A fairly new Skyrim owner here...

[Z of the Na'vi]

...in search of some tips. I "purchased" (Xbox 360 version, got the game for free via trade-in special at Gamestop) Skyrim a couple of days ago, and have been itching to jump right into it. I figured the game has been out long enough that the more hardcore-based players would have some general tips as to how to get started on a given character.

For some reason, I have the urge to make a character specializing in archery, as magic has never been my forte in these kinds of games and a straight-up melee class doesn't sound all that engaging. I figured a bow would be the only tool I need to get the job done.

Would the Escapist have some pointers for what I am considering my first venture into the Elder Scrolls universe?

 

[Jhooud]

From what I hear a stealth and archery mix is broken to the point of insanity.

The trick is getting your skills built up to that point. It'll be a fun challenge. The great thing about Skyrim, at least in my experience, is that pretty much any path you choose can work. Some may be harder, granted, but it'll still work.

Bottom line, jump right in! You'll have a blast.

 

[wintercoat]

Don't be a mage. They made magic pathetic this time around. Why bother flinging ineffectual spells when you can craft and enchant a weapon to obliterate everything in your path? You'd figure, what with the pretty graphics tied to spells, that they'd've encouraged their use.

Also, stay away from mammoths and giants.

 

[Indecipherable]

Well if you want to completely break the game, do this:

Archery max

Smithing Max
Enchanting Max
Potion Max (if you can handle that much grind)

Basically enchant gloves that improve your smith, make potions that improve your smithing, make item with all of these buffs on you and 1 shot everything and totally ruin the game for yourself.

I would suggest just taking one of those above to the highest level else combining them... yeah.

 

[Scrustle]

Learn enchanting. Disenchant every magic item you come across so you can learn it's effects, unless it's useful at the time you find it or it's unique. Learn a soul trap spell or enchant a weapon to do the same. Go to Dwarven ruins to find loads of soul gems in Dwemer machinery.

 

[DustyDrB]

inb4 "console version? Doing it wrong!"

Archery is probably the most powerful combat style, but it's also the most fun (for me, at least). It really all just depends on what else you want to do. My archer focused on stealth and alchemy as well. If you go the stealth route, the shout "Aura Whisper" is pretty great. It's basically a Detect Life spell that doesn't cost MP.

The things that will give you trouble are Dragon Priests (or at least Krosis, some of the others didn't trouble me much). They hit hard, move erratically, have a ton of health, and resist poisons. I used large rocks for cover and tried to bait them into coming straight at me so I could get a clear shot in.

Your bow will be enough for most any occasion. Maybe keep a dagger on you to use in special cases like frost wraiths (are small and kind of hard to hit with arrows). I always kept a Soul Trap-enchanted dagger on me.

Light armor vs heavy: I prefer light. Partly because heavy armor in the game is all garish except for the lower-level ones (though a lot of the light armor is as well). But some of the special light armors have better archery-related enchantments. Light armor also has a perk that helps you sneak, and another that makes it so the armor doesn't affect your movement speed. Since going with archery means the idea is avoiding close combat, those are useful perks.

People will probably suggest you invest heavily in all of Alchemy, Enchanting, and Smithing. Yeah, go nuts if you want. But exploiting that trifecta is a bit tedious, and really overpowers your weapons beyond what you will ever need them to be. Plus, you miss on more interesting perks when you do that. I just take (at most) two out of the three.

 

[k7avenger]

Well, feel free to do just about whatever you want as most things will work out for you fairly well, but don't even bother with destruction magic. The only way to make it "useful" is to decrease the cost of casting that spell school by a mere 90%-100% and then precede to stun lock every enemy till the end of the game. Pure skill right there.

Now were you on PC, you might be able to mod it into usefulness, but alas.

 

[Terminate421]

It'll be fun, but personally, I'd always carry a sword or back-up weapon. Disarm shouts are not uncommon in dungeons and last thing you need is to try to be fighting a boss with no weapon.

 

[Alhazred]

While it's true that destruction magic is pretty weak, don't let that stop you from playing a mage. Conjuration has been buffed since oblivion and you can summon minions for longer periods and cheaper magicka costs. You can also raise the corpses of humanoid foes, which is always good for a laugh.

The high level perks and spells allow you to permanently summon minions, as well as have two of them out at once. Why bother using destruction magic when your two dremora lords have already skewered the enemy on their claymores?

 

[nexus]

Literally just do whatever you find entertains you the most. That's what the game is about.. it's not about "best class builds".. though you could certainly make it about that and no one will stop you. But you'd be doing yourself a disservice, in my opinion.

