How are you supposed to play at higher levels?

[Muntis]

My character is a bosmer (treehugger). Ive got 70 strength and 100 agility. Im level 23, but only now did i start the main quest. I went into the kvatch gate, remember how when i was level 3 in a different save i beat it relatively easy. I encountered 3 enemys in a single spot and i had to use 15 strong potions of healing and like 5 hammers. I was killing them with a daedric bow and umbra, but theyre such ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ damage sponges its ridicelous. So how are you supposed to kill them?

[sim 35th]

Conjuration... on hardest difficulty (cause they have reflect damage). Here you have not enough strength . I think that if you are not playing as mages then you need no matter what good strength and endurance... and good skills. By the way, what about the last I said? Also, good speed lately can help as well. Maybe will edit the post... will add some screenshot...

Sorry, no... not now at least.

[Chaos Epoch]

Use frost magic or damage health vs daedra. Since the only one you really need to change off frost for is frost actronarchs.

Hit them with sword when they open up. Touch them with touch magic when they put a shield/defence up.

Run away and put 300 arrows into them. You'd be excused for using cheats to get more arrows since they eat them up and finding decent ones is difficult.

Consider burning through the 20+ poisons you likely have crashing around in your backpack.

Avoid using magic vs cattifs since they have a good chance to absorb.

Summon a punching bag to take one or two hits.

[󰀉tempeh󰀉]

Weakness stacking.
Or better: weakness stacking and paralysis.
Better yet: weakness stacking with paralysis, fortify magicka, and absorb magicka.

Alternatively: 100% chameleon and repeated sneak attacks.

[The Flying Rodent]

Welcome to post teen level Oblivion! Whereby enemy health bars decided to double in the space of half a dozen levels, but your weapon damage didn't. It's a fun place.

Before jumping into the 'Use Magic or Install Mods' lines of dealing with things, let's look at what you have:

You're a Bosmer with 70 Strength and 100 Agility, and by the sounds of it a decent Marksman [which makes sense as Bosmers are basically archers] that has some degree of Blade skill. Daedric Bow and Umbra too have the highest base damage for their weapon types, which is good.

Strength and Agility do not matter too much for weapon damage [60-100% range between 0-100 strength for melee and Agility for bows], though they do effect it. Weapon skill [12-100%], weapon condition [50-100%] and current fatigue [50-100%] matter a lot more. Given that you have 100 Agility, I'm going to guess you deal more damage with the bow than with the sword, and that your Marksman is higher than your Blade.

Kvatch is a nasty place for an archer. All those claustrophobic battles with multiple enemies and nothing to hide behind... I'm not surprised that you had a 'WTF' moment there.

Aside from cheating, changing ini files or modding the game, Magic is basically superior to physical weapons in Oblivion no matter which way you slice it [and hey, maybe this is a good reason to mod the game, but IMO I'd avoid modding].

That said, there are ways in which you can incooperate a little magic into Physical Combat and get decent results:

- Alchemy. This is not a solution for 'every' battle as it takes time and effort to create decent concoctions, but it certainly helps to have this skill in handy for big battles. Bosmer get Alchemy boosts in every Elder Scrolls game, and you may have even trained this a bit already. If this skill is high, you can get into high level Potion and Poison making right away, of which is explained in a bit of detail here [Levels 12-16 Part 2]:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=873311868

If not: You can increase Alchemy fairly quickly by visiting Farming villages around the land, and grinding food into Restore Fatigue potions. This should also yield you a bit of coin too! [not that you need this at level 23 when your average petty-highway-theft oriented Bandit mob come charging at you in full Glass Armour].

- Conjuration: AKA summon a Distraction to take the heat whilst you plonk away with your bow. If this skill is currently low, its easy enough to train, just Summon a Bound Dagger and sheath it a lot, then proceed to Summon a Skeleton a lot [a Custom variant can be made that lasts 1 second and costs little Magicka].

If this skill has already been trained: Generally hard hitting melee summons are the most reliable for an archer. Headless Zombie [Journeyman], Clannfear [Expert] and Storm Atronach [Master] provide a nice balance between tankiness, melee damage and magicka cost.

- Illusion: This skill is arguably the most useful in the game, particularly if you decide to play at higher difficulty. Calm, Frenzy [human opponents only], Invisibility, Paralysis, and Chameleon provide a lot of room for experimentation, particularly with Custom Spellmaking. To practice this skill, buy Starlight and cast it a lot. Most spell effects become available at Illusion 50.

