overpuce said:
I'm a Daedric Artifact Whore:
Daedric Artitacts Owned:
Dawnbreaker
Spellbreaker
Volendrung
Mace of Molag Bal
Ebony Sword
Mehrunes' Razor
Star of Azura (Black version)
Masque of Clavicus Vile
Skeleton Key (Had)
I think they're all cool. The problem I have is that none of them match the power of my Smithed/Enchanted weapoons.
That was largely the problem that I had. I collected all the daedric artifacts and found that they were never as good as what I could make. By the end of the game, I found that I was largely concerned with what weapon and armor combination looked coolest as I was an unstoppable engine of destruction and yet even then I consistently found that the weapons that looked best could not be upgraded.
Of course, by the end I found that the enchantment on the weapon was irrelevant when a simple skyforge sword would do in excess of 400 damage without much trouble and with the use of a potion well over 600 damage. By contrast, the awesome looking Dawnbreaker or Nightingale Blade were incapable of doing more than about 100 damage.
Along the way I found that I was constantly disappointed that the best items and the best looking items never seemed to match up. Still, in no particular order: my favorite items in the game:
Nightingale Armor - The enchantments are pretty good for items in a game but in the end pale in comparison to what the player can make. Sadly, without significant effort, the actual protection offered by the armor is relatively pitiful as it requires 100 smithing, the use of heavily enchanted + smithing gear and strong potions of blacksmith to reach the 80% protection cap and even then that assumes you wear the complete suit of armor and invest heavily in light armor perks.
Savior's Hide - Probably my favorite leather armor. Sadly, the enchantments leave much to be desired and even with enormous investment in light armor and smithing it is difficult to reach the protection cap.
Mehrunes Razor - The coolest looking dagger in the game. While it (and really any dagger) can be absurdly effective with proper perk investment and the right set of gloves, it's enchantment is largely useless. It doesn't active often enough to be reliable and without the 15 - 30x damage from a sneak attack and assuming you generally get sneak attacks the small chance to instantly kill something is meaningless.
Chillrend - As far as I can tell, Chillrend is one of the most powerful weapons in the game. Not only is its base physical damage higher than a daedric sword, it has a fairly powerful cold damage effect and a fairly reliable paralyze effect. It seems possible that one could get this item to do in excess of 450 physical damage normally and, if for some reason that wasn't enough, well over 800 through the use of potions. Even if you aren't looking for such game breaking solutions to problems, the weapon looks cool and the enchantment is quite useful.
Nightingale Blade - It looks awesome but since it cannot be upgraded, its useful enchantments largely go to waste. It is basically an epic looking but really crummy version of a weapon a player with 100 enchanting skill could make.
Ebony Mail - Looks awesome, is incredibly sturdy and the enchantment is actually quite useful. Sure the damage over time effect isn't all that great, but combined with a stealth or mage play style, it could be very useful in the long run. It also matches up well with standard Ebony armor which is nice.
In the end, like most people, I just ended up making my own gear. I tended to favor heavy armor largely because it looks better though I do like Glass this time around. Ebony and Steel Plate are constant favorites of mine. I also found that I tended to have three distinct classes of enchantments I'd use:
Generic Melee Adventurer Gear:
Ring: Weapon damage + Magic Protection
Amulet: Weapon Damage + Magic Protection
Gloves: Weapon Damage + Carry Weight Boost
Boots: Weapon Damage + Carry Weight Boost
Armor: Varied but was generally a choice of two spell cost reduction and magicka regeneration boosts
Head: Varied but was generally a choice of two spell cost reduction (staking with armor) or generic boosts to magika and magicka regeneration
Stealth Gear: (usually light armor but when I finally went for the return thieves guild to former glory I opted for clothing since the quests did not involve combat)
Same as above but the various magic protections and the like were replaced with boosts favoring pickpocketing, stealth and lockpicking.
Utility Gear:
Simply whatever I had handy that I could enchant that would grant boosts to smithing/alchemy or speechcraft and sale value.
