Mad respect for saying efficient leveling is a waste of time. Every single Oblivion retrospective has me malding because they talk about how it's 'necessary' to complete the game and that just wouldn't be the case if they used better skills or understood the game mechanics better. The only skill that really benefits from it anyway is Endurance since it doesn't retroactively give you more hitpoints. Not to mention efficient leveling ruins all of the +attribute gear in the game, too. I also respect that you say making something a major skill matters for the leveling speed and not whether or not it is an efficient leveling tool or not. That said, I would have ranked Conjuration a little higher. Summons help remove aggro from you, improving most playstyles. Being able to level it more quickly means you can have stronger summons faster since getting good summoning spells is entirely gated by your skill level, and leveling faster allows you to have the magicka necessary to cast the better spells. You just have to make sure not to over-cast it so that your other skills don't fall too far behind, at least in my experience.
You’re probably right about conjuration. For me specifically I’m terrible so I always hit my own summons, but it’s probably higher than D for most players
@theoldknight85 I think another consideration is that as far as I know, summons aren't affected by difficulty, meaning their value as extra temporary HP (great if they also do damage of course) is amplified in such scenarios. As a major it is also a consistent source of raising intelligence although as you said, it levels so quickly that you may as well just use it as a side skill anyway :) but yeah I think it's a great skill overall
@@theoldknight85 Conjuration only hits its stride at Expert level. Frost Atronach is extremely durable with its high HP and Restore Health spell, Clannfear just does a truckload of damage You can summon a tough creature AND Command a tough enemy to trivialize a group fight
Oblivion's leveling system is bad. You can work around it if you know what you're doing, but that doesn't make it not bad. Final Fantasy II, a game from _1988_ did "learn by doing" character growth better. I am dead serious and will explain if you want.
@@rdrrr I think the game is imbalanced with a lot of trap choices (like many older RPGs) but the system is absolutely fine, it's not nearly as bad as everyone makes it out to be and again the issue is more in how a lot of people don't use magic or enchanted items, not that the leveling system is bad. There is much more to an RPG than its leveling system, that is only one part of the equation alongside gear, abilities, synergies, etc. The math works out that you absolutely do not need to efficiently level to not only win but absolutely trash Oblivion provided you experiment to learn what works and what doesn't. Instead what happens is that most players run into a wall when they reach level 8-10, don't try to find clever ways around it, and then blame the leveling system. I'm quite familiar with FF2's leveling system. It's far less interesting since your only options are raising attack skills or magic skills, and one of the most efficient ways to level your party is attacking your own party members. Not the only way, mind you, but it is a viable strategy. FF2 also has the issue that playing the game naked is the best way to play, as it will raise your characters' agility stat so they dodge every attack and act first in combat against most enemies. And since they take more damage, their HP goes up faster. FF2 was a great concept but is fundamentally broken, unlike Oblivion where even if you fuck up your leveling there are strategies and concepts you can use to overcome the game's challenges.
Haha I love armorer, but this is a tier list for what to pick as major skills. It is reasonable to pick it as a minor skill, and to level it up from 5 to give you +5 endurance each level. I put it at S because it’s super inconvenient to need to go to town to repair magical equipment.
in a tierlist creating a tier above s is stupid. S is already supposed to be the top. there is no space for more than 1 S tier choice. Anyone who doesn't realise this is making stupid lists. so yes armorer is S tier. It is the defacto best choice as a major skill. The only unambiguous one.
I always go Armorer and Acrobatics major skills in almost every build. Going armorer major allows you to get journeyman sooner, thus repairing enchanted weapons and armor, if you can get it by lvl10 its a big power spike with azuras star you can infinitely use enchanted weapons and armor. Also acrobatics helps with combat especially early game, especially with squishy builds that youre going to want to be able to jump and attack at the same time, its pretty useful in general to be able to jump and attack.
Axes use similar techniques to maces as they are both top heavy and are designed to use brute force to kill. Axes also have a thicker blade than a sword which means getting a good cut much easier than with a sword that requires you to cut precisely. Axes and mace lack the control that swords have. Swords lack the penatration which ment a swordsman would have to attack between gaps in armor It honestly makes alot of sense as it is a skill rather than a attribute of the weapons themselves and they clearly wanted to reduce the amount of skills.
honestly these break down videos make me realise how broken oblivions leveling is, while i love oblivion it's just too mathematical to level properly, it should work out naturally as in you use blade to get better at blade and leveling that way is efficient, using other skills to level better even though you don't want to use it may be the better way but it ruins the game experience imo. skyrim atleast did this a lot better, atleast you can just use what skills you like and leveling them allows them to be more powerful through their level and perks. i actually think skyrim really hit the nail on the head with leveling and skills, i also sorta like morrowinds system even though i don't know it very well it seems as though just selecting major and minor skills are ones you want to start off better with but also contribute to leveling faster, which im sure matters in efficient leveling too so i could be completely wrong anyway. skyrim isn't perfect but atleast the leveling system with skills is a lot simpler and more natural because this isn't natural at all to me.
