Skyrim

About this mod

This mod Balance all perks, spells, enchantments and effects that are gamebreaking or useless. Prepare yourself for a new challenging game!

Requirements
Permissions and credits
Remember when your build broke the game? When you learned to conjure dremora lords and got twin souls? Or when you dual casted paralyze and put the enemy in a coma? That time when you upgraded enchantment perks and was stronger than typping TGM in the console? Almost all builds reach a point that they are so powerful that the game becomes boring. But only nerfing the overpowered things would not be enough. Skyrim still have some useless things too like bound weapons perks or vampiric drain. I have tried with this mod to bring all into balance and make Skyrim a challenging game from the beginning without adding much, but rather changing what we had.

This Mod is ideal for veteran players seaking a real challenge in TESV Skyrim. Set Difficulty to Master from lvl 1 to lvl 30-40, then set the Difficulty to Legendary up to this point to optimize balance.

Also, it is recommended that you download this mod that will disable death animations against the player: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/47196/? 

Update
(3/december/2017): Destruction perks, Inivisbility spell, diadem of savant and saarthal amulet.
(11/cecember/2017): Mystic Blows perk, wards, orc racial power           

LET'S GET THIS STARTED: 


Alchemy

1. Restoring Potions: Set values to 25, 50, 75, 100, 125, 150 points.

2. Fortify attributes no longer set to restoration effects (prevent exploit)

3. Alchemy effects that damage health/stamina/magicka set to 2 seconds instead of instant.

4. Poisoner perk changed to Correct Doses. It will increase the duration of used potions and poisons by 50%.
 
Alteration

Honestly, not much to change here

1. Paralyze: 5 seconds

2. Mass Paralysis: 10 seconds

3. Enchantments: Nerfed chance from 25% to 10%

Before this, you could dual cast paralyze and put the guy in a coma. Seriously, 30 paralyzed seconds was enough to do pretty much anything.

Bound Weapons

Vanilla Bound Weapons were quite balanced, with exception of the bow. Considering it had no weight, it's power attacks consumed much less stamina. The perks added effects that you could get with spells very easily and were not a good option to invest points. Also, as magical weapons, I've changed it's purpose a little bit, they're not focused on dps, but rather debuffing enemies and restoring magicka.

***Perks***

1. Mystic Binding: It's called "Subjugator" now. Incresed Bound Weapons base damage.Adds stamina damage and magicka damage to bound weapons. 

2. Soul Stealer: It's called "Mystic Blows" now. Bound Weapons absorb magicka. Soul trap is really cheap and easy to cast, so why "soul stealer" was a perk?

3. Oblivion Binding: It's called "Cursed strikes" now. Bound weapons reduce targets attack speed by 20% for 3 seconds. Multiple hits restore duration.

***Weapons***

1. Bound Sword (Novice)
Base damage: 9
Subjugator perk: +5 base damage; +10 stamina damage; +10 magicka damage
Mystic Blows perk: Absorb 10 points of magicka

2. Bound Dagger (Novice)
Base damage: 6
Subjugator perk: +4 base damage; +10 stamina damage; +10 magicka damage
Mystic Blows perk: Absorb 10 points of magicka

3. Bound Battleaxe (Apprentice)
Base damage: 17
Subjugator perk: +5 base damage; +10 stamina damage; +10 magicka damage
Mystic Blows perk: Absorb 15 points of magicka

4. Bound Bow (Adept)
Base damage: 10
Subjugator perk: +6 base damage; +10 stamina damage; +10 magicka damage
Mystic Blows perk: Absorb 15 points of magicka

I know, I know... you were really into this but you saw the bow and said "damn, he fucked up". So here is the reason: The vanilla bound bow had a base damage of 18 and 24 with the perk. Do you know how much is dragonbone's bow base damage? Twenty points...20!!!. To get dragonbone bows you need 100 smithing. With legendary upgrade you can get the damage to 30. But then again, 100 smithing and an endgame item. Here is another reason: Dragonbone bow speed is 0,75. Bound bow is 0,875. It shoots faster than dragonbone. Reason number 3? Ok: You can get Bound bow with 40 conjuration skill or at Fort Amol. Both are super easy to get. No more reasons? Here's the fourth: Bound bow has unlimited bound arrows whose damage is equal to daedric arrows.  Try getting 100 daedric arrows in Vanilla skyrim... Last reason: Did you know that bound arrows had a hidden effect? It could brake mage's wards. That's right!

