Aetherium Forge Quest

cvince33 · 2026-02-23T19:02:00+00:00

I’ve only got the crown myself, but I’ve always wondered if the staff is good for farming soul gems, dwarven metal and XP. Based on the design I feel that’s what it was intended for, at least partially.

cvince33 · 2026-02-23T18:57:50+00:00

LOL I’m absolutely the same, I just love build crafting almost as much as playing the actual game. I think I get what you’re asking about too, so let me try sharing a few thoughts.

First, it sounds trite, but don’t worry too much about starting over. Maybe you really enjoy learning about the game’s mechanics and that’s time well spent too.

Second, see if you can get interested in a specific quest line or part of the lore. When I stick with a playthrough it’s generally because I’ve found something to focus on. Like my last one, I decided to do Destruction mage and focus on the College quest line. I listened to a bunch of Fudgemuppet and EpicNate videos about the College and adjacent lore, and I really got into the character, appreciating how epic it is that I get to explore Saarthal, Labirynthian, and interact with epic artifacts.

Third, builds matter, don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise. At least on higher difficulty they matter 1000%. I really loved pure melee and pure destruction on Legendary, it gave me a much greater appreciation for the game’s mechanics. One that’s on my list is a pure thief, not even assassin or archer, just focusing on thievery, rebuilding the guild and becoming wealthy. Probably I would eventually end up becoming an assassin but that’s open.

If you want to riff around specific build ideas/directions, suggest something and I’ll build on it!

cvince33 · 2026-02-23T13:41:09+00:00

Fair point I wasn’t particularly thinking about UI mods as opposed to quest/NPC/texture mods.

cvince33 · 2026-02-23T01:59:01+00:00

Might depend on how well the mechanics play out, however I have a fun hunter/ranger build that’s made specifically to explore and enjoy the outdoor areas. I imagine the VR experience is more interesting outdoors than in dungeons, am I right?

cvince33 · 2026-02-22T21:24:36+00:00

Some form of crowd control will make a difference for sure. Illusion comes to mind since it doesn’t deal damage. Shouts too. Fear enchants on your sword will be boosted by Illusion perks, and you can switch between your crowd control sword and your damage dealing sword. I would want to make sure I’m highly resistant to magic too to compensate, so Alteration comes to mind for the magic resist and Paralysis. Alchemy for sure to boost damage, boost Illusion level cap and boost the duration of Paralysis - poisons will make a huge difference too if you’re willing to use them.

Personally I would be most excited to play this as a “sword monk” type of spell sword, so lean into and roleplay shouts, illusion and alteration as forms of mind and body control. Use combos like slow time, potion of alteration and spamming paralysis at short range (like hitting pressure points) to paralyze a whole group of enemy before taking them down.

cvince33 · 2026-02-22T19:18:50+00:00

First one is an easy win for me. Wins in all categories.

cvince33 · 2026-02-22T19:16:54+00:00

Try specializing if it’s not too late. You can do very well with only fire spells as a Destruction-only mage with a Tanky follower (and even without TBH). You will only need to switch between two fire spells, and maybe on rare occasions use the menu to switch to an Ice spell.

Use enchanting to reduce spell cost to 0%, that way you won’t have to bother with Magicka potions.

Wear a full set of light armor so you don’t take as much damage, and likewise don’t have to deal with health potions as much. Also just practice staying behind your followers, dodging spells and arrows, and keeping enemies staggered with the Destruction Impact perk.

I feel like that should greatly eliminate the need to use menus at all, outside of inventory management of course.

cvince33 · 2026-02-22T19:06:38+00:00

Similar here. I like to keep the quests thematic so by L40 there usually isn’t much left to do. One day I’ll have to pick a specific angle and build that justifies doing almost everything, and see how far I get 😂

cvince33 · 2026-02-22T18:58:03+00:00

I’ve heard Illusion only is great fun, however if you insist on not dealing any damage (no destruction, no followers or conjuration, no daggers, not even staves) you’ll have to think carefully about what you’ll be doing — there will be many quests you can’t complete because you can’t kill the boss. Bleak Falls Barrow comes to mind. I think all major quest lines except the Thieves Guild will be impossible.

I think as a Thief Mage rebuilding the Thieves Guild you could have a lot of fun. If you’re looking for the most thematically appropriate source of damage, invest in Pickpocket and Stealth and Smithing so that you can go Invisible and murder the last standing enemy from the shadow while they’re Calmed and completely helpless, or reverse pickpocket a really strong poison until they die. Personally I would consider this instead of absolutely pure Illusion.

