Oblivion talk:The Hardest Difficulty Strategy Guide

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Origin of this article[edit]

It is based on my own playing experience using invaluable tips by Hovnarr, taken from the official forum thread, The Diary of a Suicidal Maniac, Playing the game on hard without items. User MXI 04:12, 4 May 2006 (EDT)

Spell Stacking?[edit]

Has anyone actually tested some of these ideas, specifically the stacking of Weakness to Magicka on yourself multiple times followed by a buff? The reason I ask is that I just tried some of that with my character. I made 3 different Weakness to Magicka 100 pts for 4 seconds on self. I cast each of those 3 times in succession. I was wearing full armor at the time, with 95% efficiency, and when it was done, accoring to the "Effects currently on me" page I was at 4741% weakness to magicka, or some similar number. I immediatly followed that with a Fortify Speed 30 points for 120 seconds on self, and I got a grand total of... 28 points of speed increase from this. My question is does that not effect the Fortify Attribute modifiers, or is there another limit built in? QuillanTalk 19:38, 6 May 2006 (EDT)

I bet you didn't include a damage effect to your last spell. Make sure that you are doing everything exactly as I wrote. This is what you should get. And yes, as I wrote above I did test all myself. User MXI 03:27, 7 May 2006 (EDT)

Organization of Content[edit]

I do see the value in this guide, but some of these things are of more general use and don't pertain to difficulty setting specifically. Spell stacking in particular comes to mind -- when I decided to come back and find it a few days after I'd read the article, I searched other sections like Magic/Spells, Hints, and so on before I considered checking this page again.

I wonder if acessibility of this information might be better served by relocating some portions to sections more relevant to them and providing links to those sections here. It might be better to wait until the Glitches page gets cleaned up or possibly divided up, however. --Saracoth 23:40, 18 May 2006 (EDT)

I agree, it needs to be split into different parts, which should be linked from appropriate articles including this. Now I remember the strange feeling that there is something wrong with its size, which I had after finishing work. Well, it's just one more TODO to write. User MXI 14:42, 19 May 2006 (EDT)

Regarding the 100% Camo[edit]

Not sure if it's worth putting in but even at 100% Camo you can (and often do) get a bounty if you use spells/melee. However, you never get a bounty if you use a bow to kill (Fire damage 10 points for 6 seconds will cook anything) Phillowe88 18:23, 17 August 2006 (EDT)

Birthsigns[edit]

I believe that adding a section on about what Birthsigns would be the best for the hardest difficulty would be useful... Dylanga 18:38, 28 October 2006 (EDT)

Just a thought[edit]

Having much more than even 1 ally most of the time makes even the hardest difficulty insanely easy. And if you build an Uber character, that also defeats the difficulty level. Its kind of a delimna... Once you know how to play this game, you really can start with about any race, birthsign, etc. and still dance through everything. Uber characters just make Hard as trivial as Normal. I'd be interested in strategies used to take 'underdog' type character concoctions all the way to the top on a very hard setting - thats where the challenge is IMO. To add back some vitality, I've been trying to only save 'killable' NPCs for use as allys - makes things a little more challenging at least. (current character: conjurer/enfeebler/healer)

Errata[edit]

The article says:

Spell Absorption: Hostile spells that hit you have a % chance to be absorbed and turned into magicka. If you have the Atronach birthsign, you are halfway there. Unique items include the Spelldrinker Amulet and Mankar Camoran's Robe. Levelled items come with large amonuts of spell absorption, and it can be crafted with a high mysticism skill. This path is best for Atronach characters. Other characters may find it too difficult to get this high enough to matter. If you can make it to level 17+, you will start seeing Absorb Magicka Sigil Stones in Oblivion that grant 50% absorbtion. Thus, an Atronach birthsign with a single sigil stone of this nature is not only immune to all hostile magical effects (including from weapons), it also converts this energy into magicka.