It's a fundamentally broken system. You can't play the game, the game plays you. Absolutely definitely mod it out so you can enjoy the stuff Oblivion does right, like it's great quest writing
morrowind levelling is just like oblivion, but without endless scaling enemies. pick that skills you want to use, use them to level up, you get attribute increases based on which skills you increased this level. every so often a new enemy type is introduced, but with enough extra levels you can kill them just as easily as a mudcrab.
Another thing about lockpicking. If you do the minigame theres a trick to it, and you get to a point that you outright can't lose it, no matter your skill.
You just have to learn the difference between the two sound effects when you hit the tumbler If you hear the shorter, higher-pitched sound effect ("tick") then the tumbler will stay in place if you click LMB. If you hear the longer, lower-pitched sound effect ("tchunk") you will break your lockpick. It's not easy to explain but it's easy to figure out through gameplay. You can pick any lock in the game at 5 Security easily once you've got the hang of it
agree with most stuff. Blunt vs Blade is more complicated than aesthethic choice, warhammers are inherently superior at power attacks while long swords and daggers are best at normal attacks so pick based on your playstyle. Blunt also have the only melee weapon with paralyze inherently on it. Robed mage is a real build, a full suit of armor is roughly always to avilable protection spell but protection spell will never cut your spell power, and spell power is a big deal seeing how oblivion always rounds down, a battlemage type guy should wear armor tho. Late game clotches are better thought due to preenchanted items just being better.
@@testingheyo5087 yeah i saw it once, imo much better weapon than the usual weakness stacking weapons- still a Warhammer is the only paralyze weapon you are guranteed to get, which comes quite usefull for stuff like warlock dungeons to just rush paralyze pickpocket everyone
I rewatched this and noticed I misspoke. Major skills don’t level 40% faster, they level 66% faster because they require 40% less experience.
This man knows his oblivions
I really appreciate how you level up naturally and not efficiently.
Mad respect for saying efficient leveling is a waste of time. Every single Oblivion retrospective has me malding because they talk about how it's 'necessary' to complete the game and that just wouldn't be the case if they used better skills or understood the game mechanics better. The only skill that really benefits from it anyway is Endurance since it doesn't retroactively give you more hitpoints. Not to mention efficient leveling ruins all of the +attribute gear in the game, too. I also respect that you say making something a major skill matters for the leveling speed and not whether or not it is an efficient leveling tool or not.
That said, I would have ranked Conjuration a little higher. Summons help remove aggro from you, improving most playstyles. Being able to level it more quickly means you can have stronger summons faster since getting good summoning spells is entirely gated by your skill level, and leveling faster allows you to have the magicka necessary to cast the better spells. You just have to make sure not to over-cast it so that your other skills don't fall too far behind, at least in my experience.
You’re probably right about conjuration. For me specifically I’m terrible so I always hit my own summons, but it’s probably higher than D for most players
@theoldknight85 I think another consideration is that as far as I know, summons aren't affected by difficulty, meaning their value as extra temporary HP (great if they also do damage of course) is amplified in such scenarios. As a major it is also a consistent source of raising intelligence although as you said, it levels so quickly that you may as well just use it as a side skill anyway :) but yeah I think it's a great skill overall
@@theoldknight85 Conjuration only hits its stride at Expert level. Frost Atronach is extremely durable with its high HP and Restore Health spell, Clannfear just does a truckload of damage
You can summon a tough creature AND Command a tough enemy to trivialize a group fight
Oblivion's leveling system is bad. You can work around it if you know what you're doing, but that doesn't make it not bad. Final Fantasy II, a game from _1988_ did "learn by doing" character growth better. I am dead serious and will explain if you want.
@@rdrrr I think the game is imbalanced with a lot of trap choices (like many older RPGs) but the system is absolutely fine, it's not nearly as bad as everyone makes it out to be and again the issue is more in how a lot of people don't use magic or enchanted items, not that the leveling system is bad. There is much more to an RPG than its leveling system, that is only one part of the equation alongside gear, abilities, synergies, etc. The math works out that you absolutely do not need to efficiently level to not only win but absolutely trash Oblivion provided you experiment to learn what works and what doesn't. Instead what happens is that most players run into a wall when they reach level 8-10, don't try to find clever ways around it, and then blame the leveling system.
I'm quite familiar with FF2's leveling system. It's far less interesting since your only options are raising attack skills or magic skills, and one of the most efficient ways to level your party is attacking your own party members. Not the only way, mind you, but it is a viable strategy. FF2 also has the issue that playing the game naked is the best way to play, as it will raise your characters' agility stat so they dodge every attack and act first in combat against most enemies. And since they take more damage, their HP goes up faster. FF2 was a great concept but is fundamentally broken, unlike Oblivion where even if you fuck up your leveling there are strategies and concepts you can use to overcome the game's challenges.