Conjuration

Some spells were balanced, others were ultra game breaking (example: dremora lord). Added new familiar spells and pretty much raised the cost of summoning spells.

**NPC**

Conjurers NPCs fixed. They were not conjuring properly. Arch conjurer will conjure a dremora lord!

***Novice***

1. Conjure Familiar: Now it is called Conjure Wolf Familiar

***Apprentice***

1. Conjure Flame Atronach: Cost Raised 75%

2. Conjure Boneman: Cost Raised 75%

***Adept***

1. Conjure Sabrecat Familiar: New Spell - Same as a normal Sabrecat
I didn't want it to be better than frost atronach, just diferent. Frost atronach is more tanky, sabrecat does more damage but has less health.

2. Conjure Ash Spawn: Cost Raised 100%

3. Conjure Frost Atronach: Cost Raised 100%

4. Conjure Mistman: Cost Raised 100%

5. Conjure Seeker: Cost Raised 100%

***Expert***


1. Conjure Dremora Lord: Expelled from expert spells, now it is a master spell and can only be found with the dremora merchant. Banished to the depths of the endgame. Cost 1100 like Master spells.

2. Conjure Bear Familiar: New Spell - Same as a normal Bear but with 300 health
I didn't want it to be super tanky like cave bear because bears have a lot of dps. They can attack 3 times in less than 2 seconds, one attack being a power attack.

3. Conjure Ash Guardian: Cost Raised 100%

4. Conjure Wrathman: Cost Raised 100%

5. Conjure Storm Atronach: Cost Raised 100%

***Master***

1. Flame Thrall: Now shoots Fireballs and cast Firewall the Vanilla one was useless, this can now have the highest dps of all 3 thralls, however it has the lowest base health

2. Conjure Dremora Lord: There could be no other end...

So, why have I raised the cost so much? Because in vanilla game, Dremora Lord and Thunderbolt had almost the same cost. If you fire a thunderbolt in a bandit chief he will take some damage, but if you summon a dremora lord he will destroy the chief and anyone else that is a foe. This situation was valid for other spells as well.

Destruction 

Everyone complains about Destruction being weak. For me destruction was ok, but some spells were really buggy, and the expert spells were really disapoitting. Now, everything was corrected and expert spells are now strong (if not the strongest) choices for damage.

***APPRENTICE SPELLS***

Runes now gets secondary effects by perks (augmented, impact, aspect of terror, etc) and are more silent.
They get heavy stagger from impact for more defensive strategies.

***EXPERT SPELLS***

1. Wall spells now does 15 pts of dmg per second and leaves a trail that does 15 pts per second for 2 seconds if enemies step on. Vanilla was all wrong, showing 50 pts of dmg but did as much as an old man's fart.

2. "Incinerate", "Icy spear" and "Thunderbolt" now increase damage with consecutive hits, debuffing resists (5% for 5s). Debuffing is cumulative, affected by respective augmented perks. Dual cast increase magnitude of debuff only (11% for 5s). So how much damage are you going to deal now? Since resists will start recovering after 5 seconds, you can debuff more or less 50%-70% if you don't miss. Oh! And I reduced casting cost. 
These are now the second best nukes for single targets, the first still is "Lightning Storm" in terms of damage/magicka cost. 

***Perks***

Rune master: Can place an additional rune + extended range

Intense flames: flame spells have a chance of causing terror, not health based anymore. 

Deep freeze: frost spells have a chance of paralysing the target, not health based anymore. 

Enchantments and passive abilities

Now this was really overpowered. Seriously, who had never broke the game with this skill tree? Remember
when you enchanted all your gear and the game suddently became boring?
All the cool unique items were nothing in comparison to them? Why would you bother with dragon priest masks if
your helmet could negate all damage and headbutt alduin to death with 1 hit? So yeah, big nerfs were made. 

