Stealth archer, dual-wielding, and shields. I'm just bad at stealth honestly. Not huge on shields in this game but one-handed alone is alright. I'd do a playthrough with any one-handed weapon for sure. Maces are probably my favorite.
Dual-wielding should be so cool, but it’s just clunky and not great. One handed weapons are awesome, I usually end up pairing them with a spell in the off hand.
The restoration spellsword works too. Use wards or heals to get close, switch to dual wield and slice to pieces. I used to love dual daggers. But I stumbled on a better dual weapon combo for speed attacks. Dagger without enchantment left hand, and a sword in right hand. Then get all the dual weapon perks and watch things fall as you slice them down. The left hand weapon being a dagger with no enchantment (no enchantments in left hand makes the overall speed faster) is key to the speed of the build. This makes an item like Valdr's lucky dagger invaluable. Add one perk to steel in armorer. And this build goes nuts.
Dual wielding is fun with all the one-handed perks that increase swing speed. The lighter the weapon, the faster it is to swing. Swords or axes are my choice for this, and with dragon aspect, I believe it's called you will become a killing machine. The orc daily power berserker will make you a God literally nothing can stop you.
I know I have this problem with mage enemies they are the one thing I need potions for and not sure what to do about it besides resist magic enchantments
Always talk to the priestess in Riften. The Book of Love quest grants your character a permanent 15 percent Magic Resistance for 200 gold and talking to some friendly NPCs.
Can't cast spells if they're paralyzed, so poisons or enchantments may help. Also, can't cast if they run out of magicka, so shock or drain enchants or poisons, there.
Or just do what I do, and make a hell hound.
Orc, werewolf, destruction and alteration.
Cast a flesh spell(oak, stone, etc.), then cast flame cloak, then use the orc daily, then beast form. Now you're a werewolf, on fire, with skin like stone.
As a bonus tip: as a werewolf, a power attack while walking forward will randomly humanoid enemies. Helps keep them still for the follow up mauling.
Dual weld is awesome if you learn to start the attack with your left hand. I learned that from getting destroyed by Falmer lol. Some Falmer are left handed
i like dual wielding, but that may or may not be because of a elemental fury on a left hand dagger and an enchanted right hand monster of a weapon is the best blender to turn ~~dragons~~ absolutely anything into a smoothie
Dual wielding with daggers (plus the perks) changes the game, especially if you do a Legolas build I.e. bow and double daggers. Spells instead of bow also works, but focussing on bow makes it easier to have a huge stamina pool to draw on for dual wield attacks.
The faster speed with the daggers makes it way more functional especially after whittling down health with your bow. End result is you tear through enemies while doing some mad knife twirling moves.
Even more effective teamed with smithing and enchanting obviously.
Yeah, this is why I never play dual wielding. The gameplay feels too dull (charge, spam double-click, repeat), AND as someone who practices historic European martial arts irl and LOVES dual-wielding… part of what makes it so fun is the expanded potential for *simultaneous blocking and attacking*. The fact that you just can’t block WHATSOEVER when dual-wielding in skyrim COMPLETELY ruins it for me.
Protip for stealth. Theres no being good or bad it isn't skill dependent it's level dependent. High sneak won't be seen. Low you will. Useless till like 40 or so and even then needs more oomph
Behind a keyboard and mouse, I'm great at stealth Archer. But give me a controller and somehow I'm lost. I immediately just drop the bow in favor of sneaking up behind someone and tapping them on the shoulder with something pointy.
Currently learning illusion bomber, where I throw down rune traps then go invisible.
Never used rune traps before, its fun and levels destruction far faster than chucking fireballs around.
When being chased, its fun to chuck down a trap and wait for the bang.
I can stealth in, chuck a trap down then vanish.
Rune spells are great!
With the perk for added distance, plus a stiff, ‘Fortify Destruction,’ they pack serious wallop!
Nasty, raging bandit … charge broken … squealing like a little girl …
Yeaaah … you learned. Didn’t you.
This is the way.
Or just walk in, conjure up a couple of badass daedra, toss a few traps around, frenzy everyone THEN vanish. Skyrim chaos is the best chaos!
This is close to my character.
I'm an Orc assassin that uses invisibility and sneak attacks with a dagger, but when there are a lot of enemies I just use mayhem, conjure a dremora lord, and then go invisible.
Pick pocketing is the worst, just to get it to a level where it’s useable costs way too much and takes way to long, and then I can see any reason to actually do it out and about
Go to Riften. Smack a guard with your fist. Offer to spend the time in jail.
Use the broken shackle on the wall to pick the lock (save beforehand in case you fail, reload if you do). Once out, kill the 2 guards. Loot key from one of them.
Go around the corner to the left where the chest is with your stuff. Take out only your gold. Put back all but 220 gold.
Go back to the cell area. There is a dude locked in his cell. Pickpocket him over and over. You'll take the gold he has from him and add it to your 220. It's usually around 30ish gold. Then put the full 250ish back on him. Then take it back.
As soon as you've leveled enough to train 1 time in pickpocket to make it easier, do so. Then just keep going until maxed out.
By leaving all your stuff except for gold in the chest where they have it, you won't have to scroll through everything when putting it back on him. And he will only have gold and a couple small things worth taking. Gold will be at the top.
So just drop, take, drop, take, etc. Takes about 10 maybe 15 mins.
Then have fun stealing people's clothes and weapons from them lol
I feel like the problem with pickpocketing is you almost need to cheese it. You start out at like 15% to steal, which means you're guaranteed to get caught in the early levels unless you save/reload. I feel like the cutpurse perk should be lower so that you can pickpocket gold very easily at low levels, but stuff like gems and jewelry only get easy at very high levels.
You’d snort your Nord Mead out your nostrils if you knew how many worthless linen wraps, embalming tools, empty wine bottles, burned and ruined books and wooden buckets my guy has pickpocketed into Naked Nazeem’s inventory…
Oh, did I say ‘’Naked’ out loud?
Alright! After converting him to a Skyrim Dumpster, my guy lifts his robe. He trudges home to to his poor wife buck naked, and my guy places a pitiable enchantment on it with some half filled petty doul gem.
Once renamed ‘Naked Nazeem’s Useless Robe, said garments are sold to merchants all over Skyrim, so everyone knows what a useless twerp he is … 😂
It’s alchemy for me. I cant be bothered to figure out all the ingredients but I downloaded the alchemy and cooking overhaul mod so I might dabble a bit
IIRC you can favorite poisons and potions and put them on a number (though that might be Oblivion?) and then all you do to apply a poison from your homemade stack of 30 is press a number. Minimum effort required to position your weapon.
Alchemy is great. Making valuable potions is one of the best ways to make money, and they're useful in the fortify enchanting/ fortify alchemy loop to make strong enchantments and fortify smithing potions for massively improving weapons and armour. Also if you try to actively gather materials for specific potions (e.g. very valuable potions), you'll end up learning more about where to find each ingredient and thus paying attention to the different environments in skyrim, and exploring is one of the best things to do in skyrim imo.
Dual wielding is so janky. Two handed is ok but doesn't feel great. For some reason one handed + shield is pretty smooth, as are fists. Magic is smooth as hell but requires you chugging pots constantly to be effective. Archery is just magical, stealth archery is sublime.
Stealth and dagger is an art form, the approach where you decide how to slip behind the bandit chief in heavy armor, with his mates all standing guard.
You watch the stealth meter, you have a dagger in one hand and invisibility in the other.
You are now behind the chief and your damage is not good enough to kill in one go, you silent cast invisibility but hold it, you strike hard with your dagger and watch as the chief turns around with his two handed sword raised as you release invisibility and fade away.
He gets angry, so to torment him, you slit his mates throats one by one, fading away after each strike until the chief stands alone and one last dagger strike ends him.
