Starting at max difficulty-How?

[Chicken Slayer]

So ... I made it through the sewers on maximum difficulty and then repeatedly got killed trying to do Sideways Cave and Vilverin. Crabs killed me in two hits. I was playing a Nord in heavy armor with +5 endurance.

So what do I have to do, go straight to Odil farm and start jacking up my alchemy? Do goblin caves for a while? Start the mage guild quests?

What is a good strategy?

[AKB]

The Hardest Difficulty Strategy Guide

If you're already out of the starting dungeon, there is nothing forcing you to fight another monster until you have game breaking magics.

[Chicken Slayer]

Thanks.

It looks like I have to rethink my skills a bit.

[Golden Sinner]

If you master alchemy you can make a simple poison that will kill almost anything. Stab once and block while they die. You can also make one potion that Restores Health and Reflects Damage. Four of those and you should be good to go even against multiple opponents. Level up by conjuring a skeleton and fighting it to improve your combat skills. If you get into trouble, just conjure another skeleton that is not aggressive and heal up. That way you can purchase up to expert level alchemy gear when you get to a higher character level. Good luck!

[Akatosh's Pug]

If you're a magic dude/girl, create damaging spells with few seconds of invisibility in them. But often it seems like. cheating and will surely take some fun away..

[Chicken Slayer]

I've got a good start with a new character, but next time I'm going to start doing The Collector quests/ayleid ruins sooner. Summoned scamps and ghosts take care of everything except magic users pretty easily, and I need the money from statues and varla-welkynd stones. Instead, I stole a couple of thousand gold worth of stuff and have been reselling alchemy equipment.

[FrozenWolf150]

I'm currently playing through Oblivion for the first time. Normally I like to play the game on the hardest possible setting my first time through, but I'm completely unfamiliar with the game world, so I left the difficulty at the default. However, I'm finding it way too easy.

I'm interested in trying the hardest difficulty for my second playthrough. My question is, what are some recommended character builds? What should I pick for my major skills? I've already read through the guide on the wiki, but I want to hear from players who have experience with this.

[Chicken Slayer]

The game may seem easy at first if you start playing a game character the way it is ment to be played (i.e an Altmer Mage using magic for the Mages guild quests, or a Kajiit Thief stealing things,) but the enemies get tougher as levels increase, and the game characters self destruct (resist getting more powerful) due to their conflicting sets of Major skills. The goblins you kill easily at level 1 (20 Health points) end up being the most powerful creatures in the game level at 50-54 with 1500-1600 health points, so as the game progresses you have to switch from using a rusty axe to using poisons boosted by custom spells. Game made builds start out very strong and get weaker, custom builds can start out weak but build power quickly with the right kind of play.

I've been putting together a max. difficulty guide because I really don't like the one on the Wiki for the way I play. I fight my way through instead of running past enemies, and I rarely if ever cast Illusion spells. I've gone through several different characters testing it out.

I played the game as a Mage character and felt severely limited in what I could do (but it is playable). I concentrated all of my leveling points in Conjuration (for combat) and Alchemy (for shield, health, and damage fatigue potions.) I couldn't build other magic skills to where I wanted them early in the game so long as I wanted big leveling bonuses in Intelligence.

For a custom build, I suggest setting Conjuration as a Major skill and a bunch of things you do not need much as the other Major skills (I go with things like Block*, Hand to Hand, Mystecism, Sneak, Light Armor, Speachcraft, Acrobatics, Illusion**, Restoration**). That way you can use magics like Alteration to open locks and cast shield spells, and Destruction to cast of useful custom spells like Weakness to Poison+Weakness to Magicka. However, for these skills you have to be willing to train/spam them to level up once your Conjuration is at 100.

*If I'm blocking in a fight, I am too close and staying too long, so it is not a skill I use in game play, but Block can be easily controlled and trained against rats.
**I use potions and waiting to restore health, and I use Doom stone/Birth stone Greater skill spells to give me Invisibility, Chameleon, and Paralyze for spells for use at the Arcane University spell altars. Starting Illusion at 25 as a major skill enables me to use Command Humanoid/Creature on my Weakness to Poison bow.

