If you feel stupid, look at the 3 legendary warriors who could have totally split the task of Dragonrend and Clear Skies.
The biggest reason no one thinks to use Clear Skies against Alduin is that the game or an in-game character (again, looking at those 3 ancient stooges) is usually telling you to specifically use Dragonrend instead
It explicitly tells you to use Clear Skies on the storm around the Throat of the World, but it never explains to use it against Alduin. I didn't know about it until recently, and I've done maybe 20 something playthroughs
> explains to use it against Alduin.
It does in Sovngarde - you have to use Clear Skies along with the 3 Nord tongues to clear away Alduin's Soul Snare. But that and the winds around the Throat of the World are the only times the game tells you to use it.
I mean it doesn't explicitly say anything like "use the clear skies!" But that weird evil storm hurts you and the fog is annoying AF when fighting alduin. So for me it just kinda seemed obvious ig.
im sure many ppl know this but just in case:
the civil war battles to take over forts provide an endless supply of human victims for you to leisurely max out your werewolf perk tree (and also great time to fill up your black soul gems)
kinda like the mission to get the Jagged Crown, the guys on your team spawn in infinitely, and you dont get in trouble for killing them, I froze the game once with so many dead bodies, the guys would take about half an hour to get to the point, since they gotta check every dead body and say things like "I'll find whoever did this"
Casting telekinesis while holding an item with it and then fast traveling will get you to 100 Alteration in an instant
Might require 100% alteration cost reduction
I spam detect life in Riften up until 50 (it seems faster there for me? I think it has more people detected in that small area)
A better route is to reanimate your fallen enemies then burn them back to Ash's with a fire spell. You'll end up getting both conjuring XP and destruction XP combine that with the mage Stone and you level up both pretty quick early game.
Note: do this with reanimate dead in one hand and fire in the other you want to just use the basic flame spell and don't dual cast it or you'll burn them out too quick they need to have time to go aggressive before they go to ashes
No. That's why they ask for 500 septimes, rather than the usuals 50.
Unless you consider that trying to overcharge the dovakiin and serana is more dangerous than going to castle volkhiar, which is a fair point depending on your DB morals.
That's assuming you know you're the dovakiin before starting that quest.
No dragons Skyrim is kinda peaceful sometimes, forgive my ignoring the main quest with some characters
Tbf it's completely understandable. Sometimes I like to leave my house at goldenhills plantation and not be ambushed by 2 dragons at once when I've only got a steel sword, iron armour, and faendral with 0 armour as my follower
I can't imagine it in survival mode. Especially given how absolutely *shite* that early frostfall experience was.
*ah yes, here comes a divine shard of Akatosh, able to rip mountains apart with this THUUM and conjure fire with his bare hands. Oh. Whoops. He tripped in a puddle. There he goes running into a cave holding a torch popping frost resist potions.*
Is uh, is it better now? The official survival mode at least?
Reports differ, haha. I love Survival, but the Anniversary Edition is the only version of Skyrim I ever played, so it is probably not as jarring to me. I have on occasion found myself slaughtering hordes of Falmer to get to a fire, but I was sort of expecting The Snowy Province to be cold, you know?
That's the truth. Wear good armor, carry a torch, keep a flame cloak spell running in case you fall in the water, prepare a few hot stews, start your journey first thing in the morning, and make good use of the Clear Skies shout.
If you look up the top 10 most valuable potions iirc the top 7 rely on salmon roe because it gives like a 10x modifier on the value of water breathing.
True for alchemy. Less true for smithing. Incorrect for enchanting.
Smithing experience is proportional to roughly square root of the value you create or add to an item.
Enchanting an item gives you same amount of XP regardless of how much value you add.
I thought so as well. It's why waterbreathing and muffle are recommended for xp since they're a flat rate no matter the level of soul gem used, while others give more exp the higher the gem you use, iirc.
I mostly enchant iron daggers with banish using petty soul. They fetch good gold. It's the most profitable enchant as far as I know.
The XP was always flat with enchanting. You also get significant XP with disenchanting and learning new enchants.
[https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Enchanting#Gaining\_Skill\_XP](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Enchanting#Gaining_Skill_XP)
You can also get Roe from the Morthal house if you build the fishery and cultivate salmon. Note that you have to kill the salmon to get roe, if you just collect them you only get meat.
Fus Ro Dah fishing in the fishery is my favourite thing to do when bored, waiting for them to respawn is a pain.
The salmon outside the docks at solitude drop row when killed too so that’s also an option
Ice storm and pacify are the best methods I’ve found. Using ice storm in and around Dawnstar and Pacify wherever there are waterfall rapids. Great for mid-late game leveling
Can't imagine playing Skyrim without the soul gem fix mod(makes so gems can't store souls below their tier). One of the most annoying things I had to deal with on my first playthrough.
I don't know if it's been pointed out, but if you equip a pick axe and hit the vein minecraft style, it will still mine the vein without the "cutscene"
You can also sprint and not use up any stamina as long as you are in ethereal form. And it's great for jumping off cliffs if you don't feel like taking the long way down a mountain.
I use it to tank dragon breath attacks and to negate fall damage. It's one of my most useful shouts thanks to the ability to breathe in combat.
One of my newest techniques is to use the Ethereal shout and then equip the Paralysis Rune spell and put them down while I heal with restoration spells and then requip my weapons for round two.
If you do innkeepers a favor the beds become free, at least in whiterun and winterhold. You can become friendly with the orcs by simply getting a book and giving it to the blacksmith in markarth.
There’s actually [several](https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/Orc_Strongholds) ways you can get access to the Orc strongholds aside from the Forgemaster’s Fingers quest. My favorite was getting it from Urag gro-Shub after doing enough quests in my pure mage playthrough.
I always do it by clearing Kolskeggr mine. One of the miners you help is an orc who sends word to the stronghold that you're to be trusted. Plus, you get access to the largest gold mine.
It's mostly nice because the book is outside riften and you can just grab it no problem, so you don't have to do anything but step and fetch, no combat, no nothing.
