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Also, the implications of being able to enchant any skill so that there's a 29% reduction in magicka cost should be clear by now:


You'll be able to dual-enchant a set of Armor (plus a ring and a necklace) so that your cost for casting any spell is ZERO, while still keeping your offensive ability in One-Handed at the same time. Which means that you'll be able to dual-cast "Ice Spike" or "Thunderbolt" or whatever without any cost to your magicka reserves.

It's fucking awesome.
 
A sample set of Armor that keeps your one-handed skill at peak but also buffs Destruction would look like this:

Ring: Fortify One Handed 29%/Fortify Destruction 29%
Necklace: Fortify One Handed 29%/Fortify Destruction 29%
Helmet: Fortify Archery 29%/Fortify Destruction 29%
Armor: Fortify Destruction 29%/Increase Health 74 points (or whatever benefit you wanted the second enchantment to be)
Gauntlets: Fortify Archery 29%/Fortify One-Handed 29%
Boots: Fortify One-Handed 29%/Fortify Fire Resistance 54% (or whatever benefit you wanted the second enchantment to be).


You could also fortify armor so that TWO schools of magic cost 0% to cast...by definition, this will come at the expense of some archery and one-handed (or two-handed) power, but take the same principle and apply it to, for the sake of argument, Illusion and Destruction.
 
One last point:

Some people complain that if you're investing so heavily in Enchanting and Alchemy that it doesn't allow you to reach the higher strengths in the Magic trees. For instance, a player who uses Illusion spells would be worried that they'll miss out on being able to cast an Illusion spell (like Frenzy) on higher level opponents, because they've spent all of their Perks.

There's an easy workaround - use potions to augment the power of whatever school of Magic that you're casting.


If you've maxed out Alchemy and Enchanting, it should be no problem to create potions that raise your skill (or the potency of a spell) by over 100%. This runs along the exact same lines as being able to temporarily improve your Smithing skill by 116%.

For instance...let's say that I want to use Illusion spells to cast on a Bandit Chief, but I can't, because I have no more perks to invest in the "Illusion" skill tree (because I've spent them in other schools)...BUT, I've invested in the "Alchemy" Perks, and have created the enchanted Alchemy gear.


I'd go to my Alchemy table, don my enchanted Alchemy gear, and create a few potions which will bump any cast "Illusion" spell to a much more powerful version. In the case of Illusion specifically, those potions will bump up the level of NPC that any skill will effect by a significant amount. Some of the Master-Level Illusion spells, when used in conjunction with a buffed-up Illusion Potion, will be able to effect NPC's up to around Level 52! :eek:


This makes investing Perks in many (if not all) Magic skill trees almost entirely unnecessary, because you can get the same effect (or better) via use of potions, while still being able to re-allocate those Perks to other skill trees.
 
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MojoFilter said:
Also, the implications of being able to enchant any skill so that there's a 29% reduction in magicka cost should be clear by now:


You'll be able to dual-enchant a set of Armor (plus a ring and a necklace) so that your cost for casting any spell is ZERO, while still keeping your offensive ability in One-Handed at the same time. Which means that you'll be able to dual-cast "Ice Spike" or "Thunderbolt" or whatever without any cost to your magicka reserves.

It's fucking awesome.
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:eek:
 
Guitar Heel said:
:eek:
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Try it. It works. A 29% reduction in Destruction magic multiplied over 4 items (enchanted Ring, Necklace, Helmet and Armor) means that you've reduced the cost of casting by 116%. You only need to get to 100% to reduce the casting cost to Zero. :)


This ALSO means that you can make "modular", mix and match Armor. Gauntlets, Shields and Boots can't be enchanted with any enchantment that reduces magic cost, so let's say that you want to switch your focus from Destruction to Illusion, or Restoration, or whatever: just enchant a new Ring, Necklace, Helmet and Armor with that specific school of Magic. You can keep your Shield, Gauntlets, and Boots exactly as-is.
 
