Tested dead thrall with variety of enchantments via the restoration potion/fortify alchemy glitch. Here are the findings. Pushed everything to insane values so effect would be more obvious.

Following enchantment seems to work
Fortify Health (Although this enchantment seems to conflict with dark soul perk)
Fortify Stamina
Fortify Magicka (AI might not allow it to be used properly)
Fortify lightarmor (confirmed via getav damageresist, presumably fortify heavy armor will work as well)
Fire/Frost/Shock Resist (confirmed via getav fireresist)


Following enchantment has been confirmed to not work

Fortify onehanded and fortify arhcery. I had a forsworn glove that give 132453% fortify onehanded and fortify archery, and the thrall is only doing 200 to 300 damage
Fortify spell school. It will not reduce the charge cost on staffs and enchanted items
Fortify Health Regeneration (does not work at all, thralls seems to have their health reset every time you move to a new area)

I couldn't test fortify magic resist as I could not find a thrall that would consistently use a shield.

Couple of things I noticed
-Sometimes enchanted effect will not be applied until you have moved to a new area. This means if the thrall put away the shield then put it back on without transitioning, the shield enchantment affect will not be applied.
-The charges on enchanted weapon that the thrall is wearing might reset when you move to new areas, ie, the become fully charged. (needs more testing to confirm this).

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!

Edit: I posted this in Thread 9 first without realizing how near 200 posts it was, which is why I am re-posting it here. Apologies in advance if this angers/confuses anyone.

Thanks for the testing, Dimeron! I've added a snippet in the relevant section of the Guide to reflect your results.

-Loth

Welcome, Viede!

I can't say much personally regarding your first two questions, as I am not a big vampire guy, but I'll take a stab at #3 for you. You are correct in that build type will affect the "best" HMS ratio... it can be argued that 100% health is an excellent way to go, even for mages -- considering that you can use crafting to lower spell costs to zero and be able to cast any spell for free by switching robes around or whatever, but in practice, I have found (on master) that this is not necessarily feasible to do if you don't grind out tradeskills at low levels. Mages need magicka to survive during their development, and it can't hurt to give yourself a 1:1 health:magicka ratio up to level 20 or so -- it really, really helps. I've even done "glass cannon" builds at 100% magicka that work just fine as long as I am a prodigious summoner of atronachs.

When playing a spellsword that mixes melee with destro, I have had excellent results with a 1:1:1 ratio for HMS, and that's without grinding tradeskills, and skipping the vegetable soup. You can make it work on any difficulty if you can adapt your playstyle to your build, and be smart about picking your fights. Lots of "stick and move" tactics work great -- you rush in, power attack and slap the bad guys around for shock and awe, and then dance back before they can retaliate while you blast them with fire spells and recoup your stamina. After a while, you develop a rhythm for it, and the fights flow naturally from up-close offense to distance offense, and then back again. Keep moving, and make yourself a difficult target, and you will do well.

-Loth

I'm curious to what races allow the broken texture glitch, my altmer was able to wear two circlets after wearing the thieves guild hood (which was unequiped in the process). When wearing the hood the texture was clearly broken, the hair was messed up. What other races is this possible for?

1)I imagine you can counter the weakness with resistance, so you should be able to get 85% fire resistance if you have gear that gives you 110% resistances. I do find enemies use fire spells against me over other spells, they know you have a weakness.

2)They will both work together, if you're short on perks you needn't take any more levels of the first sneak perk, it's really not needed. Especially with the vamp bonus.

3)For my orc warrior at the moment, i'm going for ~150 stamina (before bonuses), ~220 magicka as I use alteration, conjuration and restoration. Then I just dump the rest into health, which works well for me on master. Like loth said above, you can't go wrong with 100% health, I just like a little variation.

For my other character, necro vamp, I had around 300 health and the rest into magicka at level 65. This combined with a perked ebonyflesh at 375 armor rating (due to necro) and +62 rating from the lord stone gave me 437 armor rating, not to shabby for clothes. Also used crowd control etc, mayhem conviently worked up to level 41, so 51 for humans from the perk (past the cap) and ~51 for undead from necromage boost (allowing it to work on draugr deathlords).