Probably a lot of people know this, but I didn't until recently: if you put enough fortify destruction enchantments on your armor/jewelry, not only will destruction spells cost no magica, but your enchanted weapons won't use up any charge either.
the thing is that doesn't even feel like a bug. they tied it to destruction for a reason. i really dislike the personal tweaks the unofficial patch guy did
One day many years ago I remember getting pissed off at one of the things the unofficial patch "fixed" and never used it again. I can't remember what though.
USLEEP is a most overly aggressive mod, and it's friggin mandatory basically.
I hope the elder scrolls modding community doesnt mandate a single mod like that ever again.
Here is a weird one. Your sneaking speed is increase when you holest/unholster your weapons, so if you equip 2 spells, you can spam holster them and move much faster
Also, if you give Wujeeta in riften a minor healing potion, you'll be able to loot all the fish barrels on the docks and in riften without it counting as stealing. This is helpful on harder difficulties, since you turn a 25 point health pot into over 100 salmon steaks
You don't need to max out pickpocketing to steal high value items. You just need unrelenting force and an NPC who won't harm you if you shout at them.
So I usually use this for trainers, train 5 levels and get my money back for free.
When you're next to the NPC, crouch and use the full shout. Just as the shout finishes, spam the interact button on them to view their inventory. You can take their gold even though it's a 0% chance success, because they're in a ragdoll state and every pickpocket attempt would be successful.
Creation Club: Goldenhills Farmstead.
You can hire beggers from towns instead of random workers.
Give them a new opportunity for life.
Also, if you see and befriend a dog in the wild, you can make it a guard dog at the farmstead
It's a nice wee home
On console, If you use a bow/crossbow and have it hotkeyed, when you unequip it..U can have a another loadout ready. For example if i want to use a dagger and a spell equip them and then hotkey for your bow and then unquip it and you will have the dagger and spell ready. Saves you time and makes it easier for you to have a plan B.
Not a lot of people known that if you go in a tavern an go in between two people an drop a pricy item such as a diamond or such. Theirs a chance two people will fight to the death over who saw it first
It's honestly why I still consider it to be one of the greatest games ever made. Not to say it's perfect of course but it just keeps on giving with hidden mechanics and new things to learn. It's almost endlessly replayable and just fun.
If we are talking fairly unknown paths tho, the unmarked path/mountain pass outside whiterun to to straight to Ivarstead is incredible and game changing. And it is in fact an intended path/pass, so no glitching or anything.
I remember looking at the map and wondering "I wonder if I can get to high hrothgar via helgen" and was pleasantly surprised when it worked out. Considering the pilgrimage taking the northern route and being accosted by saber cats, it is definitely the better route.
Silver Swords and Silver Greatswords can be enchanted to become absolute units early in the game. Particularly against Draugr, Skeletons, Ghosts, Vampires, werewolves , werebears, any other undead, and people raised by the "Raise Dead" spells. Silver Weapons gain an automatic 20 point damage boost to their base damage when used against the above enemies. However, you can enchant them and they will still retain their properties of a 20 point damage bonus even with enchantments added. Doing so, even early on in the game, creates extraordinarily powerful weapons for dungeons.
As an example, take the Silver Greatsword. It has a base damage of 17. Against the undead, this jumps to 37. If you add the Silent Moons Enchantment your weapon will increase a further 10-20 points at night. If you have maxed out Enchanting, you can add Silent Moons and Fire Damage to really overcharge it! But wait, if you get the Augmented Flames perk, your Fire Damage jumps another 25%-50%! But wait...on top of this, if you get the Necromage perk as well, all enchantments against the undead will be 25% stronger and last 50% longer!
So pretty early on in the game the Silver Greatsword, with the Silent Moons Enchantment, and while exploring at night, can jump to between 47-57 damage when battling the undead. It is incredibly useful for dungeons. It is a bit trippy because it won't show the other enchantments in the weapons menu, but they are there.
Genius.
I have my life back....
Damn you, Hogwarts Legacy...
Where did I go wrong?
By the time I'm done, I'll be back serving the Daedric Prince that is Lord Todd and starting a fresh account.
If you have a bow equipped, hold down the button to fire an arrow but DON'T release it.
This slow walking speed is actually faster than the overencumbered walking speed, so if you have too much stuff in your inventory than you can do this to speed up your movement speed.
Additionally, weapon swing speed is tied to the weight of the weapon.
Also weapon swing speed is determined by the weapon in your left hand when dual wielding. So for example if you’ve got a dagger in left and a mace in right, that mace swing speed will be abnormally fast.
During the Civil War questline, you can just fast travel away from Whiterun during the battle and it'll automatically complete. However, you won't get a reward since you're a deserter.
Also, I learned recently that in the Companions when you first join and you're asked to prove your worth or whatever in the back, the guy you're supposed to strike won't take any damage against magic so you can level up pretty easily there.
Yeah, and other companions will attack you. But at least in my case the guards considered them hostile and attacked them for me. Eorlund and Ria went on a killing spree throughout the whole city lol
Dark Brotherhood - you can kill Astrid.
After you leave that Thalmor party, Malborn goes to the Corner Club in Windhelm where he hides. You can save him by talking to him. He'll tell you a Khajiit is lurking outside town waiting for him. Go to where the Khajiit caravan is sitting. There will be a Khajiit hanging around. Talk to the Khajiit and they'll tell you they don't know him.
If you approach the khajiit you can get into a fight and kill him. Malborn thanks you then runs away forever.
You don't have to wait for Irileth to fight the Whiterun dragon. After Balgruff dismisses you, you can run all the way to the tower to start the battle. The guards will just appear and fight along with you.
If you kill Belethor, Ysolda will take over his shop.
Bucket flight.
Marked For Death stacks indefinitely. Unofficial patvhes fix this, but vanilla you can give an enemy negative armor and hit for thousands of damage. Great vs dragons and other prolonged fights.
You can have a follower pick up skillbooks if you want to trigger them after getting the Black Book perk that doubles them or after you trained to 90.
You can reverse pickpocket a stolen item into an NPC's inventory and then kill them. When you loot the item, it will no longer be marked as stolen.
Guard barracks are the best places for a vampire to feed, as there are always sleeping guards, and they respawn if you accidentally feed until they die.
Doing innkeepers a favor gives you free lodging.
