Hello and questions about difficulty

[Keiko]

Hi.

I have purchased Oblivion two weeks ago after having finished Morrowind. It looks like a great game to me, but I noticed that it is extremly hard even when the difficulty bar is at the middle.

I entered Moss Rock Cavern where there are some necromancers. Right now I am level 4 with my character and I have been leveling efficiently since level 1, setting always 5 points into Intelligence, Wisdom and Endurance. I'm using a full steel heavy armor including steel shield, destruction, conjuration and restoration to either deal damage, summon allies or heal back. I am a dark elf, with 80% fire resistance and 20% ice resistance.

But even following all the guides I could find around internet, I find the game extremly hard. The example of the necromancers in Moss Rock Cavern is the most overpowered enemy I found so far. They always 1-hit me with either lightning or iceball spells, and their fireballs hits like 80% of my health. They can summon zombies, skeletons and ghosts way more powerfull than mine. Their hits with their maces deal like 10 more times damage than my steel sword, and they can fully heal with a single spell.
Even if I turn their minions, it is so hard to kill them that I usually die like 10 times trying to even get close to them.

Also I noticed that my damage is so low on everything except rats. Most enemies, if I don't block their weapons, they kill me in a couple of hits. Their damage is like 10 times higher than mine. When they hit me, my health bar drops very noticeably, while when I hit them, I barely see their health bar drop like half of a pixel in my screen.

In addition, close combat enemies use to "chain-stun" me with their weapons, I don't know how they do, but I can't do the same, or at least I don't know how to do it. The only know I can do is block their attack, lose 15% of my health and while they are stunned by the block I hit them by 1% of their health.
I remember it being that hard almost from the very beginning after leaving the sewers. The ruins that are in from of the sewers after the lake were really hard I died there countless times.

My stats right now are:
Lvl 4
Health 101
Mana 220
Intellect 60
Wisdom 50
Endurance 45

Heavy Armor 34
Destruction 52
Blade 30
Block 29

I really don't know what is the problem being the game so hard even when the difficulty bar is in the mid. Every fight against humans I usually die at least once cause most of the enemies deal so much damage that not even my shield can protect me.

Also I purchased new spells which deal a bit more damage, but the mana cost is so high that I get out of mana after 6 casts, and the enemies are almost 50% of their health.

So, any tip? Did I mess up something that early?
What I want to achive is a close combat mage. Like a character that uses heavy armor and shield and then cold/lightning/fire touch to slay enemies, and but uses also sword to finish enemies or in combination with damaging spells.
Maybe this kind of character is not viable in Oblivion? Should I just go "pure mage" or "pure warrior" kind of characters?

Thanks in advance.

[Golden Sinner]

Welcome to the forum!

In Oblivion, while you are efficiently leveling, the NPC's focus on leveling their chosen combat skills. So if you spend some time leveling Armorer to get an endurance boost, the NPC is leveling Destruction or a weapon skill. Sooner or later, you are just outclassed. An easy way to remedy this is to level alchemy and get a good set of alchemy gear so that you can make simple blade poisons. At max skill and equipment, a poison can do over 900 points of damage in 37 seconds. So drink four restore health potions, stab a strong NPC and block while they die. Also, stealth, invisibility and 100% chameleon are good tricks to use. Good luck!

[Chicken Slayer]

First, check your game's difficulty again, a one hit kill seems extreme even for Moss Rock, which is one of the more/most difficult dungeons early in the game (b/c two bosses are in one room). Fire should barely be affecting you. If you change difficulty for one game, it affects all games until you move it back to default.

I have to disagree that if you spend time leveling Endurance that the enemies will out class you. I play with high Endurance and low weapon power early in the game because it is easier to build weapon skill when using weak weapons. I usually don't wear armor early, and I do take damage so I have to go a little slow in order to heal after every fight, but then when the tough teen levels come around I am at the top of my game. I then transition over to full power weapons and armor. The benefit is most easily felt when starting with a high endurance race and adding custom and birthsign endurance points. I don't feel it right away with low endurance characters or at max difficulty, but I do later on.

If your weapon skill is near to your level i.e. in the 30s when you are at level 4, you should be OK in most cases (if your Strength is high.) Maxing your weapon skill by level 10-12 is good. In a tough one on one boss fight early in the game, it is not surprising to lose 75% of your health, or more. What good is a game if you can't get killed, right?

