(Original) Power differences from efficiently levelling Endurance: Now with graphs and numbers!
(TL;DR at the bottom of post)
So I've been playing around with the original Oblivion while waiting for performance patches to hit the Remaster, and I've been looking at all those old guides where they recommend maxing out Endurance (END) as soon as possible. I've been wondering myself how big of an impact does this really make, so I decided to graph everything out to see for myself.
I used a few starting END values for this graph:
65 END: An optimized frontline combatant using Orc/Nord/Redguard as a race and Lady/Warrior as a birthsign, plus a class with END as a favored attribute. Highest possible starting END.
45 END: Represents the 40-50 starting END for the vast majority of race/class/birthsign combinations.
30 END: Breton/Argonian/Mer with magically inclined classes, with non END-focused classes and birthsigns. Lowest possible starting END.
I've also demonstrated 2 scenarios. One where the character actively strives for the +5 END/level by achieving 10 END-related skill ups every level, and another where the character does the bare minimum to receive +2 END/level by achieving 2-4 END-related skill ups every level. More information can be found here: (https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Endurance) (https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Leveling)
Here's how the graph looks like:
Levels 8-13 were marked as a "Danger Zone", as this is the level range where you get enemies with large HP pools and hit hard, but your enemy soul levels are still capped at Common (800) for custom enchantments and refills, and you do not have the sheer amount of enchanted items from drops at higher levels to help you deal with it. Notable enemies here include:
Level 8: Trolls, Skeleton Guardians (First of the durable, hard-hitting enemies in the game)
Level 9: Black Bears, Flame Atronachs
Level 10: Headless Zombies, Goblin Berserkers
Level 11: Ancient Ghosts, Will-o-the-Wisps (Means to deal non-physical damage are practically mandatory at this level for non-magic classes)
Level 12: Skeleton Heroes
Level 13: Spriggans, Mountain Lions, Clannfears (Extremely dangerous enemies, but you also start to get powerful Ascended Sigil Stones from Oblivion Gates)
At this point of the game, your main combat skills would most likely be between Journeyman (50) to Expert (75) unless you overleveled by accident or have been using underleveling exploits to min-max your character's combat power. In any case, you would want every bit of advantage you can get to deal with this early-mid game difficulty spike.
For 65 END characters, there is not that much difference between the HP of an efficiently levelled character. They go from 205HP vs 258HP (26% increase) at level 8 to 265HP vs 308HP (16% increase) at level 13. However, this is not the case for everyone else.
For a 45 END character, they go from 151HP vs 204 HP (35% increase) to 201HP vs 290HP (44% increase) at levels 8 and 13 respectively.
It's even worse in 30 END characters. They go from 112HP vs 163HP (45% increase) to 155HP vs 252HP (62% increase !!) at the same levels.
Now let's look at the endgame, which I choose level 30 since that is the level where all quest rewards max out, and you no longer receive any meaningful increase in offensive capability with further level ups. Any further level ups from this point onward only increases the enemy scaling and effectively makes your character weaker.
At level 30, the differences are 452HP vs 478HP for 65 END characters (5.7% increase), 460HP vs 403HP for 45 END characters (14% increase), to a whooping 338HP vs 441HP for 30 END characters (30% increase !!). Although to be fair, the sheer amount of combat options an average 30 END character has at this point of the game would make this difference rather negligible.
In addition to these differences, there was yet another aspect of maximizing END that has been often overlooked by many guides: Opportunity cost.
While every class generally has 2 main attributes other than END they want to focus on, they also have secondary attributes which does not directly increase their combat power, but further enhances what they can do in combat and generally improves quality of life while playing the class.
Warrior-type classes have STR (damage, carry weight) and SPD (movement in heavy armor) as main attributes, but also want AGI (stagger resist, fatigue pool) and WIL (fatigue pool, magicka regen for healing/utility spells).
Thief-type classes have AGI (damage, fatigue pool) and SPD (movement for kiting) as main attributes, but also want STR (carry weight, melee damage) and INT (magicka pool for utility spells).
Mage-type classes have INT (Magicka pool) and WIL (fatigue pool, magicka regen) as main attributes, but also want STR (carry weight) and SPD (kiting).
And that's not going into PER which is generally considered a dump stat, but it increases buy/sell prices and reduces the need bribe people for quest progression and/or buy spells to modify deposition. This is very useful for earning enough money in the early game for paying trainers to raise your skills, and you only get 5 training sessions per level.
Ideally, you would want to put points in END every level up until it reaches 100 to maximize your HP. The remaining 2 level up bonuses ideally should go to your main attributes to maximize your combat potential. Which brings us to a problem especially in the 45 END and 30 END classes:
A level up bonus put into END is a bonus not put into your secondary attributes.
Granted, your secondary attributes, or even your primary attributes are absolutely not necessary to max out, and can be easily made up through the use of enchanted gear and custom spells. However, your character is a sum of all parts, and the earlier you start investing into those attributes the better your character will play out, instead of turning to a overspecialized one-trick pony that struggles to do anything outside whatever they focused on during your first 20 levels.
Leave the min-maxed specialists for party-based cRPGs. In Oblivion the world is your oyster, and you don't get party members. Might as well make your character be able to do everything. Unless you are going for a restricted style of play for a more roleplay focused experience, which is a perfectly valid way to play as well. In any case, condensing your END level ups into as few levels as possible gives you more options to put those points somewhere else for the remaining levels, which in turn results in a much more well rounded character.
(TL;DR below)
- Efficiently levelling END gives minimal benefits when you have very high starting END, but is very useful if you have average to low starting END.
- Efficiently levelling END gives you a significant survivability boost within the level 8-13 "Danger Zone" if you have average to low starting END.
- The less levels you take to max out END, the more levels you get to invest in other attributes to round out your characters.
- High level characters have more options in combat, thus max HP differences are less impactful towards the end of the game.
- When all else fails, use the difficulty slider to fine-tune your play experience. It is one of the best things in original Oblivion and something I greatly missed in the Remaster version.
Hope you fall find this informative and entertaining!
Posted Jul 19, 2025, 7:57 PM UTC