Why do we need another build review thread?

[Darzog]

Well, because I'm a newbie and I'd just like to avoid any major flaws, or miss any major benefits that I won't know about until I've played long enough to not want to start over. I don't have a lot of time to play, what with real life intruding its ugly head so I don't want to go through 10 different builds just playing around.

So I just wanted to get some general comments on whether I have a reasonable mix of skills, or minor changes that could improve my playability, enjoyment, etc.

I am looking for a character that will be a hybrid between a mage and a thief using magic as his primary weapon (Destruction major skill) with potions/items as backup and a healthy ability to sneak/steal. So almost like a ninja but more reliant on magic. I will probably do a reasonable amount of stealing. And I'm playing the XBox Game of the Year version, so I have the two expansions but won't have any mods.

What I have so far is:
Race: Breton
Sign: Atronoch
Specialization: Magic
Class: Custom

- Major Skills:
Destruction (WIL)
Long Blade (STR)
Medium Armour (END)
Mysticism (WIL)
Security (INT)

- Minor Skills:
Alteration (WIL)
Athletics (SPD)
Mercantile (PER)
Sneak (AGI)
Alchemy (INT)

I've thought about using Light Armour instead of Medium Armour, but that would leave me without any Endurance skills in my primary slots and I assume Light Armour isn't as effective as Medium Armour (but would a mage/thief really need heavier armour). I've also considered swapping Enchant in instead of Mysticism or Alteration. I would like to balance roleplaying with powergaming so that I have a build designed with some thought to game mechanics to improve my ability to level and raise stats, but that is still built with my playstyle in mind.

I think I've done a pretty good job so far with balancing skills from different disciplines and with all attributes represented. But I don't know how effective Light Armour is compared to Medium Armour, or how important it is to have all attributes with a primary skill. And not really knowing how important the different disciplines of magic are, I don't know if I should sacrifice Mysticism/Alteration to give Enchant a bigger boost.

So any comments or advice would be appreciated.

[dragon wench]

A mage/thief type of combo tends to be my favourite Morrowind "class."

Regarding armor, medium armour is generally not great, and the Master trainer is also missing from the game (which can't be fixed if you are on Xbox). Further, one of the better medium armours can't even be worn in certain areas...

This is obviously a matter of personal preference, but I tend to forgo concern over Endurance and just go with Light. However, if you do want something that boosts Endurance, I'd suggest Heavy Armour instead. It is extremely cumbersome to lug around in the beginning, but it pays off in the end. You might even want to consider a combination of light and heavy.

Athletics increases on its own quite easily, all you need to do is run all the time, and the Mercantile skill is bugged. So... you might want to swap those two out. Perhaps replace Mercantile with Speechcraft? It is more generally useful, and you can employ "persuade" to raise the disposition of merchants, thus netting you a better price.

Everything else looks pretty good, IMO. Definitely go for the Atronach sign, it is the only birthsign really worth choosing; it is especially potent when combined with the Breton race because not much magic will affect you, and you'll have *a lot* of magicka. The other thing to remember is that after a while, it really doesn't matter what skills you start out with, since they can all be raised quite easily, either through practice or paying for trainers.

Regarding Enchant. It is only worth raising so that your enchanted items recharge more quickly. Otherwise, it really isn't worth it because enchanting stuff on your own is ridiculously difficult, it's better to just pay an enchanter once you have amassed the funds. If you were going to sacrifice Mysticism or Alteration for anything, I'd suggest Illusion instead.... it goes well with the roleplaying aspect of a mage/thief because of Chameleon and Invisibility. Also.... "Paralyse" is a nice spell, and it falls under the category of Illusion.

[Darzog]

Well, I've thought a little bit about what you said and came up with swapping Medium for Light Armour, pulling Mercantile and Athletics and replacing with Illusion and Speechcraft. So I don't have to remove Alteration or Mysticism.

Are the Mercantile and Medium Armour bugs still in the GotY version? I would have thought they would fix two major bugs like that before rereleasing. Where would be a good place to check on those, just to verify?

[dragon wench]

[QUOTE=Darzog]Are the Mercantile and Medium Armour bugs still in the GotY version? I would have thought they would fix two major bugs like that before rereleasing. Where would be a good place to check on those, just to verify?[/QUOTE]


You'd think....
I suspect that since they are so easy to get around, Besthesda just did not bother.
OKay, I'm familiar with the computer version, and neither of these bugs were fixed for the GOTY release. It's possible that the Xbox version has been repaired, though I'm doubtful. Other people here might know more. You might try searching around the Official Elderscrolls Forums for more definitive answers as well, apart from that I'm not sure.

