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"Maybe this time" [NO-RELOAD THREAD]: "The Tale of TEN THOUSAND Trials"

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  • semiticgoddesssemiticgoddess Member Posts: 14,903
    edited September 2018

    Frost the Breton Mage: No-Reload Legendary Mode Run of Skyrim Redone

    Part 4


    Forelhorst apparently doesn't have just regular draugr. It has ghostly dragon cultists--who, unlike regular draugr, are actually quite resistant to paralysis.


    I decide to let Lydia handle the monsters. Followers in Skyrim are semi-immortal in the sense that they don't quite die when they run out of health; they just fall down and then try to recover. But Lydia is pretty tough; she's a melee bruiser. Notice the goofy-looking Dwarven Helmet I've given her. I pitch in with arrows and Paralyze spells (when the enemies are draugr instead of ghosts), though I only enter melee range to strike with a dagger when Slow Time is active.




    There are a fair number of Draugr Deathlords around, and Lydia isn't quite tough enough to handle critters with numbers that big, so we burn a fair number of potions slowly cutting them down. Like before, the draugr go flying whenever I cast Paralyze when they're already staggered.


    There are so many Draugr Deathlords, actually, that the dungeon gets kind of tedious at times. They just take so long to kill in Legendary mode. One of the rooms has a spike trap on the ceiling...


    ...and if you step on the platform in the middle of the room, the platform jumps up and smashes you against the spikes. I nail the draugr with Paralyze to try to get them accordingly smashed...


    ...but the damage is pretty disappointing. In fact, I can't even tell that it's done any damage at all. I guess some traps don't work so well after thousands of years of inactivity.

    The fight takes so long that I level up from Light Weaponry skill increases, and I invest a bunch of perks to make Frost better at knifing people.


    This whole area is so incredibly slow. I burn like 10 Slow Time potions and spam Paralyze so much Frost's Alteration hits 95. The most exciting part is when we almost die to a fire trap or something. Since this is the first time we've hit extremely low health in the run, we get a notification first.


    After even more Draugr Deathlords and other draugr that take ages to kill, we finally reach Rahgot the Dragon Priest. Unlike most draugr, the Dragon Priests are all immune to paralysis.


    We get in a bunch of free attacks regardless thanks to a Slow Time potion, and while Rahgot blasts us with a Fireball, we've cranked up our health enough to shrug off individual blows. A Resist Fire potion and some healing potions keep us in good shape while we keep hacking at him under the effects of Slow Time. Fortify Light Weaponry potions and Restore Stamina potions keep our damage high to speed things up.


    Rahgot collapses, followed shortly after by the other draugr. Rahgot has a really powerful mask that's largely useless to us because it's classified as a piece of armor, which means it can't work in concert with our Mage Armor perks (if we wore it, our armor rating would be dramatically weaker than it normally is).


    Outside, Captain Valmir attacks us and nearly kills us before I enter the inventory screen to heal up. Apparently this whole Rahgot thing was a set up; the guy outside was trying to get me killed so he could steal the mask for himself. Slow Time and Paralyze put down the captain.


    I use Detect Life to grind Alteration to 100 so we can crank up our armor rating with the Dragonflesh spell from Tolfdir. On the way to the College of Winterhold, though we get ambushed by a dragon--an Elder Dragon, one of the strongest types of dragons around.


    Gaining levels fast is necessary to avoid getting one-shotted in Legendary mode, but it also means we have to deal with much tougher critters much earlier in the run.
    CrevsDaak
  • ArthasArthas Member Posts: 1,091
    Guys two (and I hope last) questions:

    1) Item revision or Item upgrade by Weimer
    2) Spell revision or not?
  • semiticgoddesssemiticgoddess Member Posts: 14,903

    Frost the Breton Mage: No-Reload Legendary Mode Run of Skyrim Redone

    Part 6

    Ustengrav has a few enemy mages at the start, but most of the enemies are draugr. I deploy the Master-level spell, Mass Paralysis, against the draugr, but it proves disappointing. It lasts for 22 seconds with my perks, but aside from its high magic cost, it has a very slow casting animation, requires both hands, roots me in place while I cast it, and it doesn't even work all of the time--each enemy only has a chance of being affected. A brilliant flash of green, and then a few enemies are still left standing.



    The area of effect is respectable, but honestly, the normal Paralyze spell is much more useful in most situations.

    I'm more familiar with this area than I used to be thanks to our previous no-reload run, so I know how to avoid the fire traps deeper in the dungeon. There are a bunch of them right before a spider ambush. Like in Bleak Falls Barrow, a giant one falls from the ceiling, but I know it's coming and nail it with Paralyze before it even hits the ground. We chop it up, but it's kind of an ugly sight to get so close to the thing. We can actually see the spider's hairs up close.



    There's no boss in Ustengrav because our friend Delphine already went through the dungeon and left us a note to go visit her. When we head to Riverwood to meet her, we get ambushed by some cultists from the Dragonborn expansion, but they have no special defense against Slow Time.



    Delphine wants us to kill a dragon. Done. We just have to apply some Lingering Damage Health poisons under Slow Time.