Nords have enough strength and health (plus some resistance to frost) to make life easy at the start of the game. With the Mage birthsign they can get the job done if you work on boosting Intelligence. The Apprentice sign gives them a lot of magic, but weakens them against magic--good if you like a challenge. Bretons have 50% resitance to magic and +50 magic, but they begin with low Stength and low Endurance/health, which can be frustrating in a dungeon when they become overburdened and a rat bite kills them.

In the tutorial prison escape, you do not need to boost alchemy at all (use the one poison against the last goblin mage is all you need). However, I use all of the rat meat later for Damage Fatigue poisons, so I bring it all out along with arrows, potions, and the goblin staff). I suggest concentrating on blade (strength), destruction-flare (Willpower), and Heavy Armor (Endurance), and then start building intelligence skills after you advance to level two. You can build your Heavy Armor at the first rusty-key wooden door by letting the rat attack until you are near death and then stepping through the door. Hit the wait key for 1-hour to recover and then repeat until you have built 10 points in Heavy armor for a +5 Endurance boost. High Heavy Armor skill will protect you against the goblins later, even if your armor peices are beaten down. There is a rat in Fort Ash on the way to Chorrol that lives down the left hand corridor. It will follow you back to the main door and you can build Armor and Block (to build health via +5 endurance bonuses) just like in the tutorial.

Once you get out, use conjuration with scamp and zombie spells and make money doing the Collector quest searching Ayleid ruins for statues (start with the ruins by the sewer exit and then the ones near Chorrol. Sell the statues to Umbicano, not the store venders). Zombies fight well, but their fists are ineffective against ghosts so you need the scamp fireballs--you can get a scamp right away from Edgar Vatrine-the zombie spell is in Chorrol. Later on, all conjure creature hits will be effective against ghosts. Try to always have a high level fast running conjure creature--Zombie 1&2, Clannfear, Dremora Lord--in your stable to run to the fight.

Damage Speed (boar meat and pears/green cup) + Damage Fatigue (rat meat+bonemeal/motherwort) poisons (not Damage Strength +Burden) will knock down ogres (Potato Quest, Weatherleah, and Redguard Valley Cave) and let you bash on them at will to build blade/blunt/hand to hand skill for Strength bonuses. Drain Speed will stop a troll and let you shoot it with arrows indefinitely (trolls regenerate health). I like my Marksmanship skill at 50 for the zoom affect.

Useful items are Umbra's sword for soul trapping (not fighting), Skull of Corruption staff for help against spell casters, and Mage's Staff of paralyzation (6 sec or 8 sec --from doing the Arcane University Staff quest at level 10 or 15.) I also like Namira's ring (lvl 5) and the Ring of Kajiiti (lvl 10.)

Max difficulty as a conjure kill game is boringly easy once you have the right tools and train yourself to stay away from the bad guys to let your conjured helpers and bow poisons do the work. The only close contact you need is one hit from the Umbra sword for soul trapping (2 min duraton). Enemies go to the greatest threat, so you want to stay out of their sense range while your creature is fighting. They generally go after your conjure creature automatically, but if you start hacking on them or hit them with a Command-type spell, they will come after you instead.

Custom Restore Health + Invisibility potions will save your life.

After level 18, creatures are at least even strength with your conjure fighters, so after that level you increasingly have to sneak past trouble and/or rely on poisons for killing. I try to have most of my fighting done by then or shortly after (Ayelid ruins, Fighter's guild, Mages guild, most of the Main Quest.)

I hope this helps.

[FrozenWolf150]

For a custom build, I suggest setting Conjuration as a Major skill and a bunch of things you do not need much as the other Major skills (I go with things like Block*, Hand to Hand, Mystecism, Sneak, Light Armor, Speachcraft, Acrobatics, Illusion**, Restoration**). That way you can use magics like Alteration to open locks and cast shield spells, and Destruction to cast of useful custom spells like Weakness to Poison+Weakness to Magicka. However, for these skills you have to be willing to train/spam them to level up once your Conjuration is at 100.

Why do you pick unneeded skills for your other major skills? Is it so you have better control over leveling?

[Golden Sinner]

Breton, The Mage, Intelligence & Endurance, Specializeation Magic, Majors-the seven magic skills.

I can max this character's level out pretty quick. Then I do the recommendation quests, with potions, invisibility and summoned Dremora Lords. That way my Mage can enter the Arcane University and make the following spells to hot-key:

1-Invisibility & Nighteye for 40 seconds. You can keep this up to explore without having to kill every single thing you meet.

