Skyrim V: Skyrim

[BladeofObliviom]

Yo everyone! So I just got Skyrim for my X-box. I had Oblivion on my pc, never finished it though, dunno why, as I love it.

I haven't started yet, as my grandfather is sleeping on the couch by the television, so I decided I'd come and post up in hya! That's "Up in here" for all you normal people.

In oblivion, my most loved character ended up being an Argonian sword fighter who, quite frankly, sucked. Why? I refused to grind. I just wanted to do the quests, and if it didn't work out? Too bad. Reload, try again. So I'm gonna be doing it abit differently this time. Raiding dungeons, grindingLater game AND doing quests will all be part of this. Not entirely sure what build I want to go with yet, but I'm thinking melee warrior again, since it's what I'm comfortable with.

So anyway! Any suggestions as to race/class combination? I'm open to anything, really.

Actually, not grinding doesn't weaken you at all in Oblivion since virtually all nonboss enemies will be leveled according to your level. In fact, staying low level is a good idea because it means that the Apprentice-Level "Drain Life 100 for 1 second" spell remains an instant kill.

Anyway, you should know that Skyrim is actually classless; You develop your style by just DOING things. All skill-level-ups contribute to your level, rather than just major skills like in Oblivion.

[Abscondcrow]

Oh yeah, I know about that bit. I read the manual, damnit!

But I mean, what sort of build should I go for? One handed fighter? Two handed? Dest mage? Etc? So far I'm choosing between these..

Male Nord Two handed warrior. Heavy Armor.
Male Imperial One-handed+shield user. Heavy Armor.
Female Wood elf Stealth Archer. Light Armor.
Male orc Two-one handed weapon user. Undecided between light and heavy.

[Blackdrop]

Really any build is viable on Adept or lower. However, out of the 4 I really recommend the Bosmer or the Orc the most.

[Partof1]

On Adept difficulty, at least, anything is viable. Absolutely anything, so just start playing.

Of those, I would personally pick the dual wielding orc, because the orc ability scales better at higher levels, I believe.

And if you do dual wield, use a dagger in your left hand. The attack speed of is detemined by the offhand weapon.

[Tychris1]

Argonian+Anything. End of story.

[Abscondcrow]

I don't particularly enjoy playing games at too low a difficulty, even at the get go. Dunno why, I've just always been like that. Orc it is, it seems.

Tychris1-Yeah, I'd go Argonian.. They're so.. So awesome. But I played ALOT of argonian in oblivion, and want a bit of a break from 'em.

So the final question.. Heavy, or light armor? I'm leaning heavy.

[Blackdrop]

Adept is actually the default, medium difficulty. There was actually a debate a few pages ago about Heavy vs. Light armor.

[Calemyr]

Notable Races:
Breton: The ultimate magic defense. 25% magic resistance is very handy.

Nord: 50% frost resist = half the dragons you meet will barely tickle you. (As well as most undead casters are exclusively frost.)

Dark Elf: 50% fire resist = half the dragons you meet will barely tickle you.

Orcs: Rage power: Damage reduction + more damage as you get injured

Argonian: Waterbreathing is handy, and Histskin is like a powerful healing potion
that gets refilled daily.

Defense:
Light Armor: Faster movement speed, stamina regen, chance to dodge any attack, hits armor cap eventually. Dragonscale looks badass.

Heavy armor: Hits armor cap sooner, improves unarmed attack, reduces fall damage, chance to reflect damage from any attack, weight is negated eventually. Dragonplate looks stupid, but Daedric and ebony always rock.

Block: Can be used with a two handed weapon or a shield. Effective damage reduction. Shield perks include elemental damage resistance, arrow deflection, and the ability to charge through a crowd, throwing enemies around like rag dolls.

Offense:
One handed vs two handed is largely a question of taste. The differences are pretty predictable, but you can dual wield with one handed weapons and you can block (and blocking power attack) with two handed weapons.