From your stats you seem to be in pretty good shape. You just need to learn what tactics work, but you do seem to have a hybrid player problem. It is difficult to fight tough enemies up close unless you are topped off with Strength and Endurance. When that is not the case, you have to use ranged weapons (bow or magic) and avoid getting hit. If you are going to use a melee weapon it really helps to start the game with Strength and Endurance at or above 45 or 50 (55-65 is better) and build them from there. For a hybrid player, it is difficult to build Endurance, Intelligence, Willpower, and Strength up at the same time, especially when you start with a middle of the road race like a Dunmer. I usually let Willpower lag because I can always wait for an hour to recharge. If you start with a race strong at one end of the spectrum (e.g. Nord or Breton), you can concentrate on building its weak attributes in the game's early easy levels and fall back on its strengths in tough situations. I find it more difficult to raise Strength and Endurance on a Breton than to raise Intelligence and Willpower on a Nord. The strong Nord can also move in heavy armor. Your Dunmer is probably struggling.

There are a few ways to help your problem. 1) Go up the road to Cheydinhall to Barren Cave, which has two vampire bosses (two different rooms). They will have top of the line weapons and armor. A vamp boss has a 1/3 chance of being a bow user, mage, or melee character, so you have a 2/3 chance of getting something useful in Barren Cave, like a good staff. 2) Go to Chorrol and do the Separated at birth quest to get the Honorblade sword and/or the Chilrend magic sword from the killing Field quest. 3) Get into the Arcane University as quickly as possible and make a custom 100 drain health spell +fire + weakness to fire spell for emergency use. 4) Use poisons delivered with a bow for the bosses to soften them up. The easiest for you to get from the Moss Rock area is Lotus Seed from the Imperial City pools, and either Whisp stalks from caves or St Jahn's Wort from the north side of Chorrol.

BTW, Moss Rock is good to revisit (the keyed room only) for updated alchemy equipment in the boss chests.

[Keiko]

Thanks for all the info. Pretty usefull.
Actually the character i'm using is a mage that uses "flame/lightning/cold touch" spells as main damage dealer. Rarely use the sword, only for finishing enemies or combine it after casting a spell. For defense I have heavy armor + block.

Finally I decided to re-roll the character and I set the next main skills:

Armorer, Blunt, Conjuration, Destruction, Acrobatics, Sneak and Speechcraft.

Each character level I raise Destruction by 6 levels, Conjuration by 3 and Armorer by 1.
For efficient leveling, I use block + heavy armor for endurance; Restoration for Wisdom and Alchemy + Mysticism for Intelligence.
I think this way I get a good amount of Destruction leveling while keeping +5 on all the three main stats.

The only question I have is: how Conjuration affects my summoned creatures? A skeleton will have the same stats if I summon it at conjuration = 10 than at conjuration = 90? Cause I only rise 3 levels of conjuration per character level, and I'm unsure whether my summons are growing weak or they only scale with my character level.
Also, I'm using the summons mostly for tanking thougt enemies and other times for dealing a bit of damage, never as main dmg dealers. Because if they scale with my character level then there is no reason to rise more than 1 conjuration level per character level, allowing me to rise 8 levels of destruction per character level instead of 6.

Does this makes any sense? So far, I'm back in Moss Rock dungeon and it seems noticeably easier. Not sure if due to being only level 3 or because of all this kind of theory I developed...

Whatever, thanks.

[PrinceJonathan]

Conjuration doesn't affect the creatures you summon.

A Summon Skeleton will be just as powerful at Skill Level 25 as it would at 100.

The only thing your Conjuration Skill does as you level it is give you more creatures to summon and make the cost of summoning them cheaper.

At novice, all you can really do is summon a bound dagger and cast turn undead.

At apprentice, you get to summon your choice of four creatures. (Skeleton, Ghost, Zombie, Scamp)
Go for the Zombie as it's got the highest HP and attack power of the basic summons.

I hate fighting necromancers/conjurors. They always run around which makes it a pain to chase them down or hit them with spells.

When up against spellcasters, it's best to sneak attack them with a bow or a spell before they see you and then summon something to finish them off. You'll be slapped with an assault on your record, but you won't get arrested for it.

If you're an Apprentice in Destruction, and have access to a spellmaking altar, you can combine Turn Undead with a weak Fire Damage over time. Something like:

Turn Undead up to Level 5 for 10 secs on Target
Fire Damage 3 pts for 10 secs on Target

If a necromancer summons something, blast it with the custom spell, and their creature will turn and flee while slowly burning and the necromancer cannot summon another until the creature they already have out dispels or dies.

[Keiko]

Conjuration doesn't affect the creatures you summon.

A Summon Skeleton will be just as powerful at Skill Level 25 as it would at 100.

What does this means? Is it that a skeleton may have 100 health if i summon him when my character is level 10 and 100 health also if I summon him when I'm level 40? Because now I am level 4 and the skeleton seems to resist as much as when my character was level 1.

The only thing your Conjuration Skill does as you level it is give you more creatures to summon and make the cost of summoning them cheaper.