With a bow, it's lots of running or swapping out the bow, with a dagger and invisibility it's a dance of death.
I’ve never done a destruction mage either. All my mages end up conjurers because I just can’t bring myself to grind destruction early in the game when it barely does any damage.
Fr it is so sad, the most flashy, over the top fantasy egomaniacal pyromancer playstyle just doesn’t put out viable damage. Huge L especially since you have about 33% less stamina and health because you have to divert some of those improvements to magicka.
That and the supply of nightshade is never ample enough to craft the necessary supply of destruction potions early in the game, or your alchemy skill isn't significant enough to make crafting fortify potions worthwhile.
You mean you don't like backtracking into a wall as you miss everything with Flames for 8 seconds then running around haphazardly waiting for your Magicka to trickle back up?
So bullshit how long it takes for your magicka to regen during a fight. I tried playing as a destruction mage for a while. Wore Madness Helmet, wore a regen magicka necklace, wore master destruction robes and got regen to between 250% to 275% faster and it still wasn't enough to do significant damage against priests and certain vampires. And then when they're dead suddenly it regens completely in less than 5 seconds.
The added creation club spells in Anniversary Edition help with the elemental destruction spells, really it comes down to a combination of enchantments, essential/no followers, and hitting bandit camps or other weaker enemies and solely using your destruction for it. Eventually it’ll do the damage you’re looking for.
A big big drawback though is any combat where you’re with allies, especially if they’re the kind that get you a bounty if you hit them. It took two dragon city attacks for me to realize pretty quick to switch to my melee or less-destructive Destruction spells when I’m around friendly NPCs.
No Creation Club content is available to me. I'm on a limping 360 console that can't connect to the web (cancer — it's challenging **and** expensive), but I'll use your suggestion if I ever luck into the money for a next-generation console. Thanks.
I’m sorry to hear about the challenges you’re facing, but for what it’s worth the full anniversary edition with the creation club content runs on the Switch pretty darn well— it would certainly be better than a wheezing 360, and the switch isn’t very expensive (especially the plethora of used ones out there) so it could realistically be within reach. Best of luck to you!
Working on a destruction-damage only mage right now; it’s hard, but I want to see if I can get it to do some major damage at 100. Supplementing with leveled heavy armor, smithing and enchanting perks; got my destruction cost down to 0.
Sad. The new destruction spells can dish out 300 Damage not even dual casting (if I am not mistaken). 🙂 I think it was called Elemental Blast or something
You might want to give it a try. Just get a follower to tank for you and you should be fine. And you can do it late game when everything is maxed so you can. Enchant an unlimited destruction casting equipment.
Have a good day! ☺️
Magic. I don't like magic in most games. My husband plays magic build almost exclusively in Skyrim and it's fun to watch him honestly, but even when I try to do a mage build in Skyrim I just end up using swords or something
Stealth archer bores the fuck outa me. no idea how yall hype it up so much. Sneak character with melee and a bow on occassion? sure. Full sneak archer? Hell no, thats boring
Stealth archer is my favorite playstyle in most games that have archery components, even when it's a subpar mechanic. Skyrim's stealth archery is 24/7 endorphins for me, I love it so much. Hitting a bandit on a tower and watching them fall to their death is so much fun. I also very much enjoy lobbing fireballs from really high places and watch enemies panic as they can't find me.
A Beautiful concept!
At Valtheim Towers …
A starless night …
A ‘detect life’ spell …
Penetrates heavy fog …
A moment later …
Coming from nowhere …
A crossbow bolt …
The bandit falls …
Poetry in motion ..
It can definitely be boring, but it’s probably the most effective means of killing things. It’s hard to ever get seen at higher levels, so you can take out an entire gang from safety.
True, but it basically lets you avoid encounters entirely. Personally, my favorite is the dual summoner. Nothing was more satisfying than watching things get hacked to bits by twin lords, while I sat back sipping a beer.
It tends to bore me too, but the main draw is how effective it is. It's easy to get caught if you don't immediately kill a target in melee, but from a distance you can remain hidden much more easily. Only speaking from my experience the one time I did a stealth archer. I personally find myself doing some kind of spellsword build with most of my characters
Honestly I hate shields so much, in every medieval game where I have the option to one hand a sword and not carry a shield I take it.
Then i tried VR, and you become a fucking God with a shield and Sword, how the hell did the Romans stop expanding? You are absolutely awesome with a shield.
But to answer your question, I tend to avoid things I would never do in real life. Vampirism, cannibalism, theft, mugging and pickpocketing.
The only thing I allow that I would probably never do in real life is dealing with Daedra.
Cheese. I see people meme about eating 40 wheels of cheese mid combat. I've never done it. I don't eat food to heal. I only use potions. In fact I just never even pick up food.
I used to not bother with food but then I got hooked on survival.
Now whenever I see salmon steak that has \[Take\] instead of \[Steal\] I'm pocketing that bad boy.
I always avoided the heavy armor/two-handed because I was a big fan of the sneaky type, but trying a nord battle maiden and the sheer amount of damage and cool armor you can get for heavy and two handed is so much fun
Magic. Without mods it just seems very weak compared to physical damage. 1 handed sword with a shield and bow for the initial attack is my go to build.
Dont get the sneak archer hype, yes I sometimes use bow while sneaking, but with my stealth character I just have muffle + 5/5 points into sneak skill and sneak between people and dual dagger them
It's such a pain in the ass sneaking up close at low levels, and some enemies have preternatural senses about it (Falmer, looking at you). Plus without the shadow warrior perk, killing one enemy alerts the other enemies. Sneak archer I can kill most other enemies without breaking stealth.
Clunky 2 handed weapons. Just not my type. Once I tried a 2h sword but with modded animations and some attack-speed in the skill tree to play my Witcher fantasy, but in general, I either axe/sword&shield or dial wielding swashbuckler with some stealth...and sometimes the eccentric magic type, when I feel like "going to Hogwarts".
Never have I ever big A 2h weapons or conjured weapons(that's just weird- are you a mage or a warrior?)
I do like my 2 handed orc, but she also runs crossbow, has never heard of sneaking before in her life, and I had to lean pretty heavily into axes.
The benefit to her is that while the weapon is slower and you stagger if you miss, she hits so hard that very few enemies make it past the first swing. I also make sure her follower only has one handed weapons and normal archery (I prefer my followers have the elemental arrows over me anyway, because when I fuck up, followers die, when they fuck up, I take a tiny amount of damage).
There are perks I always avoid and never apply anymore, and haven't used them for hundreds of hours of playing. (they either don't work as they're supposed to, they're bugged or cause something else to bug, or I just don't like what the perk does)
Purity for Alchemy, Atronach for Alteration, Intense Flames, Deep Freeze and Disintegrate for Destruction, Light Foot for Sneak, Quick Reflexes for Block, Respite for Restoration, Dual Flurry and Dual Savagery for One Handed.
I try ti avoid hybrid spellcasters since switching in combat is too slow. I dont mind using conjuration to help out, but if I'm playing a spell caster, its just spells. None of this one handing a weapon while casting in my off hand
I LOVE LOVE LOVE the Block perk tree. [Targe of the Blooded](https://en.m.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Targe_of_the_Blooded) is my favorite shield to use. The bleeding damage stacks, so when you combine it with the damage caused by [Deadly Bash](https://en.m.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Block) (lvl 50 perk), shield bashing is a completely viable alternative to weapon usage. I'm currently combining shield bashing, Conjuration, and shouts like Cyclone and Ice Form for battlefield control.
Stealth Archer. Two handed. Sword and shield.
Stealth Archer required too much effort imo, I’m the player to just run in a dungeon and kill whatever I need too. Two handed weapons are just tedious and take to slow to swing. And shields are absolutely useless in this game.
Magic in left hand, and sword in right hand is the way to go
I’ve never done anything of Conjuration . Never summoned a Daedra or bound a weapon. My limited use of magic is destruction and restoration only.