Another tip, regarding Destruction and having armor that reduces your casting cost to Zero:

If you're not aware by now, when you're able to "Stagger" one of your enemies, this means that he can't attack while he's recovering, which takes a second or two. There's a perk in the "Destruction" tree called "Impact" that automatically staggers your opponent when you're dual-casting a destruction spell...and it only costs 3 Perk Points to get to.

What this means is that if you have an unlimited magicka reserve (which I outlined how to do above) and dual cast something like "Fireball", you'll keep that enemy in a permanent state of "Stagger"...so they'll never be able to fight back. You'll just keep winging Destruction spells at a continually Staggered opponent.


I haven't yet tried it, but allegedly the "Stagger" effect works on ALL enemies in the game: including Dragons of any level. So, while you can't technically "one-shot" any opponent in the game using Destruction, you get the next-best thing: you can basically attack them so they can't recover and fight back.
 
NO. Keep 'em coming. So, I've never gone in for the dual casting perk. Does that mean that you're casting two spells simultaneously with one hand?
 
Guitar Heel said:
NO. Keep 'em coming. So, I've never gone in for the dual casting perk. Does that mean that you're casting two spells simultaneously with one hand?
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No, that can't be done; it means that you've equipped the same spell, one in each hand, and you're firing with both hands at the same time.


It is also possible to have two different spells equipped in each hand (like "Fireball" in your left, and "Thunderbolt" in your right), but that's not technically "Dual-Casting" to my understanding of it.
 
I typically don't go in for any perks in any Magic tree, myself, with the exception of "Conjuration". I typically grab the shortest route to "Dual Souls", while ignoring all the others.

One could argue that the "Dual Souls" - the ability to have two permanent Dead Thralls - is possibly the most powerful in the game. It's also one of the most annoying, because of the buggy behavior of your Dead Thralls, who quite frequently get stuck inside of buildings, don't teleport to your exact location when you fast travel (they often end up at the Stables near major cities instead of IN the damn cities with you, for some unknown reason), and who often (and sometimes hilariously) decide to fight each other when one has accidentally fragged the other.

It's a cool thing to have for a while, but herding your Dead Thralls can get on your nerves after a while. If the AI was better, it would be a lot more fun to use.

Edit: Also, a lot of the Dead Thralls don't shut up. Some of them keep their original dialogue (like Dead-Thralled Vampires), and most of them just keep repeating "Uhhhhhh" every 20 seconds or so. It gets tiresome to listen to.
 
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:lol:

So, can you then turn any defeated enemy into a Thrall? Once there, can you replace with another? How does the process work? Obviously, you'd want the highest level Thralls possible...
 
Guitar Heel said:
:lol:

So, can you then turn any defeated enemy into a Thrall? Once there, can you replace with another? How does the process work? Obviously, you'd want the highest level Thralls possible...
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In the Vanilla game, you can re-animate enemies that are up to Level 40. However, there are certain things that you can do to make them into tanks: you can improve and enchant their armor, but it *must* be the exact same armor you've taken off of them, improved, and put back on them. For instance, let's say I kill a Thalmor Justiciar, who's wearing a full set of Glass armor. I can take the armor that he's wearing, improve and enchant it, and then put it back on the dead body and then Dead Thrall it: he'll then wear that armor.

However, if I've created a set of Glass Armor that I've personally made and already enchanted and improved, he'll never ever equip it, for some reason. No idea why it works like that, but it does.

Also, Dead Thralls and Followers don't receive the benefits of enchantments the same way that the Player does; some work, and most don't. There's a lot of debate as to which actually work, and which don't. Any "Fortify Health" perks seem to work, but anything that improves a Skill (like "Fortify One Handed") don't. I'm still waiting to see a definitive list, and haven't been able to find one after scouring teh interwebs quite thoroughly.


Dead Thralls will equip ANY weapons and armor that you give to them, although if you give them multiple weapons, they don't always choose the most powerful...that's why it's best to only equip them with one Melee weapon, one Bow, and one Staff at the maximum.