2-Paralyze for 1 second, 100% weakness to shock & magicka for 9 seconds on touch with Invisibility for 6 seconds on self. Cast this a few times and then the next spell if you do want to kill every single thing that you meet.

3-42 points of Shock damage on touch for 10 seconds/Invisibilitiy for 12 seconds on self. Slew Jyggalag with this routine.

4-28% Fire, Frost and Shock shield/Restore 10 points of health per second/Fortify Endurance 100 points /Nighteye on self with a duration of 40 seconds. Go toe to toe with any opponent. Cast this, stab an NPC a couple times with a simple "8 points of damage for 30 seconds" poison and then block while they die. Argonians are immune to poison so just use the Shock spell routine on them. Your magicka refills before the spell runs out so that you can maintain it as long as you need. Gulp down four potions of "Restore 13 points of health for 43 seconds" and you can even take on two or three opponents at once.

5-Command Creature/Humanoid of 25th level, which is actually any level/Invisibility for 10 seconds. If there are just too many opponents to fight.

6-Open Very Hard Lock/100% Chameleon for 6 seconds. For containers and I use this on any door before I open it, locked or not, so that I don't walk into an ambush.

7-Heal 10 points for 10 seconds on self/Cure poison & disease on self/Invisibility on self for 12 seconds. Used as needed.

8-Detect Life 100 feet/Fortify Magicka 100 points/Feather 100 points/Water breathing on self for 120 seconds. Just a good spell to have up when you are exploring.

I also enchant the handirons, a hood, shirt, pants, shoes, amulet, two rings and a shield with fortify Magicka 24 points. I carry my Mage's staff so that the shield is equipped but does not interfere with magic effectiveness. This way my base magicka level is 516 available for use. Good luck!

[Chicken Slayer]

"Why do you pick unneeded skills for your other major skills? Is it so you have better control over leveling?"

Yes.
I rather take ten minutes at the start of a level to train for Attribute bonuses (like Endurance and Strength) and then let something like Conjuration or Sneak be the thing that defines my advance. If I need a skill of 50 in Destruction, I can simply tie down the cast button and go do something else for a while (in reality I cast useless spells when I am walking from place to place unless I just want to max out a skill).

I usually go for Combat as my specializion. It cuts down on the number of hits needed for the tedious, dangerous skills, but it increases the number of spells I need to cast to build magic skills.

[FrozenWolf150]

I have another question about max difficulty. How do you train skills like Block, Light Armor, and Heavy Armor, when even rats can kill you in a few hits?

[Chicken Slayer]

From my post above.

"You can build your Heavy Armor (Block and Light Armor) at the first rusty-key wooden door (tutorial) by letting the rat attack until you are near death and then stepping through the door. Hit the wait key for 1-hour to recover and then repeat until you have built 10 points in Heavy armor for a +5 Endurance boost. There is a rat in Fort Ash on the way to Chorrol that lives down the left hand corridor. It will follow you back to the main door and you can build Armor and Block (to build health via +5 Endurance bonuses) just like in the tutorial." When you have high skill and health, you can go to the rats in Ft Carmala, but bring lots of strong custom health potions for the ordeal.

If you have a character that can build Alteration, use shield spells while doing this. If you have a character that cannot (such as a game made Mage working up Intelligence), then use Alchemy shield potions. Wear Rings of Aegis (at level 5, the Fighters guild quest in Bravil will get you one.) or random loot elemental shield (frost shield etc.) rings to help. Umbra's armor is good for training since it is too heavy to use for most characters at low levels, but has good protection (orchish quality). I usually enchant the Umbra shield with an elemental shield spell (black soul gem) to help even more and I carry that with me after I get out of the armor and put my enchanted clothing back on. Shock is hard to dodge so I usually go with Shock Shield 9%.

Rats stay the same as you get more health, but goblins get tougher and can come through the doors, so they are a less safe option.

Umbra is easy to kill with poison arrows (35-40 at alchemy skill of 25 - Sacred Lotus (Imper. City) and St Jahn's Wort (N. of Chorrol) are easiest to find in that quantity) by standing on one of the little square ledges at either end of the open balcony section and shooting her as she stands below confused as why she can't hit you.