- Restoration: This magic skill has a lot of crossover with Physical fights, and at high levels can be used to provide temporary steroid-like buffs. Restore Health and Fatigue are very useful to a physical fighter, in particular Restore Fatigue. As mentioned earlier, Fatigue plays a big part in overall physical damage: at Fatigue 0, your character will deal 50% damage, compared to 100% at full fatigue.

At higher levels, you can use Restoration to buff Skills [Max damage at 100 skill, and also you can buff Armourer to 100 for 1 second to get an unbreakable hammer], Attributes [such as Strength or Agility, again max damage is at 100] and Health/Magicka/Fatigue. It's not hard to turn yourself into The Hulk for a couple of minutes with Maximum Restoration skill.

- Alteration: This, along with Mysticism, is more of a support school than an offensive school, but it can help you a little bit. Feather allows you to carry more stuff, and Water Walking/Breathing can increase your manoeuvrability, which can be handy for an archer. Shield also decreases damage taken.

- Mysticism: Detect Life is a very useful spell for an archer/stealth character, and doesn't cost much magicka to use. Telekinesis can be useful as well, and a 100ft Telekinesis for 1 second spell can be used to 'spot' distant objects [even if it is not cast].

- Destruction: Given that you're a Bosmer with Marksman and Blade skill, I am going to guess that this skill hasn't seen much attention. But if it has: You can do more hurt with this skill than everything else listed above combined.

At low levels: Damage and Drain Fatigue ca be converted into Custom spells that can mimic the effect of Paralysis. Drain is significantly cheaper than Damage Fatigue, and Drained Fatigue cannot be regenerated.

At 50 Destruction: Weakness to Magic becomes available, and a new world of hurt opens up. Weakness to Magic can be 'stacked' on an opponent, if two spells of different names are cast upon them in alternation [i.e. spell 1, spell 2, spell 1, spell 2 etc]. This effect increases exponentially the more times that is cast on something, i.e. the rate at which the weakness increases, also increases. Suffice to say it is ridiculously powerful: EVERY other spell cast on the target benefits from this effect. A breakdown can be found here:

http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Spell_Making#Spell_Stacking

- Enchant Your Weapons: This requires Grand Souls [NOT sigil stones as you cannot customise these] and base spells to work with, which by extension means that the character has to have enough skill to buy the base spells. Destruction spells are probably of most use here. Effects such as Weakness to Magic/Elements and Elemental Damage can be attached to melee weapons, bows, AND arrows. Be aware that bows have a slower rate of fire than melee weapons, so if you are to attach something like a Weakness effect to a bow or arrow, bump up the duration to give yourself time to land another shot.

Probably the most silly enchantment is Weakness to Magic 100% + Drain Health 100 points for several seconds. You can get lots of these effects to stack with each other, and so long as the effects last long enough to 'Drain' an opponent's health below 0, the target will die with minimal charge used compared to using Fire/Frost/Shock damage.

Enchanting weapons has an obvious caveat however: They require constant recharging from Soul Gems. I'd only resort to something like this if I had a Soul Trap Enchantment handy [which at least Umbra does], and if I had Azura's Star [and if you don't know what this is, I am assuming that you have not played an Elder Scrolls game before :) ].


In a nutshell: Incooperate magic into what you're doing. Physical fighting on its own is pretty sucky, particularly when all the monsters start getting bloated health bars.

[76561198034396398]

you don't do Seige on Kvatch past lvl 4 or five, you get your arse kicked,plus the NPC's won't even make it 3 ft at that lvl,get some Conjuration scrolls even bring along the Adoring fan......enemies seem to love him....plus it's funny,there's a guide on quest timing http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Quest_Timing

[Muntis]

Thank you for all of your replies. I think i should've put more info of my character and my gear. At the moment i've got a full set of non enchanted glass armor (working on the enchantments). I've also got the cowl of the grey fox, which i use in dungeons for the wallhacks. I am trying to be an archer. I have got alot of enchanted arrows and i have 1 enchanted bow and one normal one. A fire damage ebony bow and a normal daedric bow. I use the daedric bow on normal creatures and the enchanted one on ghosts as thats the only weapon in my possesion that has a damage enchantment on it. I went stealth build as an experiment and it is fun, but it is also really frustrating.

The only people i can kill with my bow are mages, but if an enemy has deadric armor then hes going to eat up all my arrows, so i just usually go behind them and get that 6x sneak attack, which also feels like it isnt powerful. I am trying to increase my intelligence as i want the paralyze spells.

