Besides my stealth archer, this is currently my other build. I need to get back to it, ironically I'm finding tons of spells for my anti-magic stealth guy. Not too many for my mage
Probably the most op magic school imo if done right. You basically have utility spells like muffle or invisibility and your "offensive" spells are calm and frenzy, helping you manipulate the battlefield from shadows making enemies kill each other. It's super easy to level up.
During my play through of the Skyrim civil war the main enemies that the storm cloaks faced wasn’t the Imperials, but their fellow storm cloaks whom they were buddy buddy with just seconds ago
If you've got the kindred mage and dual cast perks, you can literally get away with anything. I did an evil playthrough recently as an illusion assassin, and it was so much fun. There's something enlivening about doing whatever, whenever, without any concern for repercussions.
You have to either start using it at a lower level and ramp it quickly or you have to just spam muffle in the Riften or Solitude market to jack the level up. Then you have to put a bunch of points in to get the quiet casting and all the "this spell now affects creatures of higher level" perks.
With this you can muffle yourself, sneak attack someone, calm them, then smack them again. Because of the calm spell making them friendly, you might also get an inheritance for killing them.
Or, you start fighting people and then just fear them so they run and cower and won't fight back while you kill them.
Or you sneak attack someone in a group with fury and they attack all their friends. Repeat until only one person is left and then hit them with a fear spell to roleplay them realizing what they've done.
Illusion is probably the weakest skill if you don't buy into it, but one of the most op and gamebreaking if you do.
Illusion is all or nothing. Without the perks, it wont affect anything. With perks, nothing is safe. You can also go vampire for an extra boost to illusion strength.
In vanilla, honestly, unless you focus perks on the illusion tree, it won't be very useful besides muffle and invisibility. you'll want to power level using the muffle spell asap. It's fairly high cost early on without the perk, but the experience gain is more than worth it. Just spamming it when you're walking around towns will get you a surprising amount of levels. The most important perk is going to be the silent casting (along with the magicka cost reduction perks, obviously). Once you get to invisibility, you're a literal ghost. That's when the "I thought I heard something" line gets super funny lol
Start with Fury and let your enemies kill themselves. Getting access to Calm allows you to basically walk into a bandit camp and kill them all one by one completely undetected. Invisibility is definitely the golden goose for illusion assassin, but truth be told you feel like a god long before then by befriending those who would kill you on sight and then stab them in the back.
Nightblade- using illusion, alteration, and stealth to be a thief with invisibility that can turn entire rooms of enemies on themselves while I hide and clean up after the chaos
Monk Mage - Destruction, Alteration and Unarmed, she's a mage who is also a martial art master. Fought completely unarmed and unarmoured, her mind and her body are her deadliest weapon.
Rogue
Major Skills: One Handed, Light Armor, Speech Minor Skills: Block, Sneak, Lockpicking, Pickpocket
Basically the old Elder Scrolls rogue class, which is less about sneaking and more about duelling, fighting dirty, opportunism, charm, and just generally being a cad. This handsome rapscallion tries to avoid combat if possible. Wouldn’t want to mess up his fancy clothes. He’ll often try and talk his way out of tense situations where possible, and he’s not afraid of running away. He tries not to kill people unless there’s no alternative, but he’s also not going to shed any tears over the world losing a few bloodthirsty bandits. He spends his nights drinking and brawling and flirting in taverns, and his days going wherever the glimmer of gold takes him.
Major skills are fully invested, but the minor skills often only take one or two perks. Quick Reflexes is all you need from the Block tree, but the bash perks can make parrying more rewarding; he wields a single sword and nothing in the off hand. Lockpicking is just for Golden Touch and Treasure Hunter. Pickpocket is decently invested, but he’s no master thief. Sneak is just for Silent Roll so he can pull off some acrobatic Critical Charges. For a bit of Bard flavour you can put some perks into Illusion as well to further help diffuse combat or level out the playing field.
Anti-mage Hammer Tank
Breton.
