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A Champion’s Experiences… [part two]
[This is part two in a series of postings about my experiences of playing Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, taken from Menori.com]
"There's something out there," The guard turned to Hadaster who had drawn his sword Goldbrand. A look of anguisg came over the guard's face. "I'll go first", the Monk said and stepped off the platform on which stood the Oblivion gate. Hadaster knew he had to keep the guards from the terrors that lurked in this otherwordly realm. He'd faced them several times before and knew that the Spider Daedra were especially deadly, their smaller minions would paralyse from out of sight and a torrent of lightning would surge down from the Daedra itself.
"Charge!" screamed the guard. Hadaster turned in a flurry to see the guard rushing off in the direction of a huge humanoid shape. "No!" Hadaster bellowed, "Get back."
Too many times do you have to do quests where keeping someone alive is the key focus. Anyone who displays a crown on them is a vital character to the plot and therefore cannot die, the simply fall unconscious. Be wary though as this can change through the game. A character deemed critical at one point can be slain just as any other at some points of the game. So be aware of characters that you need to keep alive (especially in Oblivion) and their tendency to leap towards enemies fool hardedly. I found that standing in between an enemy and the character helps as the enemy tends to focus on you if you're doing more damage. It's a bit like drawing aggro in Everquest 2.
Generally my experiences of combat tend to be how the game was intended to be played I think. Having a shield and actually using block is essential for most battles. I found that on the Xbox 360 you could keep the left trigger held down for blocking and then press the right trigger to attack. Once the right trigger was released you'd revert back to blocking. Patience and conserving your endurance in battles is essential. For starters your Armour doesn't degrade as fast if you block and you can take advantage of the 'recoil' to get a good hit in. I've found that Clanfear at any level tend to dish out a lot of damage even if you block, so it's best to take them from a distance.
The guard was dead. A huge Xivilai stood over him brandishing an enormous axe. A summoned Clanfear stood beside the huge daedra, like the master's pet. Only then did Hadaster noticed the lithe figure of the Spider Daedra out of the corner of his eye. All ready the small spiderling was rushing towards him. Goldbrand hummed in his grasp and he thrust the sword into the spiderling. The small creature was caught within Goldbrand's flames and with another swift blow Hadaster killed the foul thing.
Despite picking up Umbra, and keeping the sword, which is said by many to be the best sword in the game, I found that Goldbrand is better for out and out damage. Not many things apart from Dunmer are resistant to fire (and I know, it saved me a few times) so Goldbrand dishes out a lot of damage when charged. I found it much better to cast Soul Trap and then hack away rather than use Umbra and its ability to Soul Trap. Although Goldbrand is good, I found that as I progressed in the game I preferred to wield lighter weapons. My favourite weapon, therefore, is a Daedric Shortsword that I enchanted with a Sigil Stone that adds fire damage. In total it does about 10% less damage per strike than Goldbrand, but weighs less than half as much. Never use two handed weapons. They're just too big and unwieldy and you get a rubbish backstab bonus for using them. Oh and Mehyrunes Razor is rubbish (from the add-on pack). In fighting about 15 enemies it only once killed one of them instantly and then it's charges ran out.
A Champion’s Experiences… [part one]
The Oblivion posts on Menori.com have been quite popular so I thought I'd do a short series of posts gathering some of my experiences during nearly 200 hours of play and becoming the Champion of Cyrodiil.
The candle flame flickered as Hadaster sat at his laboratory bench. A varied assortment of herbs, flora and animal parts lay in neat piles on the bench top and the Arch-mage grabbed the pestle infront of him. "Samples first, I think" he muttered to himself. Hadaster took a bite out of a Clanfear claw. "Grim", he frowned.
I found that 'sampling' ingredients is a slow but good way of getting increases to your Alchemy skill. Alchemy was good to get increases in because it was one way if getting Intelligence increases upon level up. And Intelligence is the prime stat for Magicka. Always concentrate on getting your secondary stats up during the time between levelling. As a Monk, Hadaster got his Agility up very quickly but neglected things like Intelligence due to the Monk having a high proportion of Agility related stats as primaries.
Two hours had passed by the time Hadaster had finished his alchemical studies. An entire crate full of Restore Endurance potions was the output of his labour. "They'll sell for a reasonable price", he chuckled and smiled.
Repitition is rife in Oblivion if you want to progress. I spent ages making Restore Endurance potions because they're quick and easy to make. You can find an abundance of Potatoes, Onions, Corn, Flour etc. and comining two of them to make a Restore Endurance potion proved to be a good way of churning out potions to get my Alchemy up. At higher levels my Endurance never dipped below about 95% unless I was hacking at creatures constantly [the battle with Mankar Camoran comes to mind, he was hard to kill]. So I sold the potions and managed to get a little Mercantile skill along the way.
Remember to keep casting spells too. The spells actually need to do something in order to qualify for an increase in their stat. Cast low level spells over and over such as light, bound dagger (cast the spell get the dagger then put the weapon away - rinse, repeat) to get increases. I used to do this while on the move. Later in the game when my speed was greater I used to run everywhere rather than ride in order to qualify for the Althletics increase. Oh, and jump everywhere too. The further you fall the better, I seemed to get better increases to Acrobatics if I hurt myself when landing. The throne rooms of most castles is a good place - jump off the balcony run back up the stairs and jump off the balcony again.