But "absorb magicka" is not the same thing as "spell absorption". The former is an offensive power, the latter a defensive power. A transcendent Sigil stone only confers a maximum of 15% spell absorption, so an Atronach player would still need four. — Unsigned comment by 76.209.243.254 (talk)

Thanks for pointing out that mistake; I've gone ahead and cleaned up the paragraph. Feel free in future to fix any mistakes you see yourself (but adding a couple sentences like this on the talk page explaining why you did it is always helpful!) --Nephele 13:42, 6 January 2007 (EST)

Actual Combat Tatics[edit]

Although this guide tells you almost everything under the sun about playing at the hardest difficulty, it doesn't seem to have much on what to do DURING a fight. There is some information on this, but most of it is scattered throughout the guide and hard to find. I'm talking about generic ways to fight, such as if you were attacked by an enemy. I know the guide describes why certain skills are useful, and some good tips; but when you actually get into a fight, you can't use generic tatics to kill stuff. like I said, there is some stuff about that in here, but if your a combat specialized character, you would probably like to know more about how to kill stuff when its 6 times as strong as you are then what items to use. Although getting into direct fights is a VERY bad idea for playing at the hardest difficulty, it happens. I thought the guide got almost everything else though!

Also, I'm pretty sure stealth is affected by the difficulty bar, because I seemed to be much worse at it when I raised the difficulty level.... but it is still useful. --MrTaco122 16:18, 15 March 2007 (EDT)

I don't know, to me it seems very clear. Basically it says don't get into a melee. If you're wacking away with a blade/blunt/bow you'll lose. Kill things with allies, summons, and poison. Don't let the monsters ever hit you, so run, sneak, hide, go invis, calm, frenzy, etc to avoid getting hit. What more were you looking for? --Vilhazarog 17:10, 15 March 2007 (EDT)

Resistance to Magicka[edit]

The article makes it sound like magicka resistance will help against all hostile spells. It simply won't help against anything elemental. — Unsigned comment by 71.137.213.236 (talk)

Resist Magic will help against elemental damage from spells. See Oblivion:Resist Magic and Oblivion talk:Resist Magic --NepheleTalk 20:36, 7 April 2007 (EDT)

Dreamworld Minotaurs[edit]

Since this article encourages mage-type characters(stay away from combat, use summons and spells) and discourages toe-to-toe combat, most players are likely to have trouble with the Dreamworld Minotaurs because that is the one fight where you are forced to go melee. Since enemies can take 6 times more beating, the staff alone won't be able to kill them whereas the minotaurs can kill the player in a couple of seconds(at least if the player didn't give priority to endurance while leveling). I had to save each time I managed to hit them successfully without taking damage. --Sundaroct131088 12:07, 28 September 2007 (EDT)

OOO hardest difficulty[edit]

I know the UESP is concerned with vanilla but I assume it is fine in discussion pages soo...

Anyone tried this with OOO? I am starting a new character now with OOO 1.32 on hardest difficulty. I may allow myself the use of something like more summons than the default 1 (I mean, try fighting mannimarco on OOO and you will understand...). I greatly enjyed making an illusionist so I will probably find myself going down that route. Probably Breton, full magicka resist, every other enchant slot for fortify magicka, lots of alchemy restore magicka, custom destruction spells couple with 5 sec invisibility, Chaos and so on.

Any advice from people who have successfully managed this? Any luck with a melee char?

cheers, 129.67.17.233 15:48, 11 November 2007 (EST)

Bugs[edit]

I can't be sure, but unless its an unmentioned feature of the hardest difficulty I experienced a bug on the 360 version where during my level-up from 1 to 2, instead of getting several +5 attribute bonuses, they were all +2, and +3. This after I raised Endurance based skills by at least 13, Intelligence based skills by well over 40 in total, and Willpower skills by more than 30. Needless to say, I'm kind of irritated. Anyway, if this is a bug, it is one I've only experienced while on the hardest difficulty. — Unsigned comment by Hanuman (talkcontribs)

