Oblivion:End Game Optimizing

This is a guide on how to properly equip your character with proper armor, weapons, and spells during the higher levels of the game.

Attributes and Skills Past 100
One of the most important things to remember is that skills (except Acrobatics and Athletics) will not show any additional effect if you magically raise them past 100. On the other hand, most attributes will provide some benefits when increased past 100:
For Endurance, your Health and Fatigue will both increase.
For Intelligence, the amount of base Magicka you have will continue to go up.
For Luck, effective skill levels will continue to be increased (up to the skill cap of 100).
For Speed, your character's movement speed will continue to go up.
For Strength, your maximum Encumbrance and fatigue will continue to rise, but your melee damage will not increase.
For Willpower, your Magicka regeneration rate and fatigue will continue to increase.
For Agility, your fatigue will continue to rise, but your damage done by bows will not increase.
For Personality, your disposition scores will continue to rise for NPCs and creatures.

Armor Enchantments
There are two armor skills: Light Armor and Heavy Armor. The strongest unenchanted light armor is Glass Armor, and the strongest heavy armor is Daedric Armor. If you have the Shivering Isles expansion, that changes to Amber Armor and Madness Armor respectively. Glass or Daedric armor is recommended to provide maximum armor rating and armor health. The following are different ways to enchant your items to become immune to different attacks:

100% Chameleon
There are multiple ways to acquire 100% Chameleon, and therefore be completely undetectable by other NPCs and creatures. One way is:

2 Transcendent Sigil Stones that give Chameleon (each gives 30%)
2 Grand Soul enchants (each gives 20%)

These can, for instance, be used on four of the six pieces in the glass armor set.

To see more about this enchant: 100% Chameleon.

100% Reflect Damage
To get 100+% Reflect Damage and be immune to most physical attacks, you will need the following:
1 Ring of the Iron Fist (gives 33%)
1 Necklace of Swords or Amulet of Axes (both give 33%)
1 Escutcheon of Chorrol (gives up to 35%)
These three items will provide you with 101% Reflect Damage.

100% Resist Magic
To get 100+% Resist Magic and be invulnerable to magic, the best items to use are:
The Gray Aegis (gives 100%), only available through a glitch
Mundane Ring (gives 50%)
Crown of Lindai (gives up to 35%)
Saviour's Hide (gives 25%)
These three items will provide you with 110% Resist Magic. Should any of the aforementioned items be unavailable you can instead use:
Diadem of Euphoria (gives 20%) worn by Thadon   (at level 30+). Also provides 40 pts of Fortify Magicka.
Transcendent Sigil Stones (providing 20% each)
Various random Generic Magic Items that provide up to 15% Resist Magic.
As a Breton, you have natural 50% resistance, so the Mundane Ring alone is enough to reach 100% Resist Magic.
As an Orc, you have natural 25% resistance, so the Mundane Ring with either the Crown of Lindai or the Saviour's Hide will be enough to reach or exceed 100% Resist Magic.
The Morag Tong Cuirass obtained by killing the Assassin NPC in the Mehrunes' Razor download provides up to 25% Resist Magic and 25% Resist Normal Weapons at higher levels (20+).

100% Resist Magic can be combined with 100% Reflect Damage.

100% Reflect Spell
To get 100+% Reflect Spell and be invulnerable to magic, you will need any four of the following:

1 Mundane Ring (gives 35%)
1 Ring of Sunfire (gives up to 25%)
1 Spell Breaker (gives 30%)
1 Ayleid Crown of Nenalata (gives up to 25%)
1 Thorn Shield  (gives 22%)
1 Amulet of Reflection (gives 20%)

100 pts Spell Absorption
Some players find Spell Absorption to be more effective than Reflect Spell. Not only are you invulnerable to magic, but magical attacks will recharge your own magicka reserves. Here's what you need for 100+ pts:

1 Spelldrinker Amulet (gives up to 26 pts)
1 Sorcerer's Ring (gives 25 pts + 25 Fortify Magicka)
1 Cursed Absorbing Gauntlets or Cursed Magebane Gauntlets (gives 24 pts, at the expense of 10 pts Drain Magicka) [Only Shivering Isles]
1 Greaves of Purity, Magebane Greaves or Mankar Camoran's Robe (either of the greaves gives 20 pts; the robe gives 20 pts + 10 Reflect Damage but takes up both the greaves and cuirass armor slots)
1 Helmet of the Mage (gives 14 pts + 20 Fortify Magicka)
1 other item (ring, cuirass, gauntlets or boots) enchanted by Transcendent level Spell Absorption Sigil Stone (gives 15 pts)
These items will provide you with 109 pts of Spell Absorption.

