v2.1.0 is now released. This fixes a few bugs, tweaks a couple of perks, and rewrites the two handed perk adrenaline. It is safe to update from v2.0.x on an existing save.
Please post below any thoughts, questions or concerns. I try to maintain an active (and friendly) presence in the comments :-)
Thanks for your downloads, comments and endorsements.
Basically you are still a master of all by being able to refund the perk. It is still good because you can be good at everything.I wonder how it affects the elemental spells (flare, bolt and blast). The cc spells rely on the combined effect of the augmented elements. If I activate all of them, would their drawback cancel each other?
> Basically you are still a master of all by being able to refund the perk. I mean, sure. You can also use the console to give yourself all the perks you want, but I think both are clearly not in the spirit of the mod.
> I wonder how it affects the elemental spells (flare, bolt and blast). The cc spells rely on the combined effect of the augmented elements. If I activate all of them, would their drawback cancel each other? I'm not totally sure about this, because vanilla spells don't blend elements like the cc spells do, and the CK documentation is ambiguous. It depends on whether the "Mod Spell Magnitude" entry point uses the "EPMagicSpellHasKeyword" condition function to scale multiple magic effects within a single spell separately or as one. The documentation says:
"Affects the magnitude of spells and spell-like effects. Will affect all spells that utilize a Magic Effect with the specified keyword."
This makes me think all magic effects within a spell will be affected equally, and so those perks could cancel each other out. That said, the CK documentation is often unclear and misleading, so you should test it to be sure (I don't have CC content myself).
I see you reccomend Blade and Blunt. Do the stamina costs double up as stamina costs seem to be a bit too extreme when using both mods. I am also encoutnering an issue that when I deplete all stamina I gain crazy attack speed.
I find that the stamina costs are only excessive for bows and so I remove B&Bs for that (I have a patch to remove that on my mini-modlist Champion's Resolve). For melee weapons its fine.
Stamina depletion leading to crazy attack speed is not something I've heard of before, its likely something else in your load order, any thoughts what it might be?
Thanks I will be sure to use the patch. I wish I could give more info about the attack speed. porbably my end but I don't really have many gameplay mods. Didn't see anything in xedit but will try narrow it down. Could it be attackspeed framework and BnB?
I swapped to the Comprehensive Attackspeed SKSE mod and loaded Armourer later (despite not seeing anything in xedit) and fixed the weird attack speed issues. I do still find the stamina costs quite punishing early game but I assume that is intended? Am I supposed to be losing stamina when moving in heavy armour without perks?
Glad you fixed the attack speed issue. Yes, the stamina costs are supposed to be hard at first. When I play heavy armor characters I start wearing just a cuirass and don't wear more until I've taken a perk rank. That said, if you find it all too much, you can give yourself the conditioning perks through the MCM (just don't refund them because you'll get 5 free perk points!).
I like the mod and used the mod for several tens of hours. I had to make a tiny tweak to disable the effect for stimulant because it was very uncomfortable to look at. But other than that, I enjoyed this mod and the way it shook things things up and made my playthroughs interesting. Thanks!
I've been eyeing up this mod for a while, and I think I've come to some conclusions which might help others like me take the plunge into becoming (or rather, having the option to become) a Master of One.
While I'm a huge fan of your other work and approaches to balancing, I was hesitant to commit the effort of building a modlist around an overhaul I'm unsure of. I love the idea of more thoughtful "buildcraft" in Skyrim, but I also love playing hybrid builds like battlemages and spellswords - and my concern was that perk maluses might introduce railroading, tedium, or annoyance rather than meaningful decision-making.
Thankfully, an old post by delfofthebla (dated 31 Jan 2023) gave me some perspective which greatly reduced these concerns. This was the key realisation:
Because of the doubling nature of each perk's benefits (and downsides), it's very easy to simply drop 1-3 perks into everything that's good and stop there. Ironically, the best way to acquire power in Master of One is to become a Jack of All Trades.You can acquire a vast amount of power by doing this without experiencing any real downsides. Then for the very few perks that you actually do put 5/5 in, it's usually because the downside is completely irrelevant to your build.