You've misunderstood how the leveling works. Once you have enough major skill advances to level up, your bonuses are fixed for that level no matter what you subsequently do. Any subsequent advances go to the bonuses for your next level up. –RpehTCE 04:09, 14 April 2008 (EDT)

(Ir)relevance and consistency of some parts[edit]

I just thought I'd point out that some parts of the article are a blatant contradiction... For example, the section titled "The Rest" names ALL 5 Main combat skills (Blade, Blunt, Marksman, Hand to Hand and Destruction) as useless and futile — Unsigned comment by 86.0.214.191 (talk) on 14 January 2009

First, it doesn't say that. It points out that those skills are hurt badly by the settings, which is true. Second, if you think the article can be improved, do so. –RpehTCE 06:08, 15 January 2009 (EST)


Minimum required level[edit]

Changed the part about min level to account for the fact you can complete Clavicus Vile's quest at any level. It could be written a little better, someone might want to restructure it. For the sake of accuracy though, the information should be in the article. Silari 03:26, 26 February 2009 (EST)

Actually, you do need to be at least level 20 to do Clavicus Vile's Quest, as you can read on the quest page. --SerCenKing 03:31, 26 February 2009 (EST)
In fact you can do it at any level. See this section of the page. –RpehTCE 03:39, 26 February 2009 (EST)

Increments[edit]

I get how the difficulty slider works, but I also wondered something else. Say, for example, you have it half way between the left side and the middle, are you now doing 3-times more damage than 6-times etc? Are there actually proper increments on this slider, or do you only get the left, middle and right-hand settings? Because I'd like to play with a melee character; all the way to the left is too easy, and it takes an age to level. And in the middle, by the time I get to level 10-15, it becomes a dull hack-fest to take anything down. I'm trying to find a compromise. Thanks. — Unsigned comment by 87.127.79.8 (talk) at 17:31 on 4 April 2009

The slider is incremented... how do you say? Logarithmically? Let's consider what this means for YOUR damage-dealing. It is divided by six at 100% Hard, and multiplied by six at 100% Easy. At the center, if you hit for 10-damage, it will do exactly ten damage. At max, a 10-damage hit does 1.67 damage (1/6 normal), and at min, 60 damage (6x normal).
That's easy enough to understand, but for all the increments in between, it gets trickier to calculate because like I said, the progression is logarithmic, not linear. When the slider is three-quarters of the way to maximum-- that is, half-way there from the default setting-- you might expect the a 10-damage hit to do something like half damage. But that's linear thinking. It actually does exactly 2.86 damage to your enemy. Which means that this difficulty isn't a whole heck of a lot easier than the maximum. Such is the way of logarithmic growth. Since I was using 10-damage hit as an example, this value, 2.86, DOES happen to be close to Euler's Number (e=2.72), which is used in logarithms. If you want to do approximately half damage, and take approximately double damage, set the slider fairly close to the normal setting. Tlist 23:43, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
If somebody else is interested and the above was too vague, I calibrated the difficulty slider and found the formula for damage on the easy side to be Dam_at_50*(1+(50-difficulty)/10). On the hard side it's Dam_at_50/(1-(50-difficulty)/10). — Unsigned comment by 108.75.137.21 (talk) at 21:47 on 24 December 2011
I am afraid that is not correct. According to the given table the scaling is not logarithmic, but simple linear. These are the formulas one can easily extract from the numbers in the table:
You do (1/(1+0.1*x))*100% of your normal damage and receive (1+0.1*x)*100% of the enemy's damage [where x=number of ticks of the slider], when you move the slider to the right. When you move it to the left, the equations work other way round, so you take (1/(1+0.x))*100% of the enemy's damage and do (1+0.x)*100% of your normal damage.
So when the slider is at 66% (16 ticks to the right), you do only (1/(1+0.1*16))*100%=38.46% of your normal damage and receive (1+0.1*16)*100%=260% of the enemy's damage.
When the slider is at 75% (25 ticks to the right), you do 28.57% of your normal damage and receive 350% of the enemy's damage (which correlates with the given table).
On the other hand, when the slider is at, say, 31% (19 ticks to the left) you swap formulas, so you do (1+0.1*19)*100%=290% of your normal damage and take (1/(1+0.1*19))*100%=34.48% of the enemy's damage. Vehne 23:06, 31 July 2013 (GMT) — Unsigned comment by 79.164.42.176 (talk)