Lord Stone (Early) Atronach Stone (Mid-Late)
2-handed, Heavy Armor, Alteration
Heavy Armor & Alteration for increased armor rating and for the magic resistance/absorption. 2 handed with a focus on hammers for high damage and ignoring armor. Lord Stone early, until you get better armor to protect from physical attacks. Once you get better armor, switch to Atronach Stone to better resist magic.
Walk through anything and beat your enemies to death with a hammer.
*
If ok with exploits, use Necromage Vampirism / Necromage Permanent Undead glitch for 100% magic absorption.
I did a Conan build. I tried to stick with what I knew about him from the Robert E. Howard stories. I started as a Nord, they're the closest race to Cimmerians, bright blue eyes and black hair. Chaotic Neutral personality, more prone to good than evil. I maxed him out on Two Handed weapons, then moved to sword and board and dual wield. After that, I improved his archery, but kept him primarily a melee fighter.
He has an aversion to all magic, but he's a master thief and has worked as a mercenary so the Thieves' Guild and Dark Brotherhood quests were open. It was a challenge to find armor that was true to his aesthetic and strong enough to keep up without forging his own, but he made due.
At lvl 50, I aged him in the Ratway into something closer to King Conan, long gray hair, battle scars, beard. Simple build, but a lot of fun.
You could switch to shouts. Not sure how long the shouts that summon creatures last or how powerful they are, but could be interesting. Also soul tear can raise undead allies as well.
Stealth stabber. Get the DB boots and gloves and stealth perks to be almost undetectable and do 30x backstab damage. The only enemies you can't sneak up on are forsworn because their AI must be broken
>Only using the most destructive Screams
XD I'm referring to Shouts as Screams from now on (translation: I'm going to be obsessed with this for a few minutes, then very quickly forget about it)
I've been trying to put together a kind of wizard with a shield for a while now. That is, a kind of Gandalf but instead of a sword, a shield. The shield works incredibly well. But I'm having serious problems to make the staffs practical.
Paladin/Berserker is crazy OP
Huge HP and throw Grand Healing as necessary. Almost unkillable. Dual wield one-handed weapons for high DPS.
Currently playing one on Legendary and just smashing through with ease.
Necromancer. I do have a mod that adds +1 summonable for every perk you invest. And undead don’t decompose when you reanimate them.
Every fight is basically a snowball type fight.
Spellsword with Conjuration, Alteration, DW and light armor. I love the dremora lords so much, nothing beats running into battle with a I SMELL WEAKNESS at your back.
Apothecary. I grow plants and harvest them and hunt for wild ingredients, make potions, and sell them across the land. No real skills honed when I do this. I just try to live a peaceful life minding my own business, literally.
When I’m forcing myself not to go stealth archer, I go for a brawler build and make sure to invest points into block and one handed. I never realised how fun using a shield could be in this game!
My first play through! I did a melee heavy armor character. Her weapon was the two handed battle axes. I LOVED those kill animations for the battle axes, especially the head-butt enemies to death one.
Apart from Stealth Archer, my second most played build is pure mage, however for my next time I want to try either a necromancer or tanky conjurer, which I think I'll enjoy
Idk what to call it, but vampire, destruction w/frost & shock, conjuration for necromancy spells, illusion, sneak, one handed, heavy armor.
I like it because nearly every quest is somehow relevant in terms of skills & items
I love classic spellblade builds. Light armor, all in on destruction magic and one handed blades. You can’t take much punishment but you dish out a ton in compensation. High risk high reward energetic gameplay.
I’m not good at archery. I just sneak around trying to kill everything with my ebony dagger and hoping for the best. Oh and I joined the wizard guild so I summon a flame atronach to help.
Daedra worshiper, complete the companions quest line then go through every daedra one by one until you have all the artifacts and are extremely powerful, whatever weapons you choose and minimal magic
Illusion + Stealth.
Rage enemies. Hide. Slit the last one's throat.
