Skyrim: Dawnguard Final Thoughts

I have finally completed the vampire questline of Dawnguard.  It took awhile for a couple reasons.  First I went out of my way to ensure I completed all the side-quests in addition to the main quests.  The larger contributor to the delay, though, is I simply played Skyrim.  I became embroiled in other quests, found myself distracted by shiny objects, committed grievous acts of draconicide, et cetera.  I also moved my character and her wife from Whiterun to Solitude.  It took me some time to familiarize myself with the new city and all its shopkeepers and the house itself.  The move also necessitated several trips back and forth to move items over and organize them at the new home.

Dawnguard is complete, though, and I have a a few topics I wish to talk about:

• The changes to vampirism.
• Cool things Dawnguard added or changed.
• Serana

In other words, thpoilerth.

Changes to Vampirism

In vanilla Skyrim I found playing as a vampire to be something of a hindrance since there weren't any amazing abilities for my play-style.  I play as a Destruction/Conjuration mage so the increased Sneak and Illusion bonuses are useless.  I did find it somewhat annoying that being in sunlight stunted stamina regeneration but it wasn't a huge issue.  The one and only redeeming power was the Vampire's Sight which is one of the few ways in the game to get a night vision ability.  I use Vampire's Sight a lot both in dungeons and when traveling the world at night and it was the sole reason I didn't cure vampirism.  The trade-off for that ever-so-useful ability was having to feed every couple days so I wouldn't get attacked on sight.  The increased fire damage wasn't really much of a negative to me since I play on Master difficulty and I'm playing a mage who is already squishy so I'm used to dying in one hit regardless of resistances.

In Dawnguard playing as a vampire is too easy.  They outright nerfed the fire resistance penalty.  It can now be completely overcome by a single fire resist enchantment.  Since there aren't many good boot enchantments I put a resist fire enchantment on it and that wipes out a stage 4 vampire's -50% fire resistance penalty.

Feeding in Dawnguard is also so much easier as I came to learn.  As I go over these changes I'm doing so in the order I learned about them:

• Castle Volkihar has a few special NPC's that can be fed upon at any time.  Since the place is full of vampires they don't care meaning it's the perfect place to feed if you can't get into a town.
• If you want to feed out in the field somewhere that's covered, too.  There's now a Potion of Blood that has the same effect as feeding on a living person.  Yet another way to get rid of that pesky stage 4 vampirism so I can get into town.
• The game then proceeded to teach me that I could charm somebody with Vampire's Seduction and feed off them while they are awake.  This was perfect, I could use it to feed on isolated shopkeepers which I did in fact do a couple times.

So that's three amazing changes to feeding to make it less of a hassle.  Then an ever-so-helpful loading screen tip pointed out that vampires are not attacked on sight in Dawnguard.  Wait, what?  That's right, after adding all the new ways to feed they completely removed the need to feed.  Now you are only attacked indiscriminately if you are in Vampire Lord form.  Stage 4 vampirism?  Nobody cares.  Even with the glowing orange eyes, nobody cares.

The fun doesn't stop there, though.  Once you advance far enough into the Dawnguard main quest to obtain Auriel's Bow you can remove the final obstacle all vampires face: The Sun.  After acquiring Auriel's Bow you can request that Serana treat Elven Arrows with her blood.  The process creates new Bloodcursed Elven Arrows which can then be fired with Auriel's Bow.  Firing one of these arrows directly into the sun using will cause the sky to darken and redden obscuring the sun.  This effect lasts for one day and elicits terrified remarks from NPC's you speak to while the effect is present.  Naturally, if the sun is darkened then vampires no longer suffer the Weakness to Sunlight debuff.

So to recap, of the three sets of penalties vampires receive:

• The fire resist penalty is nerfed so that even at its worst it can be obviated by a single fire resist enchantment.
• The need to feed is removed entirely.
• The sun can be obscured removing the Weakness to Sunlight debuff.

It seems like I'm forgetting something, though.  What was it?  Oh, right.  The freaking awesome Vampire Lord transformation!  I mentioned this previously but the Vampire Lord is incredibly powerful.  I have all of the powers now which naturally means I'm even more powerful than the last time I talked about it.  When in Vampire Lord form I summon a Gargoyle and then switch my left-hand spell to Corpse Curse.  It paralyzes enemies leaving them open to rending with claws or leeching with Drain Life.  There are other abilities I use in other situations, too.  If I'm prowling through an area I'll use Detect All Creatures to keep an eye out for things to fight. If I'm ever in a bad situation (unlikely given the power of the Vampire Lore) then I transform into Mist and become invulnerable for a few seconds while health, magicka and stamina regenerate.

Other Cool Stuff

There are a couple cool new areas added with Dawnguard.  The first area is the Soul Cairn.  One of the main quests takes place in the Soul Cairn as well as a couple optional quests.  While questing you may notice a fissure on the ground you can harvest.  Harvesting one of the fissures fills a soul gem in your inventory.  If you have a Grand Soul Gem or Black Soul Gem it's a quick and easy way to fill it with a Grand Soul.  There are a number of fissures around the fairly large area so it's a great place to build up a good supply of Grand Souls. 

