Main Quest is Hard?

[Francisè von Spitroast]

The main quest seems harder than the rest of the game, but it hasn't been a major roadblock until now. I gave the glowdust to the statue thing and went into the cave she told me about. I killed the first opponent after nearly dying (afflicted something), but the second has a flaming sword which kills me in 5 hits! Whereas she takes dozens upon dozens. I use a fire potion, but other than that, what else can I do? Given how incredibly simple this game's combat is, meaning that I have little alternatives outside of rushing in with a sword or sniping with a bow while someone rushes me with a sword, I'm not really sure how to tackle this.

I'm on the default difficulty. I almost always play games on their hardest difficulties, but I know how ♥♥♥♥♥♥ Oblivion and Morrowind are with their hard difficulties... apparently it's worse than I thought. I consider myself very good at games, so I have no idea how the average player is supposed to be able to go through this.

[Francisè von Spitroast]

I think I'm level 15.

[Francisè von Spitroast]

So I've resorted to running backwards with a bow as she swings wildly at me. Riveting combat. Meanwhile an Oblivion gate opens with an imp or whatever and a bear who takes 500 arrows to kill attack me. None of them attack each other, they all just rush me, absorbing my arrows like the wind.

Incredible. God bless Bethesda. GOTY 2006 Oblivion 4 ever!11!!!!!!1!!

[Shedding my mortal skin]

Oblivion has atrocious level scaling. Enemies all gain +5 to every attribute when you level up (up to 100), meaning that any level where you don't level up +5 to your damaging attribute, you actually leveled LESS than your enemies and are therefore weaker than them.

A lot of people say the solution is to play a mage since you don't have to rely on Intelligence to increase your damage (increasing magic skills only decreases their cost and allows higher-tier spells to be cast). However, I'm quite fond of melee. And fortunately, I did a playthrough a few months back (roughly 230% difficulty, mind you) where I took the LOWEST possible starting Strength and was only allowed to use my Major Skills to test how to recover from a bad melee build.

As a quick reminder, melee damage is only increased by Strength up to 100. Beyond 100 does nothing for damage due to the damage formula being set up that way.

1. Use Skooma. Head to the stables next to the Imperial City. Head north around the wall until you find Shady Sam. He will sell you Skooma, granting a temporary +60 Strength boost.

2. Use the Warrior Stone. It's southeast of Skingrad and will grant a temporary +20 Strength alongside a temporary +10 to all three melee attributes.

3. Gain quick Strength attribute points. Outside the Imperial City Arena, two people are sparring. Watch them for a bit and your Hand-to-Hand will gain a 5-point boost. Then go to Cloud Ruler Temple and watch the two sparring Blades outside for a +2 boost to Blade and Block. All in all, that's 7 skill increases for Blade and 2 for Block, equating to a +3 bonus to Strength and a +2 to Endurance. Three more Blade, Blunt or Block levels that level, and you'll reach a +5.

4. Play as a Redguard or Orc. Both have racial abilities providing a temporary Strength boost. I personally prefer Redguards since Adrenaline Rush doesn't also nuke your Agility, but Orcs have 25% Resist Magic, so an argument certainly can be made for them.

5. Use Strength-boosting enchanted items. There's random loot, of course. There are also Sigil Stones you can use on jewelry and armor if you prefer. If you need something a bit more immediate, however, go to Nord Winds in Bruma and purchase Dondoran's Juggernaut which boosts Strength and Endurance by 10 points while worn. Maenlorn in the Flowing Bowl in Anvil also sells the Fists of the Drunkard, granting another 5-point boost to Strength and Endurance. Then the owner of Hammer and Axe in Bruma sells the Gauntlets of Gluttony, boosting Strength by 15 but draining your max health by 30 points.

6. Enchanted weapons. Those things are POWERFUL. Run through an Oblivion Gate (without fighting, if necessary) and reload the Sigil Stone until you roll something with Shock Damage. Put that on a weapon. You now have a weapon that effectively deals an additional 200% damage due to barely anything resisting Shock. The best part is while there IS a drop off in total uses as you increase the Sigil Stone's level, it's barely anything compared to the additional damage you'll be doing. Seriously. A minimum level Shock Damage Sigil Stone does 5 points per use over 80 uses. A maximum level (17+) deals 25 damage per use over 70 uses. Just keep yourself stocked up on Soul Gems and you're good.