[ch85us2001]

[QUOTE=Darzog]

Are the Mercantile and Medium Armour bugs still in the GotY version? I would have thought they would fix two major bugs like that before rereleasing. Where would be a good place to check on those, just to verify?[/QUOTE]
Still there, unfortunately. (Xbox and PC)

[fable]

I can confirm this, too. There are a number of buggy features that were more or less improved over time, usually by modders rather than Bethsoft, but the mercantile code is beyond mod reach. I *think* the medium armor one has been successfully fixed, however, though I've never used medium armor, so I had no reason to look into this. But I once went through the entire mod database on PlanetElderScrolls, and I recall finding at least one fix for it, there.

[Greg.]

I take it the medium armour glitch was the one where indoril/orcish armor sometimes goes heavy. All you do is mod the armours to be 0.5 units lighter.

I can't get on the Official Elder Scrolls Pages - the link in the Morrowind Yellow Pages doesnt seem to work...

[QUOTE=Darzog]What I have so far is:
Race: Breton
Sign: Atronoch
Specialization: Magic
Class: Custom

- Major Skills:
Destruction (WIL)
Long Blade (STR)
Medium Armour (END)
Mysticism (WIL)
Security (INT)

- Minor Skills:
Alteration (WIL)
Athletics (SPD)
Mercantile (PER)
Sneak (AGI)
Alchemy (INT)
[/QUOTE]

No problem with race/birthsign.

What attributes are you choosing to boost to start with?

I'd probably put restoration somewhere - but that's just me. You possibly won't need security if you have alteration although then you could compromise your intelligence.

The Mercantile bug can be got around - it just sets the automatic price for you selling to be lower, but you can raise that. Otherwise - swap for restoration or maybe illusion.

Anyway - its your choice!

[Raven_Song]

With the majority of the magicka based skills represented in your build, do you really need alchemy?

To be honest I've always found sneak works best in conjunction with Illusion magics so it might be an idea to add that somewhere (I usually major.)

[fable]

[QUOTE=Raven_Song]With the majority of the magicka based skills represented in your build, do you really need alchemy?[/QUOTE]

Depends on each player, but I find alchemy indispensable. It allows me to enhance my characters attributes before combat, to remove curses, diseases and poisons instantly, and to simulate the effects of many spells when my current character lacks any training in that magic school. Suppose I want to levitate and I haven't got any training in Alteration? I can make potions for that. It also means I have a ready source of income, by selling potions. I don't consider this cheese, since many of the mods I've installed have all sorts of high-end merchandise that's exorbitantly priced (we're speaking 30,000 to 50,000 drakes). Each to their own, and of course no skill is absolutely necessary in and of itself. But I find Alchemy personally one of the most useful in the game.

[mr_sir]

I agree with Fable. Out of all the skills, Alchemy is probably one of the more useful ones IMO - especially as once you get decent alchemy equipment the potions become a lot better than any you can buy.

Restoration is a handy skill, but then again most if not all of the Restoration spells can be copied by the potions you can brew using Alchemy so its not really a necessity - plus you can always enchant items with the Restoration spells you use the most.

[dragon wench]

Indeed! No matter the type of character I am playing, I *always* place Alchemy among my major skills.

Beyond its obvious use, as Fable outlines, it's fun
I enjoy the creativity of mixing various potion effects.

[Raven_Song]

I think people are misinterpretting my comment, it wasn't meant to knock alchemy as a skill, infact I agree with everybody that it is probably the most useful skill in the game. My concern was that the build, at least for me, is duplicating too many effects with alchemy/magic and other skills that could be put to better use elsewhere.

Destruction: Probably my least favourite school of magic. You can blast things and that's about it really. The most useful of the effects (drain x) are easily duplicated by Mysticism's absorb (X)

Mysticism: Great, the most utilitarian school in the game, I'd keep it as a major.

Alteration: At the moment the effects of this school are being duplicated by Security and Alchemy.

Illusion: At the moment the effects of this school are being duplicated by alchemy, sneak and speechcraft. And with them all being minor all of them are going to need to be trained significantly before they do much. Bear in mind that many of the best illusion spells are difficult to cast and require a large amount of magicka, so if I go illusion i usually major.