In general (specialization perks are largely useless)
Sword: Highest speed, lowest damage, very common.
Axe: Medium speed and damage
Blunt: Highest damage, lowest speed.
Dagger: Low damage, but fast, and can be combined with stealth perks for absolutely insane sneak attack damage.

Archery: VERY good. Always keep a bow handy. You have a melee punch in a jam, but avoid close range whenever possible. Boring finishing moves, but access to the crossbow in Dawnguard and archery works rather well on horseback.

Destruction: Destruction is a mixed bag. If you enchant your gear with as much Fortify Destruction as you can manage, it becomes a fairly effective play style, but damage does not increase as your skill or level do - damage output only improves by buying higher and more expensive spells. You can stunlock enemies fairly easily with dual-cast and impact perks, as long as you use a missile spell.

[BladeofObliviom]

Oh yeah, I know about that bit. I read the manual, damnit!

But I mean, what sort of build should I go for? One handed fighter? Two handed? Dest mage? Etc? So far I'm choosing between these..

Male Nord Two handed warrior. Heavy Armor.
Male Imperial One-handed+shield user. Heavy Armor.
Female Wood elf Stealth Archer. Light Armor.
Male orc Two-one handed weapon user. Undecided between light and heavy.

Actually, the second on this list was my first character in a nutshell, though I dabbled in all three Crafting skills in addition to that basic setup.

Currently, he's level 50 and nigh-indestructible enough that I have to play on Master for him to be meaningfully harmed by such minor things as being smacked in the face by Giants.

Also, he swings a sword for 390 damage. This is all completely legit, no mods or exploits.

[Abscondcrow]

Wow. Nice. He sounds pretty scary

Anyways, by orc has just gotten through Helgen, followed the Nord guy out. I've down most of the riverwood quests, just have to go get the thing that was stolen from the trader, then I'm off to whiterun.

Currently Level three with one perk in the first single-handed tree, and one perk in the second unlocked perk in the single-handed tree. I'm going to put the next point into either smithing, or heavy armor. Not sure yet.

[BladeofObliviom]

Wow. Nice. He sounds pretty scary

Anyways, by orc has just gotten through Helgen, followed the Nord guy out. I've down most of the riverwood quests, just have to go get the thing that was stolen from the trader, then I'm off to whiterun.

Yes, Gaius is a scary individual. Note that this is just me being a powergamer though, so there's no need to feel sad or anything. I do that sort of thing just to see if I can. This version's still less overpowered than my literally invincible Oblivion PC.

Also, to save you your sanity, you probably won't find the Golden Claw before you get to Whiterun and do the quest at Bleak Falls Barrow.

[Morty]

Huh, I forgot about Impact. Since I have an unspent perk floating around that I don't know what to do with, I'll put it there. Should make relying on Destruction a little easier.
Also, seems like I'm doing something wrong with the alchemy/enchanting loop... maybe it's because I have two items that give me +20% to Alchemy - Krosis and a pair of bracers - and the best I can craft with the best potion I can make is +13%. So it doesn't make any difference.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Also, to save you your sanity, you probably won't find the Golden Claw before you get to Whiterun and do the quest at THIS WAS SPOILERED BUT WHITETEXT DOESN'T WORK IN QUOTEBOXES.

You can do the two quests in any order you wish, it just means that the quest you do second, you already have the relevant quest item in your inventory.

[t209]

My brother told me that sword is the best weapon in Skyrim (high DPS) but is it the least useful in mounted combat (Horse combat is about hit and run tactics.