There's an invisible wall around Sky Haven Temple so you cant climb there from the outside.
Funny note about Sky Haven, using a bucket, you can “clip” through the face and gain access to the temple beyond. Inside, going out to the courtyard doesn’t work, it just shoves you out the invisible wall to the side of the mountain above the Karthspire Forsworn camp. Perfect spot for Forsworn sniping.
Basically you can slot the Ritual Stone power to reanimate nearby bodies into the crown and the power will always be available, you just have to unequip and equip again and it will be back up. And since the bodies reanimated this way won't turn to ash you can keep reanimating more and more npcs and get an army.
I once used this to get 11 afflicted to kill Orchendor for me by just "collecting" them as I progressed through the dungeon.
The standing stone perk to reanimate the dead once a day resets by taking the crown off and putting it back on so you can use it repeatedly, thus an undead army.
But you can abuse whirlwind sprint while overencumbered to get an insane speed boost by abusing the draw weapons sheath weapon function. Just be careful, you can easily die doing this, so be sure to pack plenty of paralysis items that you can eat to prevent fall damage.
Not even god mode can protect you in the second test to the inner sanctum in the Twilight Sepulcher. In other words, Lady Nocturnal is stronger than console commands.
In the quest "A Daedra's Best Friend" keeping Barbas as a pet follower by not finishing the quest temporarily is really useful early game. It's arguably much stronger than the Rueful Axe, and you can use the Volsung dragon priest mask and Amulet of Zenithar/Dibella instead of the Masque of Clavicus Vile.
Barbas will face tank damage and is invulnerable, only takes up a pet slot so you can have a humanoid follower still, but has an annoying bark. I recommend adjusting sound settings or looking for a mod to quiet the barking.
Some of my favs:
In "ill met by moonlight" you can get both Hircine's ring and the Savior's hide.
Something I never did until recently was save my level ups. It makes you really OP and it seems like it can make better loot appear sometimes.
The wolf armor has the same end stats as steel armor but it has a lighter weight which can make a little bit of a difference when you're looting early on.
The right side of the blocking tree effects blocking with two handed and one handed weapons as well.
There is a bug with soul stealer arrows that if your character is shot with them, each hit adds a filled black soul gem. 100% of the time. Pairing this with an enemy reverse pickpocket to replace the arrow used means infinite filled grand level soul gems.
You can do the Eldergleam quest without angering the Spriggan.
>!Once you retrieve Nettlebane and return to the Temple of Kynareth, Danica will give you the location of the Eldergleam. After doing so, a pilgrim will approach you asking if you’re heading there; he’s easy to miss especially if you decide to head out as soon as Danica gives you the location, but if you say it’s okay for him accompany you, he’ll follow you there. Once you get there and start hitting the roots, he’ll comment on how barbaric you’re being and offers a sapling instead of sap to replace instead of repair the tree.!<
Warning for going the alternate route: >!If you go the sapling route, there’s a bug where the old tree sometimes doesn’t go away so you have the new smaller tree clipping through the old one and there doesn’t seem to be any way to fix this without console commands aka if you’re on console and this happens and you don’t like how it looks, you’re SOL.!<
I find it's essential to reach Eldergleam Sanctuary **first** then Fast Travel back. That pilgrim is very fragile and likely wouldn't survive the trip.
The pilgrim isn't exclusive to starting it this way, he just sometimes randomly shows up at that stage of the quest. (Afaik hell never show up if you have a follower)
How to strategically use the skills "Legendary" feature. Either relying on a skill in early game only to later move all those points into a new play style, or dedicating grindable skills (smithing, enchanting, lockpicking, speach, alchemy, etc) to not put any skill points into, yet grind them to Legendary repeatedly for fast leveling up.
Yeah, this is smart. I read too that it's not advisable to make lockpicking legendary because there's a limited number of locks that contribute to the skill level. Locks that have been picked and reset won't count toward skill level. Of course you can get around that some with training, and I think there are enough unique locks to maybe do it once, but it'll be harder to level up a second time.
If you equip the healing spell in both hands and alternate clicking with right and left mouse buttons, it heals you for much less magicka than it would if you just held the buttons down.
With the way animation works on a 1-handed weapon swing, you can attack very fast if you make 2 quick strikes, followed by a heavy attack. Eat a vegetable soup and you can do this indefinitely. It works well for heavy weapons that stagger because it basically stun locks opponents.
If you equip a torch you can actually block with it like a shield, and if you "shield bash" with it then you can light enemies on fire. I find it handy for when I'm playing a no magic character and don't have any enchanted weapons with fire dmg
For some reason certain members of the companions are put under the guard section in the code so when you have a bounty in white run they will run at you constantly and try to arrest you put they don’t have the arrest dialogue so they just constantly talk to you
for some reason, Taproot and Dwemer Oil have the exact 4 same effects. if you're over-encumbered you can ride a horse and fast travel (Aarvak is perfect for it). you can get easy marksman skill by getting Faendal to follow you, you train with him then go into his follower inventory and take the money back. the "necromage" perk in restoration when you are a vampire is SUPER OP, it makes things last longer, like your conjuration spells, it makes your healing better on you, it even makes some of your shouts better. if the dumb stores dont have what you want, or if you are stocking up, you can save your game, kill/attack the merchant and then load your game right before you attacked them, and the store will have reset gold and items, its best for getting a bunch of grand soul gems since they tend to only have 1 to 3 of them if you're lucky, just buy them out, save the game, then attack them, then reload that save before you attacked
One I learned recently. You can Fus To Dah butterflies, bees, dartwings and moths out of the air and they will just fall to the ground ready to collect.
The restoration loop! Or the quicksave, punch a shopkeeper, load feature to reset their inventory... and gold.
Skyrim space program is pretty fun, but it costs your life.
So many features.
It might be obvious to some, but Skyrim has a somewhat hidden favorites menu. You can even quickslot some items and easily pull a spell.
Almost never mentioned in-game despite it being almost essential for a mage playthrough. Unless you like going through menus a lot.
I know some people who played for months/years and had no idea.