If you had a toon with Conjuration as secondary skill, used only to summon creatures to aid you in certain situations (deal with several enemies, against ice-magic attack, etc...), which level would you have your Conjuration? At my lvl 4, almost 5, I have conjuration at ~40, while destruction, which is my main skill for attacking I got it at ~55. Should I rise Conjuration more? Does Conjuration for latter levels helps or it will weaken noticeably my destruction skills? Right now I only level up 2 or 3 levels of Conjuration per character level, and 6 or 7 in Destruction.
Basically I'm not sure how much would help me summon a quite tanky minion in later levels.
Also, which minions are the best for tanking? Which Conjuration level do they require?

At apprentice, you get to summon your choice of four creatures. (Skeleton, Ghost, Zombie, Scamp)
Go for the Zombie as it's got the highest HP and attack power of the basic summons.

I will get the zombie as soon as possible.

I hate fighting necromancers/conjurors. They always run around which makes it a pain to chase them down or hit them with spells.

When up against spellcasters, it's best to sneak attack them with a bow or a spell before they see you and then summon something to finish them off. You'll be slapped with an assault on your record, but you won't get arrested for it.

That looks like a cowards' tactic ^_^
I'm a war mage, I can cause destruction just in front of my enemies. They should be feared of me. Curse those coward thieves and assassins, they are too weak to confront face to face an opponent

What I do right now is to fear their minion with "turn undead", then I summon a minion myself and while they are distracted attacking him, I kill them. If they come close to me, they die since I have quite a good blocking skill and my freezing touch will kill them.

If you're an Apprentice in Destruction, and have access to a spellmaking altar, you can combine Turn Undead with a weak Fire Damage over time. Something like:

Turn Undead up to Level 5 for 10 secs on Target
Fire Damage 3 pts for 10 secs on Target

If a necromancer summons something, blast it with the custom spell, and their creature will turn and flee while slowly burning and the necromancer cannot summon another until the creature they already have out dispels or dies.

If you mean the altars provided by the Mages Guild, no, I don't have access to those. I need to join the guild of mages, but not even drunk I would. They are an elitist and conceited bunch. Except for Ajira in Morrowind's Mages Guild, in Balmora, who is a pretty nice, friendly and welcoming Khajiit. She always offer her services and helps with my doubts about alchemy, she even shares her knowledge. I don't know how she could stand living with that Trolls Guild. I will find another altar somewhere else. And meanwhile, I will train my magic skills to, one day, go to the Mages Guild and teach them a lesson about what is "powerful" magic".

[PrinceJonathan]

Conjuration doesn't affect the creatures you summon.

A Summon Skeleton will be just as powerful at Skill Level 25 as it would at 100.

What does this means? Is it that a skeleton may have 100 health if i summon him when my character is level 10 and 100 health also if I summon him when I'm level 40? Because now I am level 4 and the skeleton seems to resist as much as when my character was level 1.

It means the Skeleton's power is completely independent of your character's level and skill.

A Summoned Skeleton will ALWAYS have exactly 20 HP and an Attack power of 5.

Nothing your character does will ever change that.

If you had a toon with Conjuration as secondary skill, used only to summon creatures to aid you in certain situations (deal with several enemies, against ice-magic attack, etc...), which level would you have your Conjuration? At my lvl 4, almost 5, I have conjuration at ~40, while destruction, which is my main skill for attacking I got it at ~55.

If I had a toon? wtf? If I had a toon, it'd be Jessica Rabbit and I'd play patty cake with her titties all day long.

Should I rise Conjuration more? Does Conjuration for latter levels helps or it will weaken noticeably my destruction skills?

Raise your Conjuration as much as you like. It shouldn't weaken your Destruction Skill, and Conjuration is always helps no matter what your level.

Basically I'm not sure how much would help me summon a quite tanky minion in later levels. Also, which minions are the best for tanking? Which Conjuration level do they require?

Zombies make the best tank for beginners. They have 80 HP and an Attack power of 10. When summoned they will immediately rush the enemy and attack.

Once you have reached a Conjuration Skill of 50, Zombies become obsolete.

If you want to know what to get at higher Skill Levels, read this: Oblivion:Summon

If you're an Apprentice in Destruction, and have access to a spellmaking altar, you can combine Turn Undead with a weak Fire Damage over time. Something like:

Turn Undead up to Level 5 for 10 secs on Target
Fire Damage 3 pts for 10 secs on Target

If a necromancer summons something, blast it with the custom spell, and their creature will turn and flee while slowly burning and the necromancer cannot summon another until the creature they already have out dispels or dies.