You can do several hybrid builds to suit your style too, don't have to lock down into one set of play.

 

[Lilani]

From what I hear a stealth and archery mix is broken to the point of insanity.

This is very true. I became a monster between archery, dual-daggers, and sneaking. Even with light armor it's a breeze. And building your skills isn't too hard--just do some dungeon crawls. Sneak around with your bow ready, shoot things while undetected, taking advantage of the 2x damage bonus for attacking while hidden. Then if you get detected, just break out the daggers. Before you know it, you'll have sneak so high you can be hiding in plain sight and they'll walk right by you. Just keep your armor and weapons updated and get whatever buffs you can. Though I admit sneaking is basically useless until you get several levels built up.

And it really is fun. The sneaking breaks up the monotonous flow of battles, unlike a straight up melee setup where it's barrel in and slash until everything stops moving.

So, to the OP, archery is very good while sneaking but not so efficient if you've got the enemy's attention. You'll want some sort of a backup weapon. I chose daggers, but really it's whatever you want. Since you'll be carrying around so many weapons, I recommend light armor and keeping like a billion potions on hand at all times. I've never really liked heavy armor honestly, I don't feel like the extra defense is worth the extra weight. Just keep your armor upgraded and up to date and you'll do fine with light armor.

 

[The_Lost_King]

Do the Dark Brotherhood and Thieves Guild quests. They are really fun and you get some pretty awesome armor, and definetly combine stealth with your archery. Oh and if you ever played Oblivion don't worry the bows are 200x more effective than before .

 

[Fractral]

While stealth and archery are indeed very powerful together, they aren't the only way of completing the game. Its perfectly possible to do the entire game with sword and shield, or a two handed sword. Magic is also usable, if a little weaker than the other styles, mainly due to the MP Pool. Just get some MP use reduction perks and you'll be able to play with magic fine.

 

[Dandark]

The standerd sword and shield warrior is actully pretty fun. I really enjoyed going through the game as a Nord warrior using one handed weapons and a shield while wearing heavy armor.

You should just experiment with playstyles and see what works best for you. My favorite is magic, it's pretty awesome. It's not as huge and varied as Oblivion but it works much better. If you want to do magic then Destruction and Conjuration are the way to go.

 

[Windcaler]

Archery is how I had my very first character specialize. Its perks are kind of a mixed bag. Some being extremely useful and others being not so much. I also ran heavy armor as well so I had mixed results with stealth but generally with a bow enemies would hardly ever see me before I would loose an arrow anyway. So my expeirences were whatever I couldnt kill with a sneak attack or a few attacks got close and really couldnt hurt me that much either.

The downside was, for me, archery felt to easy and a little boring. When all of the challenge is taken out I tend to enjoy the game a lot less

Now if you're into companions I can think of a couple good ones to compliment the archery skills. The first one that comes to mind is Farkas, a two handed warrior you can get after doing a few quests with the companions in Whiterun. Lydia (the whiterun housecarl) or really any of the housecarls is another choice since theyre all basicly melee fighters. Kharjo, a Khajit guard with one of the caravans is another good one (one of the better companions IMO) but you have to do his quest before you can get him and he can be hard to find since he wanders with his caravan. That said, if you focus on stealth you'll want to avoid companions since they usually ruin your chances to sneak attack anything

Sword, shield, and heavy armor was also extremely easy in just about every situation. The most engaging combat set for me was destruction magic but only after I had modded the game so magic scaled like weapons do. In the base game magic just doesnt have the needed kick after around 20 and becomes completely useless at 40+

Ive tried 2 handed weapons and dual wielding weapons but both seem about average. There is some decent challenge there and some of the kill cams are great.

 

[Sean Hollyman]

Try and mix different combat styles, there's no use in just focusing on one

 

[Z of the Na'vi]

Thank you for all the suggestions everyone. From what I am gauging, archery is fairly easy to play, but severely hinders your fun over time by being overpowered. A backup weapon is also a good idea, because what am I going to do if somebody sees me, heh.

Perhaps I could try some kind of magic/archery combo, but that seems kind of redundant now that I think about it.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

You silly goose. You don't own Skyrim. Skyrim owns you. Although that might be more true if you had a PC version. Or rather, if the PC version had you. It would ask you to constantly feed it with mods.

 

[the abyss gazes also]

Things i wish i had known a hundred skyrim hours ago: DON'T sell you Thievs Guild Armor. Ever. If you find something more useful, stash it somewhere for later.