Edit:
My altmer was male, like all my characters. Has anyone looked into what exact race+gender affects the bug?

It is also gender-based, not just races.



Why are you investing in magicka instead of using Fortify school enchants? Especially for conjuration since there are large intervals between when you'd use it. What enchants are you using that you value more?

Actually, since Vampire/Necromage allows 100% magic Absorption (But you must get it before getting Atronach Perk and Atronach standing stone), it is the far better magic counter-measure as compared to any other alternative.

It will totally save you from Fus Roh Dah which can ruin your day if it was casted by an Ebony Bow wielding Dragur. They deal 260+ damage per arrow at armor cap on Master difficulty and I would consider them to be the most dangerous enemy in game, even above dual wielding briarhearts.

Accordingly, the Breton ranking gets dropped from strongest to weakest and the number one race appears to be Orcs followed by Altmer.

For warriors/thieves, my personal build is 200 Magicka, 700 Health and 200 Stamina. Pure health is viable, but not the optimum because adding 100 health to 800 is only an increase of 12.5% while adding 100 magicka to 100 is an increase of 100%. The 250 magicka (with the +50 magicka from Atronach standing stone) allows you to cast most expert level spells.

I have the archmage robes, along with my own enchanted apparel, boosted by necro.

I ended up with around 90% destro, 90% alteration, 90% restoration, 18% conjuration and 50% illusion. I find it cheap to have 0% magicka consumption for any school, so I have the above along with a 600 magicka pool. Easily been my most successful character, I could have had 0% consumption rate for 3 possibly 4 schools, but then I'd be screwed with the other school.

I also have +45% two handed damage, as I specialised in two handed very late (+60) into the game, only one +damage though as I tried to not be overpowered.

Edit: just realised you asked about a different character, my bad. I didn't want to use enchanting with that character, I also didn't need much more magicka than 220 ish, for flesh spells and conjures. He's more of a improve what he finds character, which is more challenging on master.

Personally, I consider necromage/vampire combo abusing the same mechanical bug as the fortify restoration potion/fortify alechmy bug, and in either case if those bugs are abused Orcs always win by far with their racial which cannot be gotten anywhere else.

As for Magicka. I guess the ability to cast expert level of schools you don't specialize in is pretty handy. So I guess optimal is all in health or enough Magicka to cast expert level spells that you do not have cost reduction in and health into the rest.

My thanks!

One of the biggest reasons I asked this question was to get a feel for a good ratio for mage builds, especially on master difficulty, with the important thought in mind that I would not seek to reduce the cost of any magic school to 0. Instead I was leaning more towards reducing final costs of spells by a total of 95-97%. This could be achieved by 3 Enchantments each at 29% Fortify Magic School, allowing me to reduce the cost of more schools by more amounts, with Destruction and Alteration taking priority (at least for the moment). I can post numbers if anyone wants to see the math (and correct me if I made any errors ). Also I usually don't like starting new characters by grinding trade skills; its hard to keep enthusiasm alive.

I appreciate the input!

I didn't know if Master difficulty conferred enemies with a heightened ability to detect characters while Sneaking. Playing on Adept with a level 35 character with 91 Sneak I was able to get away with just one perk in Stealth (after first perk subsequent perks only increase by 5%, very hard IMO to justify spending perks for pitiful returns) but I have not played on Master and so am unaware how much Stealth perks are needed for a viable stealth build (assuming no Invisibility spells/potions).

I have wondered if it was better to use a fully perked Ebonyflesh (3 perks in Mage Armor) or just toughing it out and saving those perks for other things and using Dragonhide when it became available. Would you consider perks in Mage Armor wasted if you planned on using Dragonhide? Anyone have a preference of one over the other?

Another question that I couldn't find answered elsewhere in the forums, here goes: According to UESP wiki'ss page Magic Overview, spell cost is determined using this formula:
spell cost = base cost * skill multiplier * perk multiplier * equipment multiplier * dual cast multiplier
skill multiplier = 1 - (skill/400)^0.65
Furthermore, the page states that a skill of 100 in a Magic School makes your skill multiplier 0.6. I've been trying to crunch numbers to figure out how much Magicka I should have for my mage character by trying to calculate the costs of spells my build will most commonly use i.e. Thunderbolt, Incinerate, Mass Paralysis, etc.

