Skyrim talk:Ebony

New Organization Proposal

I've put this together as an example/proposal of my latest thoughts on how to organize the mining/ores/ingots/smithing/etc information.

I started out thinking that there should be a single page describing everything about how to get a certain ore/ingot, merging information that's currently in three different places (Mining, Skyrim:Ores and Ingots#Ores and Skyrim:Ores and Ingots#Ingots) into a single table, since in almost all cases readers will consider the three sources as interchangeable.

I then realized that if you're interested in Ebony it's probably because you're doing Ebony Smithing, and why not make this page really be one-stop shopping for everything you need to know if you're trying to do Ebony Smithing. So I decided to merge in the information from Skyrim:Forge#Ebony Smithing -- and in the process completely redesigned the forging tables to be more useful. So the tables on this page now provide complete information about Ebony weapons and Ebony armor -- some details previously only on Weapons and Armor such as IDs have been added in.

My feeling is that this is probably the most useful way to organize this information, in which case the next step would be to create comparable pages for Iron, Steel, Elven (+Moonstone), Elven Gilded (+Quicksilver), Glass (+Malachite), Dwarven, Gold, Silver, etc. Proposed changes to other pages as a result would include:

• The tables on Ores and Ingots would be dramatically simplified (the final column would be reduced to at most two lines of info)
• Redirects such as Ebony Ore and Ebony Ingot would be repointed to this new page, as well as a new redirect for Ebony Ore Vein.
• The Mining page would be mostly emptied, with the exception of the first section (general information about mining). Mining could potentially even be redirected to Mines, after moving the general info into that page's noinclude section.
• Redirects for all Ebony equipment would be repointed here, along with a new redirect for Ebony Weapons.
• The Ebony Smithing redirect would be repointed here.
• The Forge page would be mostly emptied (and probably Grindstone and Workbench too). Replace the page with info on where forges can be found, and a summary-type table (for each equipment type, list smithing/forge requirements to make it, general info on materials needed, and a link to these new pages for details).
• The tables on Weapons/Armor would be left as is, especially since those tables organize the information by item type instead of material, allowing easier intercomparison of the different materials. The main change would be adding links to all the material pages into the introductory tables.

I chose Ebony as a starting point because it's a relatively straightforward case -- but a lot of the other pages will introduce new challenges/complications that will probably have to be worked out case by case. For example, the "Glass" page will need to be a page for both Glass and Malachite (i.e., redirect from Malachite to Glass). Corundum Ore/Ingots, in particular given how they feed into Steel production, are awkward. There are lots of other equipment types to consider, such as Scaled Armor, Banded Iron, and Daedric. I'm thinking I'd prefer to wait until I'm ready to handle each of those cases before figuring out what to do -- wait until I have a better sense of what exact information needs to be included before deciding where to put it. In any case, once the tables are put together in this type of layout, it should be easy enough to move them around based on feedback -- putting together the tables in the first place is most of the work.

It's a somewhat substantial reorganization (not to mention at least my third attempt now at figuring out how to handle this information). In my defense, I've now actually played enough of the game to feel that I have a better idea of what information players are actually looking for. For reference, it's also similar to what was done in Morrowind (see MW:Ebony). Suggestions on how to further improve the pages would be great before I get too far into it. --Nephele^Talk 22:59, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

I like it. The armor/weapon section is much cleaner. I think everything looks fine except the delta coin on boots - I'm not sure how to make that column wider. -Vardis 23:33, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

The cell looked fine for me (firefox & IE6), it got automatically widened so the number fitted in. I removed the explicit width for the coulumn (no change for me), does it look better for you?

The general concept and layout of the page looks promising to me. --Alfwyn 17:25, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Yep, that did it, thanks. -Vardis 06:49, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Level buying from shop?

