What's the best way to level up after you've done most of the quests?

[emitfudd]

I'm 427 hrs into the game. I just hit level 60. I am done the main quest. I have not done the civil war yet and might not this time around. I feel like I have done 90% of the content and I am leveling up really slow for some reason.

[alexander_dougherty]

Levelling is still by increasing skills, so use the damn skills....
Making an easy to level skill helps too.
And I found I easily made level 70+ by playing through the Anniversary Edition content, of course I was levelling up different skills as I progressed through it, so that helped.

[emitfudd]

So how does light armor level up? It is self explanatory with weapons. You use them and gain levels. Do you just have to wear light armor to level it up or do you have to take hits or is there some other factor?

[alexander_dougherty]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von emitfudd:

So how does light armor level up? It is self explanatory with weapons. You use them and gain levels. Do you just have to wear light armor to level it up or do you have to take hits or is there some other factor?

Just damage taken, meaning you level it up easily at low levels or on legendary, but not so much on high levels or low difficulty.

[th]

FYI, if you have displayed armor rating at 667 or more then (no matter what) you have an armor cap (80% physical damage reduction) and no matter what else you do - you can not have even 1% more. It's a cap.

So 2000 armor rating is actually the same as 700 for example. The damage reduction is the same.

If you are wearing all 5 pieces of armor (4 body pieces and a shield) the cap will be just 542. Without a shield it will be 567.

Whether you are wearing LA and HA together or not is not important. Cap numbers will be the same.

[emitfudd]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von alexander_dougherty:

Levelling is still by increasing skills, so use the damn skills....
Making an easy to level skill helps too.
And I found I easily made level 70+ by playing through the Anniversary Edition content, of course I was levelling up different skills as I progressed through it, so that helped.

I'm on SE without the AE content except the 4 free ones. I am using cutting room floor for a little bit of extra content. In my first playthrough of oldrim I got to 81 and I seemed to be leveling up faster than this time around. I had a similar skill tree set.

[alexander_dougherty]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von emitfudd:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von alexander_dougherty:

Levelling is still by increasing skills, so use the damn skills....
Making an easy to level skill helps too.
And I found I easily made level 70+ by playing through the Anniversary Edition content, of course I was levelling up different skills as I progressed through it, so that helped.

I'm on SE without the AE content except the 4 free ones. I am using cutting room floor for a little bit of extra content. In my first playthrough of oldrim I got to 81 and I seemed to be leveling up faster than this time around. I had a similar skill tree set.

updates change the game, and the game has had more than a few updates, so the fact you are levelling up slower is not a huge surprise. All you can do is increase the skills, and make easy to level skills (like illusion or alteration) legendary and level them up again.

I mention AE, because after doing all the quests I finally met, and defeated, the ebony warrior (at level 76) and still had plenty of CC quests I could have done (Didn't do the iron, steel and silver knights quests for example, or get all the crimson dirks books(which you get from doing the related CD quests))

[emitfudd]

Another issue is there isn't much to do when you level up even to 81, never mind higher. In my oldrim playthrough by the time I got to 81 I had beat the ebony warrior and I was using the console to spawn multiple ebony warriors or 10 giants at a time just to have something to do. LOL

[th]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von emitfudd:

Between the chests and locked doors in dungeons I seem to find a lot of locks to pick. I think I am already back to lockpick level 50. If it doesn't level up all the way it doesn't matter. I am pretty good at picking even master locks without any points in the lockpick tree.

I've read sometime that you can legendary Pickpocket may be like four times. After that you'll run out of locks in the game. To get to 250+ levels you'll need to legendary 100+, I believe may be even 170+ skills. So you need to legendary particular skills many many times repetitively.

Ursprünglich geschrieben von emitfudd:

What I don't understand is how to get enough level increases to get to 81, never mind 250. I'm at the point where I am just fast travelling to random spots on the map to see if there are any map markers showing undiscovered locations. I don't know if there is enough content left to get me to a significantly higher level. I have all the dragon priest masks, all the claws, all the paragons and I have finished the main quest. I probably screwed myself by not leveling up unused skills earlier. I have been playing with multiple skills at level 100 for a long time now.

There are two obvious options I know of. Both are not so good I am afraid.

1) Use exploits to quickly up the skills. Like this one:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Rez Elwin:

illusion is the best skill to max out and repeat for levels. The master level spell "Harmony" can raise the skill from
15-100 in two casts if their are enough NPCs around. As Harmony is a non-offensive non-damaging skill you will not get a bounty for casting in towns.

The more NPCs you hit with the spell the more xp you get, so pick a populated location like the Riften Marketplace during the day or most Inns in the evening. You'll need cost reduction gear to cast the spell since it costs over 1000 magicka to cast at level 15 with no perks.

Well, it's not exactly a clear exploit. But it's up to you to decide anyway. So no point to argue about it.

2) Use Radiant system quests. A lot of them. Hundreds.

