Skyrim 100% Maximized Legendary Playthrough - 238. Destruction Ritual Spell

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40/30 Gaming

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Published on December 19, 2022 2:15:03 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nK_Qtj5WoU0

Game:

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (2011)

Category:

Let's Play

Duration: 56:07

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I've decided our next major focus in the game is going to be the College of Winterhold questline. And just as we went through the Companions questline wielding a two-handed sword as seemed befitting, for the College we're going to be completely spell-based for the duration.

Now this is tricky on Legendary. Magic is a bit underpowered in Skyrim - at least compared to what you can do through the crafting system as we've already demonstrated. On normal difficulty it's fine, but on Legendary where you deal such reduced damage it's a bit painful to use. Still, a challenge and a change of pace is what we need right now after breezing through the game largely one-shotting everything with our ridiculous dagger.

The first order of business then is to head off to Solstheim as usual to create the items we'll need. We temper a Daedric armor set (who says mages can't wear armor?), and on top of that we start putting Fortify {school} enchantments. With our Enchanting ability, a Fortify {school} effect reduces the casting cost of that school by 41%, so we need three to make a particular school completely free to cast. So we put three Fortify Destruction effects on, since of course we'll be using it the most, and then we add one for each of the other schools for good measure. We finish it off with a few of the usual suspects like Fortify Stamina Regen and Fortify Magicka Regen (necessary as a vampire), and with that we have our Aetherial armor set.

While in Solstheim we also craft a number of Fortify Destruction potions. It irks me personally, but the designers of the game made Fortify Destruction *enchantments* reduce the casting cost, while Fortify Destruction *potions* actually increase spell damage. There are sure to be times when our painfully reduced damage on Legendary is just not going to cut it, so we'll use these to make certain fights go faster.

We're now ready to head to the College and get things started. As you may recall, joining the College was one of the first things we did in this playthrough in order to get access to the trainers. However, since then poor Tolfdir and the apprentices have been languishing in the Hall of the Elements, endlessly discussing wards while waiting for me to advance the First Lessons quest (to say nothing of Faralda being stuck outside on the bridge). But we're still not ready to do that just yet. Instead, we're going to do the Destruction Ritual Spell quest to get access to the master-level Destruction spells. Now we're not actually going to use them, since I find the expert-level spells superior due to the ability to dual-cast them, plus the fact they don't have the ridiculous casting time of the master spells. Still, we want to demonstrate that even as an initiate to the College we are already a master of magic, since all our skills are at 100. We've already completed the Conjuration and Illusion quests earlier in the playthrough. We'll get the Alteration quest from Tolfdir once we meet him in First Lessons, and then the Restoration quest can't be obtained until about halfway through the College questline.

So we talk to Faralda - still standing on the bridge - and she gives us the quest. As we're talking a legendary dragon decides to pay a visit to Winterhold, so it's the perfect opportunity to try out our new playstyle. The expert-level Thunderbolt spell will be our mainstay for multiple reasons. First, fewer enemies have resistance to shock versus fire or frost. Second, we'll be facing several magic-using enemies in this questline unsurprisingly, and shock's ability to damage enemy magicka will be very helpful. Finally, our Disintegrate perk effectively lowers the health of every enemy in the game by 15%, which will greatly assist with the reduced damage on Legendary problem.

So we try out the spell and, yeah, it's really painful. Each hit (even dual-cast for greater effect) only removes a tiny sliver of the dragon's health. Still, we resist the urge to pull out one of our potions of Destruction so we can see just how bad bad can be. Thankfully spells can be cast (even dual-cast) pretty rapidly. It's a little hard to get the rhythm down to cast them as fast as possible, and this is where I don't appreciate the fact that in Skyrim you just have to watch your hands to determine when you can cast again, as opposed to watching a cooldown timer in other RPGs - although I do appreciate the fact that it makes the game more immersive.

It takes about two and a half minutes to get the kill, which isn't bad honestly for a legendary dragon. We also discover that not only does the Disintegrate perk work on dragons, it also does not prevent you from absorbing their soul, even though the "flesh burning off their bones" animation isn't there.

At last we're ready for the actual quest, but I'm out of description room at this point, so I'll just finish by saying it's one of my favorite in the game and leave it at that. Next time we'll take on First Lessons.

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