A Beginning Enchanters Guide to some Simple Items

[promethius9594]

Okay, to start off with, I havent completed this list yet, as i just got a daedric Dai-Katana that I havent decided what to do with yet. Also, making these items will (after about level 20) make you nearly invincible at normal difficulty, so get ready to turn up your difficulty meter if you like the game challenging.

(note-- you will need to get and sell ALOT of loot in order to make these items. Try going to Ghostgate, if youre careful you can make it at an early level. If you have high theif skills, steal all the glass and ebony armor. (i'm a theif with light armor) wear the glass armor and sell the ebony to pay for the enchantments.

Always pay for your enchantments to be done by a mage or certain temple priests, high level enchantments almost always fail, regardless of potions and such.

For weapons which cast on strike... use bigger souls to get a higher charge out of them. Charge affects how many times you can use the item before it runs out and temporarily reverts to its normal stats. Also, make sure you have a reasonable minimum addition for damage, because you wont always get the max damage. ie-- for an added fire damage of 10-30 or a added fire damage of 15-23, the first will offer possible higher damage, but the second will offer more consistant damage. Its all about balance.

Make a weapon with soultrap. Soultrap for seven seconds is MORE than long enough if you enchant that weapon with added fire damage too.

For Constant Effect Items (items which constantly produce their benefit) you must use a Golden Saint or Ascended Sleeper soul. For these items, enchant only 1 to as high as you can possibly afford to put on an item. when you equip that item, leave your inventory and come back, check in the bottom right of the inventory to see how much benefit it is providing you. If the benefit isnt very high, take it off and put it right back on. Repeat this until you get a high benefit from the item, this allows for higher max outs on constant effect items. (eg-- i continually equip my 1-8 healing amulet until i get a restore health of 6 or higher).

Get azuras star right away. You get this by completing a quest which azura will give you. How do you find azura? go to the very southwest of the main island. Explore around the west facing shore. Up on one of the cliffs (directly west from Molag Mar) is a statue. The entrance to the shrine is up a climb just below that statue. DO NOT ROB THE OFFERINGS OF THE SHRINE. talk to the statue of azura to get the quest. Azura's star is a reusable grand soul gem worth 2,000,000 septims.

Best way to fill soul gems is to make the soultrap weapon i talked about and to purchase/make some summon golden saint/atronarch/ascended sleeper spells. Summon the creature and then use your soul trap weapon to kill it. though you generally cant loot the body, you can trap the soul.

MAKE SURE you always have the right sized soul gem. Nothing sucks like soul trapping an atronarck, only to find out you didnt have any greater soul gems and instead wasted a grand soul gem on a mediocre soul. Souls go into the smallest gem they can fit in, so a golden saint cant fit in a greater soul gem, but assuming you were dumb enough to soul trap a guar while carrying only a grand soul gem, you just filled your grand soul gem with a guar.

This post is long enough, though, so I'll create a new post with some items i've created.

[promethius9594]

Okay, here are some great items to make that will make the game ALOT easier.

1) Glass Helm --> Helm of Strength
strength + 1 to 5 (constant effect)

2)Exquisite Amulet --> Jewel of Healing
Restore Health 1 to 8 (constant effect: makes you never have to return to bases to get healing potions, etc. Just stand still and get better, warning though-- makes you nearly invincible)

3)Exquisite Shirt --> Cavedweller vest
Night Eye 10 to 15, and water breathing (constant: see in the dark in caves makes things easier to find. Also, helps to explore several underwater tombs, shrines, treasures, etc)

4) Exquisite Pants --> Leggings of the Unseen Hand
Chameleon 1 to 23% (constant: helps to hide for sneaking around, which is an invaluable skill. I can now hide so well, i can end a fight by pushing the sneak button and the person I'm fighting loses track of me)

5) Exquisite Ring --> Ring of Insane Strength
Strength + 1 to 47 (constant: whoa, with a strength of 100 already, this and the helm of strength combine to give me about 150 strenth. Thats 750 units of stuff i can carry-- which means less trips to and from my base to the quest zone and more damage)

6) Exquisite Belt --> Sheild Belt
Sheild 1 to 7 points (constant: eh, my magicka got strong enough that i didnt need the fortify magicka belt, so i thought some added physical protection couldnt hurt)

7) Exquisite Ring --> Ring of Levitation
Levitation 5 to 10 points (constant: note, i wanted a minimum five so that in a fight i could escape quickly without having to repeat equip, i dont wear this ring very often except to 'climb' stuff)

8) Daedric Wakazishi --> Blight Fang
Poison 20 to 40 (total damage 30 - 70: Good against Humanoid opponents, especially unarmoreds)

9) Daedric Wakazishi --> Fire Breaker
Disintegrate Armor 3 to 9, and Fire Damage 27 to 60 (total damage 37 - 90: good against armored opponents and ice daedra such as storm atronarchs, winged twilights, frost atronarchs, etc.)

10) Daedric Wakazishi --> Frost Bite
Disentigrate Armore 3 to 9, and Frost Damage 30 to 50 (total Damage 40 to 80: good against armored oponents and fire daedra such as hungers, flame atronarchs, ash slaves, etc)

11) Dwermer Claymore --> Soul Crusher
Soultrap 7 seconds for 8ft on target, and fire Damage 21 -25 (overall damage 26 to 58: not a particularly powerful weapon, but a good one to finish off an opponent, will steal their soul for a soul gem)

[Kakero]

Here's a thread that have some good self made enchanted items.