[Tergon]

Sword's got pretty good DPS but it all depends on your playstyle. If you're going toe-to-toe with the hack and slash style, sure, it's great. But if you're the type to dart in and out during combat and only land one or two hits at a time, an axe or a mace will make it count more.
If you're going for a two-handed style, you might as well go all out with a warhammer so each hit is as heavy as possible. Two-handed swords allow you to hit more often but less hard, and axes balance between the two. It comes down with how fast you plan to be moving, really.
As far as stealth goes, well... daggers may have low flat damage, but with the stealth perks it's all about the damage multipliers. Combined with the Ancient Assassin gear, it gets terrifying. You can legitimately one-hit-kill dragons without fuss.
Bows, if you put the perks in, are superior to pretty much everything as far as sheer damage output versus damage taken is concerned. Slow down time, land three arrows in your target while they charge toward you, and they're dead before they even get into close combat range. Plus you can attack those damn dragons while they hover around instead of waiting for them to land like some kind of putz.

Basically, your brother was right - a sword is the best weapon if that's how you like to fight. But there are a lot of other styles that make pretty much any weapon a reasonable choice if that's how you play.

[Divayth Fyr]

Notable Races:

I'd also mention Altmer - they will always have 50 pts of magicka more than other races and a regenerative boost (which will refill your mana quickly even in combat). While these do not matter that much if you go the free spells route, if you don't they become quite nice.

[Triaxx]

The strongest character I've ever had was an orc in Heavy Armor with a mace, and a shield. Even Deadly Dragons just sort of annoy him.

And that's accomodating the fact that there's almost no mod inexistence that actually adds more maces, and those that do are... well, I hate to say it, but they're pretty bad. The Dragon Bone weapons have the best mod mace I know of.

On the other hand, watching a huge orc do the leaping power attack at the end of a charge using that perk is kind of devastatingly awesome.

[Morty]

You know, while the leveling system in Skyrim is better than in previous games, it could still use a lot of work. I'm struggling to keep all my skills reasonably balanced, and Alteration and Destruction are still 10 points ahead of everything else.

[Tergon]

The strongest character I've ever had was an orc in Heavy Armor with a mace, and a shield. Even Deadly Dragons just sort of annoy him.

Mine was probably a Khajiit with dual daggers and light armour. 100 smithing and Legendary Dragonscale Armour meant that pretty much everything just bounced off him, and double-imbued with Resist Magic (regular Resist Magic plus the Shield of Solitude's booster) to ensure that magic did the same. All the relevant perks into One-Handed combat to maximise his damage there, plus twin Legendary Daedric Daggers, plus the Sneak boosts.

The build was honestly pretty simple to complete. He could attack terrifyingly fast, and with the increased attack speed shout, he could whittle down ancient dragons in a matter of seconds. When stealthed, there was pretty much nothing in the game that detected him until he got close enough to attack, and I honestly don't recall anything below a Blood Dragon requiring a second hit if the first stealth attack landed. Whirlwind Sprint allowed him to close in on any ranged attackers that poked their heads up. And as far as how well he stood up in a straight fight... well, I think the best answer I can give is that on one occasion near Boethia's shrine, I accidentally stumbled across five Snow Bears. All of whom woke up and attacked simultaneously. Long story short, it was the Khajiit who walked away.

He was incredible. After seeing just how effective the dual daggers can be if built right... well, look, I'm sure that min/maxing with a sword and dagger and using specific perks and hunting up particular artifacts and getting certain followers and using this mod or that one can make you tough. But I've learned that when it's that simple, and that entertaining, to create a knife-fighting God of war, all of that really does stop being necessary. :)

[Avilan the Grey]

You know, while the leveling system in Skyrim is better than in previous games, it could still use a lot of work. I'm struggling to keep all my skills reasonably balanced, and Alteration and Destruction are still 10 points ahead of everything else.

I don't see that as a problem: They stick at 100, right? And then you can catch up with the others. Besides... Don't use it if you don't want to level it

[Volthawk]

Hmm, I need to start remodding Skyrim again. I had a load, but I noticed something was wrong (Midas stuff wasn't working properly - no reactors [or whatever he changed it to in the Skyrim version] to make the spells]), so I started fiddling with it until I broke the mods, and then I got rid of them all and haven't fiddled with modding again since (actually, I haven't really played Skyrim since, now I think about it).