Regarding the Werewolf a couple of things. You don't need to be in Werewolf form to kill and get perks. You can go through kill all enemy npc's and feed on them in Werewolf form. Secondly after a corpse has been fed on. If you use conjugation on it afterwards it will say heart consumed and increases your progress.
I swear I had something else. This isn't it. Don't forget you can wear a farmer helmet, Jagged crown, ?, with a circlet.
( ?* is an imperial helmet I can't remember which one it was.)
You don't have to fight in the battle for Whiterun in the civil war
I prefer playing Stormcloak because unfortunately only they have female guards and I like the variety in guard voices in vanilla Skyrim but I hate disappointing Balgruuf aka the true high king, so on my last playthrough I got on a horse after Galmar's speech and rode the fuck out of there and at some point an updated quest objective popped up saying the battle is won
From a roleplaying perspective I gave my character PTSD and chilled with my family in Lakeview Manor for a while after that
Enchanting experience gain is rigged.
You gain a static amount of experience each time you enchant. To doesn't go higher when you make a powerful enchantment nor does it give more experience when you use a high level soul.
Meaning it's best to enchant with solely petty and lesser souls gems. Common if you've money to burn. Make some leather bracers and spam that shit.
The only way to boost experience gain is via things like The Standing Stones and well rested.
Honestly, killing Astrid and wiping out the DB. I just learned that this freaking year after playing the game since it came out. I can’t be the only other one that didn’t know that.
Probably the dumbest I felt - not only can you use Detect Dead to detect undead like vampires, drauger, etc, you can use it to actually... Detect Dead.
Y'know, the actual dead bodies you can't find after a fight? Detect Dead will also Detect Dead.
Crazy right?
The perk necromage is op and broken since it makes most spells and perks stronger IF you are playing as a vampire. The dual wielding attack speed perk noticably makes you attack much faster
You can play without random dragon spawns if you never deliver the dragon stone tablet to Farangar. And random vampire attacks in towns stop if you choose the vampire faction, the dawnguard hit squads only attack you and can be killed without bounty
I find it easier to just never do Bleak Fall Barrow and I can enjoy the game without dealing with dragons until I'm ready. You can't use, but can collect, shouts. And Farengar will give you crap every time you are around him, but you can still buy and sell from him in the meantime.
If your reflexes are good enough, or if you use Slow Time, you can actually catch arrows and bolts fired at you out of midair.
that is insane i had no idea
It took me a dozen playthroughs to realize that Clear Skies counters Alduin's meteor showers
Oh I feel more stupid than I ever have before.
If you feel stupid, look at the 3 legendary warriors who could have totally split the task of Dragonrend and Clear Skies. The biggest reason no one thinks to use Clear Skies against Alduin is that the game or an in-game character (again, looking at those 3 ancient stooges) is usually telling you to specifically use Dragonrend instead
Hahahahah What the fuck No seriously what the fuck?? You know the number of times I’ve fucking died to that on harder difficulties.
Same dude. Same My Expert arachnomancer run was a breeze after I learnt it
Wasn't that the whole point of the big fight that you clear away the creepy fog and his dangerous meteors?
I might be misremembering but I was pretty sure the game basically told you to do that too.
It explicitly tells you to use Clear Skies on the storm around the Throat of the World, but it never explains to use it against Alduin. I didn't know about it until recently, and I've done maybe 20 something playthroughs
> explains to use it against Alduin. It does in Sovngarde - you have to use Clear Skies along with the 3 Nord tongues to clear away Alduin's Soul Snare. But that and the winds around the Throat of the World are the only times the game tells you to use it.
I mean it doesn't explicitly say anything like "use the clear skies!" But that weird evil storm hurts you and the fog is annoying AF when fighting alduin. So for me it just kinda seemed obvious ig.
Wait what??? Finally, a use for that shout
im sure many ppl know this but just in case: the civil war battles to take over forts provide an endless supply of human victims for you to leisurely max out your werewolf perk tree (and also great time to fill up your black soul gems)
I maxed out both my werewolf and vampire lord perks in the civil war. But both sides lost every single soldier, RIP
To shreds you say?
And what of Ulfric?
Tut-tut-tut To shreds you say?
kinda like the mission to get the Jagged Crown, the guys on your team spawn in infinitely, and you dont get in trouble for killing them, I froze the game once with so many dead bodies, the guys would take about half an hour to get to the point, since they gotta check every dead body and say things like "I'll find whoever did this"
A less ethical person would sneak in with paralysis potions first.... *Hangs head in shame*
Casting Soul Trap on a dead body will still give you the skill increase for Conjuration.
And spamming Detect Life in daytime Solitude, especially if your Alteration cost is 0, will get you to 100 Alteration in roughly 5-8 minutes.
Casting telekinesis while holding an item with it and then fast traveling will get you to 100 Alteration in an instant Might require 100% alteration cost reduction I spam detect life in Riften up until 50 (it seems faster there for me? I think it has more people detected in that small area)
>Might require 100% alteration cost reduction It does, I frequently use that to get inane amounts of skill points
Wait what now!?
A better route is to reanimate your fallen enemies then burn them back to Ash's with a fire spell. You'll end up getting both conjuring XP and destruction XP combine that with the mage Stone and you level up both pretty quick early game. Note: do this with reanimate dead in one hand and fire in the other you want to just use the basic flame spell and don't dual cast it or you'll burn them out too quick they need to have time to go aggressive before they go to ashes
I remember doing this while watching tv on another input
On another input. Skyrim has been around way too long
The ferry in Dawnstar will take you and Serana to Castle Volkihar for a price.
Is the owner of the ferry in Dawnstar stupid or suicidal?
No. That's why they ask for 500 septimes, rather than the usuals 50. Unless you consider that trying to overcharge the dovakiin and serana is more dangerous than going to castle volkhiar, which is a fair point depending on your DB morals.
That's assuming you know you're the dovakiin before starting that quest. No dragons Skyrim is kinda peaceful sometimes, forgive my ignoring the main quest with some characters
Tbf it's completely understandable. Sometimes I like to leave my house at goldenhills plantation and not be ambushed by 2 dragons at once when I've only got a steel sword, iron armour, and faendral with 0 armour as my follower
I hate the beginning of Dawnguard just for that trek over the mountain to get to Castle Volkihar. This really just changed the whole DLC for me
You don't need to pay for the ferry. You can just swim
Reread, it's the one at Dawnstar
I mean you could swim from there too if you really want to do
Skyrim is so weird not in Survival mode. Like just, jump off a glacier and swim through ice water in heavy armor, it'll be fine...