One way of seeing this is as failing to translate intent into practice (i.e. failure to enforce significant tradeoffs in buildcraft). However, I see this as a positive - Master of One fails to enforce significant tradeoffs in buildcraft. The player is given choice! You can still make an effective character without purely dedicating to a set of perks/trees - but if you do, it opens up some really interesting consequences for build design. Want to do some hardcore roleplay or strict build enforcement? Better put on your thinking cap. Want to have a "simpler" time? Don't max out perks.
The fact that Master of One isn't draconian in its enforcement of maluses is a boon, not a blunder. Sometimes you just want to veg out and enjoy the world of Skyrim - but if you want to think some more, the option is right there, without having to modify your install any further.
Thanks for the post, and yes, this is exactly right. Master of One means you can't be a master of everything, not that you have to be a master of one thing, and you can certainly be a Jack of all Trades or hybrid build. I think you are right that this is a mental stumbling block for many potential users. The default mentality from vanilla is that if you want the first rank of a perk then you must also want/take the later ranks, but this is absolutely not true for Master of One. You will want the first rank or two of lots of perks, the third of a few, and the fourth and fifth of just a couple that are build critical.
So to summarize: Mastery of a single ability: YES, competence in multiple abilities: YES, mastery of multiple abilities: NO!
I do try to make this clear on the mod page:
The exponentially growing drawbacks mean that you will take only a few core perks to rank 5, creating more differences between builds. For instance, a pure cryomancer and a frost battlemage may both invest in frost spell perks, but while the cryomancer will likely take them to their maximum rank, the battlemage may stop at rank 2 or 3.
That said, I think it's apparent most people don't realize hybrid builds are fine. I wonder if I should explicitly add something like this:
Hybrid builds remain viable and powerful. Many perks across trees complement each other. Even where perks risk cancelling each other out, taking them to only rank 2 or 3 yields major benefits with only minor drawbacks. Thus hybrid builds may not master their skills by taking perks to rank 5, but they are nonetheless powerful and versatile with a range of perks at rank 2-4. At the extreme, taking every perk but only to rank 1 let's you be a highly effective jack-of-all-trades.
I think that sort of addition would be great. Also, while I recognise that this would be a lot of work, I think it would be best illustrated with some simple examples of perk choices for hybrid builds - particularly ones that people (myself included) might assume are discouraged by Master of One's design.
For context, here's my view on skill choices and buildcraft in Skyrim:
Spoiler:
Show
Some skills can fulfil multiple roles (e.g. Illusion helps supplement & mitigate damage, and Alchemy is a one-man army), while others can't individually fulfil a role (e.g. Pickpocket is useless without one of Sneak/Illusion/Alchemy). That being said, generally speaking (e.g. ignoring degenerate crafting grind), I see effective classes as needing five things:
► Damage output (e.g. One-handed, Two-handed, Archery, Destruction, Conjuration) Archery-based classes don't really need anything other than Major Archery. Melee-based classes take a Major in One/Two-handed - but if they're not particularly tanky, they'll probably need Minor Archery or a Major magic skill to help close the gap. Finally, classes with magic-based damage usually take both Destruction & Conjuration, either as Major/Minor or both Majors.
► Passive damage mitigation (e.g. Light Armor, Heavy Armor, Alteration) Every class should have at least a Minor in one of these - and if using Alteration as your main defence, it's probably a Major.
► Active damage mitigation (e.g. Block, Sneak, Restoration, Illusion) If you have a passive mitigation Major, you'll likely want an active mitigation Minor, and vice versa. Furthermore, if you're going to use Sneak, it's probably going to be a Major - unless Illusion is already a Major, in which case Minor Sneak is fine.
► Support (e.g. Smithing, Enchanting, Alchemy) Generally speaking, you always need at least a Minor in one of these skills if you want to actually get stronger in any meaningful way - but if you're going to use Alchemy a lot, it's probably going to be your Major.
► Economy (e.g. Speech, Lockpicking, Pickpocket) Outside of very specific situations (e.g. with mods that make Speech more of a leadership skill), these skills are almost always relegated to Minors. Most builds economically benefit from taking Speech or Lockpicking, but only builds with any of Sneak/Illusion/Alchemy will find Pickpocket useful.