[Morty]

I don't see that as a problem: They stick at 100, right? And then you can catch up with the others. Besides... Don't use it if you don't want to level it

I want to level them, I just want everything to stay roughly on the same level. But I guess maybe I am being pedantic. I just wonder at which point I'll be able to enchant things that are better than what I find and recieve as rewards.

[Triaxx]

The second strongest character was actually a sword and board light armor user. It's actually the only one I've every managed to get up to 50.

Grovuz, the orc, was the kind of character who wasn't much for bows, so I spent a couple of hours once, luring a dragon to a point where it could land so I could smash it's face in. It ambushed me near Falkreath, which is my least favorite place to fight dragons because of the poor maneuverability and how easy it is to get caught on the terrain. I think I died three times during that fight. I finally got to the lake to the north and the dragon landed. And I beat it down to half-health before it could get back up. Of course it was all over then, but it was HARD.

So definitely, take a bow. I had another character who managed to knock one down using nothing but the first word of the Fire Breath shout until he crashed into the middle of Winterhold. Of course then it was just a matter of jamming a sword into his face a few times.

[Abscondcrow]

So I pretty much breezed through the moon-somethingorother camp that you get a bounty for. Managed to make myself a full set of steel armor and weapons, which I upgraded (amazing how much better they actually get). Handed in the quest to the stewart, before being sent off to bleak falls barrow. It was actually kind of sad, as I cleared the dungeon almost as fast as I cleared the bandit camp.

Soon after I killed a dragon and got a shout. It was a little more challenging because of the dragons breath attack. but then I figured out that dragons can't turn, so I went behind it and spammed power attacks on its tail.. Which did very little damage back. It was dead in 2 landings.

Next I'm going to go clear the dungeon that you get a letter about from "A friend" who wants you to improve your thu'um. Finally, I'm going to visit the greybeards.

[Lamech]

So I have a question about my build style: I go sword and heal spell. Yet, I don't have any perks in my one hand skill. How important are perks for one hand users?

[Partof1]

Off the top of my head, all I can think of is the first perk for damage. If you take a couple levels in that, you should be set. Otherwise, I think the only decent onesare assorted power attacks, which are nice, but not vital.

[pffh]

The one that reduces the cost of power attacks is quite nice since it lets you put more points into health or magicka.

[Lamech]

The one that reduces the cost of power attacks is quite nice since it lets you put more points into health or magicka.

I'm spamming heal, so I usually have more than enough stamina.

[Triaxx]

For sword and sorcery, I'd say the armor perks are more important, because you'll want the damage reducing and accelerated movement granted so you're more mobile.

[Seharvepernfan]

I've beat the game twice on master difficulty with no mods. I don't think it matters what you play, levels 5-20ish are really damn hard, and at 30-50+ you are unstoppable.

My first playthrough was a bosmer dual-daggers/archer/light armor/sneaky type. My sneak shot up to 100 very quickly, after which the game became a cakewalk.

My second was a nord battleaxe/heavy armor. He was a bit more balanced that the bosmer - the bosmer could do some really broken stuff, but sometimes a dragon or draugr boss would prove difficult, whereas my nord had to fight everything head-on, but always won. You can't go wrong with this build.

I'm playing as a bosmer mage now, focusing on destruction, but fairly well spread among the other mage schools as well. No armor, just a bow for a weapon (and a staff). It's very difficult. The only way I don't die is by hiding behind Lydia. I run out of magicka before my enemies die, then I am pretty much useless for the rest of the fight (unless I have potions, level ups, or a staff with charges). I've noticed that the damage doesn't get any better, and I never have enough magicka to cast preparatory spells AND attack spells. The only fun in playing her is that it's really difficult, so when I win I feel lucky. Also, finishing off an enemy with a spell is very satisfying.