Part about followers[edit]

As I was reading this guide, I noticed that you provided a section (Mages Guild, I believe) where it is helpful to have followers with you to help you along with the quest. This got me thinking that if you have the Knights of the Nine Official Plug-in installed, you could get a follower, although you DO have to complete quite a few combat-related quests before you can start to get the followers, so it might just be better to get Martin or Jauffre instead. Just a suggestion, though.... Razorflame 17:18, 7 May 2009 (EDT)

Interesting Guide[edit]

I found the hardest difficulty strategy guide to be a pretty comprehensive tool for getting through the game on insane difficulty.

I would agree that there are a lot of tactics that make even max difficulty insanely easy. I didn't do 100% chameleon (seemed way too cheap) no spell stacking (seemed to be a little to complicated, I'm an RPG guy not a mathematician) no poisons (just because I find alchemy boring) and even so I've found that the simple use of Illusion along with conjuration can get you through most encounters.

For me, I chose Breton, Birth Sign Mage, and a pretty unimpressive set of major skills (wanted to control leveling). Basically I've found that a combination of conjuration and illusion is all you need. Summoning a creature, and then paralyzing continuously or going invisible is a pretty easy attack pattern to spam and should get you through most one on one battles.

Against groups I've found more issues, I personally like to summon, turn one of the enemies to my side (command humanoid or command beast) then go invisible and watch the fun. The only issue I've run into with this tactic is a lot of times my summons are still attacking my commanded creature although this isn't really much of a problem since at least some numbers are getting whittled down. Vampire conjurers and necromancers are probably my biggest pain since they are basically immune to paralyze, conjure their own creatures which seem to tie up my summons and are still too strong to kill through melee (even with a good enchanted sword, 50 blade, and 100 heavy armor (no I didn't build it for the character but since I'm not encumbered by it I wear it for a little more protection).

I think the biggest cheap tool I use is taking advantage of the leveling system. I had max illusion and max conjuration by about level 4 and I think this is what should be remedied for the next elder scrolls. Putting a cap on how much you can raise each skill in a level would at least slow down power leveling through skills and put a little more challenge into the game. It just kind of sucks that as players we have to find a way to make insane difficulty more of a challenge, shouldn't that be the game developers job?— Unsigned comment by 217.163.18.130 (talk) on 16 June 2009

Self-made health potions in the tutorial?[edit]

I don't understand how you can make restore heakth potions in the tutorial as you only get one type of restore health ingredient-Cairn Bolete Cap-and there is no second ingredient. Volthawk 09:25, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

I think you're right about that. But are you sure there are no food ingredients (like Venison) lying around anywhere? --Timenn-<talk> 17:34, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
There is no venison lying around, but there's a good chance of the goblins carrying some. --Gaebrial 06:44, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Hand to Hand[edit]

Is the fatigue damage from hand to hand effected by difficulty? I think it is not as have used it to knock down distracted opponents on hardest. I think hand to hand could be a viable skill at mid to high levels, specially when the enemy is attacking your summon, when combined with long duration low intensity custom Damage Fatigue spells. The enemy will get down and stay down. The problem is it will take a LONG time to kill them even while they are down and is only useful 1 vs 1. You also miss out on enchantment stacking which CAN make the other melee skills very viable at later levels and poisons which is what you need for melee/archery at low levels. But anyway even hand to hand can be made to work. 206.53.58.90 14:00, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