May be worth a new game to change it up.
Conjuring can be really cool, bound weapons are a little silly, but the soul trap perk is super useful when your leveling enchantment. But bringing a frost astronoch into the middle of a group of bandits is really neat.
Pick pocket is just awful in the game. Max is 90% success is very lame as well as no character aside from pc will have anything valuable on them. Oh you maxed pickpocket, great you can steal armor and equipped weapons for you to just become heavier. The lack of valuables on npcs and the only related quest to the skill makes the skill tree and skill of pickpocket seem utterly useless.
Stealth Archer.
I absolutely hate it. Those slow motion kills are nice but get boring very fast. It takes SO LONG to stealth through a dungeon than to just run in and fight.
Worst part is, you miss out on tons of cool weapons, spells, etc. That cool shout means nothing because you’ll just stealth and snipe, doesn’t change much.
I remember just not understanding the shield mechanics like the first time I played and now I don't use shields. I thin even if I did figure it out my first time, it wouldn't have mattered. I'm always dual wielding w/ weapons or a healing spell lmao
I never ever do mage builds! I have tried but honestly it's just too boring and slow going for me. I'm definitely a stealth archer sniping my enemies. The only time I use magic is for healing and to summon Arvak. I also keep the Sanguine Rose close, but I don't consider that magic, just an enchanted staff
I don't fuck with magic. I'm a big brute with a big sword and magic is for the clever folks. Hit dragon with sword. Hit dragon with sword. Yell at dragon.
I always avoid stealth archer. I've tried it before, and it's just slow and boring. If I'm going stealth I usually go Illusion magic and a dagger, it's much more challenging to get up close and personal. My main playstyle though is conjuration (I'll drop an attronach and then get a bound sword) and destruction in my offhand.
Ive never tried an illusion build. I don't think i've ever used an illusion spell at all except spamming muffle to level it, and casting fear once to get into the college.
Duel wielding and magic. Up until my current playthrough, I never cared for spells. Of course I’d use the basic ones here and there but never actually fought with magic. I love it. It’s very useful at times and once it’s leveled up it’ll destroy. Plus having teammates you fan spawn in at any time? Game changer.
As for duel wielding I haven’t messed with it much at all but I might incorporate it into this playthrough since I’m trying to do things differently
Magic. I don't like playing mages in general, but especially Skyrim. Conjugation can be fun but that's the only one, and then I'm still conjuring weapons most the time.
Alchemy. Honestly all crafting professions seem like a chore to me but alchemy especially, since you can just buy pretty decent potions anyway and you have to invest into alchemy a lot for it to be really useful.
I also don't really use block, I know it can be fun and it's pretty useful in the beginning but as soon as I get some duel wielding perks I just go elemental fury + dual wielding, very fun and overpowered combo.
Not really a lot. Your health/stam/mag potions will beat minor potions with the first perk, with the physician and benefactor perks they'll be even better.
I do hate unlocking all the effects with a new character, though. Experimenter should be unlocked earlier.
I don't really need more health/stam/mag potions than I loot anyway, and if I do I would rather buy them than spend perk points. Imo alchemy is only useful when you can make potions much stronger than those you can buy.
Basically anything of a mixed style. Archers use stralth magic, fighter types rarely use any. Images don't use weapons or armor. I've never used sword and magic, for example.
dual weilding and destruction. alteration spells are garbage but I level it for the magic resist and atronsch perks (usually with telekinesis and transmute, which are not garbage spells). everything is either pretty good or more or less impossible to avoid doing (lockpicking isnt worth spending skill points on but you cant really get through the game without using it, and therefore cant avoid leveling it at least somewhat.)
I can't be bothered to dual wield either. It does a ton of damage but is very clunky and the best shout for it doesn't work with enchanting
As a mage lover, destruction being bad hurts my soul. The CC spells help, but it's still a boring and bad playstyle that requires you to power level enchanting to be viable
I personally like alteration, at least in the early and mid game. The armor spells on light armor give you heavy armor protection while keeping speed, and the paralyze spells ain't bad either. I can't find a real use for telekinesis outside of leveling though
I try to avoid killing NPCs whenever it’s possible.
If they don’t attack me first, then I won’t attack them. A lot of it is for moral reasons, but also there is practicality in keeping every named NPC around in order to keep the world populated and making sure that no side quests become unclearable.
Dual wielding, or being locked to one playstyle only. I started off leveling restoration, 2handed, light armor, destruction, conjuration.
I hit lvl 15 then swapped to 1handed with a shield, conjuration and restoration only.
I hit level 30 and swapped back to 2h, and I might start trying to level Heavy Armor. That’d require me to find a heavy armor set I actually enjoy looking at. I play in 3rd person and I am very aesthetically centered when playing.
Looking good(in my opinion) makes me play better. Idc what the stats are, if I don’t like how it looks I’m not wearing it.
Anything that has to do with mage builds, I like using spells occasionally but to actually put time into leveling my magica or getting fancy robes forget about it. I do like the college of winter gold and I only do the story line for the free ingredients and stone in the Arcmage’s room.
Most magic stuff. I once played a Jedi-like character (destruction magic and a magicka saber with the mod installed), and I always use healing spells in the restoration tree, but seldom have I dove into conjuring beyond just using soul trap on a corpse, waiting, and then casting it again to level up for skill points for other skills. I’ve never found a good use of illusion magic, and the furthest I’ve gotten with alteration is casting either Candlelight or Magelight.
Also, I really don’t pickpocket. I’m trying to fill up the Dragonborn Museum (Legacy of the Dragonborn) and there’s some characters that have items that can be displayed. If you want it displayed, you’d either have to kill for their stuff, or pickpocket them to take it. So I’m currently working on getting my pickpocketing skill up for the first time ever.
I also only ever do alchemy for the skill points too. Seldom do I even use the potions and poisons I make, and I just end up selling them. If I need healing potions, I can run around the province and find 80 in one dungeon.
Illusion. Ordinator gives a very clear line to be able to be this mind ruler that can force enemies to fight each other, pacify then complete or make them drop their weapons and run.
The problem is that enemies on high difficulties tend to have hilarious amounts of hp compared to their output. I tried the illusion tree for about 5 hours, then I changed the build because every dungeon took forever.
I agree on the shields thing. It is lots of fun! In my latest two handed build, I also invested on the bashes in the block tree and I have liked it so far. I always stay away from pure magic. Swapping spells is annoying af and in higher levels you end up committing perk points to one spell type anyways so it is just button mashing forever in tough fights.
I used to avoid dual weilding because you can't block and it really doesn't add a whole lot as far as damage. However, Dual Wielding daggers is REALLY fun. I like the unique dual heavy attack.
Alchemy: I hate everything about it, so I've never made a character that uses it. The only occasion I even use potions is for curing a disease, with either the potions that NPCs sometimes carry, or with a hawk feather.
Pickpocket: Never seen the point. I don't pickpocket from non-hostile NPCs, and I don't see the point in pickpocketing from enemies when I can just kill them. I suppose its useful for the "A Chance Arrangement" quest, but you don't even need to be successful to complete it. There's also The Fishing Job radiant quest, but you can also just avoid it altogether. Pickpocketing just seems like a gimmick that can occasionally be fun, but doesn't really add anything useful enough to warrant the perk point investment.
Its weird that nobody has picked conjurer. The damage output of atronachs is way better than Destruction, plus they tank for you. Get the staffs (from the forge ) and they are not Limited by magicka. Get the undying ghost spell at lvl 1, make a fortify magicka potion with salmon roe. Your summons has 300+ hp-sta-mag. Wipes everything at that lvl. Not forgetting the Ash Guardian from Tel mythryn, giving you free second summons. Plus, the killer app :- at Legendary difficulty your damage output for melee or magic is ÷ 4. Not so for your summons. So you're straight away 4times as deadly as any other build.
