I found relic in one of chests in Blackshire zone, Hera. What should I do - ignore the chest, or it is too late now and it is counted toward artifact/relic limit when it spawned? I have wishlist of artifacts, I don't want to screw my chances :))

If you have a save from before you opened the chest for the first time, try loading that a few times to see if it stays the same.

If it does, then if you have a save from before you entered this area for the first time, reload that and zerg rush the chest to check the contents (reload until you get what you want).

If you don't have either save, then I'm pretty sure your chances are screwed. Sorry!

Once the chest has been opened, I'm pretty sure it is counted regardless of whether you take it. I don't know whether it is counted when the chest is spawned; I'd guess not but I don't actually know.

Chest contents are generated the first time you enter zone. I have save just before entering zone (but I cleared all those nasty lizards, so.. XD), so I can reload and maybe keep reloading until I get good artifact to make up for the troubles:)) Blackshire has 5 chests.

That's why I say to reload and zerg the chest(s) first thing. Save once inside the zone (in a separate slot), check the chest contents, then proceed to clear the zone as usual if you like what you see. If you have a save post-area entry, but pre-opening chest, then I don't know if it counts against your artifact limit.

Are you looking for a specific artifact?

Bob

Yes... I have a "shopping" list of them :) It includes:
1. Conan.
2. Pellinore.
3. Galahad.
4. Valeria.
5. Pendragon.
6. Lucius.
7. Ares (Relic).

Can you get second Morgan, Igraine and Guinevere as random findings if you wait with opening ultimate treasure chest?

Sorry, don't know. I know there are a couple bad artifacts. But Hera looks pretty good for a Sorcerer. A bow-- what ever it was called--- was the only Artifact I thought was special enough to want again.
Now Wallace in MM7--- that was something to seek. Up Arms Master skill something special.

Hera adds 6 AC, 50 HP, 50 SP, 50 Luck and subtracts 50 Personality. 50 SP isn't enough even for Day of Protection, and 50 HP isn't much in comparison to how high HP can go and damage output of high level monsters. On other side, Morgan increases all damage done by Elemental Magic by 50% (which also means 50% more efficiency). Those two items are like from two different worlds.

I had Percival (bow) on my 1st playthrough years ago. I remember I discarded it because explosions were killing innocents and iirc it could cause friendly fire to party if used in short range. Stellar Bow of The Dragon is much superior to Percival.

Concerning Wallace, I might agree if it is used offensively in left hand with spear in right hand. Swords are very weak in MM 6-8 to be used as right hand weapons.

Percival-- that was the Bow. I loved blowing the stuffings out of the hordes. As for tighter areas--- just switch. Of course if I forgot there were a few angry peasants. LOL. As for hitting my own crew. Well, I loved rock blast. But once those boulders start bouncing-- well I'm familiar with the avatars' shrugging after damaging my own party.

Bob

Might & Magic VI is strange in that you re-invent your entire equipment several times over the course of the game. At the beginning of the game, you want items that give you more hit and spell points because those allow you to stay alive longer and cast more spells during long fights. Minor enchantment that improves your stats by five to ten are good too because early on that often means an improvement of +2 or +3 to your stats. But then you teach your characters bodybuilding and meditation and those extra hit and spell points from your equipment feels like a waste of equipment slot. Then some of your stats reaches the fifty breakpoint*, and from this moment on, you need an improvement of twenty five to reach the next breakpoint and get the +1, and it seems like a waste to use three or four equipment slots to get a +1 bonus to a particular stat when you could use those slots to improve other stats. And then your buff spells improve all of your stats past the fifty breakpoint, and so you change most of your equipment to get more elemental resistance now that monsters starts using magic or elemental damage more often. And then the game start dropping artifacts and relics which are just too good to pass up, and then you get the Rings of X Magic and everything changes.