    Since I have high Alteration and therefore have access to the Deep Storage spell, I cram all of my gear into the Deep Storage container rather than entrusting it to the wood elf in the Diplomatic Immunity questline to make sure I don't get caught off-guard by another dragon ambush when walking the 100 feet from the wood elf to Delphine, which ended one of my other runs.

    By donning Thalmor robes inside the Thalmor embassy, we can avoid drawing too much attention from the local guards, and I use a Calm spell to make sure we can walk past the captain safely. He's a bit grumpy about it, though.


    We've got more guards to kill inside, but by now, the drill is pretty much set: drink Slow Time potion and spam Paralyze while hacking away with our dagger. We've dealt so much damage over the course of this run that our Light Weaponry skill is already approaching 90. We get some documents from the embassy, report back to Delphine, and she sends us to the seedy, crime-ridden town of Riften to go hunt down a dude named Esbern hiding out in the sewers. First, we report to Brynjolf, a contact of Delphine's or something, who tells us to go steal some lizard guy's ring and plant it on a dark elf for reasons that don't really matter to us.

    I don't know if this quest is actually necessary, since I think you can just walk into the Ratway, where Esbern is hidden, without performing any quests. But we do it anyway. Unfortunately, we get bad luck, and a guard chooses to loiter around directly behind us when we're trying to do the deed. Unable to get the guard to move, we end up getting caught.


    It doesn't even matter; Brynjolf is still happy with us for trying and gives us the referral to the Ratway, where we beat up some lowlifes (one of which is actually named "Lowlife") and Thalmor agents before finding Esbern. We take him back to Riverwood, he tells us we need to go to Sky Haven Temple. We head out to Karthspire, where we yell at some half-naked hippies called the Forsworn who give us the hairy eyeball.


    Basically every time I get to this part of the game, an unusually high-level dragon joins the fight. In this case, it's a Revered Dragon, one of the absolute strongest in the entire game. I get hit by a Drain Vitality Shout, which deals crazy damage over time--about the same amount of damage as one of our Ravage Health poisons.


    We slow time and apply some of poisons to the dragon's wing, but a Revered Dragon has so much health that it actually manages to fly away before the poisons kill it.


    We drink another potion and finish it off when it lands.

    We fight a few more hippies and head inside Sky Haven Temple. There's a big fireball trap, but I can deactivate it if I rush ahead and pull a chain.

    I run over, there's a rush of fire, and then I instantly die.


    No!

    No! That's not okay!

    This run was going so well. We were crushing everything, and then some stupid trap kills us in a single second. That trap's never killed me before.

    I reload and investigate the trap. Apparently it doesn't just launch a fireball at your face if you step on the wrong pressure plate; it launches a separate fireball for each pressure plate you step on. At least half a dozen fireballs came at me at once; that's how I died so quickly.

    Back to Helgen. I'm tired of the lengthy grinding process that I've been using to get high Alchemy and strong potions, so we're going to try a quicker, lower-level strategy for our next attempt at a no-reload Legendary run of Skyrim Redone.
    StummvonBordwehrCrevsDaakGoturallolien
  • InKalInKal Member Posts: 196
    Arthas said:

    Guys two (and I hope last) questions:

    1) Item revision or Item upgrade by Weimer
    2) Spell revision or not?

    1) Why not both? You can also use Daulmakan's Item Pack 1.8. All three are compatible.
    2) Only if you know what you are doing.

    In my opinion with Item Revisions game is easier, with Spell revisions harder. Weimer's upgrades are very cheesy but pretty useful, still worth installing. Item Pack has very useful component "more work for Cromwell".
    StummvonBordwehrGotural
  • ScourgeScourge Member Posts: 97
    edited September 2018
    I re-rolled Dario (and got a 95 or a 96 roll) and to be honest I usually play a solo barbarian and I feel weaker now with a party then I would be when playing solo.

    The playthrough was not dense of events. I just explored all around, did a few quests in beregost that had no combat. Then I arrived to Nashkel and it was time to get Minsc. I'm not exactly sure he is the best choice and I'll keep thinking if I should still keep him or not.

    Anyway, I risked my life more than once. When I had the encounter with the dryad, Imoen was killed instantly by one of the two thugs, leaving myself only with Dario and Minsc. I had to make Minsc flee and he met a dire wolf. So in the end it was Dario against three different npc(s)







    After the encounter I went back to nashkel, resurrected imoen and got back to the dryad place, only to meet a polar bear that proved to be a hassle too




    I killed him.




    By the way, do I remember wrong, or is there a mod that makes you able to actually take the evil path with the dryad and make it worthwhile ? I remember that mod would make you able to skin the nymph for the cloak or something of this sort... Could it be bg1npc?



    Edit: an addenda - the tweak for BG2 makes the single trap\lock give me 1k xp. I decided not to abuse it, I will abuse it in an eventual evil playthrough. With my good character I do not go in houses to lockpick and actually raid them.

    Edit 2: something weird happened while I was battling the rats in reevor's storehouse. One of the rats, while I was fighting them, was charmed. Is that a rare occurrence or..?
    StummvonBordwehrArctodusEnuhalCrevsDaak
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