[Golden Sinner]

Summon a Skeleton, hit it three times improving a weapon skill as you do and then let it hit your shield or armor. You can usually take a number of hits equal to your current level plus two. When you are low on health, back up quickly and cast Summon Skeleton again. This one is not aggressive. So you can repair your gear and then wait for an hour to refill your health/magicka/fatigue. This levels up Conjuration, any weapon skill, block and any armor skill.

[Chicken Slayer]

You can't use the skeleton (6x6=36pts damage per hit) method very well if Conjuration is a unfilled major skill. If you try, I don't think you can get enough points in Block, etc. for a +5 leveling bonus before Conjuration brings on the sleep icon. Even if you could, then you wouldn't have many conjurations left for dungeon crawling for that level. Skeletons also hit very slowly compared to one or more rats (2 x6 =12 pts damage per bite), at least against armor. Block slows them down a bit, so multiple rats (Fort Carmala or the rat lady in Anvil) are better for that when you have some health built up.

Note that the rat lady's rats only do 1 pt damage = x6 pts on max difficulty, but you are trespassing in her house after her quest is completed so you can't go in and out of the basement door to rest and recover easily. She will come downstairs and yell at you if she hears you. If she goes into the basement she joins in on the fight (but I forget on whose side.)

[Lord Timster]

@Chicken Slayer, Golden Sinner
Awesome. Thanks for taking the time to type this stuff out.

Usually I'd play Oblivion on Normal with loads of 'rules' to make it more challenging but now I'm intrigued enough by what you've written to give Max Difficulty a go.

One thing I can add on the subject of training with Giant Rats: try the South-East exit of the Imperial Sewers.
First time you go in it will probably be full of Mudcrabs. Just keep killing them and checking back in when the dungeon re-spawns until you get a Giant Rat in the first room.
In my experience this only takes a few attempts, and then as long as you don't actually kill the rat, it will stay there for the rest of the game.

Very convenient for Heavy / Light Armour and Block training, as well as being easy for starting characters to get to.

Cheers

[Chicken Slayer]

Arpenia is another one with rats and crabs. Goblin caves like Fatback also usually have a rat near the door, but they can also have crabs or a goblin there too. I checked Fort Ash in several different games at levels from 1 to 54 and that one rat was always there, all by himself. The more I play the game the more I see how well it is designed to benefit you walking to Chorrol (fine bow at Ft Nikol, alchemy equipment at Yellow Tick, useful rat, Ayelid statue, Shadowbanish wine, Honorblade, +5 merchanile bonus, etc., with or without doing Vilverine and Sideways Cave first.

You can have fun/a challenge trying to train against a low ranking goblin (or a bow bandit with a dagger) once you get some health built up. They don't seem to hit as hard as a rat if they have a dagger, but you have to kill them when you get into trouble.

Good luck with it.

[Golden Sinner]

To clarify my post, if you have Conjuration as a major (since you will be using it a lot), then just get a bed in the Merchant Inn of the IC. Go to the hallway by your room and summon a skeleton. You can hit it three times with the weapon type you want to develop and then block with a shield to improve that skill along with Endurance. As soon as you need to, summon a second, non-aggressive skeleton and then wait to heal up. When you are ready to level up, go to your bed and take a nap. You can do this until you need to leave the hallway without paying any more for the bed.

If you get a 10 level improvement in Block first, then summon a skeleton and turn it to get a 10 improvement to Conjuration for the +5 to Intelligence. If you are going to get 10 in Conjuration first, then pay for some training in an Endurance skill at several places in the IC so that this attribute has a +5 too. This is pretty much flawless. After you max conjuration, you can still summon a skeleton to max block or improve any armor/weapon skill or use restoration to heal, armorer to fix your armor, etc. It's a perfect punching bag.

You can also summon some skeleton types that have valuable weapons, like a Skeleton Champion or even a Lich. If you cast disintegrate weapon on them, then they throw their weapon away once it is ruined. The weapon remains after they time out. If you do this indoors, then the weapon is marked as stolen, (which is useful if you want to sell it to a fence as a member of the Thieve's Guild), but if you do this outdoors, then you can repair the weapon and sell it to a merchant normally. I have collected three Boreal swords this way. It's an easy way to "conjure up some cash".