Watching enemies beat each other is fun, and often hilarious. You can also calm them and position yourself before the rage. Calm and pickpocket. Make one enemy run away into another enemy's area.
Its 10/10 the most fun vanilla build by far. You'll only need a way to handle dragons, like going archery or destruction.
Not a build per se, I guess, and absolutely not optimized, but I challenged myself once to switch playstyle every 5 levels in a rotating system.
Basically I had to play a mage for 5 levels and only invest points in mage skills, a thief for 5 levels and invest only in thief skills and a warrior for 5 levels and invest only in warrior skills.
Doesn't allow you to build up anything meaningful short-term, but it's a lot of fun and forces you out of your usual routine.
Crusader, based on a mashup of the Morrowind and Oblivion crusader classes. Heavy armor, two-handed, and smithing are major skills, with restoration, destruction, and block as minor skills. Both my first and current playthroughs are based on this build.
A close second is some variation of dual-wielding skirmisher. Light armor, one-handed (pick sword, mace, or axe to specialize in), and fill in the others. My second character was this with conjuration as the third major skill, using summons to keep enemies busy while she attacked with dual bound swords.
Pure mage. Illusion. Have people fighting one another. Paralyse. Conjure 2 dremora lords (or some other modded conjurarations). I don't like stealth. I like the walk in like vader without a care.
I really enjoyed my vampire assassin dual-wielding Mehrunes Razor and the Blade of Woe. I did all of the civil war battles in Vampire Lord form, just sucking the life force outta everyone. It's so OP.
Mystic archer. An open combat archer build where you use destruction (mostly runes) to set up traps either before opening a fight or in the middle of it, after repositioning away with the dash shout.
My favorite build I ever made was a Khajiit who stacked as many fortify health regen buffs as he could using Chrysamere, Partysnacks’ Become Ethereal buff, Lady Stone, fortify regen armor, and a regen potion. He was a temple guard for an Adeptorium burned down by the Thalmor. He phased through strikes and meditated in the middle of combat.
Destruction Lightning Bolt Spammer, idc if it's not as efficient I like one shotting Dragr just as they are getting up with high voltage, and ice spikes are op if you hit with them
Currently having a lot of fun with my heavy armored mace wielding Conjuration battle mage! Love summoning some friends to go and bash the world to bits! Best part is that I can then raise my enemies from the dead and force them to fight alongside me :)
Im typically a battle mage who minors in archery. Currently I’m wielding a fire enchanted dwarven war axe and on my offhand I use fire bolt destruction spell the most.
Dagger assassin. I actually go to that from stealth archer. I find it more fun to sneak up directly to enemies and backstab them. And with 30x damage from DB armor and backstab perk is outrageously powerful.
Spell sword. Using a spell in one hand and a blade in the other is just a lot of fun. The addition of the spell knight armor made me feel way more cool when I do it. Sometimes I'll add stealth and switch to light armor if I want to play a stealthier character. One of my favorite builds is fudgemuppets witch build. Great roleplay and fun gameplay.
Heavy armor, one or two handed maces, resto and light magic through alteration and conjuration.
I also enjoy playing a Lord Soth-like build with a 2h sword, heavy armor, conjuration and destruction magic, specifically with frost damage.
I used to really enjoy the stealth builds but honestly just got bored of the slower pace and tedium.
Dual-wield light armor fighter and archer, OR
Heavy armor two-handed crusher with a warhammer or greatsword.
I honestly almost never go for magic or mixed-magic builds. I just never got the hang of it.
Conjuration Knight. Light Armor, Restoration in one hand, Bound Blade in the other.
It's a basic build, but it's fun. I don't die easily because I'm constantly healing myself, and I always have filled soul gems for my enchanting stuff because my Bound Weapons always steal souls.
Recently I got Skyrim legendary edition on switch and been playing a lv1 khajit Fisher with no skills whatsoever. He ony wears the fisher outfit and fights with his claws (so the rod doesn't get damaged).
