10 Video Game Items With Secret Features That No One Knows About
3. You Can Attack With Pickaxes To Gather Ore - The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Mining is an important part of Skyrim's crafting system as it gives you resources to make weapons, improvements, and even parts of your house!
However, despite how often you have to rely on mining, the mechanic is never explained to you, and a lot of people tend to slave over one ore source for meager yields... When they could simply attack it and rob it of its precious ore in seconds!
That's right! The pickaxe in Skyrim has two modes for obtaining ores. If you have it in your inventory and press the action button next to an ore source like the game tells you to, it puts you in a long animation loop where it automatically mines the source dry.
However, if you equip the pickaxe like any other weapon, you can instead attack the ore and gather it yourself in half the amount of time it takes for the mining animation to finish.
The game never tells you this, but this method is a lot quicker and more effective than the alternative. You can speed it up even more if you combine it with the Whirlwind shout that makes you attack faster.
Work smarter, not harder! Treat your ore like it's a common bandit!