Based on the above, and again ignoring degenerate cases (e.g. Sneak Archery, or grinding Alchemy/Smithing/Enchanting), we have the following likely ranges for number of Majors/Minors per class: • 3-4 likely Majors: 1-2x Damage output, 1x Active/Passive damage mitigation, 1x Support • 4-6 likely Minors: 1x Damage output, 1x Active/Passive damage mitigation, 1-2x Support, 1-2x Economy
With that out of the way - and in far more detail than I think is needed for the description - for example: My favourite playstyle is a mix of Morrowind's Crusader and Battlemage classes. Something like One-Handed/Conjuration/Heavy Armour for Major skills, and Restoration/Destruction/Block/Enchanting/Smithing for Minor skills. Looking at Master of One, I was (and still somewhat am) concerned that this playstyle would be difficult in an unfun way:
Warrior skill maluses could make spells expensive to the point of having to pick between conjuring or healing* in any given encounter - or, even worse, almost nullifying Destruction as a ranged option because I wouldn't have enough casts of my already-weakened spells to meaningfully harm anything. Moreover, Oblivion binding and Blood binding maluses would make bound weapons useless against automata, which couldn't be overcome with Destruction due to the aforementioned Warrior maluses.
*
Spoiler:
Show
I know I could heal with potions, but I find potion-reliance to be a hugely unengaging part of Elder Scrolls gameplay in general. The only time potions don't feel like cheating to me is when their effects apply over time, and menus are unpaused, and they have usage animations which severely limit your movement. Think of Dark Souls' estus flasks.
So, to actually get back to my point, I think maybe two simple examples of perk choices for assumedly disadvantaged playstyles would be great for assuaging these concerns.
Thanks, this helps. I think your build process makes sense, though 4-6 minor skills is a lot (unless you really mean *minor*, as in some of those skills get almost 0 investment). Okay, as an exercise (and bearing in mind I'm not 100% clear on the details of your crusader) here's how I'd spec it out:
tjhm4's suggestion for CovenantTurtle's Crusader-Battlemage
Primary skills:
One-handed Conditioning: 3/5 for 90% stamina reduction without excessive spell casting cost Specialist: 5/5 for which ever weapon you want adept/expert/master perks: optional, up to you. Spellsword seems like an obvious one if you're going to use some destruction, especially cloaks.
Conjuration Conduit: 2/5, you aren't going to be spamming these spells, so a 40% reduction is probably fine. Oblivion/Blood binding: pick one, use it to overcome the limitations of whatever non-bound 1h weapon you are using. Necromany/atromancy: Having a bulky summon would really help keep pressure off and give you plenty of time to regen magicka/stamina. Frost atronachs would be good, but undeath would help minions too.
Heavy armor Conditioning: If you want to do lots of power attacks you'll need this to rank 5, otherwise rank 3 is fine. If stopping at rank 3 you'll definitely want summons/minions to give you breathing room. The spell magnitude debuff will reduce the duration on your conjuration spells, but that's not too bad. I think you could invest a lot in this tree. Max out your defenses and get super tanky. Expecially juggernaut and the adept perks. You'll want to decide if you go all in and wear a full set (in which case you can take well fitted and matching set), or go emphasize spell casting and go helmetless for battlemage. Given you are mostly using melee weapons I'd go full tank, but either way is fine.
Secondary skills:
Restoration: If you are investing a lot in heavy armor, you don't actually need much here. Maybe just a couple of ranks of conduit and regeneration. Smite might be fun, but it's kinda advanced for a secondary skill. Meditation and respite will be useful depending on whether you find yourself runniong out of magicka or stamina.
Destruction: I'd focus on cloaks to get the most out of spellsword. So a couple of ranks of conduit and a couple in the bull and fortress perks too. The elemental master perks would be good, but are also perhaps too advanced for a secondary skill.
Block: Given you are already tanky and can heal yourself, I'm not sure how much you need this. Though if you go the battlemage way it will be more useful, but then its almost a primary skill.
Enchanting: Go the armor route.
Smithing: Again, go the heavy armor route.
Summary In combat your spellcasting mostly alternates between keeping up summons and cloaks. You close in on targets for magically-infused melee combat. You either use ultra heavy armor to tank hits, or you use a mix of some heavy armor, blocking and restoration to stay alive. Your weapon of choice is a mace/sword/axe, but you switch to bound weapons for some enemies. You need to time your aggression to avoid depleting stamina or magicka, sallying and fallingback as necessary. Summons give you some breathing room, cloaks max your dps.