[FrozenWolf150]

Umbra is easy to kill with poison arrows (35-40 at alchemy skill of 25 - Sacred Lotus (Imper. City) and St Jahn's Wort (N. of Chorrol) are easiest to find in that quantity) by standing on one of the little square ledges at either end of the open balcony section and shooting her as she stands below confused as why she can't hit you.

I tried this, but she still regenerates too quickly. What kind of bow and arrows are you using? What's your skill level in Marksman? And what level are you?

[Chicken Slayer]

"What kind of bow and arrows are you using? What's your skill level in Marksman? And what level are you?"

Buck naked Orc, Level 1, Marksman skill = 5, rusty iron bow and iron arrows.

If she is regenerating it sounds like she is running around. She regenerates at 2 points per second and you should be able to get one poisoned arrow into her every three seconds by hotkeying the poison. When she is directly under you, she will stay there as long as she is being hit regularly. If you miss twice in a row she may bolt. Your aim should not be directly at her but a little past her so you don't hit the little corner piece you are standing on. A starlight spell helps if you don't like to shoot at a black spot in the dark, but once you hit her you don't have to change your aim. Try crouching down in Sneak so she isn't tempted to run back up to the balcony to get at you from there. She will run up to the balcony after the first shot but, just wait for her to come back down below you before you start shooting in earnest.

I've done this maybe a dozen times. The first few were a little squirrely until I got my aiming and her behaviour sorted out. I used to add Damage Fatigue to the poison. She would eventually collapse and I would jump down to finish her off with more poisoned arrows, but she recovers easily so it is safer just to keep shooting from above until she is dead. You don't need to knock her out first.

[FrozenWolf150]

I finally got it to work. I didn't realize I had to keep hitting her with poison in order for it to work. I think my mistake previously was assuming the poison would take effect and finish the job. Anyway, it didn't take long before she went down. I just wish I'd asked sooner.

[FrozenWolf150]

I'm doing well on the hardest difficulty so far. However, I got stuck on one quest, "Through a Nightmare, Darkly." I can't figure out how to beat the dreamworld minotaurs. I don't have my summons or poisons, I can't use invisibility, and the weapons the quest gives you don't do enough damage to the minotaurs. The Staff of Lightning runs out too quickly. Has anyone figured out how to beat this?

[Lord Timster]

Hi.

There was a thread about the Minotaurs here:
http://forums.uesp.net/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=38542

Consensus seems to be that this Quest is massively difficult.
Certainly I will be avoiding it on my current Max Difficulty run.

[FrozenWolf150]

I finally beat it, both legit and by use of exploits.

The legit way: I saved the game in Henatier's dream house before entering the Test of Resolve. I checked the cask for items, and if I didn't like what I got, I reloaded. This rerolls the random loot you get. I did this until I got a dagger with Disintegrate Weapon, and a daedric warhammer. I used hit-and-run attacks on the minotaurs until their weapons broke, then I jumped on top of the buttresses and used my warhammer to hit them in the head with power attacks. It took forever to wear them down, and I kept slipping off and dying, but eventually they fell.

The exploitative way: I saved the game just inside the gate leading to the coliseum. When the minotaurs spawned, I quickly dashed back under the gate before it closed. Normally, there's a non-functional door that blocks you from reentering Henatier's dream house, but if you find the right spot, you can activate the door behind it and escape to the house. This lures the two minotaurs back in with you. I ran upstairs, where Henatier sensed the intruders and rushed down to attack them. He blocked the stairs, so they couldn't get up to reach me, and they didn't attack him because they were after me. He managed to kill both minotaurs for me, since NPC strength isn't affected by difficulty. This took several tries, but it was a lot easier than a head-on fight.

WARNING: It's tempting, and I did see this suggested in the chat page of the wiki, but do NOT lure the minotaurs into the Test of Perception in order to get them killed. While the obstacles do make short work of them and knock them to their deaths, you will be unable to finish the quest. Why? Because Henatier is still in attack mode, and will follow the minotaurs into the test with you. Once you grab the orb, the test is locked down, leaving Henatier stuck there, so you're unable to talk to him once you have all four orbs.

[Chicken Slayer]

Thanks for posting this. I have not yet tried at high level and Ii didn't know the weapons respawned.