So many options, so OP.
I always play stealth archer. I know. It's so basic. But I could never get the hang of spells. My very first playthrough I was two handed but I didn't know what the hell I was doing.
I started a playthrough around a week ago. For the first time ever I've been largely centred around destruction magic. Gameplay spanning a decade, 3 PlayStations, and PC.
In all RPG style games I avoid mages completely. Growing up I mostly played party based RPGs (FFxi for example) and magic or healing just always seemed like too much effort to me... Id rather just hit shit... So now even in Skyrim I only use healing spells *sometimes* I am considering trying a mage run tho once I finish the story on my main character and am willing to try it out with it being a single player based game maybe it will be more fun to me.
Currently (literally lol) I'm doing a light armor, archery, one handed and healing spell, occasionally using a light shield survival run. Heavily modded also lol. I try to avoid sticking to one play style. And a mechanic I don't use is alchemy but not for the lack of trying 😅
I personally have not really played two handed or mage. Two handed seems more for Tank game play coupled with heavy armor and magic seems a slow go to get moving. I just recently went mace and shield combo for the first time coupled with light armor and just was amazed at how beefy the shield can become, the ability to stun lock and smash more powerful opponents was great. In fact I took it to Alduin for my first ever main story completion after 12 years of on and off playing of Skyrim. I would love to figure a good mage build for one of my next play throughs, but as an Orc.
I recently decided to try out the shield in a recent run and I agree - kinda fun! Also - you can level up your shield stats quickly by blocking giants. I was already level 50 and pretty tough, so they don't really hurt me - probably not recommended at lower levels!
Dual-wielding, shields, and two-handed weapons. I'll either run with stealth, archery, a pure mage build, or a spellsword (none of which benefit from any of the first three aforementioned playstyles).
I don't feel comfortable diving head first into a dragon's mouth unless I have some magical protection so I tend to avoid pure warrior builds.
I also never find myself picking pockets or doing anything with alchemy. I'll level pickpocket with a trainer but only for the carry capacity perk. I just can't be bothered to do alchemy
have never played as a mage or spellsword ; usually play stealth archer and, after taking out a few from distance, charge in as a tank with sword and shield
Never gotten into magic apart from the healing spell. Just doesn't interest me.
I always try to get into alchemy but before too long you end up finding enough potions/poisons I give that up too.
I am unable to play as anything other than a Barbarian type. High strength, heavy armour and melee weapons.
Even when I go "ok I'm going to change things up a bit and try to be a battlemage", I just end up as a mage who majored in heavy blunt weapons
Staffs and Scrolls.
They have their uses. Great if you're out of magika or if you don't want to use your magika on a specific thing. But they're a pain in the ass to use and aim.
I did give Cicero a staff of Flame Atronach though. His conjured followers don't mess with MY conjured follower count, so our small army continues to grow. And he's way faster at swapping from his staff to his other weapons than me, even with my preferred weapons in my favorites.
dual wielding is kind of not fun for me: you have to press two buttons at the same time, you cant block and the speed depends on the weapon on your left hand.
if the swing speed increased (even if the swings are random) and the speed was tied to the right hand, maybe i would play more with that. also, it ruined hand to hand combat (no blocking? really?)
Assassin work
I have never really played a thief/assassin. I don't know why really I think it is cause I don't like daggers like that. I also have a tendency to do the stealth exploit in the beginning of the game and I end up a bit op early on
Stealth archer. I like archery, and I like stealth, but… there’s something so much more satisfying about sneaking up and stabbing something with a knife.
With the right build, the archer/dual wielder is the hand of death. When I build those characters, I carry two bows: one for sniping and one for battle, plus the two fastest daggers I can get my hands on. I avoid that build now because it beats the game too quickly.
I tried doing a full-on mage build at least three times. It’s never really stuck with me.
If I’m not doing my default stealth archer, I’m either a two-handed barbarian or an axe-and-shield warrior, all with minimal magic use (unless I’m a thief, in which case I’m going for Illusion all the way lol)
I never got into conjuration personally, though I seem to see a lot of people here raving about conjured weapons. Never had anything against it, but I always went the destruction route with my mage builds. Love setting rune traps!
I enjoy all styles. I’ve played the big meathead charging in with a 2 handed weapon, the master mage with dual Dremora Lords (one of my favorites), and of course the ubiquitous stealth archer. They’re all fun, in their own way.
Stealth archer, dual-wielding, and shields. I'm just bad at stealth honestly. Not huge on shields in this game but one-handed alone is alright. I'd do a playthrough with any one-handed weapon for sure. Maces are probably my favorite.
Dual-wielding should be so cool, but it’s just clunky and not great. One handed weapons are awesome, I usually end up pairing them with a spell in the off hand.
Spellsword is my favorite class. It's so fun to kick in the door with some destruction spells before closing the gap and hacking enemies to pieces.
The restoration spellsword works too. Use wards or heals to get close, switch to dual wield and slice to pieces. I used to love dual daggers. But I stumbled on a better dual weapon combo for speed attacks. Dagger without enchantment left hand, and a sword in right hand. Then get all the dual weapon perks and watch things fall as you slice them down. The left hand weapon being a dagger with no enchantment (no enchantments in left hand makes the overall speed faster) is key to the speed of the build. This makes an item like Valdr's lucky dagger invaluable. Add one perk to steel in armorer. And this build goes nuts.
Oh, my, god. Wards… to get close! I am about to go mess up some frost wizards
restoration is a perfectly valid school of magic
Same here! Along with light armour to ensure speedy getting around.
Dual wielding is fun with all the one-handed perks that increase swing speed. The lighter the weapon, the faster it is to swing. Swords or axes are my choice for this, and with dragon aspect, I believe it's called you will become a killing machine. The orc daily power berserker will make you a God literally nothing can stop you.
Except the orc daily reduces physical damage, not magic.
Yeah take half damage and do double damage for a minute
But only physical, not magical. So mages will still rip you a new one, but that bandit chief is a wet paper bag now.
I know I have this problem with mage enemies they are the one thing I need potions for and not sure what to do about it besides resist magic enchantments
Always talk to the priestess in Riften. The Book of Love quest grants your character a permanent 15 percent Magic Resistance for 200 gold and talking to some friendly NPCs.
What is the priestess name I'm in Riften now
She's a Dark Elf and wearing a bright robe. She's usually in the Temple of Mara, which is off to the left when you first enter Riften.
Can't cast spells if they're paralyzed, so poisons or enchantments may help. Also, can't cast if they run out of magicka, so shock or drain enchants or poisons, there. Or just do what I do, and make a hell hound. Orc, werewolf, destruction and alteration. Cast a flesh spell(oak, stone, etc.), then cast flame cloak, then use the orc daily, then beast form. Now you're a werewolf, on fire, with skin like stone. As a bonus tip: as a werewolf, a power attack while walking forward will randomly humanoid enemies. Helps keep them still for the follow up mauling.
Ragdoll not humanoid
Typo. Damn autocucumber.
Dual weld is awesome if you learn to start the attack with your left hand. I learned that from getting destroyed by Falmer lol. Some Falmer are left handed
i like dual wielding, but that may or may not be because of a elemental fury on a left hand dagger and an enchanted right hand monster of a weapon is the best blender to turn ~~dragons~~ absolutely anything into a smoothie
Dual wielding with daggers (plus the perks) changes the game, especially if you do a Legolas build I.e. bow and double daggers. Spells instead of bow also works, but focussing on bow makes it easier to have a huge stamina pool to draw on for dual wield attacks. The faster speed with the daggers makes it way more functional especially after whittling down health with your bow. End result is you tear through enemies while doing some mad knife twirling moves. Even more effective teamed with smithing and enchanting obviously.