The Soul Cairn also happens to contain a rather dead spectral horse with blue flaming eyes and, mane and tail.  After completing a simple side quest you are given an Apprentice level Conjuration spell that allows you to summon a horse named Arvak in the Soul Cairn or Skyrim.  There are pros and cons to Arvak being a summon.  The biggest and most obvious pro is you always have your horse with you since it's a summon you can use at any time (regular horse rules do apply, you can't summon him in towns or indoors, for example).  A secondary bonus is that while he can die you can just re-summon him effectively giving you an immortal horse.  There are a couple potential downsides to Arvak, though.  Non-magic characters may initially have trouble summoning him.  For Conjuration mages he counts as a summoned creature meaning he will replace any Atronachs, raised dead or other creatures you may have summoned.  Arvak is not a thrall so he will disappear after his summon time is up (he does not disappear while you are riding him).

The other new area is called the Forgotten Vale.  It's an isolated portion of Skyrim that is absolutely beautiful.  It looks like it hasn't been touched in centuries.  It's very large and holds a number of secrets I completely missed my first time in the area.  At some point I plan to go back and explore it more and attempt to find all the paragon jewels hidden around the area.

The last really cool thing I want to talk about is a simple little quest one of the vampires in Castle Volkihar gives you.  It's called The Gift and the task is really simple: Turn your character's spouse into a vampire.  I spent a great deal of time attempting to get this quest to show up.  It's a random quest assigned after you turn in other random quests for the vampires in Castle Volkihar.  I created a save before turning in a quest.  Each time I would turn it in I would check the next quest.  If it was anything other than The Gift I would reload and repeat the process.  Finally it showed up and so I trotted (read: fast-traveled) off to Solitude to visit my character's wife Ysolda.  After using Vampire's Seduction on her and biting her neck she claimed to feel ill and went to bed.  Upon returning some days later Ysolda greeted me thanking me for opening her eyes to the darkness.  Unfortunately her eyes did not change to the new telltale glow that signifies a vampire which is a small disappointment.  As a nice bonus, when the sky is darkened as a result of Auriel's Bow, Ysolda now expresses enthusiasm at the lack of the sun.

Serana

Finally, I want to talk about Serana.  For me, Serana is hands down the best part of the Dawnguard DLC for a couple reasons.

Serana is just a good companion.  Her AI is much different than all the other companions so her behavior is vastly superior.  With the other companions I tried I found they were just in the way most of the time.  Since I play a full mage having a companion in melee range means they are usually between me and my target.  I've tried ranged companions and mages but they tend to get involved in melee encounters which goes right back to them being in the way.  Serana behaves differently, though. She is a mage and sticks to that role almost exclusively.  When enemies get closer to her to fight in melee she backs away and tries to distance herself.  Only in rare situations have I seen her fight in melee mode but it's so infrequent as to be a non-issue.

Serana's behavior outside of combat is also vastly superior to other companions.  Outside of combat she wanders around the nearby area and interacts with objects.  When you are in town talking to somebody it looks a lot more realistic when she walks over and takes a seat as opposed to the other companions who stare at you expressionless.  The advantage to this dynamic behavior is Serana, once again, stays out of the way.  She is a lot less likely to be standing in a doorway blocking my path.  Since she's often several feet away she very rarely cuts me off or interferes with where I'm trying to get to.

I really hope Bethesda updates the AI for other companions to use some of the stuff Serana uses because it is vastly superior.  It seems rather unfair that Serana is the least annoying if not most useful of all the companions just because she was added later and has better AI.

I think Serana is a good character for more than just her brains, though.  Unlike almost every character in most Bethesda games, Serana has a personality and a character arc.  She starts out distrustful of the Dragonborn, reticent to see her father and eager to see her mother.  As time goes by she opens up more to the Dragonborn, distances herself even further from her father and beings to distance herself from her mother.  She accepts her family will never be together again and by the end of her journey her only real friend is the Dragonborn (at least with how I played through the quest-line).

The arc of Serana puts me in mind of other great Bethesda content that went above the normal bland, one-dimensional story and characters you meet in both the Fallout and Elder Scrolls games.  In Oblivion I found The Shivering Isles to be the best part of that game.  Dealing with Sheograth, seeing his madness and watching his story reveal itself was very interesting because there was depth to it.  In Fallout: New Vegas I found the Old World Blues content incredibly enjoyable as well.  Again, there was a depth to the storyline with interesting characters and nice twists.  Serana and her journey through the vampire side of the Dawnguard quest-line easily falls into that category for me.

Finally, how could a necromancer who resurrects this not be the best thing in the game?

After hearing a chicken clucking I turned around to see that Serana had been a little bit indiscriminate in choosing her new ally.