So..uhh....there aren't any attributes in Skyrim...so what exactly is the point of enchanting armor now??

Yes you can still add effects like fire resistance and detect life and stuff to your armor and jewelry, but how far does that get you? No more speed-suits, no more three-mile-long-jump-suits, no more "I'm so strong I can carry everything in my house from Anvil to Bravil and back"-suits.

Honestly, I really don't understand why they would bring enchanting back as a skill if they're eliminating all attributes.

How about skill fortification?

Yes, that worried me as well.
They could buff Fortify Skill by letting values above 100 affect skills, though. I hope they do it.

Fortify health, magicka, stamina. If they bring chameleon, shield, feather and others back it would still be useful.

Can't they still have feather, chameleon, and the others?

Why can't there be a fortify movement enchatment? Just because atrributes are gone doesn't mean that it couldn't be possible..

Yep. I don't really see what the OP is complaining about. It doesn't bother me at all tbh.

EDIT: Typos from my lappy :S and Gorbad makes a good point too.

Indeed, there are quite a few effects already in past games that can still be useful without attributes, both the ones mentioned and fortify skill enchantments, there could also be new effects available for enchanting as well. And even without attributes in the usual sense, that doesn't mean we couldn't have enchantments that replicate the function of fortify attribute ones. Maybe some items could have an enchantment that increases melee damage and carrying weight, thus essentially being fortify strength, and maybe some items increase your movement speed, just because there isn't a speed attribute doesn't mean there can't be factors that determine how fast you move. Removing attributes certainly removes some options for enchanting, but there are still quite a few others, Bethesda just has to ensure they're useful.

Well said! It is shameful I didn't think of the possibility of new effects for enchanting!

not only that, no attributes also means no more drain/absorb attribute spells/potions, which really svcks. It was fun in previous games having to figure out what enemies were strong in what attributes, or what attribute of yours they were draining etc. Made combat much deeper.

Because "Fortify Attribute" is one of a TON of things you can enchant.

Poorly formed argument, man. Very, very poor argument.

Also, just make a ton of CE fortify stamina things to boost your stamina to the thousands and sprint for minutes on end.

Absorb health was really the only "absorb" effect I ever used. That is just me though, I'm sure others found the absorb effects useful.

chill out mate, he doesn't have a bad point. No need to try and appear all high and haughty now is there?
Fortifying attributes was probably the biggest part of enchanting - you could create the most interesting/useful items with those effects, everybody knows that

For buff items, yeah fortifying endurance and speed and such was useful, but that was only one use for buffs. The way he worded his argument was sounding like a very annoying complaint.

"Honestly, I really don't understand why they would bring enchanting back as a skill if they're eliminating all attributes."

Yeah, I guess having only basic weapons will be fun. I never used enchanted weapons ever.

Skill fortification, shield enchantments, spell resistance enchantments and possibly new effects we don't even know about (there are several new spells we have never seen before, a couple were revealed in the demo in Utah like chain lightning and the mind destruction spell that turned the enemy against the other, which seems to be a better version of frenzy.) Also, I'm sure there will be fortify health, magicka and stamina as well.

Besides, fortify attributes was pretty useless anyhow in Oblivion because you couldn't break 100 with most attributes (if any). I usually just fortified magicka on my casters and fortified health on my warriors.

I'm not sure I would call stopping in the middle of battle to check what drain effect an enemy is using deep nor does 'guessing' what attributes they are strong in make combat deep.

On topic I rarely enchanted anything so this doesn't bother me much. I guess I play more mundane characters that don't boost everything with enchantments or potions at all mostly because I couldn't be bothered.

Even after the large amount of possible effects for armour there is also weapon enchantments. There's your reason for bringing enchant back as a skill.

What stops the devs to add in a haste spell?

Or a fortitude spell?

Or a mana-surge spell?

I've never used armor to fortify attributes, or skills for that matter. I used them for continuous spell effects like night eye and water breathing.

Frankly, I don't know why anyone would use fortify attributes because there are so many more useful effects. If you fortify straight magicka, you get much more magicka than you would get out of fortifying intelligence and so on. Same goes for fortifying health over endurance. The only time endurance would be better is if you had access to enchanting at level one and you enchanted all your armor with as much endurance as you could and then started leveling, you would probably end up with more health in the end that way.

Thus is why continuous spell effects and passive stat bonuses are better than fortify attributes or skills. *hifive*

Why would I be "worried"? This simply means enchanting effects are different stuff.

Been too long sicne I played MW, but in OB I always just used magic buffs for stats if I really needed them.

I don't recall enchanting much on my armor other than maybe burden, or a cheap way to increase the armor of something by giving a frost/fire shield for my melee based characters. I dond't recall buffing any stats specifically, though speed might not be half bad at lower levels. I never bothered with it. By the time I could enchant my own crap I can always buff it with spells just as easy without blowwing all my gold and having all my encumberance go up cause i got a backpack full of "specialized junk".

Why would I be "worried"? This simply means enchanting effects are different stuff.

I expect spells alchemy enchantments and shouts will not overlap much if at all.

And I dont expect to see skill boosts at all.

What I do expect is a bunch of all new enchantment effects. and some former spells becoming enchantments only.


things like hast potions but no haste enchantments..

Health enchantments but no health boosting alchemy or spells just healing alchemy and spells...

No max magicka boiosting spells but only enchantments that do that.


Chameleon being magic spell only...

feather being enchant only...

Doesn't work as far as I know. Only base Endurance is taken into account at level up.