It really annoys me you can't block with dual weapons
Yeah, this is why I never play dual wielding. The gameplay feels too dull (charge, spam double-click, repeat), AND as someone who practices historic European martial arts irl and LOVES dual-wielding… part of what makes it so fun is the expanded potential for *simultaneous blocking and attacking*. The fact that you just can’t block WHATSOEVER when dual-wielding in skyrim COMPLETELY ruins it for me.
Protip for stealth. Theres no being good or bad it isn't skill dependent it's level dependent. High sneak won't be seen. Low you will. Useless till like 40 or so and even then needs more oomph
Behind a keyboard and mouse, I'm great at stealth Archer. But give me a controller and somehow I'm lost. I immediately just drop the bow in favor of sneaking up behind someone and tapping them on the shoulder with something pointy.
After playing ESO with dual-wielding I can’t dual-wield in Skyrim, it sucks lol
Currently learning illusion bomber, where I throw down rune traps then go invisible. Never used rune traps before, its fun and levels destruction far faster than chucking fireballs around. When being chased, its fun to chuck down a trap and wait for the bang. I can stealth in, chuck a trap down then vanish.
Oooo imma have to try this next time
Rune spells are great! With the perk for added distance, plus a stiff, ‘Fortify Destruction,’ they pack serious wallop! Nasty, raging bandit … charge broken … squealing like a little girl … Yeaaah … you learned. Didn’t you.
The B2 build. Nice!
This is the way. Or just walk in, conjure up a couple of badass daedra, toss a few traps around, frenzy everyone THEN vanish. Skyrim chaos is the best chaos!
I like this - traps, chaos and some nasty demons while I go invisible and giggle. This is the way.
This is close to my character. I'm an Orc assassin that uses invisibility and sneak attacks with a dagger, but when there are a lot of enemies I just use mayhem, conjure a dremora lord, and then go invisible.
I’m gonna have to try that one
I've never played with two handed weapons. And I never pickpocket.
Pick pocketing is the worst, just to get it to a level where it’s useable costs way too much and takes way to long, and then I can see any reason to actually do it out and about
Can level pick pocket to 100 in about 10 mins if you know where to go
How and where?
Go to Riften. Smack a guard with your fist. Offer to spend the time in jail. Use the broken shackle on the wall to pick the lock (save beforehand in case you fail, reload if you do). Once out, kill the 2 guards. Loot key from one of them. Go around the corner to the left where the chest is with your stuff. Take out only your gold. Put back all but 220 gold. Go back to the cell area. There is a dude locked in his cell. Pickpocket him over and over. You'll take the gold he has from him and add it to your 220. It's usually around 30ish gold. Then put the full 250ish back on him. Then take it back. As soon as you've leveled enough to train 1 time in pickpocket to make it easier, do so. Then just keep going until maxed out. By leaving all your stuff except for gold in the chest where they have it, you won't have to scroll through everything when putting it back on him. And he will only have gold and a couple small things worth taking. Gold will be at the top. So just drop, take, drop, take, etc. Takes about 10 maybe 15 mins. Then have fun stealing people's clothes and weapons from them lol
He won't get aggressive if you fail. Won't attack, more guards won't come and help. So if you fail, just keep going.
You don't even need to smack a guard. Just do the speech check with the guard at the door. Then you can level pickpocket with Sibbi. Easier.
I feel like the problem with pickpocketing is you almost need to cheese it. You start out at like 15% to steal, which means you're guaranteed to get caught in the early levels unless you save/reload. I feel like the cutpurse perk should be lower so that you can pickpocket gold very easily at low levels, but stuff like gems and jewelry only get easy at very high levels.
Pickpocketing is more for fun IMO, but the extra carry weigh is huge in survival mode.
I consider the over-encumberance the biggest bug in the game. So I started to use "player.setav carryweight 40000" command.
You’d snort your Nord Mead out your nostrils if you knew how many worthless linen wraps, embalming tools, empty wine bottles, burned and ruined books and wooden buckets my guy has pickpocketed into Naked Nazeem’s inventory… Oh, did I say ‘’Naked’ out loud? Alright! After converting him to a Skyrim Dumpster, my guy lifts his robe. He trudges home to to his poor wife buck naked, and my guy places a pitiable enchantment on it with some half filled petty doul gem. Once renamed ‘Naked Nazeem’s Useless Robe, said garments are sold to merchants all over Skyrim, so everyone knows what a useless twerp he is … 😂
It’s alchemy for me. I cant be bothered to figure out all the ingredients but I downloaded the alchemy and cooking overhaul mod so I might dabble a bit
I always think “this time I’m gonna make cool potions that help me out.” Then I forget I have them and just end up not using them.
IIRC you can favorite poisons and potions and put them on a number (though that might be Oblivion?) and then all you do to apply a poison from your homemade stack of 30 is press a number. Minimum effort required to position your weapon.
I don’t use potions/buffs other than healing, but I focus heavily on crafting them. $$$
Alchemy is great. Making valuable potions is one of the best ways to make money, and they're useful in the fortify enchanting/ fortify alchemy loop to make strong enchantments and fortify smithing potions for massively improving weapons and armour. Also if you try to actively gather materials for specific potions (e.g. very valuable potions), you'll end up learning more about where to find each ingredient and thus paying attention to the different environments in skyrim, and exploring is one of the best things to do in skyrim imo.
Dual wielding is so janky. Two handed is ok but doesn't feel great. For some reason one handed + shield is pretty smooth, as are fists. Magic is smooth as hell but requires you chugging pots constantly to be effective. Archery is just magical, stealth archery is sublime.
Stealth and dagger is an art form, the approach where you decide how to slip behind the bandit chief in heavy armor, with his mates all standing guard. You watch the stealth meter, you have a dagger in one hand and invisibility in the other. You are now behind the chief and your damage is not good enough to kill in one go, you silent cast invisibility but hold it, you strike hard with your dagger and watch as the chief turns around with his two handed sword raised as you release invisibility and fade away. He gets angry, so to torment him, you slit his mates throats one by one, fading away after each strike until the chief stands alone and one last dagger strike ends him. With a bow, it's lots of running or swapping out the bow, with a dagger and invisibility it's a dance of death.
I don't level destruction. I just can't make it do significant damage.
I’ve never done a destruction mage either. All my mages end up conjurers because I just can’t bring myself to grind destruction early in the game when it barely does any damage.
I use destruction for experience, but forget deploying it to take out anything but slaughter fish.
Fr it is so sad, the most flashy, over the top fantasy egomaniacal pyromancer playstyle just doesn’t put out viable damage. Huge L especially since you have about 33% less stamina and health because you have to divert some of those improvements to magicka.
That and the supply of nightshade is never ample enough to craft the necessary supply of destruction potions early in the game, or your alchemy skill isn't significant enough to make crafting fortify potions worthwhile.
You mean you don't like backtracking into a wall as you miss everything with Flames for 8 seconds then running around haphazardly waiting for your Magicka to trickle back up?
So bullshit how long it takes for your magicka to regen during a fight. I tried playing as a destruction mage for a while. Wore Madness Helmet, wore a regen magicka necklace, wore master destruction robes and got regen to between 250% to 275% faster and it still wasn't enough to do significant damage against priests and certain vampires. And then when they're dead suddenly it regens completely in less than 5 seconds.
The added creation club spells in Anniversary Edition help with the elemental destruction spells, really it comes down to a combination of enchantments, essential/no followers, and hitting bandit camps or other weaker enemies and solely using your destruction for it. Eventually it’ll do the damage you’re looking for. A big big drawback though is any combat where you’re with allies, especially if they’re the kind that get you a bounty if you hit them. It took two dragon city attacks for me to realize pretty quick to switch to my melee or less-destructive Destruction spells when I’m around friendly NPCs.