Would you recommend me any good daedric artifacts, that could be suitable for my character? And i do have the Azuras star, which is very handy. Soul gems arent a problem as ive got alot of money so i just buy them and then make black soul gems.

Also which conjured creature would be the best for my character? Remember i've only got like 140 magicka.

Here are my most dominant skills:
Blade - 70
Marksman - 70
Illusion - 83
Acrobatics - 81
Sneak - 87
Light Armor - 100

70 Strength
70 Intelligence
46 Willpower
100 Agility
100 Speed
69 Endurance
55 Personality
61 Luck

[76561198034396398]

Hatred's Soul bow from Chorrol Oblivion gate after lvl 20 (high recharge )
Wabbajack and Skull of Corruption
summon Clannfear they go right into battle
there's a glitch with Sigil stones (Transcendent ) you can exploit as armor enchantments, using 25% resist fire, Shock ,Frost will give you the full 85 armor value even when the armors broken
your willpower is a bit low,unless you get 100% reflect or absorb spell you'll be going to church alot
Illusion you can make a paralyze spell or enchantment

[Muntis]

Originally posted by Evil Doctor Porkchop:

Hatred's Soul bow from Chorrol Oblivion gate after lvl 20 (high recharge )
Wabbajack and Skull of Corruption
summon Clannfear they go right into battle
there's a glitch with Sigil stones (Transcendent ) you can exploit as armor enchantments, using 25% resist fire, Shock ,Frost will give you the full 85 armor value even when the armors broken
your willpower is a bit low,unless you get 100% reflect or absorb spell you'll be going to church alot
Illusion you can make a paralyze spell or enchantment

But i dont like using exploits :\

[76561198034396398]

well you don't have to,armor works differently in Oblivion as compared to Skyrim,heavy armor actually works,when you go light armour the enchantments aren't as good and you need to be quick, you can't go all in wearing light armor, eg Escutcheon of Chorrol vs Mirror Shield (if you can find it )

You should try and get either the Ring of the Iron Fist or Necklace of Swords,again both are rare,try using the Acrobatics barrel roll to dodge attacks,it's pretty useful

[Muntis]

Enchanted my armor, now i have 100% chameleon. But now its too easy :\

[The Flying Rodent]

Originally posted by Panzerkampfwagen:

Enchanted my armor, now i have 100% chameleon. But now its too easy :\

Yeah, 100% chameleon is basically god mode. There's also quite a few glitches in the game [the resistance thing being one of them] that can be exploited. Doing either of these things quickly removes challenge from the game and makes it boring.

An unenchanted Daedric weapon is able to damage Ghosts. That said, enchanted weapons overall do more damage, and it sounds like soul gems aren't a problem for you. So you probably be using the Enchanted Bow when you can, particularly against the HP-heavy opponents.

So looking at your skills, you can do a few things, most notably mix a bit of Illusion into melee/ranged combat. Both skills seem pretty equal, so at the moment it'd help to use both.

Paralyse for 1 second on touch is a cheap way to pacify something briefly that is flying at your face, and this cast in alternation with sword attacks should work well 1 on 1. Given that your Illusion is 83, this spell shouldn't cost very much to cast.

Paralysis is less useful for Archery, though a Calm Level 25 for 3 seconds on target spell costs a lot less Magicka, and should allow you to hold any target still long enough to land a 'free shot'. This might be handy against hard-to-hit opponents such as Spider Daedra.

Paralysis for 1 second could similarly be enchanted onto a weapon, resulting in a hilarious 'stun lock' situation. It may lose charge quickly however, and is not very nice in the event the opponent has Reflect spell and turns the Paralysis back on you.

If you have a bit of Restoration, consider making a Fortify Blade/Marksman spell too [up to 100, there's no benefit gained after that]. This should fortify your damage temporarily at least until your skills reach 100. Restore fatigue spells and potions should help also. If you have a bit of Destruction skill: Buy a Drain Health, Drain Fatigue and Weakness to Magic spell.

Your Intelligence and Willpower could use a bit of work, and thats what I'd focus on stat-wise for levelling from now on. Intelligence can be trained by training Alchemy [which can come in handy by itself] and Willpower by casting cheap 'practice' spells [such as Shield 3% for 1 second] from Alteration, Destruction [have to hit a target] and Restoration [Heal Minor Wounds works as a practice spell].