A combination of Spell Absorption and Reflect Damage is particularly powerful.

113 pts Spell Absorption can be combined with 101% Reflect Damage if you forgo the Spelldrinker's Amulet and use two additional Transcendent Sigil Stones. This is harder to achieve than the Reflect Damage/Resist Magic combo, but more effective.

Obtaining Magic Jewelry
If you have started the Turning a Blind Eye quest for the Thieves Guild, you can easily collect high level magic amulets and rings by killing the monk that guards the stone. Regardless of whether or not you have completed the quest, or even started the quest at all, he will still re-spawn in that same spot every 73 hours. The monk is in the Shrine of the Moth area. You must also wait 73 hours from exiting the door.

Raven Camoran, whether you kill him in the Sunken Sewers or in Paradise, is carrying a high-quality enchanted ring. See Raven's article for details on exactly what rings you can expect to get from him, when in Paradise he will re-spawn directly every time you kill him, so you can loot his corpse how many times you want, if you´re at level 22+ he will drop Mundane Ring worth 21600 gold and gives you resist magic 50% and spell reflection 35%.

Weapon Enchantments
If you do not have access to the Arcane University, or if you don't want to customize your weapons, then Goldbrand is one of the best available weapons. You can use it in conjunction with the Umbra sword for soul trap, and trap creatures in the Azura's Star to keep your weapons recharged.

If you do have access to the university, you can make very powerful daedric weapons. One good general setup is as follows:

Elemental Damage
Elemental Weakness
Weakness to Magic

Every additional hit with this weapon will be stronger against the enemy.

The following is an example of a daedric dagger that was properly enchanted with elemental damage, elemental weakness, and weakness to magic:

Fire Damage 14/1sec
Frost Damage 14/1sec
Shock Damage 14/1sec
Soul Trap 1 sec
Weakness to Fire 100% 1/sec
Weakness to Frost 100% 1/sec
Weakness to Shock 100% 1/sec
Weakness to Magic 100% 1/sec

If you are low on health, the following daedric dagger can be used in emergencies:

Absorb Health 25 points (from a Transcendent Sigil Stone)

End Game Equipment Example Set
Weapon - Daedric - See Custom Weapons
Shield - Escutcheon of Chorrol (Received after level 25)
Helmet - Ayleid Crown of Lindai (Received after level 25)
Cuirass - Daedric/Glass - Resist Magic 20% (Transcendent Sigil Stone)
Gauntlets - Daedric/Glass - Resist Magic 20% (Transcendent Sigil Stone)
Greaves - Daedric/Glass - Resist Magic 20% (Transcendent Sigil Stone)
Boots - Daedric/Glass - Resist Magic 20% (Transcendent Sigil Stone)
Ring - Ring of the Iron Fist
Ring - Ring of Vitality
Amulet - Necklace of Swords/Amulet of Axes

Set Results

Reflect Damage - 101%
Resist Magic - 115%
Resist Disease - 100%
Resist Paralysis - 100%
Resist Poison - 100%
Fortify Hand to Hand and Blade/Blunt - 25 pts
Fortify Endurance - 10 pts

This set will make you immune to most enemy damage, although some damage is not covered by these resistances (for example, arrows, most traps, lava, falling, and drowning). Also any enemies with some form of reflect damage or an elemental shield will damage you when you attack them. If you don't mind reducing some of these values, consider enchanting a piece of armor with Water Breathing. That way you have an immunity to drowning.

Alternatively, the Saviour's Hide gives 25% Resist Magic. Coupled with Ayleid Crown of Lindai, you will have 60% resist magic, so you will only need two pieces with a Resist Magic Sigil Stone to be completely immune, and there's still one more piece to enchant.

Atronach characters may prefer to substitute a couple of high-strength Spell Absorption items instead. Coupled with the 50% Spell Absorption you get from the Atronach Birthsign, you can achieve 100% Spell Absorption, which is more useful to Atronach characters than Resist Magic. Items to consider include:
Spelldrinker Amulet (26 pts)
Sorcerer's Ring (25 pts)
Cursed Absorbing Gauntlets/Cursed Magebane Gauntlets (24 pts) [Only Shivering Isles]
Magebane Greaves/Greaves of Purity (20 pts)
Spell Absorption Sigil Stones (15 pts)

The final two are usually the best choices, as the first two require that you give up some significant amounts of other protections.