I bought 1 ebony ingot at level 25 from a store, though i've not seen any others available

Yeah I've gotten ebony ingots from general goods merchants as low as level 21, and not just once. I just a few minutes ago bought 2 from Belethor at level 23. I'm on Xbox360. Lord Eydvar^Talk 21:00, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

I had the weapons store in whiterun selling them at a really low level..single figures. Of course I didnt need them then. Now, finally getting deadric smithing..level 21, noone is selling any. 86.176.119.219 21:16, 30 September 2012 (GMT)

I played over 1000 hours Vanilla Skyrim now, and it's definitly way under the mentioned >=27. At my current walkthrough I am level 20 and already bought half a dozen ebony ingots. All of them at general goods, none of them at a blacksmith. I'll adjust the information in article now --93.199.156.31 17:05, 19 February 2014 (GMT)

The documented level comes from LItemMiscVendorMineralsProcessed25 and LItemBlacksmithMineralsProcessed75. The latter is used by blacksmiths, the former by ~20 other merchants, including Belethor in Whiterun. There are no loose ingots lying around in shops that could be sold. The misc vendor list has the "special loot" flag set, the blacksmith one not. So whatever that flag does, it is probably the reason why. --Alfwyn (talk) 18:19, 19 February 2014 (GMT)

Now that's interessesting! --93.199.156.31 18:56, 19 February 2014 (GMT)

Ok, testing that list for general vendors with a specifically crafted mod, I can get Ebony Ingots starting at level 14 (but only 3/1000 = 0.3%). The probability gets better as the level gets closer to 27 (14.9% at lvl 26, (not tested:) 25% at lvl 27 and above). I guess I will ignore the single digit level report as fluke or imprecise memory, since the result fits with results of a more general testing of the special loot flag. --Alfwyn (talk) 21:13, 19 February 2014 (GMT)

That's a nice and clean way to get a precise number. I appreciate your efforts. Kind regards, --93.199.156.31 21:52, 19 February 2014 (GMT)

Guard Comments

I've noticed that, when the player has an Ebony Sword equipped, guards might occasionally say, "Ah, now that's a fine sword. Like a little sliver of midnight." Should this be put in the "Notes" section? TheUnforgiving 17:56, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Guard dialogue isn't usually inserted in the notes section (they are documented at Skyrim:Guard). If you see articles for other weapon qualities, the respective guard dialogues aren't included. Furthermore, the article is about Ebony, and the dialogue is just for an Ebony Sword. ~ Psylocke 18:11, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Armor texture

In 3rd person a male wearing Ebony Armor has an uncovered gap with visible skin around the neck area. (from our page)

"Closed a seethrough gap on the male Ebony Cuirass (Meshes\Armor\Ebony\M\Cuirass_0/1.NIFs) around where it meets the wearer's neck" (from the USKP)

I do not understand how anyone thinks this could be a bug. It cannot be compared to either the female version or any male armor of different material, as most importantly, they are not the same. Someone has interpreted that this gap should have been filled, why? Can Bethesda not choose to display armor differently anymore, must they be wrong everywhere? Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 15:55, 29 January 2013 (GMT)

Honestly, I don't think this is an artistic choice but calling it a bug is ridiculous. It's just an (extremely minor) oversight. The Dwarven, Steel Plate and Daedric armor all cover the player from head to toe, without an inch of visible skin. Aside from this very small gap, it's true for the Ebony armor too and it seems pretty obvious that it was Bethesda's intention here to cover everything. I know they're given a rough treatment online by some cave dwellers but no need to get upset or find them excuses. Elakyn (talk) 16:56, 29 January 2013 (GMT)

Unhindered bug

It states on the page that ebony armor is affected by the "Unhindered" perk. However I just put on a set of ebony armor and the weight was not reduced (I'm running on Xbox, all 3 DLC and latest patch). Can someone confirm this information then make an edit to the bugs section. — Unsigned comment by 99.238.67.15 (talk) at 17:05 on 17 February 2013

On a similarish note, the section states

"Bugs

• Ebony Armor is affected by the Light Armor perk Unhindered instead of the Heavy Armor perk Matching Set. "

Those two perks are not equivalent. One reduces weight, the other adds armour rating. — Unsigned comment by 24.200.26.45 (talk) at 11:25 on 17 September 2013