As you said yourself, Hand to Hand can be made to work. But really, as you also pointed out, you miss out on so much stuff because you don't use weapons. So all in all, weapon skills remain a better choice. On the other hand, Marksman is actually an incredibly powerful skill. When combined with Sneak (and both at 100) bows deal more damage in a sneak attack than melee weapons. Just a thought :) --SerCenKing Talk 22:08, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
I take back what I said about Marksman, it is mentioned twice. My bad! Isn't Marksman sneak only 3x max though while melee weapon is 6x?
Spells can make the kill. Would be good to get a mage's strength up and on hard you need to be at least part mage.
But is fatigue damage from hand to hand effected by difficulty? 206.53.58.90 03:18, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
True indeed, but marksman deals more damage and allows you to do a larger power attack by holding you arrow so it effectively cancels out. Well, the article says that Hand to Hand is "crippled" so I suppose the damage dealt simply isn't enough at that kind of difficulty. --SerCenKing Talk 08:41, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
Right, I am thinking to use hand to hand only for the fatigue damage. At higher levels this does like 5-10 pts fatigue damage per second if you are uninterrupted, which is equal to a fairly powerful spell. So I wanted to verify that the fatigue damage was not effected. Maybe I'll go ahead and try to play through as a Monk/Mage and get in game verification to see if it works. I would combine with damage fatigue spells to prevent the enemy from rising again and then kill with magicka. I'll try it. 206.53.58.90 22:16, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
I tried it from the beginning instead of with my well armored and hardy endgame character. It seems that it is very crippled BUT that you do full fatigue damage. On normal I would have regarded hand to hand as a "less than equal" skill, on hardest you die, fast. Reason is that even when something is distracted by your summon IF you hit it more than your summon does it will turn on you, damage does not matter only number of hits seemingly. 1 hit with a claymore, you can't backpedal fast enough and wham it's over. You can make it through the tutorial without weapons or armor though.

Where are good places to train throughout the game?[edit]

I started of the game on hardest difficulty (my second time going through it) and i had no where to train every time i went to the arena which is where i trained in my first account i got totaly destroyed after 1 or 2 matches, so where is a good placce to train for low level charecters?

If you need to train any combat skills, use summoned Zombies. --Vicente 12:39, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
The ghosts in Benirus manor are good for training many skills if you have magic and/or frost resistance. They respawn if you walk out into the street and wait an hour, they give you a valuable poison component when they die, and if you stop after a dozen shots or so, you can collect/recover nearly all of your arrows. They are not good for hand to hand combat. For that you need the everscamps in Rosentia Gallenus' house in Leyawiin.Chicken Slayer (talk) 17:52, 19 November 2014 (GMT)

Luck[edit]

I would like to know if it would be a good strategy to focus on Luck. 85.59.100.50 10:33, 12 October 2011 (UTC) Agis

"Just right" writer here. Luck boosts all your skills, and half of them are damaged by difficulty. I find it's more important to get Mana and HP up quickly, so that means I focus on end/wil/int/str. Strength and endurance are important because I often keep the Necromancer's Amulet. Luck doesn't really kick in until endgame, when your magic skills are around around 80+. At this time mana efficiency shoots up with every skill increase (Magic Overview), so luck really pays off. - Nov. 16, 2011 Bobucles

Melee[edit]

Shouldn't there be a section regarding effective Melee at the hardest difficulty? I've played when you conjure, calm, and go invisible all the time... that gets pretty boring... are you saying it is impossible to finish the game on the hardest level without resorting to the above mentioned strategy?

