, because it is the spell version, not the enchantment version. Find some wolves, find some Horkers, undead, whatever.

- But the real strength in Bound Weapons is the Oblivion Binding perk, taken right after Soul Stealer. It is the strongest anti-summon weapon in the game. One glancing hit. Even a misfired arrow. The spell Expel Daedra doesn't work on anything comparatively. The spell won't even banish a frost atronach. You do need to be careful, because it will banish anything you summoned too, like with a stray arrow (happened so many times...).

You're better off using Command Daedra on enemy summons. They're always seem so baffled when their Frost Atronach turns on them.

But yeah, I've got 100 Enchantment, took the Extra Effect perk, and now all my Archmage's gear is imbued with an insane magicka regen rate, as well as all the other enchantments I used (fire resist, magicka capacity, etc.). I remade new versions of all the clothing except the Archmage's Robes. I also have a ring for every type of combat I might use.

[Kraco]

Grab every iron dagger you find on enemies, because Banish enchantment sells the best, which makes it easy to buy more empty gems.

Actually using Banish for enchant training only results in your containers being filled with piles of daggers you can't sell because any merchant can only buy one or two of those daggers before they run out of money. So, I tended to use a cheaper enchantment simply to get rid of the daggers. I can't see how anybody on the higher levels wouldn't anyway have far more money than they can spend, so making good deals is secondary to making any deals (to boost speech as a side product from enchanting). Blacksmiths only have so much ebony or anything else worth buying to keep them funded for longer.

Weapons with a double enchantment empty quite fast, I noticed. I have shock and fire at full power, and while it's unarguably effective in combat, you need to keep reloading them very frequently. But then again, most enemies go down with one or two hits.

[Ryllharu]

Actually using Banish for enchant training only results in your containers being filled with piles of daggers you can't sell because any merchant can only buy one or two of those daggers before they run out of money. So, I tended to use a cheaper enchantment simply to get rid of the daggers. I can't see how anybody on the higher levels wouldn't anyway have far more money than they can spend, so making good deals is secondary to making any deals (to boost speech as a side product from enchanting). Blacksmiths only have so much ebony or anything else worth buying to keep them funded for longer.

Weapons with a double enchantment empty quite fast, I noticed. I have shock and fire at full power, and while it's unarguably effective in combat, you need to keep reloading them very frequently. But then again, most enemies go down with one or two hits.

That's why I got the Speech perk that lets me sell anything, to anyone (so long as it is not stolen, that's a different one). It's nice to trade a few Banish daggers for multiple Daedra Hearts or spellbooks (which get really expensive at the higher skill ratings).

I don't enchant weapons much, but I recharge staves a lot. Another reason to use Bound Weapons to stockpile soul gems.

[Xelbair]

or use great soul gem to enchant weapon with soul trap... if you set duration to 1s you will have about 1k uses, recharge it with azura's star from time to time.

[Ryllharu]

I'm a summoner (and occasional necromancer). I set things on fire. I use followers. Lots of things kill my foes. 1 second Soul Trap isn't long enough.

[Kraco]

Huh. I simply use the regular soul trap spell in left hand, a sword in the right, when I'm gathering souls. I never liked weapons with soul trap in Elder Scrolls. Seems like a waste of an enchantment on a weapon since it does nothing to wound the enemy. Besides, I've no need to recharge the weapons that often. Of late I've even left loads of empty soul gems back at home because they were just an extra burden with the bunch of filled soul gems I'm already carrying (though I've a good cache of filled ones stored at home as well). Soul gems, empty and filled, just keep coming in through doors and windows much faster than I could reasonably use them.

[Buffalobiian]

or use great soul gem to enchant weapon with soul trap... if you set duration to 1s you will have about 1k uses, recharge it with azura's star from time to time.

That's what I'm doing right now with my daggers. I recharge every time i kill someone. It's just taking forever.

Regarding Kraco's Dwarven city comment: I raided those cities a long time ago and sold all the filled soul gems I had. I wasn't interested in enchanting back then and only saw soul gems as a way to make money.

Ryll: I tried not to buy soul gems.. plus, filling normal soul gems is hard. I have to find animals and stuff.. and when you're at a higher level most of them require bigger gems. The reason why I opted for the Black Star quick-recharge method too is because 90% of the time I'm killing humanoids. When guards were more plentiful, I actually hunted guards at night, ran back to the table to enchant a dagger, and kept hunting. Finding merchants with soul gems also isn't my strong point.

Then again, I haven't raided the College yet.