This sounds excellent, and you were bang on with the assumption that Minor really does mean minor in some cases. For instance, Enchanting & Smithing are used just enough to maintain a decent pace of gear progression, and Block is chiefly for bashing and also defending against dragons (which, I might add, I'm still yet to ever be happy with the balance of; I'd love to hear your thoughts on the matter). Your use of cloak spells is interesting, and something I've never really played around with before - so thanks for that insight. Regarding damage mitigation, Restoration tends to be my main skill due to also replenishing stamina for power attacks and bashes (and also being more mechanically engaging than just tanking, or chugging potions) - but in retrospect, you're right that Heavy Armour is probably more appropriate.
Great, glad it was useful. I've been thinking about it a bit more and I wonder if making a hybrid class whose primary offense and defense skills are both warrior skills (1h and heavy armor) risks pushing your character into a de facto warrior with just a bit of magic. Which is fine, but that's something that Master of One probably does penalize a bit - is it really worth holding back investment in your core skills to benefit support skills that you really don't use that much. The result is that 50/50 hybrids are easier to manage than 75/25 hybrids. In your case, you might get more out of Master of One if you dropped one of 1h or heavy armor. For instance, drop one handed and rely instead on a mix of summons, bound weapons, and destruction (touch spells from mysticism would go great), this character needs more magicka than stamina. Or drop heavy armor and rely on block, restoration and maybe alteration for defense, this character needs stamina more than magicka. I guess this is just to say there are some more magically oriented builds that are nonetheless close to yours.
Oh, and as for dragons, I agree that there are not great options out there. To be honest I've ended up just using the releveler to set their level really high and the stat rescaler to avoid health bloat. This makes them super dangerous, but not damage sponges. You can't take them solo until the very late game, but a team of 10-20 guards with suitable ranged weapons can probably take one down.
I think I prefer your suggestion of focusing on Restoration and Block over Heavy Armour; it sounds much more engaging in terms of gameplay. Honestly, the best defence is simply not getting hit in the first place, and the main reason I prefer Heavy Armour is because I always seem to find good enchantments on said pieces.
EDIT: Actually, I just found a new mod which might solve this issue in one fell swoop - Perfectly Valid Wards. If this works the way I think it does, then I can prioritise magicka while still being able to mitigate damage and restore stamina.
If I wanted to make a tweak to your mod for a sort of reverse progression (where the debuffs from progressing further into a perk starts larger and gradually decreases instead), would this be as simple as tweaking the global values you have included in your mod? I've only briefly looked at the esp in xEdit so if that's not the case would there be another way to easily accomplish this for all perks?
That could be done, but it would be far more work than tweaking the global variables. You would essentially need to edit all the perks in the mod (there are more than 1000). For most it would simply be swapping numbers, but in about 250 of them you'd need to do some more significant reworking. So yeah, do-able, but lots of work I'm afraid.
Alright cool thank you. Should have figured that would be the case lol. If you don't mind my asking, what is it about those 250 or so that require something extra?
Most of the 250 are the first perk rank for each perk, that gives a buff, but no debuff. As such, you'd need to add the debuff to them which, depending on the perk, can be quite a bit of work. On top of this there are a few perks that do sufficiently complicated things, or interact with complex vanilla systems, that there's more to it and just changing numbers.
Ah okay gotcha and thank you. That does sound complicated so I don't think I'll attempt it as I wouldn't want to risk potential bugs or inconsistencies. I appreciate the time answering my questions and I'll also add that if you ever feel like undertaking the reverse progression idea yourself sometime I know I'd really enjoy that and I imagine alongside your own it could be an interesting take on skyrim's progression In any case, I appreciate your work and think I might still try this one out even if it doesn't completely fit my vision .
Hey tjhm4 Hope all is fine. In my playthrough, I suddenly don't have the ability to craft Silver Rings, Gold Rings and Jewelry in the Anvil or Forge. I wonder if those are hidden behind a perk? I gave myself "nordic smithing," but i still don't see them? Do you know if a perk is needed for this?