1. Almost all enchantments had their magnitude nerfed. 

2. % enchantments (fortify one-handed, destruction and such) will have the best value possible at 15% increase and 20% if crafted.
3. Resist magic damage got nerfed a lot. Before this you could find a 70% resist fire piece or armor, now the strongest is 30%. To get the cap you really need to use more items and potions now.

4. Daedric items are untouched, with exception of ebony blade. The Ebony Blade is fixed to two-handed range, skills smithing perk set to daedric. The attack speed is set to 1.0 like vanilla, damage buffed do 16 and critical damaged Increased.The enchantment begins with 5pts of absorption and ends with 10pts. This was a gamebreaking item, with 30pts of absorption at full lvl. Nothing could kill you. I had to delete a build I've made because it was godlike and it used basically just the ebony blade.

5. Most unique items are untouched.

6. Kyne's token: That Crazy old man makes you hunt beasts all across skyrim and gives you a puny necklace as reward.Now it has the best enchantment for archery (20% is now the best possible enchantment).
6.1 Saarthal amulet: 5% reduction instead of 3%.
6.2 Diadem of savant: 10% reduction instead of 5%.

7. New Konahriik mask - Added 15% damage resistance + 50 health. Changed fire cloak to firestorm. Summon dragon priest effect unchanged.
7.1. Rahgot Mask: +50% stamina regeneration.

8. Lord stone: 10% magic resist (was 25%).

9. Atronach stone: 20% absorption (was 30%).

10. Mara's blessing: 5% magic resist (was 15%).

11. Magic Resistance (alteration tree): 5%, 10% and 20% (was 10%, 20% and 30%).

12. Atronach perk (alteration tree): 20% (was 30%).

13. No more fortify enchanting from crafting (alchemy) to close the loop. You can still find fortify enchanting
potions, but not craft them.

14. White phial
* Damage: +50% damage from all combat sources, except unarmed.
* Magicka: +100% recover and +100 magicka
* Stamina: +100% recover and +100 stamina
* Resist Magic: unchanged
* Sneak: +50% harder to detect
* Heal: instant 300 points

15. Shield Charge: No longer you can stunlock your opponent. A green smoke will show around the knockbacked target for 15 seconds. When it is down you can recast the shield charge. Trying to recast before the smoke is down will reset the immunity.  You no longer throw them into the air, (but still push them back) because this effect has sometimes a small delay and you may throw them back even though you're charging forward...

16. Muffle enchantment: 25% noise reduction (was 50%)

17. Predator's grace: 25% noise reduction (was 100%) + 50% stamina regen (was 1%)

18. Auriel Bow + arrow: Set enchantment to restoration effect (fortify potions and equipments will affect it) and set to 3000 charges (like other strong enchanted weapons)

19. Augmented Perks (Destruction): No longer affect chaos enchantments.

20. Smithing perks now only increase 50% instead of 100%. This is because smithing can be improved by alchemy and enchanting as well.

21. Armor perks nerfed to 10% per rank (were 20% per rank).

22. Elemental protection (block perk): Reduces all magic damage by 30%.

23. Ancient Falmer armor will use matching set bonus with boots, armor and gauntlets.

24. Chaos Damage - Now get 8,3% increase from each enchanter perk for each elemental damage source, totalizing 25%.

25. Smithing and alchemy enchantments changed to "+%" to "+skill points" (nerfed).

26. Smithing enchantments can no longer be put in armor, only gauntlets and jewelry.

So you're probably thinking: no way i'm downloading this, the guy busted enchanting big time!
Well, enchanting was really gamebreaking. If you wanted a challenging experience, your build could not get close
to it. Enchanting now is as it should be. A secondary skill tree. With this, you can get all perks and it won't
activate god mode. Have Fun!

Illusion

1. Invisibility: Concentration spell, 20 magicka/second. I have changed it so that other invisibility options are viable.
2. Quiet Casting: No longer affect shout. Does the dragonborn uses thundering shouts or whispers?
3. Muffle: 25% noise reduction (was 100%)
  
Modified Equipment

Some Items that were bugging me

1. Silver swords: Additional damage reduced from 20 to 10 pts.
With Unofficial Patch, silver swords are now temperable. The original additional damage was 20.

