Best enchants for your own weapons?

Post » Sat Nov 13, 2010 2:05 am

I was wondering what do you all thing about the best enchants for weapons. I created 2 possibilities that i think are the best weapons you can make. Post your Ideas for the best enchanted weapon!

(weapon of choice)
Drain health 100 1 sec
Weakness to magic 100 1 sec

or

(weapon of choice)
9 fire damage 1 sec
100 weakness to fire 1 sec
9 shock damage 1 sec
100weakness to shock 1sec
9 frost damage 1sec
100 weakness to frost 1 sec
100 drain health 1 sec
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Yvonne
 
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Post » Fri Nov 12, 2010 8:56 pm

Those are actually going to be pretty useless enchantments because weaknesses aren't applied until the [i]next[i] hit. So unless you hit your enemy again in under 1 second, those weaknesses aren't going to do any good for you. Much better to make them 3-5 seconds or so.
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gemma king
 
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Post » Sat Nov 13, 2010 8:55 am

My character likes a bow enchanted as follows: Drain Speed 100 for 1 sec + shock damage to taste for 1 second + soul trap for 1 second.

It is the only weapon of any sort she uses, and she calls it Slayer. As she has leveled, she simply applies the enchantment to stronger base bows. It has kept her alive for well over 500 hours of play with no deaths. It has captured over 2500 souls.
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Brandon Bernardi
 
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Post » Sat Nov 13, 2010 4:13 am

The duration of the weaknesses depend on how long time you can use between the strikes. 1 second work for daggers but require you to go in close and hack away as max speed. 2 works nice for daggers and short swords but three is better for short and long sword. For a twohands weapon I would use 4-5 second but her you can let the damage last for 2 seconds.

For bows use 3-5 seconds, it works very well but require that you are able to the enemy many times after each other no problem if the enemy is running towards you far harder if he runs sideways or use an summon or other cover.

First weapon is nice, however use 2-3 seconds duration on the weakness, I usualy make a sacrifice dagger with soultrap 2 sec, drain health 100 and weakness to magic 100 for two sec.

For the last one I recommend removing frost as few have weakness to it.
If you use this on a dagger make two one with shock for common use and one with fire for undead.

Add drain health 100 for 1 second and add weakness to magic 100 last.
This has two effects, first the drain health kills weaker enemies in one hit, second hit kills most standard enemies as if they has less than 200 hp after the two hits they dies.

The second and most important effect of weakness to magic is that if doubles the effect of the elemental weaknesses every hit, yes your magical damage doubles for each hit as long as the weakness don't time out, nice for killing the gatekeeper and boss level monsters at high level.
With the weakness to magic the type of elemental damage is less important as the enemy fast has 2-400% elemental weakness, so you can kill a fire elemental with a fire effect with one extra hit.

And yes add soultrap for one or two seconds first, this weapon will run out of charge fast so you need recharging for every 20 hit, less if the weapon is underpowered, Azura's star is required if you use if frequently. Two seconds duration is nice because if the enemy dies at the end of the elemental damage duration you might not capture the soul.
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BethanyRhain
 
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Post » Sat Nov 13, 2010 7:18 am

If you're not concerned about breaking the game, the best enchantment on a weapon, by far, is Dominate Creature for 1 second, Dominate Humanoid for 1 second and Soul Trap for 1 second. Set the level for the dominates to at least your current level plus a few (higher if you want it to be useful longer, or you can always make another one). It's completely and totally unstoppable-- every time you hit something, it'll not only do damage, but make whatever it is NOT attack you. You won't even fight any more-- you just slaughter things while they stand there and take it. And it's about the least fun possible in the game.

So-- that out of the way-- I think that Drain Health 100 is probably the most powerful useful enchantment in the game, though it's arguably even a gamebreaker. It works best at lower levels, when you're facing things with fewer than 100 total HP, so it's a one-shot kill, but it remains useful throughout the game. Later, when you're facing things with more than 100 HP (or 200, if you add a 100% Weakness to Magic with sufficient duration for the weapon) it still provides a hefty advantage, since it means you only have to get opponents down to 100 (or 200) HP in order to kill them with the next strike.

Personally, I rarely use it, just because it's a bit broken. I don't like making the game that easy.

My favorite enchantment, by a considerable margin, is simply all three types of elemental damage plus soul trap. With a grand soul gem, it's easy enough to do 15 points of each of the damages plus a 1 second soul trap, and that's more than enough to handle pretty much anything I'm ever going to face. No matter what it is and what sort of resistance/immunity it has, there's going to be something that's going to damage it, and often something that's going to do extra damage. Against a Frost Atronach, for instance, the frost part of the enchantment isn't going to do anything, but the fire part is going to do extra damage, so it all evens out. By adjusting the order in which the effects are listed and the amounts of them, it's possible to get any of the three animations/shaders, so I just tailor the enchantment for the look I want-- be it fire or frost or shock-- but the weapon always does all three. And with soul trap there to make it essentially self-recharging (along with Azura's Star on a hotkey), it's brutally efficient.