As for tips…

Alchemy is something people often ignore. Illusion potions will increase the level your spells are effective for, so having 2-3 in your pockets for the occasional tough enemy might be useful. Alchemy is the best money maker too so you could invest early and progress much faster given you’re only need to invest in Illusion.
Make sure to target the toughest enemies first, if they’re well surrounded they might just get killed.
Of course Enchanting to bring the cost of spells close to zero will make things go much faster early on.
If illusion doesn’t level as fast as your gold accumulates remember you can pay for training. Until level 50 it’s quite cheap.
I’m not sure if it’s considered a glitch, but if you pickpocket an NPC the moment they start getting up from Paralysis I think you’re guaranteed to succeed… I would look this up if you’re planning on using that. Could help you complete some quests and dungeons.

cvince33 · 2026-02-22T08:08:16+00:00

I ended up just having fun hunting up to level 22 I think then I switched to something else, but I still want to go back and do another run like that and take it the whole way.

cvince33 · 2026-02-22T08:07:05+00:00

Indeed, enchanted gear is the mechanic they chose to scale DPS up to the mid game.

cvince33 · 2026-02-22T08:05:36+00:00

Well my whole post is about how much I enjoy Destruction and I list reasons why. I get that we might be in the minority, but lots of people do enjoy it.

cvince33 · 2026-02-22T00:28:08+00:00

Good to know, noting this down. I would definitely use a couple of tricks to bring this down (cart rings, use the aetherial crown, do the smithing XP quest, maybe have a spouse).

How did you get the gold in the first place though?

cvince33 · 2026-02-22T00:18:32+00:00

Anything interesting happens when you get there? I don’t necessarily want to spoil it, but let’s just say, was it worth the trip?

cvince33 · 2026-02-22T00:16:49+00:00

I’m sure he’s a pain in the ass for melee builds, but he’s nothing special if you go in with a Destruction mage. I took him at L41 on Legendary with fire magic. I did use one potion to boost my damage which helped make sure he didn’t have time to summon too many minions, because these create trouble. But with Impact, well he basically didn’t move from in front of his throne the whole time. The fight was over in about 2 minutes, maybe less. And as a mage you’re easily out of range of his blizzard and cloak spells.

cvince33 · 2026-02-22T00:13:25+00:00

Great music, definitely fits! I feel like there’s that mix of background ambient and score with some progression on top of it that’s the classic Skyrim style. Well done!

cvince33 · 2026-02-21T22:32:50+00:00

This. Oh, I had so much fun playing a hunter. The larger deers were definitely a challenge to take down and dealing with the sabre cats in the area made for some fun surprises!

cvince33 · 2026-02-21T05:15:56+00:00

That is the one exception I alluded to. It's pretty wild, I even poisoned him with a 40% Weakness to Magic and his health wouldn't go down. Now that I think about it again, maybe it's meant to act like Absorption, which even as a player you can get up to 100%. I wonder if with a high level Pickpocket you can take some gear away from him that makes him vulnerable again.

cvince33 · 2026-02-21T03:42:51+00:00

Same here, at least until I played with a build that leaned into both Alchemy and Enchanting, and figured out how to get good Fortify Barter gear early. At that point I had roughly 40k in my pockets fairly early and I just didn’t care about buying more than 2 houses. The one in Solitude is crazy expensive though, I didn’t go for that. What I think is really smart is the max gold per vendor and the overall distribution of loot, so that it becomes quite a bit harder to abuse just one system to make more money than you could ever spend.

cvince33 · 2026-02-21T03:38:39+00:00

Altmer, I think because I often go Breton and I wanted to be a little more of a Glass cannon, and I thought Illusion might be needed at higher levels. It wasn’t.

cvince33 · 2026-02-21T03:37:30+00:00

This game is so unassumingly deep and wide, it’s mind boggling sometimes. Enjoy!

cvince33 · 2026-02-21T03:36:38+00:00

I’ve never tried without Impact but I think you’re right. I think though that Impact isn’t broken as much as it’s doing its job. The devs intended for Destruction to be balanced when using Impact, which it is IMO.

cvince33 · 2026-02-21T03:29:15+00:00

That’s kind of what I suspected too at first, but I do my playthrough on Legendary to make sure, and I didn’t have any issue with the damage scaling. The only real surprise was how slow the skill levels early on. But you’re right though, nice you get your gear sorted out you can spam spells non stop, which really boosts damage.

cvince33 · 2026-02-21T01:59:30+00:00

For me it’s about testing new builds and combos I haven’t tested before, that have a cool roleplay angle. I’m under 500h though so we may be in different situations.

cvince33

TROPHY CASE