» Thu Jun 07, 2012 10:47 pm I'm around level 40 or so. Got some pretty tricked out gear (full dragonscale, glass greatsword and bow, quiver of daedric arrows, etc.--all enchanted.) Perhaps it's a *tad* on the easy side now, but I don't enjoy being forced to die, reload, and fight the same battle ad-nauseum until I'm LUCKY enough to get by a stage/sequence in a game. Kills the fun and immersion completely for me. Besides, I feel like I should be able to steamroll the weak enemies, whomp the tougher ones, and go toe-to-toe with the bosses by this point anyway. By and large, I can, except for the occasional Thalmor mage.
Thalmor wizards (the Thalmor are really, REALLY angry with me) can still one-shot me with their stupid, "look-at-me-I'm-all-sparkly", cheap-as-heck, "I-can-kill-a-level-673-character-with-one-hit-too-you-know" lighting spells. During one encounter (yes, I started it), I actually managed to drink a philter of shock resistance before one of those Twinkie-faced, bathrobed yuppies finished waggling his fingers (60% shock resistance...6 0 %...PLUS 14% magick resistance from my ring,) and one blast still brought me down to less than a finger-width of health. For crying out lou----WHAT do they EAT? They're as bad as Clannfear with Tesla coils tied to their heads. I can take on a d r a g o n single-handedly, but I can't last two seconds against some...?
Literally, it's like:
"The hero charges into the midst of the Stormcloak warriors. The reaction is instantaneous: the warriors of the north, veterans of battle hardened in the war against the Empire, move for their weapons with speed and precision. One is cut down before he can draw his blade, but the others advance with disciplined ferocity. Even as their honed weapons glance harmlessly off the skin of scales that the hero wears, they do not lose heart, do not retreat. The melee rages, but one-by-one, the songs of the misguided children of Skyrim come to their closing verse.
"A roar from above draws all eyes, and the dreaded shadow falls over their upturned faces. With a thunder of wind and voice, the dragon lands in the midst of the battle with a violence that dwarfs the pitiful death-play of the mortal dust before it. For the first time, a hint of fear bleeds through the stony eyes of the Stormcloaks. But the hero does not flinch. Does not waver.
"Voice meets voice with a power that rends the air itself. The dragon is forced back, rage and shock mixing plainly on its otherworldy features, but indignation and arrogance beyond human understanding do not stop the first blow of the hero's blade. Nor the second. The third.
"To challenge the true depth of a dragon's strength is to look into a book that cannot be read and pull the knowledge from it with a force of will. Even then, the knowledge gained may burn the mind with truths that should not be known. And so the dragon unleashed the full depth of its fury against the hero. The fire was not of the hearth, or of the forge. It was not the inferno of a archmage's ken, or even the withering flood of Oblivion's shores. It was the fire of the Dhov that crushed worlds...and made them. This it unleashed at the hero, and all the world was at once a hell. Trees split and splintered into shards of kindled rain. The flesh, both that of skin and of steel, was devoured from those of the Stormcloaks in its compass, so that only ash sloughed from their bones in the devil's wind. A blackened field was all that remained when the dragon reigned its fury and looked with a demon-god's eyes to survey its victory.
"But its victory met its gaze with the eyes of a hero that could not be standing there still. The hero that could not possibly charge against it now, or raise that deadly blade above his head. The hero that could never, even in a million paths of countless eternities, voice a cry in the dragon's own tongue a second time. 'Dhovakiin,' it managed to utter, a rumble of earthbones and hidden depths. And then the hero's blade bit deep. Through scale and meat. Through blood and bone. One final roar was lifted into the winds of Nirn, and was never heard again in any layer of the Mundus.
"The dragon's body collapsed to the ground in a crash felt far, and heard farther. At once, its being began to smolder, and the hero strode forward to claim his prize...and his curse. The embers became flame, and the flame a storm. A wind that rushed, but did not move the slightest draft of air, leaped out of the fires to whirl about the hero's form, and was swallowed up into the heart of he that was greater than dragons.
"'It is the old legends...made true...'. The Stormcloak weapons were to the earth, and only awe was on their faces now. They drew closer, moths to the flame, unthinking, unheeding. 'You took its very soul.' Another, 'Dragonborn...'
"The hero said nothing, but turned. And left. They had seen enough of blood and pain, for this day. The war would wait, and their blood would flow again before the end. Besides...they had a story to tell.
"The hero stepped onto the road that would take him from this trial, to the next. The next step closer to the threat of Alduin and the unknown destiny of Tamriel.
"A random elf in dark-colored pajamas hops around a rock. *pppzzzZZZAP* The hero drops dead: *Thump* Mexican Fiesta Music. Credits."
Balance, please. Like: really.
(100 enchanting level 48 barbarian warrior) AND I took the lord sign... on normal fights i use my barbaric ring and amulet though 