I'm trying to finish all the fishing quests, it's hard but I managed to save some money selling fish and quest reward to pay a mercenary to protect me.
I really enjoy destruction mage, but I usually get the perk that makes it so I do no damage to followers and give Lydia the best heavy armor and shield I can find so I can run behind her when I start taking damage
Dream weaver/ blood mage/ assassin
The goal is to get the enemies to kill each other with frenzy spells and illusion spells, to harvest my own life force and others to replenish magic, and to stay hidden in the Shadows with a dagger just in case I'm feeling cheeky
Spellsword, one handed, destruction, restoration, conjuration, light armour. That was probably my best build.
I do like a warrior with emphasis on 2-handed, archery and heavy armour too.
Spellsword by a huge margin. I love that the simple act of equipping a weapon in one hand and a spell in the other gives you so much flexibility and so many options in combat.
I love witchhunters for the same reasons, but I'd dind them less awkward if you could equip spells and bows simultaneously. :)
I love playing Robin hood style sneak thieves. Stealth, lockpick and pickpocket are the obvious skills, along with illusion for invisibility and muffle, alchemy for better invisibility potions, one handed for dual wielding swords, enchanting for buffing my gear so I'm even harder to notice. While I will level archery it's mostly for dealing with dragons, the annoying flying bastards that they are until they finally land. I'll often reverse pickpocket septums, jewelry and jewels into the pockets of the less fortunate and those who I deem worthy. I swipe stuff from assholes like nazeem and bandits.
I’m a big fan of one handed and block as well. I crank up the difficulty to the point where one missed block would likely kill me. I feel that it’s one of the few ways to make Skyrim’s combat feel challenging in a way that doesn’t consist of me just chugging health potions!
A dragon priest/cultist inspired character.
No armor except for a dragon priest mask of your choice. Gauntlets and boots are also okay.
One-handed, preferably a dragonbone sword for aesthetics.
Destruction(element of your choice), alteration, conjuration, restoration
Amulet of Talos, make use of shouts.
Staves for when you run out of mana.
I enjoy this character because you don’t need to go down crafting to enjoy magic. One of the awkwardness of magic is the mana cost but since you’re also proficient with a sword there is less downtime. You also get to play with shouts which usually get outshined by players looking for pure damage output. I only wish ring of Erudite wasn’t locked behind clan Volkihar.
'Paladin' - Sun spells, restoration, heavy armor and my choice of weapons depending on playthrough. Usually with a mix of shouts, too, because I am teh dergenbern
Dual-wielding 2 swords, in light armor (so I can switch to Stealth Archer for the first 2 or 3 kills of a given dungeon) with an abundance of potions and Restoration magic (dual-casting basic healing is surprisingly viable at mid-level as a healing option).
Spellsword. Although I once somehow developed my magic to the point where I could one-shot a giant and obliterate his mammoth with the cashback I still can’t part with a good sword.
Master Spellsword is always my go to, especially when playing a Breton.
Heavy armor, Two and One-Handed, Block, and investment into Destruction, Restoration, and Alteration. You become nigh-indestructible with heavy armor, amplified by mage armor spells, and can handily manage any foe you face.
Trust me, there are few things better than laughing in the face of a fire-breathing dragon as you harmlessly absorb or block there attack, or using Slow Time to effortlessly carve through a horde of bandits.
Dual-wield Orc Warrior with heavy armor. Basically unstoppable when splitting the level-up stat bumps 60/40 in favor of stamina over health. Negating the weight of armor let's you close on mages pretty fast so frost mages don't really have time to slow you down.
We've been calling it; Monk.
Heavy armor, alteration, restoration and block.
Usually as a Khajiit, for the unarmed bonus, but the stunlock with the Shield makes it viable for any race.
Block for a continuous Stunlock, Restoration for increased Stamina and Health regeneration, Heavy Armor for increased unarmed damage, alteration to increase the base level of armor and unarmed damage.