God Mode By Level 10[edit]

I am copy/pasting this from my own Hardest Difficulty Guide here. I was wondering if this would be something to include in this guide.
---
Once you hit level 10, it is possible to do pretty much everything as if you were in god mode. First, you need to acquire 4 Grand Souls. Because creatures with Grand Souls don't appear until level ~25, you'll need to find gems that are empty or pre-filled with grand souls. Convert the Empty Grand Soul Gems into Black Soul Gems, and kill NPCs to fill them. Next, go to the Shadow Stone and obtain its power. This will allow you to enchant items with chameleon. Now, get 4 un-enchanted apparel. You will have 2 unused slots after you get the set. You will be wearing the Ring of Khajiiti, so don't enchant 2 other rings. Once you have enchanted 4 pieces of armor with chameleon, using the grand souls, go to Meridia's Shrine. Complete her quest to get the Ring of Khajiit. Now that you have 115% chameleon, you will enter sub-god mode. Go to Nocturnal's Shrine and complete her quest, giving you the Skeleton Key. Now for a little icing on top. This is optional but will make your life easier. If you have Mehrunes Razor official plug-in, complete that now. After obtaining Mehrunes Razor, you can kill everyone rather easily. However, it is a huge gold hog. It usually has a 6% chance to instantly kill, so you'll need to recharge it often. It has 8000 charge, so stock up on soul gems and varla stones or else be prepared to dish out 8000 gold every half hour. You are now in god mode. You can do anything (with 115% chameleon), go anywhere (with the Skeleton Key), and kill anything (with Mehrunes Razor).
---
Grim765The Reaper 18:12, 26 June 2013 (GMT)

Making money[edit]

The game is fairly easy in the early levels if you are using conjuration, specifically, a summoned scamp. So to make a lot of money fast, simply go to Edgar Vatrine and buy a bound dagger spell and a summon scamp spell. Use the dagger spell to raise your conjuration minor skill to 25 and then start on Umbacano's Collector quest. The ayleid statues, varla stones, and welkynd stones will make you a lot of money quickly. Be sure to sell Welkynd stones in big lots and haggle up mage guildhouse venders as their disposition increases from the big transactions.Chicken Slayer (talk) 17:51, 19 November 2014 (GMT)

Tutorial[edit]

1) There is a good reason not to make any potions during the tutorial, and that is if you plan to use efficient leveling combined with conjuration play. Building alchemy when using conjuration wastes Intelligence bonus points. Conjured beings are much more effective weapons than poisons once you get outside, and you can kill everything in the tutorial but the goblin mage using flares and a few hits with the katana. The goblin mage dies quickly with the provided bottle of poison and a katana sneak hit followed by flares (Run and let Baurus take care of the final assassin.)

2) You can easily build +5 in Endurance (added health on level-up) by rushing through the first wooden door and putting on the heavy armor from the chest. Go back to the door and let the rat attack you until your health is low. Then go back through the door and rest 1 hour. Repeat until you have built at least ten points in heavy armor. If you choose Combat as your area of expertise you will need more than ten. Take off the heavy armor after you are done so your spell efficiency is at 100% again.Chicken Slayer (talk) 18:43, 19 November 2014 (GMT)

What about Drain Strength and Fortify Strength?[edit]

2 questions: 1. Drain Strength on Target is Destruction School but is it affected by "6 times less"? 2. Fortify Strength on Target is Restoration School but is it affected by "6 times less" ? DD166 (talk) 01:27, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

A note on melee and physical protection[edit]

I disagree that armor is not helpfull on hardest difficulty. It might be hard to get the respective skills up at the start, but once you have 70+ armor and decent block skill, melee is actually quite easily endurable against all but the strongest enemies. In contrary, I think it is very important to gain high physical protection, as, like with spells, it is inevitable that you will get hit sooner or later, and without protection, even "weaker" enemies can kill you in 2-4 hits. Anything serious will probably 1-hit you. Also, I´m not familiar with the stagger mechanics, but I think it is bound to damage, so if you take a big hit, it´s more likely you will get staggered and have to endure a few more of those hits (=death). It is true though, that it will take a long time to kill anything in melee (for example more than half the durability of a glass dagger to kill a minotaur, with blade weapon skill around 70).--80.242.203.163 12:42, 12 February 2018 (UTC)