Most disappointing artifact?

[urthdigger]

So, we have a thread for most useful daedric artifact, let's have a poll for the opposite one. The artifact you found that touted itself as something amazing, something legendary, and turned out to be a piece of crap. And just for the heck of it, let's take artifacts to mean any unique quest reward.

For me, it would definitely have to my the Gauldur Amulet. This thing is hyped like nothing else: There's a book telling how in ages past, the amulet granted Gauldur amazing power so great that his three sons all took a piece of his amulet, and even with just fragments of the original amulet they were forces to be reckoned with. The amulet has a quest all about recovering it, sending you to four different dungeons, one of them requiring progress on another questline to enter.

And then you finally get it, and it's a mere +30 to health, magicka, and stamina. That's not a whole lot, it could probably save me from another hit or two, or let me get one more spell off, but is that really worth wearing over even a base enchanted amulet that, say, increases my damage or reduces my spell cost? Perhaps if it was +90 to a single one of those, it might be worth using. But no, it's just all around mediocre.

So, what artifact disappointed YOU?

[VirtualWeasel]

I was pretty [&@%!] when I busted my ass for the Gauldur Amulet when it just ended up having an effect equivalent to eating monkey [&@%!], and had an equally powerful, same-modeled sister amulet that was so much easier to obtain than the Gauldur one...

There were others, I just can't think of them off the top of my head.

[ElGreg]

The Aretino family heirloom is pretty useless.

[philfredobob]

Yeah, but there was no build-up for the Aretino Heirloom, it's just a cheap quest reward and thats all it was ever supposed to be.

[CBR JGWRR]

TBF, he did say we'd get decent money for it when in reality it sold for almost as much as a meal to go on it...

[philfredobob]

but he's about 10 years old, 50-100 gold is loads of money to him. i used to go nuts of a one denar bill

[Raven rock hero]

none of those items you guys mention are deadric artifacts, but i see your point anyway... Most anoying thing about the gauldur amulet is that you must join the college, to get one of the amulet pieces in saarthal.

[Pilaf The Defiler]

To be honest, all of the weapon type artifacts disappoint me. Daedric weapons should always be the most powerful in the game - especially the ones made by the Princes, and yet every single Daedric Artifact in the game is surpassed by either a simple Daedric non-Artifact, Glass or Dragonbone weapon, especially when upgraded and enchanted.

As for the least disappointing, Sanguine's Rose and the Black Star are the gifts that just keep on giving for pretty much any type of character. You may argue that Sanguine's Rose is useless to a master Conjurer, but everyone runs out of magicka now and then.

[urthdigger]

none of those items you guys mention are deadric artifacts, but i see your point anyway... Most anoying thing about the gauldur amulet is that you must join the college, to get one of the amulet pieces in saarthal.

I said I was opening it up to all unique quest rewards, not just the daedric artifacts. Basically, if it's important enough to have lore attached it works.

[VirtualWeasel]

none of those items you guys mention are deadric artifacts, but i see your point anyway... Most anoying thing about the gauldur amulet is that you must join the college, to get one of the amulet pieces in saarthal.

Doesn't have to be Daedric to be an artifact.

[Kerr]

Saviour's Hide. It's terrible. I prefer heavy to light but you can get better light armour just by joining the Thieves Guild let alone the things you can loot from the dead or buy in shops. So it isn't even useful at low levels. The magical resistance it provides is pretty weak. And I've never found poison resistance to be that important in Skyrim.

[dzio]

^Not to mention it looks absolutely moronic on female characters. I know that some people enjoy the whole chainmail bikini look, but I find it ridiculous enough to be immersion-breaking, not to mention mildly offensive. And Saviour's Hide leaves half of my character's chest uncovered, has the supposedly awesome hunter stomping through snow and nettles bare-legged and would leave her mooning all of Skyrim if it was two inches shorter. All that BS on top of the lousy stats? That's adding insult to injury.

[VirtualWeasel]

On men it looks like an alternate outfit for Khan.
Not much better, really.

[ConsoleWedding]

The Staff of Magnus. It just doesn't seem to do anything?

[BetaB17]

Here's a shocker>_> I actually like the Gauldur Amulet, then again mine is glitched and I can wear two necklaces at once.. but still overall it's split by three effects though how minimal it may seem..

For me the most useless has to be Harkon's Sword. Like really>_> even Miraak's sword can't compete with how useless this blade can be..