Using UESP wiki charts for spells, assuming a skill of 100 in Destruction and Expert Destruction perk and 87% Fortify Destruction and dual casting Thunderbolt, the cost would be:
343 (base cost) * 0.6 (skill multiplier) * 0.5 (Expert Destruction perk) * 2.8 (Dual Casting) = 288.12. Then : 288.12- (288.12 * 0.87)(Fortify Destruction 29% x3) = 37.4556

Can anyone confirm that this is the correct way to calculate spell cost? My goal for a mage character is for spells to cost between 2%-5% whether dual cast or not, for schools which I will use frequently (Destruction definitely, Alteration/Illusion/Restoration for the other slot). As Fortify Magic School enchantments can only go on 4 pieces of clothing (head, neck, chest, finger) at two enchantments apiece, that leaves only 8 available slots. Note that 37.4556 is 3.9% of the base cost of a dual cast Thunderbolt (343 * 2.8) IF my math is correct. Also these numbers assume I am NOT a vampire, but used Alchemy/Enchanting loop to get 29% Fortify Magic School gear. I don't know if 29% is as high as you can go without resorting to Vampire/Necromage. Can anyone confirm or deny, as well as check my math? Any input would be greatly appreciated!

I personally like to skill up Alteration by natural use of protection spells before every fight (no grinding), so I like to get the Mage Armor perks for those rare "oh [censored]" moments when I have multiple archers that catch me in a corner somehow and I'm getting tagged (Falmers are notorious for this... poor lighting and cramped cave settings can be bad for life-saving mobility). Melee NPCs aren't much of a threat to a good mage player, and mages have no business closing to melee distance in the first place (as I'm sure you already know). By the time I'm hitting a high enough Alteration for the Ebonyflesh spell to matter, I'm usually conjuring storm atronachs and not getting hit very much. You honestly can skip Dragonhide altogether, IMO... it's got an annoyingly short duration. Do the quest to get the Dragonhide spell just for kicks. The only reason you might NEED a high Alteration skill as a pure mage is to get the last rank in Magic Resistance, anyway... for a Spellsword that likes to get close, Dragonhide can be very nice if you haven't been smithing up your armor, or are going armorless -- an infrequent build, to be sure. It's just so nice to have a good damage resistance when you are fighting up close... much less instant-player-death that way.

-Loth

PS: 29% Fortify [spell school] is the max you can get without exploits like vamp/necromage or the resto loop.

Yes, you've got it right. I go for 3x27% +15% robe for about 3% of the original cost, pretty close although that last percent can make a big difference in high cost spells.

Thanks for the thread.

I have also been rather puzzled about the distribution on M/H/S, since spells can be casted free of Makgica with items, how much would you recommend at end game? Or how much as Stamina benifit you at the end?

I have played a sword and shield warrior before, at level 44 I did not add any more stamina and I did not feel combat was overly a big problem, I do however uses companions, right now I have restarted to play the whole thing on master, would appreciate any advice (I have asked a few people, here on the fourm and on You Tube, nobody seems to be able to offer an in depth advice).

I think I said this in another thread, if you are optimizing, and If you are playing on masters, health all the way.

Now, if you are willing to level to say, level 81, it might be worthwhile to get enough magicka to cast some utility spells (like invisibility) that you don't specialize in.

The reason for this is simple, on masters, level 50 melee brairheart can hit you over 400 health even with armor cap with one dual wield power attack, the ebony arrow using death lord can shot you over 300 health at the armor cap. You need at least that much to not get one shotted.

Two questions -

Question 1 .

In thread 7 I saw Lothario posting some info on bash damage with different shields and weapons. Is it listed for every base shield type somewhere? If not, how were the values found? In particular I am looking to compare the damages between dragonscale and glass shields with base, power bash, and deadly bash.

Question 2.