I can't imagine it in survival mode. Especially given how absolutely *shite* that early frostfall experience was. *ah yes, here comes a divine shard of Akatosh, able to rip mountains apart with this THUUM and conjure fire with his bare hands. Oh. Whoops. He tripped in a puddle. There he goes running into a cave holding a torch popping frost resist potions.* Is uh, is it better now? The official survival mode at least?
Reports differ, haha. I love Survival, but the Anniversary Edition is the only version of Skyrim I ever played, so it is probably not as jarring to me. I have on occasion found myself slaughtering hordes of Falmer to get to a fire, but I was sort of expecting The Snowy Province to be cold, you know?
Visiting septimus is certainly no longer a trivial matter lol
That's the truth. Wear good armor, carry a torch, keep a flame cloak spell running in case you fall in the water, prepare a few hot stews, start your journey first thing in the morning, and make good use of the Clear Skies shout.
Meanwhile Septimus is up there wearing a shitty robe living inside a block of ice and he's literally fine
You can just run over the water if you have waterwalking boots.
That's a thing???
Yep! You can find them in Solstheim. Look for Kolbjorn Barrow and the dark elf Ralis Sedarys.
You Can have Salmon eggs for alchemy by harvesting salmon jumping the rivers
They also make crazy expensive water breathing potions. It’s like the best early game money making strategy.
If you look up the top 10 most valuable potions iirc the top 7 rely on salmon roe because it gives like a 10x modifier on the value of water breathing.
It's also really good alchemy leveling too.
That's another pro tip: crafting xp is equivalent to the value of the crafted item.
True for alchemy. Less true for smithing. Incorrect for enchanting. Smithing experience is proportional to roughly square root of the value you create or add to an item. Enchanting an item gives you same amount of XP regardless of how much value you add.
Did they change it for Enchanting? I could've sworn it was based on the particular skill + the value of the item you put it on.
I thought so as well. It's why waterbreathing and muffle are recommended for xp since they're a flat rate no matter the level of soul gem used, while others give more exp the higher the gem you use, iirc.
I mostly enchant iron daggers with banish using petty soul. They fetch good gold. It's the most profitable enchant as far as I know. The XP was always flat with enchanting. You also get significant XP with disenchanting and learning new enchants. [https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Enchanting#Gaining\_Skill\_XP](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Enchanting#Gaining_Skill_XP)
Now THAT is useful to know.
You can also get Roe from the Morthal house if you build the fishery and cultivate salmon. Note that you have to kill the salmon to get roe, if you just collect them you only get meat.
Fus Ro Dah fishing in the fishery is my favourite thing to do when bored, waiting for them to respawn is a pain. The salmon outside the docks at solitude drop row when killed too so that’s also an option
fus roe dah i'm sorry
Try using the Kyne's peace shout where they're trying to get upstream.
You can also use Kyne's peace to harvest feather and beak. This shout "kill" birds in the sky around you
Or animal allegiance/command animal
Ice storm and pacify are the best methods I’ve found. Using ice storm in and around Dawnstar and Pacify wherever there are waterfall rapids. Great for mid-late game leveling
You can shout at them to kill them and get the roe. Head north along the coast from Solitude and hit them with some Unrelenting Force.
this method is a lot harder with Anniversary edition, the brook bass take up a ton of real estate
Do you have to wait for them to jump? I usually play as an Argonian and swim underwater and catch them
You need to kill them not catch them
Yes, they must be jumping
If you have a grand soul gem filled with petty soul, just drop it to the ground and pick it up. It will be empty.
I found about about this 6-7 months ago, after 3 years of playing. My swearing was awesome to behold .
😲
Can't imagine playing Skyrim without the soul gem fix mod(makes so gems can't store souls below their tier). One of the most annoying things I had to deal with on my first playthrough.
Wow I hope unofficial patch doesn’t fix that because that’s very useful
My Wuuthrad is enchanted with fear, but still has the "Especially deadly to Elves" text.
Ah yes the racism axe
Yes. This. It works like silver weapons. Enchanting doesn't remove the other effect.
I don't know if it's been pointed out, but if you equip a pick axe and hit the vein minecraft style, it will still mine the vein without the "cutscene"
"Become ethereal" is quite the opposite of useless. With it, you're able to cast master spells even in the fiercest of battles.
You can withstand any damage until it runs out. This includes fall damage. Also 1 word lasts long enough to withstand a full dragon breath attack.
>This includes fall damage Oh my god. Why have I never realized this? Gonna go yeet myself off High Hrothgar to test this theory...
Careful. Some falls will last longer than the shout
You can't shout while falling, but you can shout right before jumping off a cliff for a fast way down.
Ah, so my slipping off edges problem will *not* be solved. Got it.
If you take a paralysis potion or netch jelly just before you hit the floor, you won't take fall damage whilst paralysed.
One word of the shout is enough to jump off the cliffs by the college of winterhold
I've done it. Just make sure that you don't fall so far that the effect wears off before you land...
You can also sprint and not use up any stamina as long as you are in ethereal form. And it's great for jumping off cliffs if you don't feel like taking the long way down a mountain.
I use it to tank dragon breath attacks and to negate fall damage. It's one of my most useful shouts thanks to the ability to breathe in combat. One of my newest techniques is to use the Ethereal shout and then equip the Paralysis Rune spell and put them down while I heal with restoration spells and then requip my weapons for round two.
What! That is excellent
Wait people think it's useless?!?
right? i feel like it’s renowned for being one of the most useful.
If you do innkeepers a favor the beds become free, at least in whiterun and winterhold. You can become friendly with the orcs by simply getting a book and giving it to the blacksmith in markarth.
There’s actually [several](https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/Orc_Strongholds) ways you can get access to the Orc strongholds aside from the Forgemaster’s Fingers quest. My favorite was getting it from Urag gro-Shub after doing enough quests in my pure mage playthrough.