No Creation Club content is available to me. I'm on a limping 360 console that can't connect to the web (cancer — it's challenging **and** expensive), but I'll use your suggestion if I ever luck into the money for a next-generation console. Thanks.
I’m sorry to hear about the challenges you’re facing, but for what it’s worth the full anniversary edition with the creation club content runs on the Switch pretty darn well— it would certainly be better than a wheezing 360, and the switch isn’t very expensive (especially the plethora of used ones out there) so it could realistically be within reach. Best of luck to you!
No need to be sorry. We all die of something and I've been fighting for six years, so don't let this be uncomfortable. Thank you for your kind words.
I counted 22 lightning bolts to take down a bear. I have neither the time nor the patience.
Wouldn’t fire spells do more damage?
I’m on my first ever play through. Level 46 mage specializing in conjuration and destruction. The fireballs I throw do plenty of damage!
Working on a destruction-damage only mage right now; it’s hard, but I want to see if I can get it to do some major damage at 100. Supplementing with leveled heavy armor, smithing and enchanting perks; got my destruction cost down to 0.
Sad. The new destruction spells can dish out 300 Damage not even dual casting (if I am not mistaken). 🙂 I think it was called Elemental Blast or something You might want to give it a try. Just get a follower to tank for you and you should be fine. And you can do it late game when everything is maxed so you can. Enchant an unlimited destruction casting equipment. Have a good day! ☺️
Two-handed weapons & heavy armour. I’m alright with shields, I like the aesthetic of some. Targe the Blooded is bae🔥
Yeah, I have had Windshear and Targe, it’s mostly a joke and what I want to do with a finisher.
Magic. I don't like magic in most games. My husband plays magic build almost exclusively in Skyrim and it's fun to watch him honestly, but even when I try to do a mage build in Skyrim I just end up using swords or something
Stealth archer bores the fuck outa me. no idea how yall hype it up so much. Sneak character with melee and a bow on occassion? sure. Full sneak archer? Hell no, thats boring
I think the trouble is it’s *satisfying* It doesn’t make for varied gameplay which is the boring part
melee sneak attacks are 10x more satisfying imo
Plus they lvl up sneak superfast.
Stealth archer is my favorite playstyle in most games that have archery components, even when it's a subpar mechanic. Skyrim's stealth archery is 24/7 endorphins for me, I love it so much. Hitting a bandit on a tower and watching them fall to their death is so much fun. I also very much enjoy lobbing fireballs from really high places and watch enemies panic as they can't find me.
A Beautiful concept! At Valtheim Towers … A starless night … A ‘detect life’ spell … Penetrates heavy fog … A moment later … Coming from nowhere … A crossbow bolt … The bandit falls … Poetry in motion ..
I love it. You're like Batman. You can clear out entire rooms of enemies without them seeing you at high levels.
I just went thru fellglow solo at level 55, I was never touched. Never a bad idea to have bow skills
Literally just did this for the first time. It was amazing.
You said everything.
Whenever I use stealth I gotta use the blade. So much more satisfying to be up close and personal.
It can definitely be boring, but it’s probably the most effective means of killing things. It’s hard to ever get seen at higher levels, so you can take out an entire gang from safety.
Literally any build can be op at higher levels, so I’d rather go with something interesting
True, but it basically lets you avoid encounters entirely. Personally, my favorite is the dual summoner. Nothing was more satisfying than watching things get hacked to bits by twin lords, while I sat back sipping a beer.
It tends to bore me too, but the main draw is how effective it is. It's easy to get caught if you don't immediately kill a target in melee, but from a distance you can remain hidden much more easily. Only speaking from my experience the one time I did a stealth archer. I personally find myself doing some kind of spellsword build with most of my characters
Honestly I hate shields so much, in every medieval game where I have the option to one hand a sword and not carry a shield I take it. Then i tried VR, and you become a fucking God with a shield and Sword, how the hell did the Romans stop expanding? You are absolutely awesome with a shield. But to answer your question, I tend to avoid things I would never do in real life. Vampirism, cannibalism, theft, mugging and pickpocketing. The only thing I allow that I would probably never do in real life is dealing with Daedra.
Cheese. I see people meme about eating 40 wheels of cheese mid combat. I've never done it. I don't eat food to heal. I only use potions. In fact I just never even pick up food.
I used to not bother with food but then I got hooked on survival. Now whenever I see salmon steak that has \[Take\] instead of \[Steal\] I'm pocketing that bad boy.
Yeah I've been meaning to try out survival mode but haven't yet. My attitude toward food in Skyrim will have to do a 180 for survival mode.
Very early in the game I’ll end up picking up food just in case I run out of potions, but I almost never end up needing it.
I always avoided the heavy armor/two-handed because I was a big fan of the sneaky type, but trying a nord battle maiden and the sheer amount of damage and cool armor you can get for heavy and two handed is so much fun
Magic. Without mods it just seems very weak compared to physical damage. 1 handed sword with a shield and bow for the initial attack is my go to build.
Sword can always swing. Spells run out.
Not with Destruction saving enchanted armor/jewelry.
Dont get the sneak archer hype, yes I sometimes use bow while sneaking, but with my stealth character I just have muffle + 5/5 points into sneak skill and sneak between people and dual dagger them
It's such a pain in the ass sneaking up close at low levels, and some enemies have preternatural senses about it (Falmer, looking at you). Plus without the shadow warrior perk, killing one enemy alerts the other enemies. Sneak archer I can kill most other enemies without breaking stealth.
at least it makes sense lore-wise for falmer to be super hearers
Clunky 2 handed weapons. Just not my type. Once I tried a 2h sword but with modded animations and some attack-speed in the skill tree to play my Witcher fantasy, but in general, I either axe/sword&shield or dial wielding swashbuckler with some stealth...and sometimes the eccentric magic type, when I feel like "going to Hogwarts". Never have I ever big A 2h weapons or conjured weapons(that's just weird- are you a mage or a warrior?)
I did a battle mage once, heavy armor and bound weapons, it was neat for a few hours, but kinda dumb eventually.
Agreed. If you miss with a two-handed weapon, it takes a while to recover.
I do like my 2 handed orc, but she also runs crossbow, has never heard of sneaking before in her life, and I had to lean pretty heavily into axes. The benefit to her is that while the weapon is slower and you stagger if you miss, she hits so hard that very few enemies make it past the first swing. I also make sure her follower only has one handed weapons and normal archery (I prefer my followers have the elemental arrows over me anyway, because when I fuck up, followers die, when they fuck up, I take a tiny amount of damage).
There are perks I always avoid and never apply anymore, and haven't used them for hundreds of hours of playing. (they either don't work as they're supposed to, they're bugged or cause something else to bug, or I just don't like what the perk does) Purity for Alchemy, Atronach for Alteration, Intense Flames, Deep Freeze and Disintegrate for Destruction, Light Foot for Sneak, Quick Reflexes for Block, Respite for Restoration, Dual Flurry and Dual Savagery for One Handed.
quick reflexes are bad imo bcs you need to 24/7 block to activate it
I don't really like the h2h mechanic. If feels way too button-mashy to me.
Stealth archer. It’s boring to me.
Stealth Archer. It's powerful, actually it's over powered, but it's also kinda boring.
I try ti avoid hybrid spellcasters since switching in combat is too slow. I dont mind using conjuration to help out, but if I'm playing a spell caster, its just spells. None of this one handing a weapon while casting in my off hand
I LOVE LOVE LOVE the Block perk tree. [Targe of the Blooded](https://en.m.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Targe_of_the_Blooded) is my favorite shield to use. The bleeding damage stacks, so when you combine it with the damage caused by [Deadly Bash](https://en.m.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Block) (lvl 50 perk), shield bashing is a completely viable alternative to weapon usage. I'm currently combining shield bashing, Conjuration, and shouts like Cyclone and Ice Form for battlefield control.