Finding people with enough money to sell.. now that's nothing to worry about. I have fences in Solitude, Windhelm, Markath, Whiterun and Riften. Each of them have 4K to spend. That's 20K per run, and they refill their cash rather quick too. The biggest benefit besides that is that they'll buy any type of item, so I don't have to visit different merchant types.

edit: forgot, every travelling caravan is also a fence for me.

[Ryllharu]

Ryll: I tried not to buy soul gems.. plus, filling normal soul gems is hard. I have to find animals and stuff.. and when you're at a higher level most of them require bigger gems. The reason why I opted for the Black Star quick-recharge method too is because 90% of the time I'm killing humanoids. When guards were more plentiful, I actually hunted guards at night, ran back to the table to enchant a dagger, and kept hunting. Finding merchants with soul gems also isn't my strong point.

Wolves and mudcrabs always fill petty gems, near as I can tell. Foxes and other prey animals do so as well I believe. They're easy to find on the steppe west and south of Whiterun.

Seriously, bound weapons with Soul Stealer make it trivial. Plus they look cool.

Grand/Greater soul gems not accidentally getting filled with petty or lesser souls...that's a problem. When I want to fill them, I go on crypt raids.

Like I said, when you make 20+ Banish Daggers, it's honestly easier to buy Grand Gems than even harvest black ones.

As for Azura's Star, I still haven't finished that quest on my mage. I was trying to get my persuade up to convince Nelacar for the first part of the quest...but even at 70 Speech, a Diebella Amulet, and the Persuade perk, I still wasn't passing the check. WTF.

[Buffalobiian]

As for Azura's Star, I still haven't finished that quest on my mage. I was trying to get my persuade up to convince Nelacar for the first part of the quest...but even at 70 Speech, a Diebella Amulet, and the Persuade perk, I still wasn't passing the check. WTF.

You can finish the Thieve's Guild line and that that Amulet of Akatosh or something that gives you 99.9% persuasion success.

[Kraco]

The Masque of Clavicus Vile also gives a boost of 10 to persuation.

I always first try to persuade, then, if that fails, to intimidate. So far I have I've got away with those, except with the priest who's the guest of honour at Namira' party. However, since I knew he wouldn't object to reclaiming the bribe later, I ended up bribing him. If Ryll says Nelacar is so resistant to persuation, he must have been weaker to intimidation. I don't remember needing to bribe him.

Azura's Star is one of the nicest daedric artifacts, and the only thing that delayed me in gaining it was the last fight and the fact I didn't have any fire resistant equipment back then.

[Buffalobiian]

Azura's Star is one of the nicest daedric artifacts, and the only thing that delayed me in gaining it was the last fight and the fact I didn't have any fire resistant equipment back then.

They were all 2-hit kills for me by the time I got around to that quest, but I only had 15% fire resistance. Even then, I had a touch of health by the time I left the dimension, so it was still pretty close I guess. I could have gone straight for the summoner, but then I would have missed out on 3 daedric hearts.

[Penner]

the fuck? lol

[Ryllharu]

If you're playing this game, get the TESV Acceleration Layer now.

Official Forums thread.
Nexus link

I was skeptical, but I installed it anyway. The game is noticeably faster for me, and I wasn't having any problems before. I don't have FRAPS installed or I'd give specifics.

[Penner]

I have no mods at all installed :P

I did disable AA & AF in the Skyrim Launcher settings and enabled them through the Catalyst Control Center instead, and the game runs significantly smoother now, if some of you haven't tried that already you might want to.

I did read that results from doing so apparently varies ALOT from person to person depending on their PC setup.. so it might not make any difference at all, for some it may even have a negative impact..

[Buffalobiian]

YEAH!

[Kraco]

...

Receiving the axe would have been more merciful than getting saved by that dragon.

[Splash!]

This made me laugh...

[Animeniax]

I don't get it... when has Skyrim ever been multiplayer?

[Kraco]

I thought it was great. From purely dramaturgical point of view, I think this only worked because there were two of them in coop mode, not just a single player character. If it still bothers you, just think of the other person a companion from an uber mod...

[Buffalobiian]

I don't get it... when has Skyrim ever been multiplayer?

There's a mod in progress to get this happening.

I just married Ysolda and moved in with her to Solitude. That house is awesome. Once I set up the weapon racks and the manequins with armour in the basement I'll truly feel like a good-citizen-with-a-hidden-identity character. I went back to her house to see if there was anything she left behind, and found that she was reading A Gentleman's Guide to Whiterun. I took that back with me and put it in front of her - then made her wear some Tavern clothes and open-shoulder maid clothes. :3.

Hopefully now Farkas isn't an Essential character so I can sacrifice him for that Ebony Mail.