I speak of Keening, but wanted to keep that out of the topic title.


Is it's inability to be sharpened a glitch, or intentional? Was just wondering if it was a glitch akin to the Ebony Blade. I ask because it's a shame, at 100 One-Handed skill (Or near to, might be like 99 or something) with around 60% buffing equipment and my daedric daggers do around 85 damage (150+ on certain swords).
While Keening remains an unimpressive 25, 35 including the enchantment.

Pretty pathetic without the ability to improve it. I was quite disappointed on recieving such an artifact, and it's barely worth using...

Probably a glitch, but then again Keening isn't so much a weapon as a (worn out) tool designed by a lost science to dissect the remains of a fallen god. So yeah, might be the kind of thing you can't just put the whetstone.

In other words, its probably just in the game as a curiosity.

You know keening can't really hold a charge unless you do many certain things to ensure that it does, right? So it kinda blows there as well.

A fair point, but it's still regarded as a powerful artifact that is supposed to be SO powerful, that it does you HARM when not wielded properly. And considering you have to beat an entire questline to receive it, it should still hold its own as a type of "medium to endgame" weapon.



I'm not sure what you mean. It doesn't have many charges?
Wouldn't normally be an issue if its damage wasn't garbage.

Info found here
http://uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Artifacts

That link actually went to the Artifacts page rather than Keening in Skyrim itself. However the little note on the side is interesting.

So... It's even more useless than I thought.

That's a crying shame.

I r disappoint how there's quite a few weapons (some unique) you can't improve.. possibly because of their decent enchantments, but realistically you could craft and enchant a weapon 10x better than say the Nightingale Blade or Wuuthrad.

Yes, but you need to spend mass perks to do so.

And the possibility negates why Artifact items exist in the first place.

I don't understand what you mean.

Artifacts (unique weapons, powerful game-spawned loot) can be improved with 2 measly perks, but require a mass investment of perks to beat significantly. If you boost smithing, steel kills everything anyways.

Sure they should exist. They are something to adventure for and to find,cherish, and collect. Personally I find no joy in sitting around a smelter and making all my weapons, I like to find them in the depths of a dangerous dungeon- random and not ultimate.

I'm not sure how to phrase my view.
Ordinary items shouldn't trump legendary artifacts, in my opinion. They shouldn't just be collectible McGuffins.

For example? Dragonbane's base damage is very practical while still being a fairly powerful sword in it's own right. That's one example of an artifact done correctly.

gotcha, and agree.

I just look at it this way. Since its my game, and forever single player- if I don't take mass smithing,enchanting,alchemy perks and make the uber weapons.. then the uber weapons don't exist in my world. Never did and never will, and then random loot and artifacts are de-facto best.

I will add that artifacts are still useful for my non-smithing characters, which are always of a mage-y variety. I get it to 60 so I can pump up some magic items, but I don't waste any more perks on it.

So I'm not saying they're useless.

But 66% of the time, they are.

(That statistic refers to 2 out of 3 main archetypes by the way.)

I haven't tested this, but if the following holds then there is a way to charge it:

Absorb and Drain effects are classed as Destruction magic, thus are affected by the related -cost perks and enchantments. If you reduce the cost of Destruction spells to zero then Keening's charge cost per use will also drop to zero, at which point you should be able to charge it. Either that, or since it will no longer drain charges when used, the fact it doesn't have any charge won't matter.

Yeah, this is listed in the UESP and I mentioned it earlier.