Umbra Sword- How To Get It Early In Oblivion Remastered

Umbra Sword and the Umbra Ebony set is, technically, a very late game weapon and armor combo in Oblivion Remastered. But freedom is likely the name most associated with Bethesda games, especially those in the Elder Scrolls franchise.

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So what if I told you that you can actually get this very powerful weapon and armor set essentially as soon as you leave the tutorial sewers? Here is how to get the umbra sword early in Oblivion Remastered, alongside the Umbra Ebony set and shield.

Where To Find The Umbra Sword

Image Via Bethesda. Screenshot captured by Blast.

Umbra, the NPC who carries the homonymous sword, shield, and armor set can be found inside an Ayleid Ruin called Vindasel. This place is extremely close to the Imperial City, which makes it a perfect target for some early game shenanigans.

Simply cross the lake using the main bridge and head south, hugging the waterline. Vindasel will pop up on your compass, and you can head inside. The ruin poses no challenge. The only enemies inside are rats and mudcrabs. You’ll also encounter a dropping floor trap with spikes and a poison emitter. Both are easy to avoid.

At the end of the ruin you will encounter Umbra, our target. She is not hostile, which is good for us. Regardless of what difficulty you are playing on, you are not meant to kill her early in the game. After all, she is part of a quest that requires you to be level 20 to even accept it.

So you cannot kill her using weapons or magic, but you can use your massive brain in one of two ways.

How To Get The Umbra Sword And Set

Image via Bethesda. Screenshot Captured By Blast.

The are two main courses of action here with the same result.. If you prefer being slow and steady, I recommend the first one. The second one is for those who prefer to live fast and dangerous.

Note: Make sure you get a horse and leave it outside the ruin for the second method.

Running To Imperial City

For this method you want to attack Umbra from far away, using whatever ranged damage you have. She will start chasing you, and she is quite fast. Run out of the ruin and wait outside, making sure she is following. If you are too quick she might not exit the ruin.

Once you’ve gotten her out, you need to run north and make your way back into the Imperial City. Make sure you don’t get too much distance between the two of you or she will start walking back.

The objective here is simple: you want to bait her into as many imperial guards as you can. She might take a few down, but she will eventually fall. Once she does, the loot is all yours and will not count as stolen.

Quick And (Slightly) Dangerous

Image via Bethesda. Screenshot Captured By Blast.

There is a quicker way to do this, but it will also require a bit of patience. This method allows you to kill Umbra without leaving the ruin at all, but it will likely end in a few deaths, especially in higher difficulties.

You’ll want to aggro her exactly the same way, using a ranged attack. Once she is running towards you, you’ll want to bolt until you get into the room with the dropping floor trap. Equip a shield and a healing spell so you can tank at least one attack if you make a mistake, and wait for Umbra to catch up.

As soon as she comes close, run towards the trap and jump to the other side as soon as it activates. If you did it with the correct timing, Umbra will fall and take damage, but you won’t. The tricky parts are not getting hit and making sure that Umbra falls on the spikes instead of the safe area around them.

After quite a few minutes of trial and error, the most surefire method I came up with was using the pillar as a way to kite her. You’ll want to jump diagonally, but through the middle. This will ensure that Umbra will fall on top of the spikes most times, with some likelihood that she will take damage twice.

Repeat the process a few times and Umbra will be dead. More dangerous than running towards the Imperial City, but also much quicker. The main downside of this method is that you will be over.-encumbered further away from stores, but as long as you left your horse outside the ruin, you’ll be fine.

Umbra Sword And Set

Image via Bethesda. Screenshot Captured By Blast.

If you are a melee user, especially one with Blades as a Major Skill (double points if you are investing into strength), the Umbra Sword is one of the best weapons in the entire game. Getting it this early will boost your damage considerably and, until you do the lvl 20 quest associated with it, Umbra Sword weighs nothing.

On top of dealing a ton of damage, the Umbra Sword comes enchanted, applying Soul Trap on strike, so you can use it to fill any empty Soul Gems you are carrying around.

The Umbra set is probably too heavy for any low level character to wear this early on, even more so if you want the shield too. With that being said, you can save it for later by stashing it in a grain sack as these do not respawn. Thank you to Reddit user BobCrosswise for the useful suggestion.

You can also quickly acquire the Battlehorn castle and upgrade it to have storage of your own, allowing you to keep it in a much more accessible place while you level your Strength up. If you don’t intend on keeping it, you can sell it for quite a bit of gold. Just make sure you max the trader’s disposition first so you can haggle as much as possible.

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