If you mean the altars provided by the Mages Guild, no, I don't have access to those. I need to join the guild of mages, but not even drunk I would. They are an elitist and conceited bunch. Except for Ajira in Morrowind's Mages Guild, in Balmora, who is a pretty nice, friendly and welcoming Khajiit. She always offer her services and helps with my doubts about alchemy, she even shares her knowledge. I don't know how she could stand living with that Trolls Guild. I will find another altar somewhere else. And meanwhile, I will train my magic skills to, one day, go to the Mages Guild and teach them a lesson about what is "powerful" magic".

I agree that the Mages Guild are asshats, but that's mostly the mages in the Arcane University.

The mages staffing the various Guild Halls are all rather quite nice.

I mostly just do the recommendations to get into the Arcane University and then ignore the Mages Guild Questline after that.

[Chicken Slayer]

How much conjuration do you need? A good rule of thumb is that you will be effective if you can match your spells to the creatures you face. So, when clannfear show up, you should be at the skill level where you can summon clannfear. I'm not saying that clannfear against clannfear or wraith against wraith is the way to fight, just that you want to match or better the level of the creatures you face. For NPCs, you may want the Skull of Corruption (level 10 Vermina shrine), which basically summons a copy of the NPC you are fighting. When you see a necromancer or conjurer, hit him with a blast from the Skull of Corruption, and then conjur a zombie or whatever. Then you can stand back and let them fight it out, necromancer aganist necromancer and zombie against zombie. Umbra's sword will let you run in, hit once with the sword to trap a soul, and then stand back in safety for the remainder of the fight. you might not need to do this at default difficulty, but you probably will if you move the slider to high difficulty. At normal difficulty, you might just be using your conjures as meat shields rather than weapons.

[Golden Sinner]

I play at max difficulty, so these spells may be overkill for you. Move up to your prey invisibly. Cast the following two spells on touch. The first spell is "Stacker"-Paralyze for 1 second, Weakness to Shock 100% for 9 sec and weakness to magicka 100% for 9 sec, invisibility on self for 6 sec. Cast this 2 to 6 times, because the effects stack, depending on how tough the opponent is. Then cast "Whacker"-36 points of Shock damage for 10 sec, invisibility on self for 12 sec. This combo should work on just about anything. Don't use this on a Lich though, because they will reflect it back on you. Good luck!

[FrozenWolf150]

(Deleted, since I posted this elsewhere.)

[FrozenWolf150]

Oh, I meant to respond to this, but forgot:

Conjuration doesn't affect the creatures you summon.

A Summon Skeleton will be just as powerful at Skill Level 25 as it would at 100.

The only thing your Conjuration Skill does as you level it is give you more creatures to summon and make the cost of summoning them cheaper.

At novice, all you can really do is summon a bound dagger and cast turn undead.

At apprentice, you get to summon your choice of four creatures. (Skeleton, Ghost, Zombie, Scamp)
Go for the Zombie as it's got the highest HP and attack power of the basic summons.

I was comparing the Zombie and Scamp stats, and you're right about the HP. The Zombie starts with 80 HP, whereas the Scamp has 16 x lvl HP, and doesn't reach 80 HP until clvl 5. The Zombie also has a base cost of about half the Scamp. However, the Scamp actually has a stronger melee attack, at 12 + lvl, up to 17 max, while the Zombie only inflicts 10. Also, the Scamp has a ranged attack. So I usually favor the Scamp.

Technically speaking, the strongest Apprentice summon is the Hunger from SI. It has 100 HP and has a 14 pt melee attack. Its base cost is only a little higher than the Zombie. The problem however is that the spell is only available from Earil in Crucible, meaning you have to be able to beat the Gatekeeper first. Once you do however, the various Hunger summons Earil sells are among the strongest creatures for their respective Conjuration levels.

[Chicken Slayer]

Stats can be misleading.

Scamps (and fire atros) tend to stay back to use their fireball, and it is slow and misses a lot so they frequently fade out without doing much damage, whereas the zombie runs to the fight and has a pretty good knock out punch. Sometimes you need a scamp for its range attack against ghosts early on, but a zombie is more versatile. The point is pretty much moot since you can buy and afford to cast a scamp right away (Edgar Vatrine) so you will probably have one by the time you can buy and use a zombie.

The Dremora lord is similar to a zombie. It may seem like it has a weak attack and low hit points compared to a Xivilai, but it sticks to the enemy and does more damage from more hits + weaker hits, and every once in a while its spell is effective. Getting killed a little more easily is not a big deal for a pet if you recharge magic fast enough to recast it.

[FrozenWolf150]

Good points. I still consider it a matter of preference, based on your strategy, and I prefer a summon that doesn't rush in right away and get killed. I tend to use summons solely as distractions, not as a means to kill my enemies, since I would rather kill them myself. I'll have to remember to try the zombie some time.