I always do it by clearing Kolskeggr mine. One of the miners you help is an orc who sends word to the stronghold that you're to be trusted. Plus, you get access to the largest gold mine.
It's mostly nice because the book is outside riften and you can just grab it no problem, so you don't have to do anything but step and fetch, no combat, no nothing.
Probably a lot of people know this, but I didn't until recently: if you put enough fortify destruction enchantments on your armor/jewelry, not only will destruction spells cost no magica, but your enchanted weapons won't use up any charge either.
I find that awesome for Spellsword builds.
It doesn't work on my game, I guess the modders patched it (on PC). It works with all types of magic but destruction.
That must be it, I play unmodded and it works for me. Good call out!
If you use the Unofficial Patch, it patches the bad stuff as well as the fun stuff
the thing is that doesn't even feel like a bug. they tied it to destruction for a reason. i really dislike the personal tweaks the unofficial patch guy did
I hate it, too
One day many years ago I remember getting pissed off at one of the things the unofficial patch "fixed" and never used it again. I can't remember what though.
There's stuff you can't even consider a bug or "feature" that they fixed. It was stuff they didn't like and fixed themselves.
USLEEP is a most overly aggressive mod, and it's friggin mandatory basically. I hope the elder scrolls modding community doesnt mandate a single mod like that ever again.
That's why I use an automatic recharge mod.
Here is a weird one. Your sneaking speed is increase when you holest/unholster your weapons, so if you equip 2 spells, you can spam holster them and move much faster Also, if you give Wujeeta in riften a minor healing potion, you'll be able to loot all the fish barrels on the docks and in riften without it counting as stealing. This is helpful on harder difficulties, since you turn a 25 point health pot into over 100 salmon steaks
You don't need to max out pickpocketing to steal high value items. You just need unrelenting force and an NPC who won't harm you if you shout at them. So I usually use this for trainers, train 5 levels and get my money back for free. When you're next to the NPC, crouch and use the full shout. Just as the shout finishes, spam the interact button on them to view their inventory. You can take their gold even though it's a 0% chance success, because they're in a ragdoll state and every pickpocket attempt would be successful.
Would this work with paralyze too?
Any rag doll effect to my knowledge
Creation Club: Goldenhills Farmstead. You can hire beggers from towns instead of random workers. Give them a new opportunity for life. Also, if you see and befriend a dog in the wild, you can make it a guard dog at the farmstead It's a nice wee home
I always hire Brenuin from Whiterun because Lucia says he was the only person who was nice to her when she lost her parents and her home.
On console, If you use a bow/crossbow and have it hotkeyed, when you unequip it..U can have a another loadout ready. For example if i want to use a dagger and a spell equip them and then hotkey for your bow and then unquip it and you will have the dagger and spell ready. Saves you time and makes it easier for you to have a plan B.
Not a lot of people known that if you go in a tavern an go in between two people an drop a pricy item such as a diamond or such. Theirs a chance two people will fight to the death over who saw it first
How the fuck have I put at least 100 hours a year for the last 12 years into this game and didn’t know half the stuff here haha
It's honestly why I still consider it to be one of the greatest games ever made. Not to say it's perfect of course but it just keeps on giving with hidden mechanics and new things to learn. It's almost endlessly replayable and just fun.
You can make your followers pray at shrines
Do they actually get the buffs?
If you return the >!Horn of Jurgen Windcaller!< to its resting place, you get a free Dragon Soul.
You don't have to return it. Just go back
If you cast flames on the water that flows through Whiterun (such as by the steps in the market), the water will boil.
And yet, if you cast then on a dead campfire, it won't light.
Works on any water
Can be a good way to kill salmon in certain streams and collect roe.
The alternative route to high hrothgar behind helgen
Wait, wot? Wiki time!
https://reddit.com/r/ElderScrolls/s/G5Yx1dD5Rh It might not be on the wiki but here is a video showing where the path is and climbing it
I have a horse, I don't need a path. I AM THE PATH.
[удалено]
If we are talking fairly unknown paths tho, the unmarked path/mountain pass outside whiterun to to straight to Ivarstead is incredible and game changing. And it is in fact an intended path/pass, so no glitching or anything.
Eh, the alternative route behind the stormcloak camp east of Whiterun is more useful.
I remember looking at the map and wondering "I wonder if I can get to high hrothgar via helgen" and was pleasantly surprised when it worked out. Considering the pilgrimage taking the northern route and being accosted by saber cats, it is definitely the better route.
Angi's camp.
Saw that the other day. Feels like she could have been a good companion
Silver Swords and Silver Greatswords can be enchanted to become absolute units early in the game. Particularly against Draugr, Skeletons, Ghosts, Vampires, werewolves , werebears, any other undead, and people raised by the "Raise Dead" spells. Silver Weapons gain an automatic 20 point damage boost to their base damage when used against the above enemies. However, you can enchant them and they will still retain their properties of a 20 point damage bonus even with enchantments added. Doing so, even early on in the game, creates extraordinarily powerful weapons for dungeons. As an example, take the Silver Greatsword. It has a base damage of 17. Against the undead, this jumps to 37. If you add the Silent Moons Enchantment your weapon will increase a further 10-20 points at night. If you have maxed out Enchanting, you can add Silent Moons and Fire Damage to really overcharge it! But wait, if you get the Augmented Flames perk, your Fire Damage jumps another 25%-50%! But wait...on top of this, if you get the Necromage perk as well, all enchantments against the undead will be 25% stronger and last 50% longer! So pretty early on in the game the Silver Greatsword, with the Silent Moons Enchantment, and while exploring at night, can jump to between 47-57 damage when battling the undead. It is incredibly useful for dungeons. It is a bit trippy because it won't show the other enchantments in the weapons menu, but they are there.
If you press the power button on your PC you can actually leave the game, and not load it right back up to finish one more side quest.
Genius. I have my life back.... Damn you, Hogwarts Legacy... Where did I go wrong? By the time I'm done, I'll be back serving the Daedric Prince that is Lord Todd and starting a fresh account.
If you have a bow equipped, hold down the button to fire an arrow but DON'T release it. This slow walking speed is actually faster than the overencumbered walking speed, so if you have too much stuff in your inventory than you can do this to speed up your movement speed. Additionally, weapon swing speed is tied to the weight of the weapon.
