Looking at the changelog they posted up about 1.4, it seems that they didn't even fix the multiple headgear bugs. Everything in the Guide (including exploits) is still doable... in theory. I'm personally not patching until it's been vetted by other players to not make the game worse (remember 1.2? ), so I cannot confirm this personally -- yet.

-Loth

Do we have more real numbers (not guesstimates) about what kind of average stamina/magicka pools the NPCs roll around with? What about regen rates for magicka? I've seen those "cheat spells", and been victimized by them countless times, but it'd be nice if we could supply folks with real data to consider.

-Loth

My guess would be that you'd have to look under the hood t osee what bonus enhancements they get. As I don't know if they use normal spells that get a post hero npc boost or if they have seperate spell entries. He did say that 2 fireballs did 120 damage to him.

If you console "psb" (populate spell book), it assigns all spells to your character -- even the NPC ones. All the "cheat spell" stats will be visible to you. There's like 8 different firebolt spells.
-Loth

It is hard and kind of pointless to test the NPC spells. As far as I know, the same spell (example shock) has different variations so a different level NPC casting the same spell does different damage. Meaning there are many many spells and NPCs to test. With the soon to arrive CK we can get a direct real look at it.

Also, even the highest level magic-using Thralls (vampire masters, briarheart) appears to be lackluster in performance compared to Thralls equipped with legendary weapons. As I have mentioned before, a Ravager with legendary weapon can triple-shot a draugr death overlord with 1400 health in an instant with a double power attack. Any magic-using thrall will take ages to achieve the same result with spells.

Since we know that magic-using Thralls are inferior, there is very little motive to test their magical damage because a thread like this demands only the best. And the best ranged option for Thralls are legendary bows.

Yeah, the CK will make this easy... but I meant that it would be nice if we had a handle on just how much the average NPC mages have for magicka and whatnot. Do they regularly have over 250 magicka, and do they not suffer regen penalties in combat? It's widely accepted that NPCs have huge magicka pools and use different spells than the player. I'm just wondering if anybody already has actual numbers for this.

-Loth

magic, as it is for the dragonborn, is vastly inferior to weapon damage unless youre using wtfmods to vastly overpower them.

with that said, there is definately some flavor to having mage thralls and you dont have to worry about him auto-playing the game for you.

im curious how archery thralls compare to dual wielding as ranged damage in a reasonable and balanced rpg should out perform melee damage on average.

Do archer thralls use ammo? Or do they follow the rule of "only equip what they died in" with ammunition as well?

they will use what ever ammo you give them then switch to "invisible" iron arrows if they run out.

curiously, if you give them a single daedric arrow and let them use their default "invisible" bow, the single arrow will be tagged as infinite and never run out. sadly this was fixed in 1.4.

oh so they do use ammo correctly then.

Incredible job with all the theory crafting!! A true work of art, due to some serious blood, sweat, and tears.
Cudos to the main contributors for their excellent work!!

Where can i find the "Guide" i've seen mentioned several times.

Thanks again for all of the hard work.

If you're ever in the SF Bay Area, the beers are on me!!

Hehe, you've already read it! We refer to the first few posts of this thread series (where the collected info is written up in a semi-organized fashion) as the Guide... because, what the heck else could we call it?

-Loth

PS Welcome to the forums, my friend!

lol...I realized that, a few hours after my post. I was completed blown away by all of time and effort that you guys/girls put into this, and then I asked "where's the guide"? Looks like a had too many "advlt beverages" last night. I have no idea where my brain was?

Anyway, there's nothing more I hate, then putting time into a character and learning that the perks ended up being useless or bugged. (btw-- is Tower of Strength bugged?) I read somewhere that it has zero effect. Is there anywhere that I could get a list of "bugged perks"?

Once again, thanks to you and your fellow contributors on an awesome job.

Ha, you just reminded me that I wanted to do something like a list in the Guide for exactly that! How did I forget? I had a list already made up somewhere around here...
-Loth

PS The last patch (1.4) might have fixed a couple of things, I need to re-test some things before updating the Guide. Has anybody had any trouble with the new patch? Is it safe to update to 1.4?

I would say it's safe. I've been using it through beta with no problems.

Okay, I'll get hooked up and update. Thanks, fragonard!

Also, we're approaching the thread post limit, and this would be a good time for me to re-organize the Guide as we hit thread 10. I'd like to re-format some stuff and change a few things around to make more sense for the readers. The 4 posts we have in the Guide needs to be at least 5, because the posts are getting really long, and editing them with this forum's post editor is a matter of nervously rolling dice for me to see if each new edit will result in a mess of gibberish or not. More numerous + smaller posts = good.

-Loth

Edit: Heh, we actually already have 5 posts for the Guide... I'm going to make it 7 for thread 10. Everything is in place, so when we get closed here, thread 10 will be popping up with a somewhat-new look for the Guide.