Let me look into this. Jewelry crafting is hidden within the steel smithing perk in vanilla. I probably forgot to add this feature to MoO's perks. You can give yourself the steel smithing perk via the console if you want, that should unlock jewelry crafting.
Okay so as per the description, the Nordic Smithing perk is for Steel. Nordic Smithing - Can create steel, scaled, bonemold, nordic and plate armor and weapons, and improve them 10/20/30/40/50% more, but armor and weapons made with other materials 0/3/6/12/25% less.
I did the player.addperk "nordic smithing id" and still dont see those options. So there are 5 levels. Do I have to give all of them?
Hello and thank you for your very good mod! I have a question about the heavy armor and stamina. Does the stamina penalty stop at some point, or do I need a certain perk? (Translated with DEEPL)
Thanks for the kind words! To reduce the stamina cost you need this perk:
Heavy armor conditioning - Running while drains 50/75/90/95/100% less stamina (1 per piece per second by default) but spells are 0/5/10/15/20% less effective.
At the top rank the stamina cost is removed entirely.
I couldnt find any informations about which Skyrim version this mod uses. A modpack which I plan to use (Eldergleam) downgrades my skyrim to 1.5.97 si Im wondering if this mod is still compatable with it.
Making another post so as to not clog up the previous one. I haven't tested this yet but does 'Land of Riches' behave like the vanilla 'Investor' perk in the sense that it also expands merchants' inventories? Because I feel like I'm missing a big chunk of items and that effect was quite nice in vanilla
It's ages since I've dug into this perk, but from a quick look at the files it looks like it hooks into the vanilla system for Master Trader. That said, I don't think the vanilla master trader or investor perks expand merchant inventories. The vanilla "merchant" perk does do this a bit, but mostly as a bug.
1059 comments
Please post below any thoughts, questions or concerns. I try to maintain an active (and friendly) presence in the comments :-)
Thanks for your downloads, comments and endorsements.
I mean, sure. You can also use the console to give yourself all the perks you want, but I think both are clearly not in the spirit of the mod.
> I wonder how it affects the elemental spells (flare, bolt and blast). The cc spells rely on the combined effect of the augmented elements. If I activate all of them, would their drawback cancel each other?
I'm not totally sure about this, because vanilla spells don't blend elements like the cc spells do, and the CK documentation is ambiguous. It depends on whether the "Mod Spell Magnitude" entry point uses the "EPMagicSpellHasKeyword" condition function to scale multiple magic effects within a single spell separately or as one. The documentation says:
"Affects the magnitude of spells and spell-like effects. Will affect all spells that utilize a Magic Effect with the specified keyword."
This makes me think all magic effects within a spell will be affected equally, and so those perks could cancel each other out. That said, the CK documentation is often unclear and misleading, so you should test it to be sure (I don't have CC content myself).
Stamina depletion leading to crazy attack speed is not something I've heard of before, its likely something else in your load order, any thoughts what it might be?
I've been eyeing up this mod for a while, and I think I've come to some conclusions which might help others like me take the plunge into becoming (or rather, having the option to become) a Master of One.
While I'm a huge fan of your other work and approaches to balancing, I was hesitant to commit the effort of building a modlist around an overhaul I'm unsure of. I love the idea of more thoughtful "buildcraft" in Skyrim, but I also love playing hybrid builds like battlemages and spellswords - and my concern was that perk maluses might introduce railroading, tedium, or annoyance rather than meaningful decision-making.
Thankfully, an old post by delfofthebla (dated 31 Jan 2023) gave me some perspective which greatly reduced these concerns. This was the key realisation:
One way of seeing this is as failing to translate intent into practice (i.e. failure to enforce significant tradeoffs in buildcraft). However, I see this as a positive - Master of One fails to enforce significant tradeoffs in buildcraft. The player is given choice! You can still make an effective character without purely dedicating to a set of perks/trees - but if you do, it opens up some really interesting consequences for build design. Want to do some hardcore roleplay or strict build enforcement? Better put on your thinking cap. Want to have a "simpler" time? Don't max out perks.
The fact that Master of One isn't draconian in its enforcement of maluses is a boon, not a blunder. Sometimes you just want to veg out and enjoy the world of Skyrim - but if you want to think some more, the option is right there, without having to modify your install any further.