* For more info on breakpoints: https://sites.google.com/site/sergroj/mm/mechanics

In my most recent game, my cleric and sorcerer had 12 in Body, Spirit, Mind, Fire, Water, Air, Earth magic, to cover my bases, and I dumped everything else in Light and Dark magic. By the end of the game they both had 36 in their respective Light and Dark magic. The Guinevere artifact improved that by 50%, so they were now at 54. The Rings of Light/Dark improved those by another 50% of the newly modified stat (meaning 50% of 54, not 50% of 36), 54 + 27, they were not at 81 in Light and Dark magic. Add to that the followers that improve all your magic skills by four and three respectively, and they were now at 88 Light and Dark magic.

With 88 in Master Dark magic, when you cast Day of Protection, all your resistance improves by 352. With 88 in Master Light magic, after casting Day of the Gods and Hour of Power, all my stats were ranging between the 400 and 500. At that point I sold all the equipment that improved my resistance and most of my equipment that improved my stats, with the exception of some that allowed me to easily reach the 450 or 500 breakpoints on some specific stats. From now on I wanted equipment and artifacts that gave me hit recovery, lot AC (I was lucky enough to get Zeus before reaching my artifact limit) but more than anything else, I wanted equipment that gave me lot of hit points to tank those spells and dragons' breath attacks, lot of hit points for my Knight so I could spam the Shared Life spell, and lot spell points for my sorcerer to spam Dragonbreath and Shrapmetal during long fights. In that regard, equipment that gave +5 Levels were a nice additions on my knight and sorcerer to get more hit and spell points.

So that necklace you got, it of course heavily depends on how you leveled your sorcerer. If you intend to use many of the spells from the Fire, Air, Water and Earth schools of magic during the end of the game, you most likely will want to equip Morgan instead of Hera, but if you went all the way into Dark and Light magic, by the end of the game you will most assuredly be grateful that you held onto it.

And you probably want to add a second copy of Guinevere, and maybe Igraine and Morgan to your shopping list depending on your party composition as you can get duplicate of those. I was lucky enough to get one extra Igraine for my Paladin, and one extra Guinevere for my Cleric in addition to the three guaranteed drops from the obelisk treasure. I don't remember if I got them before or after opening the obelisk treasure tho, but considering I was also unlucky enough to get duplicates of Mordred and Excalibur after acquiring those from the quest and the rock, I'm tempted to say it doesn't really matter. I could be wrong tho.

It was the first artifact I got, quite early in fact (Freehaven sewers). I thought too at first that it damages the party, but actually it doesn't. You get the "oops sorry" and everything, but you won't lose any HP.

That's great to hear, as I have Paladin, Archer, Cleric and Sorcerer (default canon party), so they all can benefit from duplicates of obelisk treasure artifacts.
That sounds better, though controllable damage is still much more preferable. But now I am in such situation that either I use Bless+Heroism and nuke monsters in melee or I use Incinerates and other heavy nukes from range (or outright Starburst monsters when fighting outdoors), so bows are out of the question, because they don't deal any significant damage at this point in the game.

Regarding that shopping list...
1 - Hera, so good on a Sorcerer
2 - A second copy of Igraine for your Paladin
3 - A second copy of Guinevere for your Cleric/Sorcerer because you will tire of switching the rings before casting the buffs
4 - Zeus is much better than Pellinore for your Paladin (Paladins don't need Intellect)
5, 6 - Galahad and Apollo for your Archer and Cleric
7 - Athena is another nice addition to a Sorcerer with absolutely no penalty (Sorcerer don't need Might)
8 - Aegis or Valeria, whichever has the most AC for whoever wears a shield in your party.

9 - Lucius seems like a waste compared to Hermes, you can equip Hermes (+100 Speed, -40 Accuracy) to a spell caster with almost no penalty, and on a fighter too if you couple it with a couple ring of +20 Accuracy. Which ever you prefer to pick, try getting:
10, 11 - Odin's crown (+50 Resistance, -40 Speed), or Atlas (+100 Might, -40 Speed) as these combo very easily with Hermes or Lucius.

12 - Pendragon is not super but it's not the worst choice out there either.
13, 14, 15 - Your weapons of choice I suppose. Or two weapons and a shield if one of your fighters use one. Excluding Mordred and Excalibur because those are available in every games, unless you want duplicates of those.