[Krull]

Just a thought, but with the many kinds of damage in the game (poison, fire, shock etc) which damage effect would be most useful, ie would effect most enemies?

Thanks.

[Seraph]

Stay away from fire damage a lot of the NPCs that you fight are dark elves and have fire resistance. I personally think that shock is probably the best enchantment to put on a weapon.

[Kakero]

You could put something like Fire damage 100 pt on touch plus decrease fire resistance 100 pt on touch.

That way you can by pass the fire resistance on your enemy.

[Oruboris]

I *think* [haven't done the math to find out for certain] that the damage that will affect more enemies than any other is absorb/damage health, which should be combined with a 'weakness to magika' effect.

I also think you want to place the weakness to whatever effect first in the enchanting process so it 'takes effect' before the damage value is calculated.

Oru

[Kakero]

If you look at most of the premade spell/enchant there. you can see they list damage first and then weakness to damage. Also notice that many of the weakness to damage effect have a duration in them.

My guesses is that both the effect work together at the same time.

[promethius9594]

First to answer the question: it doesnt matter what order you put them on the weapon. The script executes all effects at the same time, so the damage is done in conjunction with the weakening. However, the order you stack them on IS important in some regards...

That leads to the next tip in my enchanting strat thread: Stacking multiple enchantments. When you stack a second enchantment effect on the weapon (which must be done at the same time as the first enchantment, once enchanted, the weapon can never be altered again) it doubles the original price of the first enchantment effect. For example, if i put soultrap for ten seconds on a sword FIRST(which produces 1 enchantment point), then fire damage for 19 enchantment points, the total cost will be 21, which will fill a sword quite nicely.

The math for that case works like this: (1 * 2) + 19 = 21. HOWEVER, if i put the 19 enchantment points worth of fire damage on first, then SECOND i put on the soultrap (cost 1 enchantment point), the total cost becomes 39. The math goes like this: (19 * 2) + 1 = 39.

So, when stacking enchantments, which is not advisable in most cases, make SURE you put the smallest enchantment on first, the next smallest on second, and so on and so forth.

Next, why is stacking a disadvantage? you get more enchantments overall right? BZZZT, thats the wrong buzzer. enchantment points are what matter, not just the number of enchantments. For example, in making my new blight staff (see my next post) i filled it with a enchant effect for 100 poison damage. that took up forty five of the next possible space. Here is a dilemma: if i want to add another enchantment, i have to drastically reduce the effects of my first enchantment. so i can make it so that the staff did 30 pts poison and 30 pts fire damage for a total bonus of 60 points added damage overall. But that doesnt make sense, thats not any better than the original 100 pts poison that only cost half as many points. So, i dont want to waste 45 points... what do i do?

MAX IT OUT. 100 pts damage (guarunteed every time because the min and max are both at full) costs 45 points. that duration is only for one second, however. so, i make the duration two seconds. my staff now causes its normal damage, plus a whopping 200 additional damage EVERY time i strike. Knowing when to stack enchantments and when to max out a single one is a tricky balance that requires a bit of experimenting.

What do you stack? soultrap for 10 seconds, since it only costs 1 pt, and a large amount of damage of one kind. this combo only wastes 1 enchant point. On a shirt, i put water breathing and 1 - 7 pts of night eye, which only wastes about 5 - 10 points. These combos allow you a maximum number of enchant benefits for a minimum number of lost enchantment points.

[ 04-16-2004, 02:58 AM: Message edited by: promethius9594 ]

[promethius9594]

Okay, so, as promised in my last hints post, here are some of the newest items i've enchanted to make me even more invincible...

1) Daedric Staff --> Daedric Staff of Soul Sapping
soultrap for 10 seconds at 3 ft, fire damage for 65 to 89 (total damage: 67 - 105) NOTES: this replaces my former blade, soul crusher, which just didnt do enough damage anymore (after i turned up the difficulty). Captures souls quite easily and is strong enough to kill a creature without having to change weapons in the heat of battle, but uses little charge each time, so very reusable.

2) Ebony Staff --> Blight Staff
Poison for 100 pts, for 2 seconds (total damage: 202 - 216) NOTES: Awesome damage, does more than any other weapon i have by far. Huge drain on its charge means its only good for about five strikes before its out (then switch to something else)

3) Daedric Dai Katana --> Flame Death
Flame Damage 74 - 100 (total damage: 75 - 160) NOTES: this is what i switch to when my blight staff runs out. Less damage, but still significant, and can strike about ten times before it runs out... good for lasting in a fight.

4) Daedric Longsword (or broadsword? dont remember) --> Frost Crusher
Frost Damage 60 - 86 (total damage: 63 - 130) NOTES: Frost version of the Flame Death. Better for taking out flame atronarchs, dunmer, zombies, ash slaves, dremora, etc (those all have fire/poison resist)

5) Exquisite Ring --> Ring of Golden Saints.
Summon Golden saint on self for 43 seconds. NOTES: Go to woods. Summon golden saint, kill golden saint with D. Staff of soul sapping. Trap soul in azura's star. go to temple. enchant new weapon. Repeat.