Question about recharging / Azuras Star

[Rudel]

Hey,

brief question: I set up a 1h Sword with Soul Trap + Fire Damage and Azuras Star for Recharging. I set the Magnitude of the Fire Damage to 20.

Is it correct that I basically have to recharge the sword after every single fight? Or did I do something wrong?

[15543641354361]

it has nothing to do with azura star, the weapons magicka doesn't last long, whatever enchantement it has.
oc on adept it will last longer since you one-tap mobs, but on expert or master, if you need let's say to hit a mob 5 times to kill him, the weapon's empty after 3 mobs.
if you need 10 hits to kill a mob, the weapon is empty after 2 kills.
this is why i don't even bother recharging my weapon anymore.
or maybe i missed something.

[milehigh026]

Let's unpack this step by step so that you know how azuras star works.

1. Azuras star functions just like any other soul gem. Only this one is refillable.
2. Azuras star can hold up to a grand level soul.
3. Can be used for both enchanting and filling up charges on a piece of gear.

I use azuras star for making a new enchanting weapon. Because it can hold a grand soul which is the highest, this is how you will get the most use out of it.

When it comes to refilling the charges on a weapon, the info screen will show you how many charges you have left out of your max. For example 400/1200. Depending on your weapon and what kind of enchantment you have on it, will depend on how quickly those charges are used up.

If it takes a grand soul gem to completely fill up your charges then by all means use azuras star to fill it. And then use whatever means that you have, either spell or enchantment to soul trap something else. Rinse and repeat.

The way that soul trapping works is that the soul will always go into the lowest appropriate gem. So if all you have is the 1 azuras star and you soul trap and kill a petty level enemy like a rat...then you just put a petty soul into a gem that could have been a grand level.

You can find soul gems scattered all over. Best places are in the mages guild houses, vendors, and caves that have conjurers or necromancers. I always carry around a handful of each level so that no matter what I kill it will go into the right one.

[Lahgtah]

The frequency at which you recharge weapons depends on charge cost per hit.

The whole system has always been a bit awkward across the games since there's not much way of knowing which creature nets which soul level, and how the gems don't add up souls in a reasonable way. So, if you have a grand soul gem, and capture a common soul, that soulgem is effectively wasted since there's not really any way to fill it up; you'd think to just capture another common soul, but that's not how it works for some dumb reason, and there's no real way to know what is and isn't the right soul level creature in the first place in-game. It only gets easy at high level when almost every random mob is a grand soul so you don't have to worry about it.

The whole soul trap->recharge loop is something I've never enjoyed in TES, and it's really not good in Oblivion since attack speed is so fast(meaning enchantments deplete very fast)+passive over time charge regen isn't a thing.

[Rudel]

Yea I dropped all Soul Gems but the Azura one, bound it to my keyboard to refill after each mob. I don't really like the mechanic, but hitting all those Daedra enemies for ages before they die is even more annoying. Now with my 1h Fire / Soultrap blade, I usually kill everything after 3-4 fast hits. But I have to recharge after every enemy.

Just wasn't if that is the way the game wants me to do it, but it seems that frequency is normal.

[Sholomar]

Enchanted weapons don't last long. Even with magic/element weaknesses enchanted into them to enhance the effect. I have one but it's more for emergency backup if I run out of magic and need to fight. You can buff the enemy with a debuff spell before using the weapon rather than embedding the debuff into the weapon to give more swings, but overall not as effective as a pure mage.

On Expert/Master you almost need magic to get through the game unless enjoying being a masochist.

[Lahgtah]

Originally posted by Rudel:

Yea I dropped all Soul Gems but the Azura one, bound it to my keyboard to refill after each mob. I don't really like the mechanic, but hitting all those Daedra enemies for ages before they die is even more annoying. Now with my 1h Fire / Soultrap blade, I usually kill everything after 3-4 fast hits. But I have to recharge after every enemy.

Just wasn't if that is the way the game wants me to do it, but it seems that frequency is normal.

Yeah the idea is that you'd mix weakness to X debuffs with 'weaker' enchantments on weapons to get more use out of them as opposed to a really strong enchant with only a few uses. That and it's to make uniques/artifacts generally better than self-enchanted weapons for non-magic users since their charge/uses tends to be much higher, whereas magic users have access to weakness to X type debuffs to amplify their own enchants.