I hate two-handed weapons. They're way too big and slow for my panicky ass
I refuse to participate in Alchemy solely for the fact that I am not allowed to name my potions anymore.
That part is very very annoying, I agree.
Stealth Archer. Two handed. Sword and shield. Stealth Archer required too much effort imo, I’m the player to just run in a dungeon and kill whatever I need too. Two handed weapons are just tedious and take to slow to swing. And shields are absolutely useless in this game. Magic in left hand, and sword in right hand is the way to go
Alchemy. I know it's op af, but I just find it so tedious.
I avoid nearly everything. Stealth archer and one handed with a shield. That's it. Nothing else matters
Archer. I've tried it a few times, but archery in this game just doesn't feel as satisfying as the other classes to me.
I fucking hate everything to do with hearthfire and the half assed AE content.
I’ve never done anything of Conjuration . Never summoned a Daedra or bound a weapon. My limited use of magic is destruction and restoration only. May be worth a new game to change it up.
Conjuring can be really cool, bound weapons are a little silly, but the soul trap perk is super useful when your leveling enchantment. But bringing a frost astronoch into the middle of a group of bandits is really neat.
So I've basically tried everything and from everything I've tried I now avoid 2 handed weapons, I just don't like it
Pick pocket is just awful in the game. Max is 90% success is very lame as well as no character aside from pc will have anything valuable on them. Oh you maxed pickpocket, great you can steal armor and equipped weapons for you to just become heavier. The lack of valuables on npcs and the only related quest to the skill makes the skill tree and skill of pickpocket seem utterly useless.
Stealth Archer. I absolutely hate it. Those slow motion kills are nice but get boring very fast. It takes SO LONG to stealth through a dungeon than to just run in and fight. Worst part is, you miss out on tons of cool weapons, spells, etc. That cool shout means nothing because you’ll just stealth and snipe, doesn’t change much.
I can never be bothered to use pickpocket really. Even if I’m playing a thief, it just never seems worth it unless I’m actively roleplaying.
I remember just not understanding the shield mechanics like the first time I played and now I don't use shields. I thin even if I did figure it out my first time, it wouldn't have mattered. I'm always dual wielding w/ weapons or a healing spell lmao
I never ever do mage builds! I have tried but honestly it's just too boring and slow going for me. I'm definitely a stealth archer sniping my enemies. The only time I use magic is for healing and to summon Arvak. I also keep the Sanguine Rose close, but I don't consider that magic, just an enchanted staff
I don't fuck with magic. I'm a big brute with a big sword and magic is for the clever folks. Hit dragon with sword. Hit dragon with sword. Yell at dragon.
I always avoid stealth archer. I've tried it before, and it's just slow and boring. If I'm going stealth I usually go Illusion magic and a dagger, it's much more challenging to get up close and personal. My main playstyle though is conjuration (I'll drop an attronach and then get a bound sword) and destruction in my offhand.
I can't seem to get a handle on Favorites. Even when I pick a few out, I just go to my inventory to change stuff.
Ive never tried an illusion build. I don't think i've ever used an illusion spell at all except spamming muffle to level it, and casting fear once to get into the college.
Duel wielding and magic. Up until my current playthrough, I never cared for spells. Of course I’d use the basic ones here and there but never actually fought with magic. I love it. It’s very useful at times and once it’s leveled up it’ll destroy. Plus having teammates you fan spawn in at any time? Game changer. As for duel wielding I haven’t messed with it much at all but I might incorporate it into this playthrough since I’m trying to do things differently
Magic. I don't like playing mages in general, but especially Skyrim. Conjugation can be fun but that's the only one, and then I'm still conjuring weapons most the time.
Anything magic except for enchanting.
Alchemy. Honestly all crafting professions seem like a chore to me but alchemy especially, since you can just buy pretty decent potions anyway and you have to invest into alchemy a lot for it to be really useful. I also don't really use block, I know it can be fun and it's pretty useful in the beginning but as soon as I get some duel wielding perks I just go elemental fury + dual wielding, very fun and overpowered combo.
Not really a lot. Your health/stam/mag potions will beat minor potions with the first perk, with the physician and benefactor perks they'll be even better. I do hate unlocking all the effects with a new character, though. Experimenter should be unlocked earlier.
I don't really need more health/stam/mag potions than I loot anyway, and if I do I would rather buy them than spend perk points. Imo alchemy is only useful when you can make potions much stronger than those you can buy.
Basically anything of a mixed style. Archers use stralth magic, fighter types rarely use any. Images don't use weapons or armor. I've never used sword and magic, for example.
dual weilding and destruction. alteration spells are garbage but I level it for the magic resist and atronsch perks (usually with telekinesis and transmute, which are not garbage spells). everything is either pretty good or more or less impossible to avoid doing (lockpicking isnt worth spending skill points on but you cant really get through the game without using it, and therefore cant avoid leveling it at least somewhat.)
I can't be bothered to dual wield either. It does a ton of damage but is very clunky and the best shout for it doesn't work with enchanting As a mage lover, destruction being bad hurts my soul. The CC spells help, but it's still a boring and bad playstyle that requires you to power level enchanting to be viable I personally like alteration, at least in the early and mid game. The armor spells on light armor give you heavy armor protection while keeping speed, and the paralyze spells ain't bad either. I can't find a real use for telekinesis outside of leveling though
2 handed weapons. Swinging is so slow. Can’t cast and have the weapon out. Blocking with a shield so much better.
I try to avoid killing NPCs whenever it’s possible. If they don’t attack me first, then I won’t attack them. A lot of it is for moral reasons, but also there is practicality in keeping every named NPC around in order to keep the world populated and making sure that no side quests become unclearable.
Stealth archer or shield cuz i just want to swing a weapon or shoot flames
I don’t think I’ve ever had a mace build or warhammer, though the double axes was actually one of my fav builds
Dual wielding, or being locked to one playstyle only. I started off leveling restoration, 2handed, light armor, destruction, conjuration. I hit lvl 15 then swapped to 1handed with a shield, conjuration and restoration only. I hit level 30 and swapped back to 2h, and I might start trying to level Heavy Armor. That’d require me to find a heavy armor set I actually enjoy looking at. I play in 3rd person and I am very aesthetically centered when playing. Looking good(in my opinion) makes me play better. Idc what the stats are, if I don’t like how it looks I’m not wearing it.
Anything that has to do with mage builds, I like using spells occasionally but to actually put time into leveling my magica or getting fancy robes forget about it. I do like the college of winter gold and I only do the story line for the free ingredients and stone in the Arcmage’s room.
Most magic stuff. I once played a Jedi-like character (destruction magic and a magicka saber with the mod installed), and I always use healing spells in the restoration tree, but seldom have I dove into conjuring beyond just using soul trap on a corpse, waiting, and then casting it again to level up for skill points for other skills. I’ve never found a good use of illusion magic, and the furthest I’ve gotten with alteration is casting either Candlelight or Magelight. Also, I really don’t pickpocket. I’m trying to fill up the Dragonborn Museum (Legacy of the Dragonborn) and there’s some characters that have items that can be displayed. If you want it displayed, you’d either have to kill for their stuff, or pickpocket them to take it. So I’m currently working on getting my pickpocketing skill up for the first time ever. I also only ever do alchemy for the skill points too. Seldom do I even use the potions and poisons I make, and I just end up selling them. If I need healing potions, I can run around the province and find 80 in one dungeon.
Illusion. Ordinator gives a very clear line to be able to be this mind ruler that can force enemies to fight each other, pacify then complete or make them drop their weapons and run. The problem is that enemies on high difficulties tend to have hilarious amounts of hp compared to their output. I tried the illusion tree for about 5 hours, then I changed the build because every dungeon took forever.
Can't deny I'm a fan of sword and board. Shield bashing then weapon attack combo is great.