That was ok, considering bethesda did not want it to be tempered, the raw damage you could get with the silver sword against undead was 28. That is more than a dragonbone GREATsword. But now you can temper them, which would make additional 20 points overpowered against undead.
As in vanilla, these additional points get multiplied by perks and enchantments, but not weapon skills. To sum all up: In early game it still is the best option against undead, but at higher lvls it does not scale so well and can/should be switched by another weapon.

2. Dawnbreaker: Extra 10 fire damage against undead, Extra animation on hit against undead. Explosion damage raised from 25 to 50 pts of fire damage. Explosion will deal more damage when necromage perk is used. Desintegration added on hit also.

Having silver swords made dawnbreaker useless. Even nerfing silver sword made dawnbreaker to be on the same level as silver swords. Now, it is the best option against undead, since it was made for it and made by a daedra...or whatever Meridia is.

3. Dawnguard weapons: Deal 50% more damage against Vampires only (not any Undead).

Original additional damage was 5 points...5 points....f-i-v-e   p-o-i-n-t-s.... Now the faction that is focused
on killing VAMPIRES has the best weapons when dealing with them.

4. Dawnguard shield: Additional damage against vampires was 5 points but showed 10. Now it is 10.

5. Dawnguard warhammer: set to normal speed (was slower than other warhammers)

6. Windshear: No more stagger on hits. Normal bash attacks have 25% (was 60% +) to knock down targets. It also swings 20% faster
WHAT THE HELL WAS THIS THING?  

7. Miraak sword - Range changed to two handed weapons

8. Auriel Shield: Set to light armor.

Races

A small balance to some races. Your pyromancer can now kill dark elves and your criomancer can kill nords. They still have resistances but not the super 50%.
 
Resistances changed to all NPCs and player:

1. Breton: 10% magic

2. Nord: 20% frost

3. Dark Elf: 20% Magic

Powers changed:

1. Ancestor's wrath: 15 pts of damage

2. Wood Elf: Command animal is now Hunter's Focus: Your reflexes are sharpened for 20 seconds.
Meaning: +50% movespeed, +200% bow damage, +50% meelee attack speed, time slows for 50%
Now this race doesn't suck!

3. Orc Berserk: Added Destruction damage increase

Restoration 

Restoration has a cool concept about keeping undead at bay but poor execution. i've have changed most spells. Healing was nerfed because you could be almost dead and restore health to max in a few casts. Even warriors with a bit of points in restoration could do it. 
Spells are now much more fun to use, balanced and some have different effects:

***NOVICE***

1. Healing: Heal 5pts per second
2. Lesser ward: cost reduced 30%

***APPRENTICE**

1. Turn Lesser Undead: Turn Undead up to level 6 into your ally for 20 seconds. ^Cost increased^

2. Fast Healing: 200% health regen for 15 seconds (1% max life/sec). Respite adds 20% stamina regen.
Since warriors and rogues could acquire this very easily, it is now a heal per second that will reset duration if cast again. Dual cast will increase duration only. Now you need to build some strategy rather thanhealing your way to victory.
C'mon, there are a lot of alternatives in this game! Be creative! 

3. Healing Hands: 5pts per second

4. Necromantic Healing: 5pts per second

5. Steadfast ward: cost reduced 30%

***ADEPT***

1. Poison Rune: In addition to damage, Poison Rune decreased enemies armor rating (50 single, 110 dual cast).

2. Repel Lesser Undead: Makes undead up to level 8 flee and sets them on fire (1pts/sec).^Cost increased^
Not affected by augmented flames or resist fire (it's fire from restoration not destruction)

3. Turn Undead: Turn Undead up to level 13 into your ally for 20 seconds. ^Cost increased^

4. Stendarr's Aura: vanilla effect + Decrease undead stamina and magicka regeneration on contact.

5. Sun damage: Vanilla effect + Decrease undead stamina and magicka regeneration during burning effect.

6. Vampire' Bane: Vanilla effect + Decrease undead stamina and magicka regeneration during burning effect.
(When exposed to the sun, vampire's can't regenerate, so what happens if you bring the sun to them?)