You have posted a lot of great information on thralls. However, this information is not correct. I regularly abuse the restoration glitch to give my thralls 10k+ hp because I get sick and tired of them walking into traps and dying. I'm not on the PC or I'd be of more help to this discussion, but I can gladly confirm that they will use health bonuses.

There *is* a bug where they will not use the enchantments on items in certain circumstances. The fix for this is usually to kill them, loot the item, put it back on the corpse, rethrall them and load a new area. More testing needs to be done but I can say with 100% certainty after using them for the past 2 months that thralls will utilize Health enchantments.

Can anyone on PC confirm that applying the Light Step perk through the console on thralls/followers does not work? In other words, there is no way to prevent followers from setting off traps... yes or no? There is another thread going that is discussing this right now.

I'd test this myself, but I'm updating to 1.4 and starting over from scratch. Might be a while before I can test this...
-Loth

heres hoping 1.4 does not break everygodamn thing in my game and fixes quests i couldnt care less about.
angry ranting aside, i have heard remarkble fps improvement that exceeds even tesval and SB. finally beth is getting their act togther and making a patch that is neither broken nor pointless. oops i ranted again.


Loth- you might consider making the new thread now and reserving 4-10 posts before an excitable forum member(me) breaks your fancy string of posts.

Haha, I'm taking a break from playing 1.4 with a new char (got some well-deserved time off from work -- woohoo!) and I have to say that lagging on my laptop is happening even less with the new patch. I'm not seeing a tremendous boost or anything, mind you, but a little bit is better than nothing.

And yeah, maybe I should start the new thread while I'm here.. this post is gonna be #195, and the mods have been diligent as of late in closing past 200.
-Loth

Absolutely! Although the goal for me was not to create an overpowered character, but more to dabble around in other perk trees to the best of my ability Curious though, How much stamina exactly would an elven weapon drain per swing/power attack, seeing as Domilisa's build used up all the slots for reaching maximum resist and fortify damage resist/dealt, and didn't have any enchants for a stamina regen or magica regen... Would you not have to split each level up between health/stamina/magica creating stunted stats, that could leave you with no magica or stamina in a tight situation?

I checked UESP, and they say that a PA with an elven warhammer takes 96 stamina without the stamina/power attack perk, 72 with it... it's actually heavier and does more damage than iron, steel, dwarven, and orcish. But there's ways to get around this -- absorb stamina enchant on the weapon, for instance. Daedric hammer PAs take 102 or 77 stamina, depending on if you have the standing PA perk... but have a grand total of 4 extra base damage over Elven -- which is negligible, especially when high levels of smithing come into account. You're actually better off NOT getting Daedric... unless you like the look of it.

-Loth

First and definitely foremost, a big thank you to all who made this guide possible, I was absolutely blown away by its awesomeness!

I have some random questions about character design that have probably been answered in other topics, but after reading through this guide, I thought "Who better to ask than these guys? " It's obvious you guys love this game and have both played and tested extensively, and until I see proof proving otherwise, I'm going to consider you guys the best. So without further ado, here they are:

1) If I decide to play as a Stage One vampire for the sake of using the Necromage perk, Enchanting effects worn on my character are boosted. As being a Stage One Vampire comes with a 25% Weakness to Fire, my question was how this is calculated in the game; can I still reach 85% Fire Resistance by simply wearing Enchanted gear with a net Fire Resistance of 110%? OR are these two values (Fire Weakness and Fire Resistance) calculated completely independent of each other and there is no way for one to completely nullify the other? Has anyone tested this?

2) Does the 25% better chance of remaining undetected for being a vampire stack with the Stealth perks in the Sneak tree? If so, then simply one rank in Stealth plus being a vampire would yield a 45% better chance of remaining undetected regardless of level of sneak. Does playing on Master difficulty increase likelihood of being detected i.e. requiring more perks spent in Stealth to remain undetected? As others have stated it's annoying when one realizes that perk points have been wasted, and I'm considering a Sneak-based character on Master difficulty. Any thoughts or experiences?

3) This is purely a matter of opinion, but for your characters, what did you find to be the best ratio for Magic/Health/Stamina, and why? Obviously there can be a great deal of variation between builds (Mages vs. Warriors for example), but any input for ANY build will be greatly appreciated.

Again I would like to thank everyone who contributed to this guide and made it into what it is today. You guys rock!

@pms00: I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your work on your Skyrim Tradeskill videos, as well as your Vampire Necromage build videos. The presentation, editing, clarity...everything about them was superbly done and I salute your efforts in bringing this kind of information to other outlets. Many thanks!

1. Not too sure, but if you use the necromage glitch you can get 100% spell absorption, so weakness to fire doesn't matter.

2. I believe it does, although I don't think anyone has done through tests on it.

3. Most optimal way, Everything in health.

Agreed. You could make a case for adding some points into stamina for more carry weight or if you need it for archery. For other attacks, Vegetable soup nullifies the need. Magicka is worthless since you can make all your schools cost 0 if you are willing to switch items when needed.