[Street_Assassin]

All artifacts besides oghma infinium book and ebony mail. All weapons and other rewards are poorly enchanted and besides their look are useless imo. If u invest into enchanting, all your armor and weapons can be better than artifacts. What Bethesda should have done is to make sure every artifact has either unique enchantment (such as ebony mail with poison cloak) or at least 3 enchantments on one single artifacts(harkon sword) That way they are more unique.

[GoatLiver]

To be honest, all of the weapon type artifacts disappoint me. Daedric weapons should always be the most powerful in the game - especially the ones made by the Princes, and yet every single Daedric Artifact in the game is surpassed by either a simple Daedric non-Artifact, Glass or Dragonbone weapon, especially when upgraded and enchanted.

While I agree I that the Daedric Artifacts should be the bees knees, there are a few that are not entirely useless. The Mace of Molag Bal actually has slightly better stats than the Daedric mace (same damage, less weight) plus a pretty reasonable enchantment. Considering you can get it at level 1 the only thing slightly disappointing is that its not effected by the Daedric smithing perk, but that was also fixed in either the latest patch or the unofficial Skyrim patch making it pretty good.

I was fairly disappointed with the masks Morokei and Rahgot especially since some of the other masks where actually quite powerful and even more so with Konahrik as the quest to get it is long and fairly hard plus requires completion of the main quest and mages quild quest. The enchantment should have been one of, if not, the best in the game but I didn't even find it to be that good at all.

[Yaije]

The bloodskal blade.

Oh yeah it's awesome and shiny and provides a laser light show, but really it's just another random 2h with a weak enchant. When I first found it I was using a "Doom Spike" an untempered Shiv enhanced with Chaos and fear (% chance to blast for 600+ on hit) Would have been nice if the effect based on your available magicka/health/stamina or something rather than set at 30 forever.

Spoiler:

went looking for a mod that might do that last bit and only saw months old 'discussions' with people saying it's worthless and meeting people who believe: It's unique therefore it's awesome, it can be tempered therefore it's fine, it's not useless it lets melee fight ranged.....

Nice to see so many people think it's fine for this 'artifact' in a complex dungeon that is required to obtain if you wish to leave (through normal means) is on par with unenchanted weapons, a basic bow/spell/shout, or even a lame staff (and we all know how wonderful they are)

But really most of the in game equipment that is of the artifact variety just wound up on a mannequin in my more progressed saves.

edit: saw someone say how they always shout 'getsuga tenshou" when swing the bloodskal blade.... someone then said "I only say tsuga sometimes, cause it's too weak to get tenshou.

[Mr.Argonian]

After the uniqueness of the Skull of Corruption in Oblivion, the measly 50 damage points seemed like a total joke. It takes like twenty shots to kill a bandit.

[SuperNull]

I'm kinda disappointed by Merune's Razor.
Sure, it is very usable, it has an interesting enchant and it looks great...... but since it isn't' affected by any smiting talents it is eventually surpassed by a simple steel dagger.

[ZackyZombify]

What? It's raw damage is just as much as a daedric dagger? And I was severely disappointed by the ebony blade.

[Kerr]

I don't use the Razor on normal foes. I use it on really strong enemies. You know, bosses and dragons, things like that. With a 1/50 chance of killing them in one hit it is worth using. Most other weapons won't kill them as quickly.

[Jet]

Most of the daedric artifacts are [&@%!].

[BetaB17]

To be fair, alot of the artifacts and unique gear really aren't as useless as some make them out to be. The Razor for example, it's just like Kerr explained, it's perfect for boss level foes and really is a gambling tool. Yes you could use it on just about everyone, but should you?

This applies to the Staff of Magnus. It's normally used as an anti-mage weapon but to be honest wouldn't it just be easier to kill them with a more deadly tool or spell? Now then dragons>_> it's really great at taking those suckers out of the sky and preventing shouts. Yes you could just drag them to the ground with your own shout.. but despite that the staff is still perfect for most players throughout the levels.

I'm keeping in mind that yes you could beat the game by making godly powerful gear, but I'm staying clear of that trick.

^As Jet said, yes the daedra failed to bring the goods>_< they could of made their base damage/defense alot higher and at least make them universally helpful through the levels

[VirtualWeasel]

The thing about this game, I've realized, is that anything can be a good weapon/armor piece if you can tolerate looking at it, and have the skills to improve it to match your leveling.