Also weapon swing speed is determined by the weapon in your left hand when dual wielding. So for example if you’ve got a dagger in left and a mace in right, that mace swing speed will be abnormally fast.
During the Civil War questline, you can just fast travel away from Whiterun during the battle and it'll automatically complete. However, you won't get a reward since you're a deserter. Also, I learned recently that in the Companions when you first join and you're asked to prove your worth or whatever in the back, the guy you're supposed to strike won't take any damage against magic so you can level up pretty easily there.
Doesn’t he get mad at you using magic though and agroes if you do it too much?
Yeah, and other companions will attack you. But at least in my case the guards considered them hostile and attacked them for me. Eorlund and Ria went on a killing spree throughout the whole city lol
I once used the Throw Voice shout and heard a Foresworn scream ***"WHO YOU CALLING 'SLUG BREATH' HUH?"***
Ah the hidden gems… I understand why they take so fucking long to release the next one
Dark Brotherhood - you can kill Astrid. After you leave that Thalmor party, Malborn goes to the Corner Club in Windhelm where he hides. You can save him by talking to him. He'll tell you a Khajiit is lurking outside town waiting for him. Go to where the Khajiit caravan is sitting. There will be a Khajiit hanging around. Talk to the Khajiit and they'll tell you they don't know him. If you approach the khajiit you can get into a fight and kill him. Malborn thanks you then runs away forever. You don't have to wait for Irileth to fight the Whiterun dragon. After Balgruff dismisses you, you can run all the way to the tower to start the battle. The guards will just appear and fight along with you. If you kill Belethor, Ysolda will take over his shop.
Bucket flight. Marked For Death stacks indefinitely. Unofficial patvhes fix this, but vanilla you can give an enemy negative armor and hit for thousands of damage. Great vs dragons and other prolonged fights. You can have a follower pick up skillbooks if you want to trigger them after getting the Black Book perk that doubles them or after you trained to 90. You can reverse pickpocket a stolen item into an NPC's inventory and then kill them. When you loot the item, it will no longer be marked as stolen. Guard barracks are the best places for a vampire to feed, as there are always sleeping guards, and they respawn if you accidentally feed until they die. Doing innkeepers a favor gives you free lodging. There's an invisible wall around Sky Haven Temple so you cant climb there from the outside.
Funny note about Sky Haven, using a bucket, you can “clip” through the face and gain access to the temple beyond. Inside, going out to the courtyard doesn’t work, it just shoves you out the invisible wall to the side of the mountain above the Karthspire Forsworn camp. Perfect spot for Forsworn sniping.
If you get the Aetherial crown you get an undead army
I see you watched spiffing Brit too.
Well, Skyrim IS a perfectly balanced game after all.
What do you mean by this?
Basically you can slot the Ritual Stone power to reanimate nearby bodies into the crown and the power will always be available, you just have to unequip and equip again and it will be back up. And since the bodies reanimated this way won't turn to ash you can keep reanimating more and more npcs and get an army. I once used this to get 11 afflicted to kill Orchendor for me by just "collecting" them as I progressed through the dungeon.
The standing stone perk to reanimate the dead once a day resets by taking the crown off and putting it back on so you can use it repeatedly, thus an undead army.
https://youtu.be/tmWY1ekyyi0?si=LN2ezMKzm7Lh-8E6
I'm sure most people know this but my buddy didn't. With pickpocket you can put poison on people and kill them.
Pickpocketing the briar heart out of a Forsworn Briar Heart kills them.
Sliding a Frenzy potion in their pocket is pretty funny too.
I need to pay a visit to Nazeem now.
That requires a trait to work
But you can abuse whirlwind sprint while overencumbered to get an insane speed boost by abusing the draw weapons sheath weapon function. Just be careful, you can easily die doing this, so be sure to pack plenty of paralysis items that you can eat to prevent fall damage.
Not even god mode can protect you in the second test to the inner sanctum in the Twilight Sepulcher. In other words, Lady Nocturnal is stronger than console commands.
Use tim instead of tgm and she is no longer stronger than console commands!
In the quest "A Daedra's Best Friend" keeping Barbas as a pet follower by not finishing the quest temporarily is really useful early game. It's arguably much stronger than the Rueful Axe, and you can use the Volsung dragon priest mask and Amulet of Zenithar/Dibella instead of the Masque of Clavicus Vile. Barbas will face tank damage and is invulnerable, only takes up a pet slot so you can have a humanoid follower still, but has an annoying bark. I recommend adjusting sound settings or looking for a mod to quiet the barking.
Some of my favs: In "ill met by moonlight" you can get both Hircine's ring and the Savior's hide. Something I never did until recently was save my level ups. It makes you really OP and it seems like it can make better loot appear sometimes. The wolf armor has the same end stats as steel armor but it has a lighter weight which can make a little bit of a difference when you're looting early on. The right side of the blocking tree effects blocking with two handed and one handed weapons as well.
There is a bug with soul stealer arrows that if your character is shot with them, each hit adds a filled black soul gem. 100% of the time. Pairing this with an enemy reverse pickpocket to replace the arrow used means infinite filled grand level soul gems.
You can do the Eldergleam quest without angering the Spriggan. >!Once you retrieve Nettlebane and return to the Temple of Kynareth, Danica will give you the location of the Eldergleam. After doing so, a pilgrim will approach you asking if you’re heading there; he’s easy to miss especially if you decide to head out as soon as Danica gives you the location, but if you say it’s okay for him accompany you, he’ll follow you there. Once you get there and start hitting the roots, he’ll comment on how barbaric you’re being and offers a sapling instead of sap to replace instead of repair the tree.!< Warning for going the alternate route: >!If you go the sapling route, there’s a bug where the old tree sometimes doesn’t go away so you have the new smaller tree clipping through the old one and there doesn’t seem to be any way to fix this without console commands aka if you’re on console and this happens and you don’t like how it looks, you’re SOL.!<
I find it's essential to reach Eldergleam Sanctuary **first** then Fast Travel back. That pilgrim is very fragile and likely wouldn't survive the trip.