Thanks for the post, and yes, this is exactly right. Master of One means you can't be a master of everything, not that you have to be a master of one thing, and you can certainly be a Jack of all Trades or hybrid build. I think you are right that this is a mental stumbling block for many potential users. The default mentality from vanilla is that if you want the first rank of a perk then you must also want/take the later ranks, but this is absolutely not true for Master of One. You will want the first rank or two of lots of perks, the third of a few, and the fourth and fifth of just a couple that are build critical.
So to summarize: Mastery of a single ability: YES, competence in multiple abilities: YES, mastery of multiple abilities: NO!
I do try to make this clear on the mod page:
That said, I think it's apparent most people don't realize hybrid builds are fine. I wonder if I should explicitly add something like this:
What do you think?
For context, here's my view on skill choices and buildcraft in Skyrim:
► Damage output (e.g. One-handed, Two-handed, Archery, Destruction, Conjuration)
Archery-based classes don't really need anything other than Major Archery. Melee-based classes take a Major in One/Two-handed - but if they're not particularly tanky, they'll probably need Minor Archery or a Major magic skill to help close the gap. Finally, classes with magic-based damage usually take both Destruction & Conjuration, either as Major/Minor or both Majors.
► Passive damage mitigation (e.g. Light Armor, Heavy Armor, Alteration)
Every class should have at least a Minor in one of these - and if using Alteration as your main defence, it's probably a Major.
► Active damage mitigation (e.g. Block, Sneak, Restoration, Illusion)
If you have a passive mitigation Major, you'll likely want an active mitigation Minor, and vice versa. Furthermore, if you're going to use Sneak, it's probably going to be a Major - unless Illusion is already a Major, in which case Minor Sneak is fine.
► Support (e.g. Smithing, Enchanting, Alchemy)
Generally speaking, you always need at least a Minor in one of these skills if you want to actually get stronger in any meaningful way - but if you're going to use Alchemy a lot, it's probably going to be your Major.
► Economy (e.g. Speech, Lockpicking, Pickpocket)
Outside of very specific situations (e.g. with mods that make Speech more of a leadership skill), these skills are almost always relegated to Minors. Most builds economically benefit from taking Speech or Lockpicking, but only builds with any of Sneak/Illusion/Alchemy will find Pickpocket useful.
Based on the above, and again ignoring degenerate cases (e.g. Sneak Archery, or grinding Alchemy/Smithing/Enchanting), we have the following likely ranges for number of Majors/Minors per class:
• 3-4 likely Majors: 1-2x Damage output, 1x Active/Passive damage mitigation, 1x Support
• 4-6 likely Minors: 1x Damage output, 1x Active/Passive damage mitigation, 1-2x Support, 1-2x Economy
With that out of the way - and in far more detail than I think is needed for the description - for example: My favourite playstyle is a mix of Morrowind's Crusader and Battlemage classes. Something like One-Handed/Conjuration/Heavy Armour for Major skills, and Restoration/Destruction/Block/Enchanting/Smithing for Minor skills. Looking at Master of One, I was (and still somewhat am) concerned that this playstyle would be difficult in an unfun way:
Warrior skill maluses could make spells expensive to the point of having to pick between conjuring or healing* in any given encounter - or, even worse, almost nullifying Destruction as a ranged option because I wouldn't have enough casts of my already-weakened spells to meaningfully harm anything. Moreover, Oblivion binding and Blood binding maluses would make bound weapons useless against automata, which couldn't be overcome with Destruction due to the aforementioned Warrior maluses.
*
So, to actually get back to my point, I think maybe two simple examples of perk choices for assumedly disadvantaged playstyles would be great for assuaging these concerns.
tjhm4's suggestion for CovenantTurtle's Crusader-Battlemage
Primary skills:
One-handed
Conditioning: 3/5 for 90% stamina reduction without excessive spell casting cost
Specialist: 5/5 for which ever weapon you want
adept/expert/master perks: optional, up to you. Spellsword seems like an obvious one if you're going to use some destruction, especially cloaks.
Conjuration
Conduit: 2/5, you aren't going to be spamming these spells, so a 40% reduction is probably fine.
Oblivion/Blood binding: pick one, use it to overcome the limitations of whatever non-bound 1h weapon you are using.