Replaying oblivion as a orc and love this video. Good job
You underrated Armorer. It deserves to be above S tier because it also contributes to Endurance which needs to be leveled up early game
Haha I love armorer, but this is a tier list for what to pick as major skills. It is reasonable to pick it as a minor skill, and to level it up from 5 to give you +5 endurance each level.
I put it at S because it’s super inconvenient to need to go to town to repair magical equipment.
in a tierlist creating a tier above s is stupid.
S is already supposed to be the top. there is no space for more than 1 S tier choice.
Anyone who doesn't realise this is making stupid lists.
so yes armorer is S tier. It is the defacto best choice as a major skill. The only unambiguous one.
@@keinkanal7382 r\whooosh
I always go Armorer and Acrobatics major skills in almost every build. Going armorer major allows you to get journeyman sooner, thus repairing enchanted weapons and armor, if you can get it by lvl10 its a big power spike with azuras star you can infinitely use enchanted weapons and armor. Also acrobatics helps with combat especially early game, especially with squishy builds that youre going to want to be able to jump and attack at the same time, its pretty useful in general to be able to jump and attack.
Great Video, new Sub 🔥
After playing a few hours of the Bethesda remaster I can confirm this is accurate 😂
Blessings of Stendarr upon ye
i wish axe was its own skill like it is in morrowind. i don’t get why axes are under blunt. they are by definition a bladed weapon lol.
Axes use similar techniques to maces as they are both top heavy and are designed to use brute force to kill. Axes also have a thicker blade than a sword which means getting a good cut much easier than with a sword that requires you to cut precisely. Axes and mace lack the control that swords have. Swords lack the penatration which ment a swordsman would have to attack between gaps in armor It honestly makes alot of sense as it is a skill rather than a attribute of the weapons themselves and they clearly wanted to reduce the amount of skills.
honestly these break down videos make me realise how broken oblivions leveling is, while i love oblivion it's just too mathematical to level properly, it should work out naturally as in you use blade to get better at blade and leveling that way is efficient, using other skills to level better even though you don't want to use it may be the better way but it ruins the game experience imo. skyrim atleast did this a lot better, atleast you can just use what skills you like and leveling them allows them to be more powerful through their level and perks. i actually think skyrim really hit the nail on the head with leveling and skills, i also sorta like morrowinds system even though i don't know it very well it seems as though just selecting major and minor skills are ones you want to start off better with but also contribute to leveling faster, which im sure matters in efficient leveling too so i could be completely wrong anyway. skyrim isn't perfect but atleast the leveling system with skills is a lot simpler and more natural because this isn't natural at all to me.
It's a fundamentally broken system. You can't play the game, the game plays you. Absolutely definitely mod it out so you can enjoy the stuff Oblivion does right, like it's great quest writing
morrowind levelling is just like oblivion, but without endless scaling enemies. pick that skills you want to use, use them to level up, you get attribute increases based on which skills you increased this level. every so often a new enemy type is introduced, but with enough extra levels you can kill them just as easily as a mudcrab.
Another thing about lockpicking.
If you do the minigame theres a trick to it, and you get to a point that you outright can't lose it, no matter your skill.
You just have to learn the difference between the two sound effects when you hit the tumbler
If you hear the shorter, higher-pitched sound effect ("tick") then the tumbler will stay in place if you click LMB. If you hear the longer, lower-pitched sound effect ("tchunk") you will break your lockpick.
It's not easy to explain but it's easy to figure out through gameplay. You can pick any lock in the game at 5 Security easily once you've got the hang of it
or just use the skeleton key
I just wanna see one other oblivion player who figured out the tumbler mini game. It's literally easy
agree with most stuff. Blunt vs Blade is more complicated than aesthethic choice, warhammers are inherently superior at power attacks while long swords and daggers are best at normal attacks so pick based on your playstyle. Blunt also have the only melee weapon with paralyze inherently on it.
Robed mage is a real build, a full suit of armor is roughly always to avilable protection spell but protection spell will never cut your spell power, and spell power is a big deal seeing how oblivion always rounds down, a battlemage type guy should wear armor tho. Late game clotches are better thought due to preenchanted items just being better.
The daedric dagger of paralysis shows up as random loot.
@@testingheyo5087 yeah i saw it once, imo much better weapon than the usual weakness stacking weapons- still a Warhammer is the only paralyze weapon you are guranteed to get, which comes quite usefull for stuff like warlock dungeons to just rush paralyze pickpocket everyone
22:28 pause…
Umm actually hand-to-hand is an S+ Tier skill, get your facts right FREAK