Skyrim has a system called Radiant which is capable of generating repetitive quests. They are simple and boring. But they will never stop being available. The system goal is to try and get you to visit each location at least once. And after that you can go second round, then third and so on.

I don't tell you about mods coz you of coz know of them. And anyway it's not the best idea to install new content being deeply into the playthrough you don't want to abandon.

Many players just start a new playthrough. And before it they mod their game to try to avoid any problems they had in their previous playthroughs.

[emitfudd]

Skyrim and 7 Days to Die are the only games I have ever played more than once. I don't know if I will ever do a third playthrough of Skyrim. I don't want to start over with this one because I have spent a crazy amount of time customizing Heljarchen Hall as my main player home. Nothing is vanilla except for the 2 upstairs bedrooms.

Radiant quests are the worst LOL

From my oldrim playthrough I seem to remember another exploit where you can cast spells at a horse repeatedly to level up that skill.

[th]

If we are not talking about mods (coz almost anything can be done with them) then I can also add this to the topic.

Of coz one needs to plan his playthrough before its start.

Of coz you'll need the entire CC content, all 74 creations = Anniversary Upgrade DLC. More content = longer you can play.

Of coz you'll need to play only on Legendary difficulty from the very start. More enemies damage you = higher get the armor skills, easier to relevel them and so on. Same with attacking skills, coz higher the difficulty more hits you need to land to kill an enemy = quicker the leveling of your attacking skills.

And also Survival helps too coz it motivates you to use more skills than you need without it.

And yes, you'll need to legendary nearly every skill as soon is it gets to 100. Try to never use a skill which is at 100 coz you will lose potential progress.

[emitfudd]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Rez Elwin:

Skill increases are the only thing that contribute the character level, once you hit 100 you can no longer level up that skill and will no longer gain experience to level up. You must make the skill legendary or level a different skill. I imagine you have a only have a few left at level 60.

If you want the fastest "character levels" without exploits, then illusion is the best skill to max out and repeat for levels. The master level spell "Harmony" can raise the skill from
15-100 in two casts if their are enough NPCs around. As Harmony is a non-offensive non-damaging skill you will not get a bounty for casting in towns.

The more NPCs you hit with the spell the more xp you get, so pick a populated location like the Riften Marketplace during the day or most Inns in the evening. You'll need cost reduction gear to cast the spell since it costs over 1000 magicka to cast at level 15 with no perks.

I'm up to level 86 in illusion. I'm confused about something. You have to get to level 100 to get master level and buy the harmony spell tome. Are you saying I can get to 100, buy the harmony spell tome, legendary illusion and then still use harmony at level 15? I have a necklace and a ring that I enchanted that reduce the illusion spell cost by 50% each so right now my spells cost nothing.

[Rez Elwin]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von emitfudd:

I'm up to level 86 in illusion. I'm confused about something. You have to get to level 100 to get master level and buy the harmony spell tome. Are you saying I can get to 100, buy the harmony spell tome, legendary illusion and then still use harmony at level 15? I have a necklace and a ring that I enchanted that reduce the illusion spell cost by 50% each so right now my spells cost nothing.

Yes, you don't lose access to spells by making the skill Legendary, it may not be as effective and will undoubtedly cost more to cast but you can still use them. Using the ring and necklace you will be able to cast it. I have used this method myself and I can assure that it works.

You also do not need to get to 100, you can do the Ritual Spell quest at 90, using the spell you can finish of the last 10 levels before resetting.

[steventirey]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von emitfudd:

I'm up to level 86 in illusion. I'm confused about something. You have to get to level 100 to get master level and buy the harmony spell tome. Are you saying I can get to 100, buy the harmony spell tome, legendary illusion and then still use harmony at level 15? I have a necklace and a ring that I enchanted that reduce the illusion spell cost by 50% each so right now my spells cost nothing.

Yeah, spells don't actually have any requirements to cast, with the only exception being you need enough magicka. Any spell can be cast by anyone of any skill level provided you have the required magicka. The only limits besides that only apply to learning the spell in the first place - the mid to high level spells only start appearing once your skill level is at a certain point (for purchased tomes) or your character level is high enough (for found tomes). But that only applies to getting hold of the tome - you can learn a spell at any level. You can learn a Master level spell if your skill level was 15. That would just require you to buy the tome first, reset your skill to 15, then learn the spell.

[emitfudd]

I got illusion to 90, learned harmony, got to 100 and then made it legendary. I leveled it up again a second time. First cast of Harmony got me from level 15 to 49. From there it took about 5 or 6 more casts to get to 100 again. Still a super fast way to level up.

[emitfudd]

I am trying to level up destruction now. I am at level 54. I read all the spell tomes I have collected and I have been using thunderbolt which is an expert level spell. It isn't increasing my experience much at all. Does this have to be used on an actual enemy instead of just casting it in order to get the experience?