Dead Thralls have an unlimited weight-carrying capacity, which means that you can use them as unlimited pack-mules. You kill them, put all of your unneeded crap that you're going to sell on them, and then re-animate them; they never turn to ash, like other enchantments will do to re-animated bodies. However, if you decapitate them, you're screwed - they can't be reanimated. In any case, the "pack-mule" aspect of having a Dead Thrall is awesome, since you never have to worry about becoming over-burdened, but let's say you've given them an improved and enchanted Legendary Daedric Sword, and then load them up with a bunch of stuff that you want them to carry, including a bunch of unimproved Steel swords - it's quite possible that they'll use the unimproved Steel Sword as their primary weapon, for some reason.
 
Interesting... So, you can re-animate the same thrall infinitely, so long as they're not decapitated, and you can kill them at will, if you killed a more powerful opponent that would be more useful?
 
Here's a PS3 question... If copy and save my player file to a thumb drive, can I take it over to a buddy's house who also has Skyrim, and load that game? We're taking the day off on Friday for the ACC tourney and Skyrim and drinking, but it's at his place and I'd like to make some progress in Dragonborn.
 
Guitar Heel said:
Interesting... So, you can re-animate the same thrall infinitely, so long as they're not decapitated, and you can kill them at will, if you killed a more powerful opponent that would be more useful?
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Yes. And you can have two of them. Although there's something that you'll want to watch out for: if you take the "Savage Strike" perk on the One Handed skill tree, or the "Devastating Blow" perk on the Two Handed skill tree, you can decapitate your enemies quite easily, so you'll want to kill your Dead Thralls using a Bow.

It's pretty annoying to have thralled an NPC, buffed up their armor, and then decapitate them accidentally because you wanted to get rid of the extra junk you were carrying.



By the way: it's necessary to complete the "Conjuration Ritual Spell" mission at the College of Winterhold before you get the spell tome "Dead Thrall". You need to talk to Phineas Gestor after you've hit Level 90 on Conjuration, and ask him if there's any more that he can teach you about Conjuration. Level 90 skill is what triggers the dialogue option.

One nice thing, but not stellar, is that you also end up with something called a "Sigil Stone", which you can place on the Atronach Forge. It will allow you to create some items that the forge wouldn't normally allow (although, by the time you get the Sigil Stone, chances are that you can get those same items through Smithing). Still...the Sigil Stone looks pretty cool as a keepsake sitting around in your house...kinda like a Centurion Dynamo Core.
 
Guitar Heel said:
Here's a PS3 question... If copy and save my player file to a thumb drive, can I take it over to a buddy's house who also has Skyrim, and load that game? We're taking the day off on Friday for the ACC tourney and Skyrim and drinking, but it's at his place and I'd like to make some progress in Dragonborn.
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Sorry, no idea. My girlfriend has a PS3 at her place, and I've played Skyrim on it before, but I have no idea whether it's transportable or not.
 
Kerouac said:
:hmm:

Next play through I will be investigating Thralls.
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After completing the "Conjuration Ritual Spell" mission, you'll also be able to get permanent Storm Thralls, Frost Thralls, and Flame Thralls...


They're a lot less flexible than a Dead Thrall, but they're also a LOT less annoying, because they don't talk. :)
 
MojoFilter said:
I typically don't go in for any perks in any Magic tree, myself, with the exception of "Conjuration". I typically grab the shortest route to "Dual Souls", while ignoring all the others.

One could argue that the "Dual Souls" - the ability to have two permanent Dead Thralls - is possibly the most powerful in the game. It's also one of the most annoying, because of the buggy behavior of your Dead Thralls, who quite frequently get stuck inside of buildings, don't teleport to your exact location when you fast travel (they often end up at the Stables near major cities instead of IN the damn cities with you, for some unknown reason), and who often (and sometimes hilariously) decide to fight each other when one has accidentally fragged the other.

It's a cool thing to have for a while, but herding your Dead Thralls can get on your nerves after a while. If the AI was better, it would be a lot more fun to use.

Edit: Also, a lot of the Dead Thralls don't shut up. Some of them keep their original dialogue (like Dead-Thralled Vampires), and most of them just keep repeating "Uhhhhhh" every 20 seconds or so. It gets tiresome to listen to.
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That's why I user Dremora Lords in stead of Thralls. If you DL gets lost or stuck or causes trouble you don't want, just cast another one :grin:
 
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