Combat Tips

Enemy Weaknesses

Keep in mind that some enemies are resistant to certain types of damage or weapons. Here are some of the most common enemies and their special weaknesses:

Ghosts, Will-O-The-Wisps: Cannot be harmed by normal weapons; use silver or magical weapons.
Zombies, Liches: Weak to fire.
Dremora (Humanoid Daedra): Weak to shock.
Skeletons: Blunt weapons.
Trolls: Weak to fire.

Umbra

One of the most powerful weapons in the game is in the hands of Umbra, a soldier located in an Ayleid ruin to the southwest of the Imperial City. If you explore the countryside, you should be able to find Vindasel on the shore directly to the southwest of the Waterfront district, near where the road forks. Heading into this single-level dungeon will let you meet up with Umbra face to face.

Umbra is part of the Clavicus Vile Daedric quest that will become available when you hit level 20, but most of the time you'll probably want to kill her and keep her sword for yourself, which you can (attempt to) do at any level. The Umbra sword is arguably the most powerful weapon in the game in terms of pure attack power. It doesn't have any magical damage effects to add to its damage, but it does have a very useful Soul Trap enchantment which will automatically cast Soul Trap on anything you hit, making it easy to capture souls, especially if you have Azura's Star along for the ride.

Umbra is a fiercesome threat, but she offers great rewards.

The catch? Umbra (the sword and the warrior have the same name) can be monstrously tough to defeat. She's decked out with the sword itself, which is obviously going to be doing a lot of damage to you, as well as a full set of ebony armor. So, how do you beat her?

Killing Umbra

Well, there are a variety of tricks to use. Some players have had success beating her as low as at level one, by attacking her, then quickly escaping the ruins (and we mean quickly; she's one of the fastest characters in the game) and leading her back to the Talos Plaza District of the Imperial City. The guards there will usually interpret her as a threat and kill her (but not before she finished quite a few of them off). This might land you in jail, however, leaving you with nothing to show for your efforts.

If you're a warrior, then you'll probably need to wait until you're around level nine or so to go into straight combat with her. Bring along a good shield and a one-handed weapon enchanted with a +15 magical damage Sigil Stone (or better), along with as many health potions as you can find. Bring along any powerful scrolls you have, especially anything that can disintegrate armor or weapons; this is going to be a long fight, so spells like these will actually be useful for once. When you've opened up with your most powerful attack, settle in for a slugfest. Block her attacks so that she recoils, hit her a couple of times, then repeat as often as it takes for her to go down, using health potions as needed to stay alive.

Jumping atop this pillar here will let you fire at Umbra without her touching you.

Mages and archers will have a harder time taking Umbra down, since she's so damn fast and hits so damn hard. Your best bet here is to simply become inaccessible to her, by jumping up onto the broken pillar before attacking her. Doing so is tricky, but can be accomplished if you grab the wicker basket near the table and place it atop it, then jump from the ground and attempt to quickly jump off the basket onto the pillar. If you attack Umbra from there, she won't be able to reach you, allowing you to do your damage over time.

If you're looking for a bit of an edge, you can try to purchase the Apotheosis staff from Rindir's Staffs, which does 99 magical damage in one shot. It should only take one or two blasts from the staff to off Umbra, but of course buying the Apotheosis will be prohibitively expensive for most players until you're well into the game. A less expensive option is the Greater Staff of Ruin, which will disintegrate Umbra's sword completely with a couple of applications, which should hopefully prevent her from dealing quite as much damage as she normally would, but you'll have to repair it afterwards, which can cost a pretty penny if you're not skilled in the Armorer ability.