7. Close Wounds: Heal 40 pts

8. Heal Other: Heal 40pts

9. Heal Undead: Heal 40pts

10. Greater Ward: Cost reduced 30%

***Expert***

Now before we continue, let me explain why I did what I did: If you build a restoration master, almost no undead is
a threat. However, after steamrolling a horde of draugr in a crypt, your character will not be able to kill a 
damn bandit thug with restoration nor keep it at least far from you. As restoration is a defensive skill tree, 
the next spell will now protect you...at least for a short amount of time.

1. Circle of PROTECTION: During 10 seconds, enemies that try to break the circle are staggered. Larger enemies are immune. Use this in case you get overwhelmed and shouts are in cooldown...and you have the magicka because the cost was increased (obviously).

2. Repel Undead: Makes undead up to level 8 flee and sets them on fire (3pts/sec).^Cost increased^
Not affected by augmented flames or resist fire (it's fire from restoration not destruction)

3. Turn Greater Undead: Turn Undead up to level 21 into your ally for 20 seconds.^Cost increased^

4. Grand Healing: Heal 100 pts in area

***Master***

1. Bane of the Undead: Fire damage increase to 320, vanilla game was 70. Undead are knocked back. Undead up to lvl 45 flee (was lvl 30). No longer affected by resist fire and augmented flames.

2. Guardian Circle: Heal unchanged. Circle pushes enemies back. Active for 20 seconds.

***Perks***

1. Ward absorb: increased to 33% absorbtion (was 25%).

(now) Restoration is a perfectly school of magic, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise!!

Shouts

Some were pretty overpowered, some had long recast time and some were useless, the majority are ok.

1. Aura Whisper: Decreased duration (5; 10; 20)

2. Battle Fury: Now works with Serana (it was a condition in creation kit to not work with undead characters...)

3. Become ethereal: + Different effects 
Fein +25% magicka regen  + 25% stamina regen
Zii +50% magicka regen  + 50% stamina regen
Gron +100% magicka regen + 100% stamina regen
Paarthunax Feim: +200% health regen while ethereal
Before, there was no point in using more than 1 word. Now you have the first restorative shout (yay!) and it's useful.

4. Dismay: Increased lvl affected (10; 20; 30) + Increased Recharge (40; 60; 100)
Increased Recharge so that you can't cast over and over again and keep the enemy contantly with fear.

5. Drain Vitality: Did you know that this also cancel stamina and magicka regen of the opponent during the drain? 
Yeah....no changes for it

6. Elemental Fury: Increased Recharge (40; 60; 90) + Decreased effect (15%; 30%; 50%) + Work with enchanted weapons
This was gamebreaking and you know it.

7. Fire Breath: Decreased duration (15; 25; 40)
The shout had really good damage but the recharge was simply too long, making it useless. Now it is a good shout! 
Breath fire like a dragon! 

8. Frost Breath: Decreased duration (20; 30; 50) + changed perk of Dragonborn DLC
The perk cast ice form for 15 seconds, but wait a minute...ice form is another shout! Why would you repeat the spell? So i've changed it to decrease attack speed (10%; 20%; 30%) for 15 seconds. Makes sense right? And it's still powerful. 

9: Marked for death: Increased recharge (30; 60; 90) + Decreased duration (20) + Different effects
Krii: damage unchanged, -50 armor, -10% elemental resistance
Lun: damage unchanged, -100 armor, -20% elemental resistance
Aus: damage unhanged, -200 armor. -40% elemental resistance
MARKED FOR DEATH MEANS YOU WANT IT DEAD NOT BLEEDING!!

10. Slow time: Increased Recharge (50; 70; 100) and no longer set to alteration.
One of the strongest shout had one of the lowest recharge in vanilla game... c'mon...

11. Whirwind sprint: Whirlwind shout: 1 word stagger humanoids, 2 words stagger giants and dragons, 3 words damages and pushes giants. Now this is a fun shout, and has its uses. It does not work while sprinting (the game can't activate the cloak while the whirwind sprint is active),only at start and arrival. 
It is better than the original though.