I've been seeing lately people are talking about skipping Alchemy all together. I am interested in this because I don't really want to be ultimately OP, and saving those perks would also be nice. It would also leave me plenty of perks available when my latest char is "finished", as I would have all my required skills sometime in the late 30's, giving me lots of freedom to move in whatever direction I like. I would, however, like to know if it's still possible to reach 100% casting cost reduction for any magic schools without using alchemy. If not, what is the maximum possible?

You can get 4x 25% cost reduction gear using nothing but Enchanting.

Yes, with 100 enchant and 6 perks, you can get 100% with no potions at all.

Thanks for the quick answers guys. Also, since this is the first of "these" threads that talks about the deflect arrows bug, which has been confirmed quite a bit, I would like to provide a little bit of info as well as include a link to this mod on the nexus(with only 24 endorsemants! for shame!) that fixes it.


What the bug does is causes ALL damage blocked to be reduced by 85%, not just arrows. This makes leveling block, and all of the shield wall perks, completely useless. It is completely character-breaking if you plan on going with a shield.

It also fails to block *all* arrow damage. While the description does say *all*, there is a chance that this was meant to mean "raises your block to the cap" vs. arrows, but I feel that the description is accurate to how the perk was intended to behave.

The mod I found on the nexus(which i am in no way involved with, other than endorsing it whole-heartedly) does the following two things:


A. Removes the 85% damage reduction when blocking that affects ALL melee damage including arrows, and

B. Actually nullifies all damage from arrows when blocking.

The only thing this mod does NOT do is have a check for "arrows that hit the shield", but based on the testing by lots of people, I don't think the perk currently has this, either. I'm not sure if arrows that come completely from the side or behind are nullified or not. This could potentially be seen as OP, but is nowhere near as OP or block tree breaking as the way the perk is behaving currently. I'm also not sure if the perk was originally intended to actually have a check to see if arrows truly impacted the shield or not - play testing shows that currently there does not appear to be a check in place for this - arrows(and all attacks), regardless of where they hit when blocking, are having 85% of their damage nullified.

Here is the link - it's actually pretty hard to find on the nexus due to having a meager 24 endorsemants, and I feel the author absolutely deserves some credit for this. He even goes into detail how he managed to make it work, and if you find 100% reduction to be OP, you could probably modify it yourself using the CK to be 85% or 90%: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=7740

If you get it, endorse and share it as much as you can.

It is, indeed, possible, since with 100 Enchanting and the proper perks you can make -25% enchantments; 4 of those will grant 0 cost. Skipping Alchemy will greatly reduce how far you can improve your gear, though, which will have a direct impact on survivability and damage output (less so the former if you're wearing top-end Heavy armor).

First off let me start by saying I remember coming into this thread series in thread #2 or #3 and thinking to myself, these folks are doing some great work here testing things out, hopefully this thread get's pinned to the front page permanently. To see it at thread 10 is just plain awesome! Loth - excellent guide you have going on the front page, very well organized and quite informative!

I have a question regarding a specific 1h Weapon. The Scimitar. I have yet to come across any 1 hander that approaches it's damage potential/weight ratio. Currently on my lvl 23 sword and board breton it does 34 damage weighing only 10 pounds. On top of this it is easily the fastest 1h weapon that I've come across in the game. Granted I haven't had or used all 1handed weapons but over the span of 4 characters and probably close to 500+ hours I have yet to meet its equal.

I'm curious if anyone has done any research into this? Perhaps direct me to the previous thread in which it was discussed/if at all?

Does the Critical Shot archery perk suffer from the same base damage issue as the Bladesman perk? The only thread I can find on the subject is this one, and it seems like all speculation:

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1300080-sneaky-archer-questions

Hey man thanks for the reply. Sorry I did not check your reply until now.

I have been playing the game and experimenting, playing on Master and it's like what you say here, you really don't need stamina in the game. I don't use the Veg Soup, and I don't find in any situation that I wish I had some more stamina. I understad if you are an archer who uses Eagle Eye would want some more stamina, but I also don't find it that effective to focus on using only the bow in combat.


From my experiment, it works the same as the blademan perk.