DawnGuard DLC for Skyrim (Garfy speaks)
DawnGuard DLC for Skyrim (Garfy speaks)
Okay if you don't know it by now the first DLC package for Skyrim came out today "DawnGuard" and I want to give an honest review of what I think of it so far:
1) You really need to become a Vampiric Lord or full blown Werewolf to truely enjoy the new perks available, and they are seperate entities from the normal skill trees in the actual game.
2) The crossbow is fine for lower level characters, but if you are able to craft anything weapon or armor wise, and double enchant those items, then the crossbow doesn't come close to dealing as much damage as a new Dragonbone Bow with dual enchantments on it, and "NO" you cannot craft a Daedric Crossbow or any other type, it's just one standard and fires only steel bolts.
3) If your a higher level character, than you'll probably want to crank the difficulty up, because I wasn't being challenged at all, maybe as I progess further, some of the newer enemies such as Gargoyles get nastier???
4) The new Vampire Armors are absolutely nothing special, if you already have Dragonscale or Dragonplate, your top of the line as is period!!!!
5) Found one new Dragon shout, haven't tried it out yet, suppose to drain the life out of a weakened opponent; haven't come across any of the newer dragons that are supposed to be included in this DLC package.
6) I decide to become a full blown Vampire Lord, and learning the different powers and abilities, but you can always join the DawnGuard and fight against the Vampire Menace, but besides the crossbow, I didn't see any other goodies being offered weapon or armor wise.
I'll give more impressions of "DawnGuard" as I get a chance to play further, but I go back into work tomorrow and begin a 80 hour shift.
Let us know what you think, though I wonder what level the DLC is intended for if you are waltzing through it. What was your starting level?
80 hour shift? Now you're talking my language.
Well I figured out how to craft your own arrows, which is something I know as a fan of the Elder Scrolls series have been bitching about for quite some time, her's how you do it folkes:
1) you need a wood cutters axe
2) chopped wood of course
3) the necessary materials to craft a particular type of arrow, say for example you wanted to craft Daedric Arrows, you need of course the lumber, but also Daedric Hearts, and Ebony to craft those tips for your arrows, if you want Dragonbone arrows, then of course you need the wood, plus all the other materials you would need to craft Dragonbone Armor, voila you can make a couple hundred arows.
I had quite a stock pile of Dragon Bones, so I ended up producing close to 800 arrows, to go with my new fancy DragonBone Bow that has Soul Trap and Electricty on it.
The one thing that annoys me about being a full blown vampire is the fact, you need to switch between your monsterous form and normal character form, because while in beast mode, you cannot do simple things like open a frickin door, nope I have to revert back to human form, and then do so, then change back, because the only way to earn XP for the new vampire perks tree is to attack while in beast form, so if your using a weapon, that XP is only being applied normally to be used for all the other perks, you absolutely must be using Vampire abilities to earn the necessary XP to go up in levels and choose new perks in the Vampiric Lord skill tree period.
Going to try and play some Skyrim on the weekend seeing that I have 2 days off for Canada Day, and will continue to give more feedback on DawnGuard.
I've not played the game yet, but I've watched PAtheEagle play it. He's playing as a werewolf on his first play through. It looks pretty cool.
You can open some doors and chests in vampire lord form... not all of them but a few. I think it has more to do with the camera than with the form of the beast. Liking the expansion for the most part, but have found a couple of the side quests to be bugged and had to load an earlier save to do them again. All in all it's pretty good, and you definitley feel like a bad ass.
Just wished I would've saved when you get the option of choosing to stay as a werewolf, or go with vampire lord. Curious to see how the werewolf perks stack up against the vampire ones.
I also opened doors except for the barred ones. Did not like the Vampire aiming. So, only played to get the achievement and then reloaded my werewolf persona, which I enjoyed playing more. If you need Daedra hearts & black soul gems, etc. Dawnguard has a lot of them. At level 65 but no legendary dragon in sight. Finishing up word walls, etc. hoping one will appear. Slower grinding now and hoping I do not have to wait till level 78-80 to find a legendary dragon as TA hints. Searching the wiki sight for hints.
So if your either a werewolf or vampire I have one question for all of you who play or have spouses that play this game?
If your a fucking vampire and wolf why in the hell do you need to ride a horse which should be slower by all means .... reference both twighlight and underworld for how much quicker vampires and werewolves are ....
Let's not go down this rabbit hole.
The main advantage of a horse in Skyrim is that the horse will fight enemies and if it is Shadowmere, he never dies. If you cannot fast-travel to undiscovered locations, you can get there faster on a horse and run away from altercations if you are in a hurry. Haven't tried to put items into any horse (as one could do in Oblivion). :)
Yes being in Vampiric Lord form does allow me to travel faster, but I'm penalized immesely for it during daylight hours because it sucks up so much stamina, hence having a horse comes in handy, and also with the new DawnGuard DLC there is a Spectral Horse you can obtain by completing a quest that will grant you the power to summon it anytime and anywhere in the game, I haven't found it yet, but I did read an article on where to look for an item to get the quest going.