Necromany/atromancy: Having a bulky summon would really help keep pressure off and give you plenty of time to regen magicka/stamina. Frost atronachs would be good, but undeath would help minions too.
Heavy armor
Conditioning: If you want to do lots of power attacks you'll need this to rank 5, otherwise rank 3 is fine. If stopping at rank 3 you'll definitely want summons/minions to give you breathing room. The spell magnitude debuff will reduce the duration on your conjuration spells, but that's not too bad.
I think you could invest a lot in this tree. Max out your defenses and get super tanky. Expecially juggernaut and the adept perks. You'll want to decide if you go all in and wear a full set (in which case you can take well fitted and matching set), or go emphasize spell casting and go helmetless for battlemage. Given you are mostly using melee weapons I'd go full tank, but either way is fine.
Secondary skills:
Restoration:
If you are investing a lot in heavy armor, you don't actually need much here. Maybe just a couple of ranks of conduit and regeneration. Smite might be fun, but it's kinda advanced for a secondary skill. Meditation and respite will be useful depending on whether you find yourself runniong out of magicka or stamina.
Destruction:
I'd focus on cloaks to get the most out of spellsword. So a couple of ranks of conduit and a couple in the bull and fortress perks too. The elemental master perks would be good, but are also perhaps too advanced for a secondary skill.
Block:
Given you are already tanky and can heal yourself, I'm not sure how much you need this. Though if you go the battlemage way it will be more useful, but then its almost a primary skill.
Enchanting:
Go the armor route.
Smithing:
Again, go the heavy armor route.
Summary
In combat your spellcasting mostly alternates between keeping up summons and cloaks. You close in on targets for magically-infused melee combat. You either use ultra heavy armor to tank hits, or you use a mix of some heavy armor, blocking and restoration to stay alive. Your weapon of choice is a mace/sword/axe, but you switch to bound weapons for some enemies. You need to time your aggression to avoid depleting stamina or magicka, sallying and fallingback as necessary. Summons give you some breathing room, cloaks max your dps.
What do you think?
Thanks for your insights, especially so promptly.
Oh, and as for dragons, I agree that there are not great options out there. To be honest I've ended up just using the releveler to set their level really high and the stat rescaler to avoid health bloat. This makes them super dangerous, but not damage sponges. You can't take them solo until the very late game, but a team of 10-20 guards with suitable ranged weapons can probably take one down.
EDIT: Actually, I just found a new mod which might solve this issue in one fell swoop - Perfectly Valid Wards. If this works the way I think it does, then I can prioritise magicka while still being able to mitigate damage and restore stamina.
If I wanted to make a tweak to your mod for a sort of reverse progression (where the debuffs from progressing further into a perk starts larger and gradually decreases instead), would this be as simple as tweaking the global values you have included in your mod? I've only briefly looked at the esp in xEdit so if that's not the case would there be another way to easily accomplish this for all perks?
Hope all is fine. In my playthrough, I suddenly don't have the ability to craft Silver Rings, Gold Rings and Jewelry in the Anvil or Forge.
I wonder if those are hidden behind a perk?
I gave myself "nordic smithing," but i still don't see them?
Do you know if a perk is needed for this?
Nordic Smithing - Can create steel, scaled, bonemold, nordic and plate armor and weapons, and improve them 10/20/30/40/50% more, but armor and weapons made with other materials 0/3/6/12/25% less.
I did the player.addperk "nordic smithing id" and still dont see those options.
So there are 5 levels. Do I have to give all of them?
I added the perk and still dont see it in the Rings in Anvil or Forge.
Do we have to give any other Master of One smithing perk to getit?
I will check. It could be Honed Metal.
I have a question about the heavy armor and stamina. Does the stamina penalty stop at some point, or do I need a certain perk? (Translated with DEEPL)
Heavy armor conditioning - Running while drains 50/75/90/95/100% less stamina (1 per piece per second by default) but spells are 0/5/10/15/20% less effective.
At the top rank the stamina cost is removed entirely.
Cheers
I couldnt find any informations about which Skyrim version this mod uses. A modpack which I plan to use (Eldergleam) downgrades my skyrim to 1.5.97 si Im wondering if this mod is still compatable with it.