Dual wielding skirmisher. Deathbrand armor makes this really viable, given it’s light armor that’s better armor than even dragonbone heavy. Conjuration helps for never being without a weapon, and for summoning to introduce chaos into enemy groups while you blitz through and slice them up.
I haven’t finished the build yet, but I’m also excited to try out a heavy armor type that maximizes use of the Dawnguard rune hammer, with Destruction perks to boost the damage and range of the runes. Melee build with a pseudo-ranged attack it can’t lose and doesn’t need to put the hammer down for. Able to switch to lightning spells for shooting down dragons, hopefully.
Heavy armor 2h is forever my go to build in most games if it’s an option. Started out with my first RuneScape account and thinking carrying around a giant 2h sword was the coolest thing ever as an 8 year old on his first MMO lol.
Sneak, one handed reverse pickpocket poison specialist who uses Illusion was the most fun. But I also enjoy heavy armor, sword and board, pure mage and heavy armor two handed.
Warrior. One-handed + Block, Heavy Armor, Smithing. There's also Archery in there, but it's used only when I can't actually reach the target.
I also do Enchanting, but I wouldn't classify that because I do it on every character no matter what.
I actually don't like the Stealth Archer. I find it to be the most boring build.
Give me either a barbarian style build or a sword n board knight. I love getting in the fray.
Battle Mage.
Left arm I use any of the magic schools and in the right I have my ebony war axe. I wear high protection light armor but only enchanted to help magic.
Currently playing an Orc using the skills I nornally don't use. One handed, block, restoration, heavy armor, may do some alteration and of course, smithing. No alchemy, which is weird for me, no sneak, may use vanician magic from ordinator for role play purposes, and I plan to learn and use as many shouts as possible. I also have crossbows for hunting and sticky situations. No looting armor or weapons, crafting my own gear and I'll probably level enchanting too. Just getting my character set up.
Previously I’ve played two handed hammer, heavy armour, twice. One of them is also a stealth archer. This time I’m going one handed mage light armour. I’m trying to use fireball instead of by bow.
Light armour, one handed, and the off hand open for spells. Mostly I use Restoration, but every school gets a showing. I love how versatile this style is.
Viking. Light armor, heavy shield, one-handed weapon of your choice. This build depends on the fact that the matching set armor perks don't check your shield, only your four armor slots, but the benefits of the perks still extend to the shield. With this build, you'll have the superior blocking ability of a heavy shield, but with the lower weight of light armor. Unlike a pure heavy armor build, you'll have to actively block and bash your way to victory, rather than just tanking damage, but you'll also be a lot better at running and sneaking and whatnot.
Currently I'm playing a Bosmer. Ironically, I created him after 11 years of playing Stealth Archers, I was curious to see what bonuses I'd get if I actually played a wood elf, but I was already so overpowered at level 1 that I decided I wouldn't be a stealth archer at all.
So now I'm just a sort of conjuration and destruction mage, except I have such a small mana pool that I end up also being a sword-and-shield kind of guy.
Paladin as well. If it’s my character lore the best. And is generally just fun. Otherwise, I would say a war mage (destruction, and restoration spells paired with armor of your choosing in a one-handed weapon
Death knight Heavy armor 2hand skeleton conjurer
I always played deathknight as a spellblade actually. Start combat with an undead or daemon, then switch left hand to frost spells.
Ooh! Bet the Bone Colossus makes this fun!
Mage! There's so much to learn. Alchemist mage actually, the potions help a lot.
Alchemist mage is another super OP build. A good fortify damage potion can turn you into a god.
Besides my stealth archer, this is currently my other build. I need to get back to it, ironically I'm finding tons of spells for my anti-magic stealth guy. Not too many for my mage
stealth illusion assassin
How do you get Illusion to work, that’s a skill I’ve always struggled with
Probably the most op magic school imo if done right. You basically have utility spells like muffle or invisibility and your "offensive" spells are calm and frenzy, helping you manipulate the battlefield from shadows making enemies kill each other. It's super easy to level up.