[Shedding my mortal skin]

I can't believe I left off the most obvious one. Difficulty only affects YOUR damage, not NPCs. That means playing as a Conjurer is always effective.

[Francisè von Spitroast]

Legend. Thank you!

[Shedding my mortal skin]

Not a problem. I'm glad to share my knowledge, especially if it means I can also spit in the face of "you have to efficient level to play the game" mindsets. There's nothing wrong with efficient leveling. It's just not everybody WANTS to, so I was determined to find a way to make melee viable on an above-0-difficulty without it.

if you need any more gear advice, feel free to ask.

[psychotron666]

Main quest or any quest, doesn't matter, they level scale to your level. Level 15 is about the hardest the game will be. In the base game it's scaled with the highest tier at level 17. After that the game gets easier because only a very small handful of enemies level up with you, the rest stay the same (but you don't see higher tier enemies until you level up to their tier) as you level up.

The expansions have a higher level max tier, somewhere around 35.

Are you doing the Azura quest? Because that's not technically the main quest. Yes the main quest leads you there, but for that quest you need any one of the 16 daedric artifacts, the Azura star is just one of them (and very useful so it's not recommend to sacrifice this artifact for the main quest).

The vampires in that cave are notorious for being crazy hard though. I'd recommend just doing a different daedric quest instead, or lowering difficulty.

[Shedding my mortal skin]

That, too. The easiest one to complete would be Sheogorath's quest since it involves zero combat, but if you want to keep the Wabbajack for dealing with stronger creatures like Liches (I'm like 95% sure it works on them), then don't give it up. I personally sacrifice Volendrung since I typically do weapon-restricted runs and clearing Bleak Mine is a pretty good indicator of how I've been doing.

[DaelonDuluc]

Ah! You're playing as an archer/thief/assassin! Yikes! Some of those caves are awful. I always resort to traps and magic in that sort of situation.

[Shedding my mortal skin]

Originally posted by DaelonDuluc:

Ah! You're playing as an archer/thief/assassin! Yikes! Some of those caves are awful. I always resort to traps and magic in that sort of situation.

Traps, too. Grab them with Z, pull them back and watch as they decimate your enemies. I've cleared entire DUNGEONS using those "spike on a string" traps.

It took ages to lure everyone back there, but I still did it.

[Francisè von Spitroast]

Originally posted by Shedding my mortal skin:

Originally posted by DaelonDuluc:

Ah! You're playing as an archer/thief/assassin! Yikes! Some of those caves are awful. I always resort to traps and magic in that sort of situation.

Traps, too. Grab them with Z, pull them back and watch as they decimate your enemies. I've cleared entire DUNGEONS using those "spike on a string" traps.

It took ages to lure everyone back there, but I still did it.

That's very creative thinking. I would never have thought that would work.
I tried to use the Will o the Wisps or whatever it's called to kill one of the followers around the statue for some glowdust, but I was disappointed when it didn't work and they didn't react to its attacks.

[Francisè von Spitroast]

Originally posted by psychotron666:

Main quest or any quest, doesn't matter, they level scale to your level. Level 15 is about the hardest the game will be. In the base game it's scaled with the highest tier at level 17. After that the game gets easier because only a very small handful of enemies level up with you, the rest stay the same (but you don't see higher tier enemies until you level up to their tier) as you level up.

The expansions have a higher level max tier, somewhere around 35.

Are you doing the Azura quest? Because that's not technically the main quest. Yes the main quest leads you there, but for that quest you need any one of the 16 daedric artifacts, the Azura star is just one of them (and very useful so it's not recommend to sacrifice this artifact for the main quest).

The vampires in that cave are notorious for being crazy hard though. I'd recommend just doing a different daedric quest instead, or lowering difficulty.

None of the side quests have been difficult so far, but maybe I haven't played enough.
That is the quest I'm doing. I didn't realise that. Thank you.