The one major problem I have turning into the Vampiric Lord form is being in the 3rd person view, Bethesda should have allowed us to choose either 1st person or 3rd, because I find the targeting way off sometimes, when casting your powers; I tend to change back and go to town killing all enemies with my Dragonbone Bow, and having the Archery Skill completely maxed out and placing archery enchantments that give me an extra 40% damage to my armor, necklace and rings, I end up killing people with a single arrow, and having the skill to retrieve most of your arrows back is a plus for me.
I know for a fact if your playing as a member of the DawnGuard there is a quest to find parts that will create a Dwarven Crossbow that you can take and using your Blacksmith skill, make it even better, don't know if it's already enchanted or not, if the later; and you have the ability to place two enchantments on it, you'll end up with quite the superior weapon, and I hear there are a few more hidden goodies in the DawnGuard DLC, I haven't discovered any of them yet, but if I do, I will definitely let you good people know!!!!!
Won't be able to touch Skyrim till Sunday at least, returning back to work tomorrow, I work 8 days straight for the City of Windsor than I'm given 5 days off, the shifts are 10 hrs in length, so I'm a busy boy (LOL) still learning how to play Dragon's Dogma and the Witcher 2 properly.
Also I have a question for anyone that has Dragon's Dogma, "Have you downloaded the Resident Evil 6 Demo??" and if so, have you actually been able to play the SOB??? it freezes up every single time for me, would like to actually love to try it out!!!!
Shadowmere can definitely die, if you do something stupid with him, this new Ghost Horse that is a quest in the new DawnGuard DLC, can be summoned you at anytime, so if he dies, all you have to do is cast the spell to summon his dead ass, I have no idea where he's located or what the quest is?? supposedly you have to return his skull to his dead master to re-unite them?? and the guy grants you the ability to summon the horse as a reward.
Definitely love crafting DragonBone Arrows, had to crank up the difficulty a bit, because my Lady Archer is striking down opponents with a single shot, it was nice in a few jams, but I don't want to cake walk through the game, hell I have so many things left to do in SkyRim such as joining the Mage's Guild, The Dark Brotherhood, The Champions; last night I joined the Empire and fought the StormCloaks for shits and giggles, but I have foudn a glitch in the DLC, I was sent on a quest to convert an Inn Keeper into a vampire, well I've already done it, but it won't acknowledge that feat, so I can't get anymore side quests from my fellow Vampire Clansmen.
So I'm wondering if I can just kill that person and take a failure on that quest, and be able to continue with furhter sidequests or will I be penalized for such an act??? might as well create two seperate saves and see what transpires!!!
Thanks for the warning that Shadowmere can die. Also was able to finish up some regular quests like the 'totem" one for Aela with no bugs. Still trying to trigger a legendary dragon by going back and forth between the lairs. The dragon respawns are slowing, so I reloaded my last vampire save and am going through Dawnguard as a vampire. I was lucky and picked up some high stamina dragonscale as a werewolf but do not have any yet as a vampire. Going back down that soul cairn and looking for the Juib papers to get that necklace with +50 stamina and +50 weight bonus. Hate finding my way around in there. And no legendary dragon!!!!! Curses!!!
In the meantime, there's Ragbrai....so goodluck to anyone on the route this year,, the heat is hellish.
Now that's something I like to find is that necklace, but the Soul Cairn area is where you can find the quest to can the ability to summon the Spectral Horse, that's the one I want to find for sure, like the fact if he dies, and you have the magic points, just re-summon him again.
Arvak is the name of the spectral cairn horse. Talking to one of the ghosts will get this quest. The skull can be found on a shrine pedestal in the southern/southeastern end of the Cairn, I think. Sorry but could not find the spoiler cue to hide this hint.
As far as chasing the legendary achievement, I was playing on Master as that was the level someone else was on when a dragon showed. Went back down to easy to level up the pick-pocket skill (which i am terrible at), and when I was in Fallkreath hold looking for Anri's camp on a treasure hunt, on the side of a steep mountain wall; a legendary spawned! No companion with me. Just used dragonrend to bring it down and dragonbone arrows & bows with majicka poison.
I had watched a level 50 player kill one and they seemed to go down quick. But as we all know thats relative in gaming. Most of the vids I watched showed vampires taking them down, but I was Dawnguard. One thing I noticed was that I hadn't gotten all the dragon bounties from the local hold taverns. So, I finished those up, ditched my companion so they would not get the kill shot. Continued to level skills with guardian stones, etc. All but 4 of my skills were at 100. The lowest 73, 75, 90, 96. I put a perk on block that gave me protection from fire/shock/frost and my dragon killing improved.
And suddenly today a legendary appeared!!! So, this afternoon I am back at 100% completion of Skyrim. Hooorah!!
All this right after the Xbox 360 cracked my Skyrim disk a few days ago but that's another post.