Vampiric Drain

Vanilla vampiric drain is 2pts per second in stage 1. in master difficulty it will cause 1 pt of damage per second
... ONE POINT PER SECOND!!!... GET READY ALDUIN! I JUST BECAME A VAMPIRE AND I'M GOING TO KILL YOU...NEXT YEAR!!! 
Increases the vampiric drain in human form to make it useful.

stage 1 - 8pts per second
stage 2 - 10pts per second
stage 3 - 12pts per second
stage 4- 15pts per second

it also boost the magnitude of the dawnguard buff that absorbs stamina and magicka by the same amount.
It may look like a huge unbalanced change, but it's not. In reality vanilla drain is unballanced weak.

Vampire Lord and Werewolf Balance

1. Werewolf no longer knock down with double swing (now heavy stagger opponents) and Vampire lord drain (missile) cost increased. Harkon deals more damage with his spells as well.

Weapon Passives

***Critical***

Critical now deal 5 times more damage in all perks, they differ in chance(%) to apply. Critical Charge doubles it,
Making it 10 times stronger. 
Math time: It is not as much as you think it is. Now, you have 10%->20% to hit 2.5 base damage as additional damage.
Example: A steel sword has base damage of 10. If it crits, it will deal 25 extra damage not modified by perks or enchantments. If you're using critical charge (running power attack), the extra damage will be 50. It is a nice engage now.
Just so you know:  "Great Critical Charge" and "Critical Charge" worked and still works wit all weapon types. It is not because warhammer can't crit that the Running power attack will not have bonus damage. The bonus damage of runing power attack WITH THIS MOD is equal to [BaseDamage x 5] regardless of weapon type.

**Bullseye**

Changed to Pincushion. Inspired by Dragon Age, arrows will now sunder enemies armor for 15 seconds, increasing phisical damage received by 5% per hit. This effect is cumulative.

***Bleeding***

Bleeding stack

 Iron Material (Max damage 9pts per hit)
1 perk: 2pts/1sec
2 perk: 2.5pts/2sec
3 perk: 3pts/3sec 
  
 Steel Material (Max damage 12pts per hit)
1 perk: 2pts/2sec
2 perk: 2.5pts/3sec
3 perk: 3pts/4sec

 Orcish Material (Max damage 12pts per hit)
1 perk: 2pts/2sec
2 perk: 2.5pts/3sec
3 perk: 3pts/4sec

 Dwarven Material (Max damage 15pts per hit)
1 perk: 2pts/3sec
2 perk: 2.5pts/4sec
3 perk: 3pts/5sec

 Elven Material (Max damage 15pts per hit)
1 perk: 2pts/3sec
2 perk: 2.5pts/4sec
3 perk: 3pts/5sec

 Glass Material (Max damage 18pts per hit)
1 perk: 2pts/4sec
2 perk: 2.5pts/5sec
3 perk: 3pts/6sec

 Ebony Material (Max damage 18pts per hit)
1 perk: 2pts/4sec
2 perk: 2.5pts/5sec
3 perk: 3pts/6sec

 Daedric Material (Max damage 21pts per hit)
1 perk: 2.5pts/4sec
2 perk: 35pts/5sec
3 perk: 3.5pts/6sec

 Dragonbone Material (Max damage 21pts per hit)
1 perk: 2.5pts/4sec
2 perk: 3pts/5sec
3 perk: 3.5pts/6sec

Also, bound battleaxe receive daedric bleeding bonus.

***Ignore Armor***

No longer ignore armor, instead power attacks deal 10%,20% or 30%, and have a 5% chance of stunning the target at level 3 when using maces or warhammers
Almost no NPC had enough armor rating to make the vanilla perk worth.

PLEASE, LET ME KNOW IF YOU FIND SOMETHING THAT IS NOT AS STATED ABOVE

As you can see, Warriors and mages got balanced but not Assassins. For Sneak balance I recomend this mod:
http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/23353/?

HAVE FUN!! :)