While I don't know why it didn't work, I removed the part about Unhindered. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 00:12, 18 September 2013 (GMT)

Ebony Bow

I think is worth mentioning that Ebony Bow is one of most accurate Bows wen it come to the missile trajectory. On weri long shots it can be realy straigth line. Compered whit my expiriance whit Bound Bow and some others it realy make a difrance wen making mor then one shot from sneak attack on multiple distant targets whit no need for adjusted aim. — Unsigned comment by NEVER BoRN (talk • contribs) at 10:37 on 22 February 2013

Minimum level to find Ebony Armor

It says here that you start to find Ebony Armor at level 32. I found an Ebony Armor chestpiece at level 20 in a loot chest in Harmugstahl... I have no mods installed, so I think something needs to be edited. --108.51.68.241 02:27, 10 May 2013 (GMT)

Leveled items can be found in boss chests well before they are found in normal loot. Please confirm which chest you found it in before anything on the page needs edited. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 00:25, 29 May 2013 (GMT)

One-Handed versus Two-Handed

I think it may be helpful for new readers/players of the wiki/game to indicate which weapons are one-handed and which ones are two-handed. Rather than change the weapons table, I would suggest adding a generic line to the weapons section of each materials page (e.g. Ebony Weapons, Elven Weapons, etc.) that says something like 'The dagger, sword, war axe, and mace are one-handed weapons; all others are two-handed'. Once you become familiar with the game and the format of the wiki, this information is obvious, but as a new player or new reader of the wiki, I think this information is helpful. What does everyone else think? If there's general agreement, I can make the changes to each of the different materials pages. Luke1138 (talk) 17:20, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

If one is about to get generic information about weapon types, he/she should head to the Skyrim:Weapons-page, where the types of weapons are split up in the number of hands. I don't think such a note would be needed on every of the material pages. -- SarthesArai ^Talk 17:27, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

Great point. In that case, what I propose is to modify each materials page so that the word "weapons" in the first sentence of each weapons section redirects to the weapons page. For example: Elven Weapons - Elven weapons are medium-quality... Luke1138 (talk) 04:09, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

One God or Many

This edit changes "blood of the gods" to "blood of a god". Wondering what that was about, I looked into it, and the sources from the Lore page contradict one another on the issue. While we could resolve the issue the same way the Lore page does, "blood of a god or gods" strikes me as unwieldy wording for a gamespace page. Since the newer source uses "a god", I've patrolled the edit as is rather than reverting. (For comparison, here's the older source.) – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 15:25, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

Ebony Maces: Crit Bug

Why does the page bother describing the critical damage value of ebony maces as a bug? Am I missing something? Reasons it does not make sense:

Per the article on how damage works, only weapons which have perk access to critting (swords, greatswords, and bows) can crit - maces can't.

Per the article on how damage works, critical damage is dynamically calculated from the weapon's base damage, rather than by consulting a static value on the weapon - so even if the ebony mace could crit, it wouldn't consult its critical damage value when doing so.

Many weapons have critical damage values not equal to the floor of half their damage; for example, the next weaker weapon than the ebony mace, the glass mace, has a crit value of 0, while the glass war axe has damage 13 and critical 8 (2 more than the floor of half its damage, and 1 more than the critical on the ebony war axe). How do we conclude what the critical damage value on the ebony mace ought to be?

38.81.112.2 13:06, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Every weapon can do critical damage, the section you link only has swords listed because they are the only ones that have bonuses to increase the critical damage and chance. Bows are not mentioned at all in the section you linked. It isn't directly a bug, the oversight is that the weapon has the same damage value as deadric, which it should not, and as a result its critical value is too high for the lower base damage it should do. I don't know if the formula for critical damage uses the critical value listed, but it is still a displayed value in the CK. All the other weapons with 0 critical are considered bugs and have been fixed by the unofficial patch, even if that hasn't been noted here. The numbers show a clear tendency towards "half the base damage rounded down", picking the few random outliers to use as a base is to ignore the wider evidence. Silence is Golden^{Break the Silence} 19:03, 3 May 2018 (UTC)