Oblivion Blog

[This is part three in a series of postings about my experiences of playing Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, taken from Menori.com]

Four Dremora stood before Hadaster each of them brandishing huge claymores. The blades briefly reflected the light from the Sigil Stone that burned above. A lesser mortal would have run in terror from the sight of the snarling humanoids, but Hadaster could only think about the magical properties of the weapons they carried. "I'm going to have to shed some loads if I'm going to carry that loot out of here" he pondered.

There was no time to pause for thought though. In an instant they were upon him. In an instant they were dead.

Examining the search queries from Google and MSN (I don't get many hits from other search engines) a great deal of people are looking for information on the best items in the Oblivion game.

There's a lot of interest in items. One thing I can say about Oblivion is that there are no ridiculously powerful items, although some are clearly better than others.

Swords - range. Two-handed swords have greatest range, but are clearly heavier and do not do significantly more damage than long swords. For balance I prefer short swords. They don't weigh as much and a daedric shortsword does almost the damage of a longsword. Coupled with a decent Sigil Stone (typically they can add 25 points of fire, frost or lightning damage) and you have a weapon to rival Umbra or Gold Brand.
Armour - This is all a matter of taste. If you're a master of light armour you can have pretty much the same armour rating as someone else wearing heavy armour. At master level the amount of encumbrance is about the same between light and heavy armour. There are a few suits of light armour (singlets if you will) which are good for thief and assassin types. I found that although these armours are very light they don't offer the same level of encumbrance relief as individual items of armour do. Light armour does degrade faster though.

If its sheer protection you want then Daedric armour is the best. Even the Dragon Armour presented to a Champion of Cyrodiil is not as good. It's lighter, prettier and shines well in the sunlight, but it's not got the sheer "hit me again! again! Come on wuss, again!" protection that Daedric offers. At Master level of heavy armour skill the stats for are:

Imperial Dragon Armour
Boots 12 / 5, 20% resist to poison
Cuirass 40 / 12, 11% resist to magic
Gauntlets 8 / 5, 11% resist to poison
Greaves 24 / 7, 20% resist to fire
Helmet 8 / 5, 20% resist to shock

So although lighter than Daedric it also offers less protection. Being loot mad I prefer to keep atleast 150 encumbrance points free for picking up items. There's nothing worse than running out of encumbrance to pick up items.

The locations of some items is generally well documented on a variety of web sites. The Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages has an absolute wealth of info on items and their locations. Generally I find that Marauders have the best loot, especially if you can find a leader. Then bandits, then Goblins. Ofcourse humanoid Daedra also tend to have good items. Conjurers - found in both Ayelid ruins and sometimes caves occasionally have enchanted clothing and are a good source of health potions and magicka potions.