Security: Is being duplicated through Alteration (Open) and Mysticism (Telekinesis to deal with the traps)

It might be worth considering that Alchemy does not (in an unmodded game) cover any effects from the Conjuration school, which can be quite handy (summoning distracting meat shields, a valuable source of enchantment fodder, weapons for when you're out in the wilderness and your weapon can't cut butter)

Just some thought...

[Darzog]

Raven,

I appreciate the comments. These are the types of insights that I don't know coming into the game fresh, so I may consider readjusting the mix and starting over before I get too far along. But from everything I've seen, Alchemy is as important as people keep saying, so if there is major overlap I would keep Alchemy and consider removing the other skill(s).

Regarding Destruction, I was planning to use my spells as my primary offense, so wouldn't Destruction be necessary for a major skill? Is your dislike of Destruction because of your playing style, or because the other schools can be more effective as weapons than Destruction. If it is just playing style then I would keep Destruction, but if magic can be used as your primary offense but used through other schools more effectively (paralysis, weakness, etc. that leads to easy melee without too many skills sacrificed) I would consider that option as well.

[mr_sir]

Destruction is very useful as an offensive magic user, especially when you get into making spells combining different destructive effects. If you plan to use magic as your main source of attack I'd definately take Destruction.

[Greg.]

[QUOTE=Darzog]If it is just playing style then I would keep Destruction, but if magic can be used as your primary offense but used through other schools more effectively (paralysis, weakness, etc. that leads to easy melee without too many skills sacrificed) I would consider that option as well.[/QUOTE]

I think the issue was that absorb (x) is mysticism, and can be considered to be a better offensive spell than any destruction spell. However destruction is arguably better against daedra and undead. So maybe you could put destruction as a minor spell?

I think you should take either alchemy/restoration, for both healing and buffing abilities...

[Raven_Song]

Is your dislike of Destruction because of your playing style

Probably ... I think like Mr_Sir says if you plan to use magic as your main source of attack go for destruction.

but if magic can be used as your primary offense but used through other schools more effectively (paralysis, weakness, etc. that leads to easy melee without too many skills sacrificed) I would consider that option as well.

Oh again this is probably more personal opinion than fact but I've found Paralysis works best when enchanted on to a weapon.

As for the "weakness", well they are one of the reasons I never bother with destruction. I can't understand the logic of wasting time and magicka lowering the resistance of a target when you can hit them with a spell/weapon they are not resistant to.

[mr_sir]

I also don't see the point in the weakness spells, but paralysis followed by something like poison over,say, 10 seconds, whether by spell or on a weapon is pretty effective. So are fire,frost,shock,poison combo spells. As an early level mage, paralysis is extremely handy as the chances are you can't take many hits before dying and your spells are not as good as they could be yet. But also things like levitate followed by summon spells is handy too as you can just look down from above and let your summons do the work, firing in the odd fireball here and there. I think as a mainly magic basic character I would always go for destruction, alteration, mysticism, illusion (hide is very handy if you want to travel around without being molested by cliff racers etc. lol). If I don't plan on a high strength character then I'd definately take conjuration too so you can have weightfree armour using the bound spells. As for summons, the decent summons have high chances of spell failures and use a lot of magicka early on so scrolls are my fave choice for those, or an enchanted amulet that summons them.

[dragon wench]

Another problem with summons is that they usually just get in the way. IMO, there are only two reasons to summon monsters:
* If you are born under the Sign of the Atronach you can conjure up ancester ghosts and attack them. Assuming you survive their blasts of fire (which you should do), your magicka is nicely replenished.
* Rather cheesy, but there is also that option of summoning dremora for soul trapping purposes

However, IMO, it makes far more sense to simply use a piece of enchanted jewellry for summoning than it does to spend a skill slot on Conjuration.

[Greg.]

[QUOTE=dragon wench]However, IMO, it makes far more sense to simply use a piece of enchanted jewellry for summoning than it does to spend a skill slot on Conjuration.[/QUOTE]

But for the bound weapon spells - 10pts extra for a weapon skill is desirable -especially in a mage. Although, again you could enchant something - in this case it would probably have to be CE.

[Darzog]

OK, maybe I missed that the bound items are actually useful. I don't have any bound item spells (but could easily remedy that)... are they actually useful?

Since I'm still early in the game, I have all Chitin armour (AC 10 when the best items I've found even in Heavy Armour are AC 5) and an enchanted longsword. Will the bound items be better, and is it really worth having to cast all of those spells before a battle?

Maybe I'll just try it and see whether it's better.