That would be my ideal shopping list with your current party setup. Of course, that's easier said than done, as you'll most likely encounter a couple more artifacts that you cannot avoid and you will have to give up some of the artifacts that interest you the least. I wish you the best of luck in acquiring a second Guinevere tho.

The problem with bow artifacts and relics is that it's possible and almost better to roll bows with the Demon Slayer or Dragon Slayer prefixes and Of The Dragon or Of Swiftness suffixes. Percival is noteworthy because it has both the Of Swiftness and Of Carnage suffixes, which is impossible to roll on a bow (you can have a prefix and a suffix, but you can't get two prefixes nor two suffixes at the same time), but I'm fairly certain had I acquired Percival, I would have ditched it by the end of the game, just like I did with Artemis.

I also believe it is possible to get duplicate of any artifacts or relics if you get one, store it in a chest whose content will not respawn in a long time and acquire another one in the meantime. Or if you feel savescummy, you can save in front of two dragons' corpses, loot one and reload until you acquire whichever item you are looking for, drop it on the ground, save, and loot the second corpse and reload until you acquire it a second time, but I have not verified that as I had acquired my fifteenth artifacts by the time I reached the point in game where I could have done that.

Also, if you aren't doing so already, have one or two of your character carry the best rings, necklaces, belts, gloves, boots, cloaks, helmets and what not. Sort them by attributes, your best Might items, best Intellect items, best Endurance items... same for resistances, same for HP if you can. Those things are so versatile, should you find a new piece of armor or equipment or a relic that suddenly forces you to rethink your equipment choice, you will have a lot of options at your disposal.

I avoid equipment which penalizes me in some way, so this list excludes almost all Relics except Ares (as it has no penalty). On some Relics in particular:
1. Zeus vs Pellinore. Zeus has HP Regen and 30 Endurance versus 50 HP/SP. Paladins have a lot of HP that +-50 HP matters little, and I use my paladin mostly as melee with support in case things go wrong, standard SP pool works fine for that.
2. My Sorcerer deals relatively high damage with Mordred + Jewelled Dagger of The Dragon, damage output competes with Incinerates, but unlike Incinerate you don't waste 30 SP each time when it is resisted and dealt 6 damage instead of 106.

Everyone needs Accuracy, so Hermes is out. I just finished Agar's Laboratory and I kept spamming Bless just to keep up +Hit bonus. All that "-40 Accuracy" will strike back when you enter Castle Darkmoor and all Days of Gods/Protection/Hour of Power are prevented by dispel spam.

"- Endurance" items are also very bad. You get benefit from each point of Endurance, because in MM6 it also acts as defense against one-hit kills.

Now that I am in high end areas, I will use advice of Bookwyrm and do zerg rush to check chests before doing area normally. I am not in a hurry to finish game, as I already finished it before, now I just want to work on my dream party :)

Multi-looting dragon corpses is way too much exploiting in my book. I don't hesitate to spam Ring of Fire to kill monsters on other side of wall, etc., but multi-looting takes it way too far. What concerns storing artifacts somewhere, I also heard that stored item goes off the counter as well, but noone really confirmed this rumor. I will check it later, when I will reach Dragonsand and will be able to farm Dragons reliably.

To each their own I suppose, but keep in mind, at end game, when an attribute is beyond 300 it takes 50 additional points to make a difference on the stat bonus, and beyond 400 it doesn't matter if you have 465 or 425 in Might or Accuracy since the next breakpoint is at 500, and past 500 there is no more breakpoint (at least to the best of my knowledge.)

Just saying, keep the door open, in the Arena, against the dragons, it's your ability to casts Sharpmetal for days on end that will keep you alive, not your sorcerer's daggers. Then again, it all depends on how you leveled your sorcerer. But I'm biased because my end game Sharpmetal dealt 1800 damage on average at point blank, and 50 spell points, no matter how little that may seem, every single slice of 50 spell points was another Sharpmetal I could cast without sleeping during a fight. And if I could replay that game, I'd do everything in my power to buff those numbers even higher.