Master Difficulty - Page 5

quote Bakka

Anyone playing on master difficulty?

And what tactics/perks/spells/skills do you use/exploit to survive?

Well I start every character on expert difficulty. When i reached lv 49 on my main character I jumped to master. M main character is "Gray Dark-Soul" Lv 59 magus. My Destruction, Conjuration, Alteration are lv 100. My Illusion is 95. My Restoration is 82. My Enchanting is 70. My experience on Master is rather enjoyable especially being that I know Master level spells. Here is a tactic I exploit constantly. I encounter a lot of melee enemies, thus forth I activate "Invisibility" an illusion spell, get amongst the crowd and use Mass Paralysis. I follow up with either Lightning storm or Blizzard (Lightning more than Blizzard; for some reason Blizzard kills me). When the remaining enemies stand I will use either chain lightning or paralyze and lightning bolt. Another Exploit is to dual cast lightning spells. At some point along the tree destruction magic staggers and it's a fact that lightning spells connect instantly when cast. This is truly a win-win situation when I hit an enemy with dual casted lightning bolt he drops to his knees. During the action I strike him again. When he rises to his feet I strike him once more invoking another stagger. This is easy for me to do being that my magicka is 910, my only real issue being archers because I only have 140 health. This is less of a problem being that I've mastered 3 skills so far ; Master Alteration giving you Dragonhide. Paralyze+Frenzy+Conjure Dremora Lord allows you to watch your foes tear each other apart. As they die off you can use Revenant or the next level necromancy spell to raise one of the dead higher levels t fight for you in place of your dremora. Illusion controls your enemies, Master Alteration boosts your defenses, Master conjuration permanently summons a Thrall to your side, and master Destruction gives you the edge in a battle. Look into a Breton magus they have magical resistance and make for rather strong Magus (Just saying from personal experience)

Master difficulty is only really hard on low levels, where even random fodder like Bandit Chiefs and Dire Wolves will often kill you in a single attack, especially if you use Mage Armour or Light Armour.

In my experience, unless you try to be a jack of all trades, you'll quickly reach a level where nothing poses much of a challenge, even on master difficulty, except for occasional stuff like vampire lairs full of level 60-65 vamps, etc.

quote TheBeardedMan

What are Dire Wolves? I've never heard of these before.

Sorry, I meant Ice Wolves. I've gotten used to calling them Dire Wolves since that's the animal they seem to be based on.

I've been playing on Master from level 1 - this is my second playthrough, I wanted to have a challenge after playing on Adept. I play as an archer and it's really not that hard, but if you want to play as a 2 handed warrior or something like that, you'll have a really hard time in the beginning. Draugrs can kill you in one hit and you hardly make a dent in them.
During the first levels don't even try fighting dragons. When you see them, run.
I also recommend getting a follower immediately at the beginning of the game (I used Faendal at first, then Lydia and then Vilkas). It is a must have on Master since enemies will start beating them instead of you. Give them good equipment, not the basic Wolf or Steel Armor or whatever.
Also try to think of creative ways of killing enemies: if they have animals in cages, open the cage and the animal will attack them and it'll make your job easier since they might even kill each other, lure the draugrs into traps, etc.
And also get ready to run from enemies - a lot. But it gets a lot easier after a while.

I play on master, its hard, but it gets a little easier when you get your defence and combat skills up. I wouldnt recommend using exploits that aren't related to your character. Such as, powerleveling alteration using telekinesis, when you are a warrior. Mages are still a pain though. Im starting a paladin here soon, playing only on master!