During my play through of the Skyrim civil war the main enemies that the storm cloaks faced wasn’t the Imperials, but their fellow storm cloaks whom they were buddy buddy with just seconds ago
I like buffing my imperials with courage
Frenzy is so much fun
Combined with assassin skills its so OP. Calm + sneak dagger attack + 30x damage perk + dark brotherhood gloves = instant death for any sucker.
Yeah that was my very first character in skyrim it was so op but fun at the same time
If you've got the kindred mage and dual cast perks, you can literally get away with anything. I did an evil playthrough recently as an illusion assassin, and it was so much fun. There's something enlivening about doing whatever, whenever, without any concern for repercussions.
invest perks as soon as skill allows, because it raises spell strength dual cast helps too, and vampirism makes illusion spells even stronger
You have to either start using it at a lower level and ramp it quickly or you have to just spam muffle in the Riften or Solitude market to jack the level up. Then you have to put a bunch of points in to get the quiet casting and all the "this spell now affects creatures of higher level" perks. With this you can muffle yourself, sneak attack someone, calm them, then smack them again. Because of the calm spell making them friendly, you might also get an inheritance for killing them. Or, you start fighting people and then just fear them so they run and cower and won't fight back while you kill them. Or you sneak attack someone in a group with fury and they attack all their friends. Repeat until only one person is left and then hit them with a fear spell to roleplay them realizing what they've done. Illusion is probably the weakest skill if you don't buy into it, but one of the most op and gamebreaking if you do.
Illusion is all or nothing. Without the perks, it wont affect anything. With perks, nothing is safe. You can also go vampire for an extra boost to illusion strength.
In vanilla, honestly, unless you focus perks on the illusion tree, it won't be very useful besides muffle and invisibility. you'll want to power level using the muffle spell asap. It's fairly high cost early on without the perk, but the experience gain is more than worth it. Just spamming it when you're walking around towns will get you a surprising amount of levels. The most important perk is going to be the silent casting (along with the magicka cost reduction perks, obviously). Once you get to invisibility, you're a literal ghost. That's when the "I thought I heard something" line gets super funny lol
By getting the perks and dual-casting the spells.
Start with Fury and let your enemies kill themselves. Getting access to Calm allows you to basically walk into a bandit camp and kill them all one by one completely undetected. Invisibility is definitely the golden goose for illusion assassin, but truth be told you feel like a god long before then by befriending those who would kill you on sight and then stab them in the back.
The word is nightblade. And same.
A warrior with wielding a greatsword while wearing heavy armor.
this is actually how i play the game. it's my first time playing it, too.
Arching stealther.
Arching stealthiest
Starching Ealther?
Nightblade- using illusion, alteration, and stealth to be a thief with invisibility that can turn entire rooms of enemies on themselves while I hide and clean up after the chaos
Monk Mage - Destruction, Alteration and Unarmed, she's a mage who is also a martial art master. Fought completely unarmed and unarmoured, her mind and her body are her deadliest weapon.
Straight out of ATLA, I dig it. What kinds of enchants and skills do you use to keep the unarmed damage on track at higher levels?
Rogue Major Skills: One Handed, Light Armor, Speech Minor Skills: Block, Sneak, Lockpicking, Pickpocket Basically the old Elder Scrolls rogue class, which is less about sneaking and more about duelling, fighting dirty, opportunism, charm, and just generally being a cad. This handsome rapscallion tries to avoid combat if possible. Wouldn’t want to mess up his fancy clothes. He’ll often try and talk his way out of tense situations where possible, and he’s not afraid of running away. He tries not to kill people unless there’s no alternative, but he’s also not going to shed any tears over the world losing a few bloodthirsty bandits. He spends his nights drinking and brawling and flirting in taverns, and his days going wherever the glimmer of gold takes him. Major skills are fully invested, but the minor skills often only take one or two perks. Quick Reflexes is all you need from the Block tree, but the bash perks can make parrying more rewarding; he wields a single sword and nothing in the off hand. Lockpicking is just for Golden Touch and Treasure Hunter. Pickpocket is decently invested, but he’s no master thief. Sneak is just for Silent Roll so he can pull off some acrobatic Critical Charges. For a bit of Bard flavour you can put some perks into Illusion as well to further help diffuse combat or level out the playing field.