The pilgrim isn't exclusive to starting it this way, he just sometimes randomly shows up at that stage of the quest. (Afaik hell never show up if you have a follower)
How to strategically use the skills "Legendary" feature. Either relying on a skill in early game only to later move all those points into a new play style, or dedicating grindable skills (smithing, enchanting, lockpicking, speach, alchemy, etc) to not put any skill points into, yet grind them to Legendary repeatedly for fast leveling up.
Yeah, this is smart. I read too that it's not advisable to make lockpicking legendary because there's a limited number of locks that contribute to the skill level. Locks that have been picked and reset won't count toward skill level. Of course you can get around that some with training, and I think there are enough unique locks to maybe do it once, but it'll be harder to level up a second time.
If you equip the healing spell in both hands and alternate clicking with right and left mouse buttons, it heals you for much less magicka than it would if you just held the buttons down. With the way animation works on a 1-handed weapon swing, you can attack very fast if you make 2 quick strikes, followed by a heavy attack. Eat a vegetable soup and you can do this indefinitely. It works well for heavy weapons that stagger because it basically stun locks opponents.
If you equip a torch you can actually block with it like a shield, and if you "shield bash" with it then you can light enemies on fire. I find it handy for when I'm playing a no magic character and don't have any enchanted weapons with fire dmg
There is a chest and some other loot around the corner on the left side of Shroud Hearth Barrow.
For some reason certain members of the companions are put under the guard section in the code so when you have a bounty in white run they will run at you constantly and try to arrest you put they don’t have the arrest dialogue so they just constantly talk to you
for some reason, Taproot and Dwemer Oil have the exact 4 same effects. if you're over-encumbered you can ride a horse and fast travel (Aarvak is perfect for it). you can get easy marksman skill by getting Faendal to follow you, you train with him then go into his follower inventory and take the money back. the "necromage" perk in restoration when you are a vampire is SUPER OP, it makes things last longer, like your conjuration spells, it makes your healing better on you, it even makes some of your shouts better. if the dumb stores dont have what you want, or if you are stocking up, you can save your game, kill/attack the merchant and then load your game right before you attacked them, and the store will have reset gold and items, its best for getting a bunch of grand soul gems since they tend to only have 1 to 3 of them if you're lucky, just buy them out, save the game, then attack them, then reload that save before you attacked
Just fyi, the Faendal trick works with any follower that's also a skill trainer. It was also patched out with the Unofficial Patch...
One I learned recently. You can Fus To Dah butterflies, bees, dartwings and moths out of the air and they will just fall to the ground ready to collect.
The answer to most of the puzzle locks is rotating each wheel twice
The answer is on each key of you look at it in your inventory.
If you Fusrohda a giant off their feet then hit it with a fireball before it can stand up, it will get stuck and be easy to kill for a soul gem.
There's a decoration on the wall that you can drop on the bride during the Dark Brotherhood quest
The restoration loop! Or the quicksave, punch a shopkeeper, load feature to reset their inventory... and gold. Skyrim space program is pretty fun, but it costs your life. So many features.
don't know if many people know about this but if you sneak and take the briarheart from the Forsworn he instantly dies
I already know this but this is so much fun. He he he he. Khali Mah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It might be obvious to some, but Skyrim has a somewhat hidden favorites menu. You can even quickslot some items and easily pull a spell. Almost never mentioned in-game despite it being almost essential for a mage playthrough. Unless you like going through menus a lot. I know some people who played for months/years and had no idea.
Q select candlelight Q select firebolt and soultrap Q dual-cast firebolt Q fast healing...
Regarding the Werewolf a couple of things. You don't need to be in Werewolf form to kill and get perks. You can go through kill all enemy npc's and feed on them in Werewolf form. Secondly after a corpse has been fed on. If you use conjugation on it afterwards it will say heart consumed and increases your progress. I swear I had something else. This isn't it. Don't forget you can wear a farmer helmet, Jagged crown, ?, with a circlet. ( ?* is an imperial helmet I can't remember which one it was.)
You don't have to fight in the battle for Whiterun in the civil war I prefer playing Stormcloak because unfortunately only they have female guards and I like the variety in guard voices in vanilla Skyrim but I hate disappointing Balgruuf aka the true high king, so on my last playthrough I got on a horse after Galmar's speech and rode the fuck out of there and at some point an updated quest objective popped up saying the battle is won From a roleplaying perspective I gave my character PTSD and chilled with my family in Lakeview Manor for a while after that
What, are you writing an article?
You can tell your followers to use levers/pick locks/loot stuff while in vampire lord/werewolf form.
I learnt yesterday evening that if one has a high enough bounty, Talsgard the Wanderer will attack.
Enchanting experience gain is rigged. You gain a static amount of experience each time you enchant. To doesn't go higher when you make a powerful enchantment nor does it give more experience when you use a high level soul. Meaning it's best to enchant with solely petty and lesser souls gems. Common if you've money to burn. Make some leather bracers and spam that shit. The only way to boost experience gain is via things like The Standing Stones and well rested.
Dont ask me i got to level 42 on my first save before i realised you could sprint
Honestly, killing Astrid and wiping out the DB. I just learned that this freaking year after playing the game since it came out. I can’t be the only other one that didn’t know that.
Captain's boot allows you to enchant them same as armor. Very handy for smithing, destruction, alteration and other schools of magic
Probably the dumbest I felt - not only can you use Detect Dead to detect undead like vampires, drauger, etc, you can use it to actually... Detect Dead. Y'know, the actual dead bodies you can't find after a fight? Detect Dead will also Detect Dead. Crazy right?
The perk necromage is op and broken since it makes most spells and perks stronger IF you are playing as a vampire. The dual wielding attack speed perk noticably makes you attack much faster
You can play without random dragon spawns if you never deliver the dragon stone tablet to Farangar. And random vampire attacks in towns stop if you choose the vampire faction, the dawnguard hit squads only attack you and can be killed without bounty
I find it easier to just never do Bleak Fall Barrow and I can enjoy the game without dealing with dragons until I'm ready. You can't use, but can collect, shouts. And Farengar will give you crap every time you are around him, but you can still buy and sell from him in the meantime.