I've experimented a fair amount with weakness effects on weapons, but all in all I just don't care for them that much. If you just use weakness to the elements, you really don't gain much if anything. Weakness effects are considerably more costly than damage effects, so you have to decrease the amount of damage the weapon does in order to provide enchantment points for the weakness effect, and it works out almost even as it is. Add to that the fact that you then have to get a second strike in before the weakness effect runs out in order to get the full potential damage, and I think it's just more practical to stick with pure damage. Adding a weakness to magic effect can add quite a bit of damage (as Zaria already explained well), but you still have the time constraint imposed by the duration of the weakness effect, and if you don't get off another hit within that time, you're all the way back to scratch and starting over with a weapon that, on its own, does less damage than a similar weapon with just the damage enchantment would do. I just find the benefit of the weakness to not be enough to make up for the time constraint. I'd rather be able to back off and parry my opponent if that's the best strategy without having to deal with the necessity of continuing to strike just to keep the weakness running.

And for a bow, nothing beats drain speed 100 plus a bit of elemental damage plus soul trap. Or, as it's often known around these parts, the Acadian bow. :D
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Louise Dennis
 
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Post » Sat Nov 13, 2010 12:58 am

I like using frost enchants and weakness to frost for my basic, elemental damage weapons.

For my assassination dagger/bow, I put absorb health, and bonus to Destruction.
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Khamaji Taylor
 
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Post » Sat Nov 13, 2010 9:42 am

Gpstr: yes drain health+ weakness to magic is serious overpowered, and it is also less efficient at very high levels where the enemies can easy have +1000 hp and spell stacking work better.

And yes would not recommend it unless you play a glass cannon or as a critter killer at very high level, fits well for current character mage with weakness to magic 100% and 40 in endurance, who can be killed by a single spell from a lich if unlucky, to be able to kill them in three-four hits is fair play.
For a batlemage in heavy armor it would be pretty game breaking unless you drag the difficulty bar far to the right.

Might also say that absorb health is overpowered as you basically cast a heal spell on yourself each time you hit, so unless mobbed or paralyzed you can not be killed.

Stuffed b1rd :) absorb health don't work with ranged attack, work nice with a melee weapon,
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leni
 
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Post » Fri Nov 12, 2010 11:40 pm

Regardless of the other enchantments, any such weapon will need recharging, so always add enough duration of soul trap to keep the weapon going. Remember that a lot of enemies are NPC's that can't fill Azura's Star and make sure you don't build a weapon that runs out of charge before you can find a soul-donor. For that reason, a high base damage is a good safety net (one reason Umbra is popular).

Also, don't put all your eggs in one basket. A choice of weapons for different opponents is better - e.g. carry a non-magical one for enemies like the Lich that reflect spells. Consider combining damage on the weapon with a weakness spell cast as you move in (or not, if it's a bow!) The weapon can then renew the weakness for its next blow.
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Nathan Barker
 
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Post » Fri Nov 12, 2010 7:20 pm

Regardless of the other enchantments, any such weapon will need recharging, so always add enough duration of soul trap to keep the weapon going. Remember that a lot of enemies are NPC's that can't fill Azura's Star and make sure you don't build a weapon that runs out of charge before you can find a soul-donor. For that reason, a high base damage is a good safety net (one reason Umbra is popular).

Also, don't put all your eggs in one basket. A choice of weapons for different opponents is better - e.g. carry a non-magical one for enemies like the Lich that reflect spells. Consider combining damage on the weapon with a weakness spell cast as you move in (or not, if it's a bow!) The weapon can then renew the weakness for its next blow.

Yes also depending on how you use the weapon, if it's a fallback weapon like a archers shortsword or a mages dagger you might want to use something maximum damage/ few charges as it's for emergency use. For your most used weapon a shock enchantment from a sigil stone can work well enough, also because it has a huge charge and can be used many times, use a spell with a pretty long term weakness to shock and soul trap as a booster.
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danni Marchant
 
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Post » Fri Nov 12, 2010 8:09 pm

No backup weapons here.

My character only carries her enchanted bow, Slayer. It has 21 charges - each has a power of 75 (not the maximum of 85) - that way a petty soul (150) for example refills exactly 2 charges (it would only fill one if the power per charge was 85).

She normally captures almost every foe in Azura's Star and recharges after each kill. When fighting lots of humanoids though, she uses more discipline and carries a few extra crap filled soul gems to help. In a pinch, she'll summon a zombie and stuff him into Azura's Star. She never runs out of charges.

She does sometimes run out or very low on arrows, since she prefers the rarer, higher damage ones. When that happens, she falls back on magic since she carries no backup weapon of any sort. As a mystic archer, she considers herself primarilay an archer, but in fact, she can clear a dungeon with magic alone if she needs to. She primarily uses mind control spells and summons to do this, as she thinks elemental destruction magic is mostly for lighting torches and cooking.
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Jake Easom
 
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Post » Sat Nov 13, 2010 9:58 am

I carry a bow and a short sword. The short sword, which is Daedric, has these enchants:

Soul Trap
Turn Undead level 25
Fire Damage
Shock Damage
Weaknesses to the above for 100%
Weakness to Magic for 100%
Light on Strike

Not a whole lot of charges, as I use it for "I need to get the hell out of this deathtrap" melee situations. When I get separation from my attackers, I switch back to the bow, as I currently have the knockdown effect happening in my archery.... very sweet. My archer is not allowed to make custom spells until Destruction level reached is 75.
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luis ortiz
 
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Post » Sat Nov 13, 2010 2:56 am

Depends on if I'm roleplaying or not. I do not have enchantments on either of my main character's weapons, but when I feel like playing my mage (whom I have min/maxed, just for funsies) I use drain magicka (he was born under the atranoch, so yeah...). Weapon enchantments are game breakers for me, I prefer a slightly more realistic approach to my murder.
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jesse villaneda
 
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