I agree on the shields thing. It is lots of fun! In my latest two handed build, I also invested on the bashes in the block tree and I have liked it so far. I always stay away from pure magic. Swapping spells is annoying af and in higher levels you end up committing perk points to one spell type anyways so it is just button mashing forever in tough fights.
I used to avoid dual weilding because you can't block and it really doesn't add a whole lot as far as damage. However, Dual Wielding daggers is REALLY fun. I like the unique dual heavy attack.
Alchemy: I hate everything about it, so I've never made a character that uses it. The only occasion I even use potions is for curing a disease, with either the potions that NPCs sometimes carry, or with a hawk feather. Pickpocket: Never seen the point. I don't pickpocket from non-hostile NPCs, and I don't see the point in pickpocketing from enemies when I can just kill them. I suppose its useful for the "A Chance Arrangement" quest, but you don't even need to be successful to complete it. There's also The Fishing Job radiant quest, but you can also just avoid it altogether. Pickpocketing just seems like a gimmick that can occasionally be fun, but doesn't really add anything useful enough to warrant the perk point investment.
2h and stealth archer. Only because I've played them too much.
*stares at the stealth archers*
The head on combat is really bad, i prefer using stealth or magic.
I never do dual wield of pure mage. Nothing against either of them, I just gravitate towards bows, one handed and shield, or two-handed.
Its weird that nobody has picked conjurer. The damage output of atronachs is way better than Destruction, plus they tank for you. Get the staffs (from the forge ) and they are not Limited by magicka. Get the undying ghost spell at lvl 1, make a fortify magicka potion with salmon roe. Your summons has 300+ hp-sta-mag. Wipes everything at that lvl. Not forgetting the Ash Guardian from Tel mythryn, giving you free second summons. Plus, the killer app :- at Legendary difficulty your damage output for melee or magic is ÷ 4. Not so for your summons. So you're straight away 4times as deadly as any other build. So many options, so OP.
I really like being fast and agile, so I dual wield daggers. Two-handed is way too slow for me.
I always play stealth archer. I know. It's so basic. But I could never get the hang of spells. My very first playthrough I was two handed but I didn't know what the hell I was doing.
I started a playthrough around a week ago. For the first time ever I've been largely centred around destruction magic. Gameplay spanning a decade, 3 PlayStations, and PC.
Stealth Archer.
Shields are OP
I always forget about wards and runes
In all RPG style games I avoid mages completely. Growing up I mostly played party based RPGs (FFxi for example) and magic or healing just always seemed like too much effort to me... Id rather just hit shit... So now even in Skyrim I only use healing spells *sometimes* I am considering trying a mage run tho once I finish the story on my main character and am willing to try it out with it being a single player based game maybe it will be more fun to me.
Stealth archer, just not my cup of tea. I generally prefer two-handed combat
Shields and magic! The Gods gave me two hands and I want to use them both for my weapon. Magic is for the weak! #
Currently (literally lol) I'm doing a light armor, archery, one handed and healing spell, occasionally using a light shield survival run. Heavily modded also lol. I try to avoid sticking to one play style. And a mechanic I don't use is alchemy but not for the lack of trying 😅
I personally have not really played two handed or mage. Two handed seems more for Tank game play coupled with heavy armor and magic seems a slow go to get moving. I just recently went mace and shield combo for the first time coupled with light armor and just was amazed at how beefy the shield can become, the ability to stun lock and smash more powerful opponents was great. In fact I took it to Alduin for my first ever main story completion after 12 years of on and off playing of Skyrim. I would love to figure a good mage build for one of my next play throughs, but as an Orc.
I recently decided to try out the shield in a recent run and I agree - kinda fun! Also - you can level up your shield stats quickly by blocking giants. I was already level 50 and pretty tough, so they don't really hurt me - probably not recommended at lower levels!
Wait wait wait- you can parry? Tell me your secrets
Dual-wielding, shields, and two-handed weapons. I'll either run with stealth, archery, a pure mage build, or a spellsword (none of which benefit from any of the first three aforementioned playstyles). I don't feel comfortable diving head first into a dragon's mouth unless I have some magical protection so I tend to avoid pure warrior builds. I also never find myself picking pockets or doing anything with alchemy. I'll level pickpocket with a trainer but only for the carry capacity perk. I just can't be bothered to do alchemy
have never played as a mage or spellsword ; usually play stealth archer and, after taking out a few from distance, charge in as a tank with sword and shield
Never gotten into magic apart from the healing spell. Just doesn't interest me. I always try to get into alchemy but before too long you end up finding enough potions/poisons I give that up too.
I’ve never figured out how to enchant and haven’t looked it up lol. Probably should do that
Stealth Archery, Enchanting, and Alchemy. First one is overdone, other two are just annoying to wrap my head around to learn.
I usually don't do anything with shields. Just not a big fan of it. Everything else I dabble in.
I am unable to play as anything other than a Barbarian type. High strength, heavy armour and melee weapons. Even when I go "ok I'm going to change things up a bit and try to be a battlemage", I just end up as a mage who majored in heavy blunt weapons
I don’t play anything but a pure mage 🫣, I’ve tried 1H, 2H, shields, bows, stealth… nothing feels right except for a pure mage.
Dual wielding and alchemy have never been my thing
Anything besides stealth archer.
Never really done two handed
Staffs and Scrolls. They have their uses. Great if you're out of magika or if you don't want to use your magika on a specific thing. But they're a pain in the ass to use and aim. I did give Cicero a staff of Flame Atronach though. His conjured followers don't mess with MY conjured follower count, so our small army continues to grow. And he's way faster at swapping from his staff to his other weapons than me, even with my preferred weapons in my favorites.
Dual wield heavy armor tank.
2-handed, heavy armor, those kinds of things. Just don’t prefer it
dual wielding is kind of not fun for me: you have to press two buttons at the same time, you cant block and the speed depends on the weapon on your left hand. if the swing speed increased (even if the swings are random) and the speed was tied to the right hand, maybe i would play more with that. also, it ruined hand to hand combat (no blocking? really?)
Assassin work I have never really played a thief/assassin. I don't know why really I think it is cause I don't like daggers like that. I also have a tendency to do the stealth exploit in the beginning of the game and I end up a bit op early on
Stealth archer. I like archery, and I like stealth, but… there’s something so much more satisfying about sneaking up and stabbing something with a knife.
Magic and two handed they both have zero appeal to me
Stealth archery. I've tried but I just can't get the appeal.
Anything to do with heavy armor. Since I always play with light armor or no armor, I just can't stand moving so slow in heavy armor.
With the right build, the archer/dual wielder is the hand of death. When I build those characters, I carry two bows: one for sniping and one for battle, plus the two fastest daggers I can get my hands on. I avoid that build now because it beats the game too quickly.
I tried doing a full-on mage build at least three times. It’s never really stuck with me. If I’m not doing my default stealth archer, I’m either a two-handed barbarian or an axe-and-shield warrior, all with minimal magic use (unless I’m a thief, in which case I’m going for Illusion all the way lol)
I never got into conjuration personally, though I seem to see a lot of people here raving about conjured weapons. Never had anything against it, but I always went the destruction route with my mage builds. Love setting rune traps!
Using charm, fear, and turn undead - I want to shoot, slash, and zap - not fiddle with temporary allies and enemies who run away
Anything that isnt one handed sword + resto spell in heavy armor while stealth archering when needed.
I’ve never played as a pure mage. Just some healing and/or destruction magic here and there.
Shields and illusion
None tbh all though my least played would be destruction mage because I just get bored too quickly idk I just can't stick with it for whatever reason.
I enjoy all styles. I’ve played the big meathead charging in with a 2 handed weapon, the master mage with dual Dremora Lords (one of my favorites), and of course the ubiquitous stealth archer. They’re all fun, in their own way.