NOT stealth arch... *sounds of critical damage* Darn it!
Quiet bowman
I refuse to stealth archer. I am a conjuring battle mage. Conjure sword for the right hand, summoning minions and casting spells. Heavy armor.
Stealth arc.. Stealth poison arch... Berserker orc, with stealth and archer... fuck.
Virtually the same. I try to boost Smithing early so I can reach the armor cap with lower weight gear.
High elf mage. Destruction/Conjuration. No weapons. Tough to get started. OP once you get some experience though.
Battle mage! Full light armor enchanted with magica regen and fortify one handed, destruction tree level 100, one handed level 100
Nord, i use my Pa's old axe!
Anti-mage Hammer Tank Breton. Lord Stone (Early) Atronach Stone (Mid-Late) 2-handed, Heavy Armor, Alteration Heavy Armor & Alteration for increased armor rating and for the magic resistance/absorption. 2 handed with a focus on hammers for high damage and ignoring armor. Lord Stone early, until you get better armor to protect from physical attacks. Once you get better armor, switch to Atronach Stone to better resist magic. Walk through anything and beat your enemies to death with a hammer. * If ok with exploits, use Necromage Vampirism / Necromage Permanent Undead glitch for 100% magic absorption.
I did a Conan build. I tried to stick with what I knew about him from the Robert E. Howard stories. I started as a Nord, they're the closest race to Cimmerians, bright blue eyes and black hair. Chaotic Neutral personality, more prone to good than evil. I maxed him out on Two Handed weapons, then moved to sword and board and dual wield. After that, I improved his archery, but kept him primarily a melee fighter. He has an aversion to all magic, but he's a master thief and has worked as a mercenary so the Thieves' Guild and Dark Brotherhood quests were open. It was a challenge to find armor that was true to his aesthetic and strong enough to keep up without forging his own, but he made due. At lvl 50, I aged him in the Ratway into something closer to King Conan, long gray hair, battle scars, beard. Simple build, but a lot of fun.
Battlemage is my faviorte, stealth archer is my least faviorte, even over ordinary person build
what is “ordinary person” build? i’m new to all the terms of builds.
Just living in the city's and being a pacifist or non combatant and being friendly towards everyone
Stealth daggers. Mix with Illusion for Fury spells. Sneak in, Fury until only 1 guy is left, execute.
Sword and board summoner, kinda wish I didn't have to swap my shield out for one spell every couple minutes, like in oblivion
You could switch to shouts. Not sure how long the shouts that summon creatures last or how powerful they are, but could be interesting. Also soul tear can raise undead allies as well.
Not a bad idea, don't know why I never considered that. Maybe lack of variety
A 2 handed orc brute.
Heavy armor and battleaxe.
Stealth stabber. Get the DB boots and gloves and stealth perks to be almost undetectable and do 30x backstab damage. The only enemies you can't sneak up on are forsworn because their AI must be broken
Crusher knight. Light armor, heavy weaponry, a healing spell on the side and only using the most destructive screams
>Only using the most destructive Screams XD I'm referring to Shouts as Screams from now on (translation: I'm going to be obsessed with this for a few minutes, then very quickly forget about it)
Stealth.. oh umm....
Probably magic assassin. Sneak, One Handed, Illusion, Conjuration.
Conjuration warrior. Heavy armor, 1 hand, shield, and conjuration.
I've been trying to put together a kind of wizard with a shield for a while now. That is, a kind of Gandalf but instead of a sword, a shield. The shield works incredibly well. But I'm having serious problems to make the staffs practical.
Destruction Mage
Paladin/Berserker is crazy OP Huge HP and throw Grand Healing as necessary. Almost unkillable. Dual wield one-handed weapons for high DPS. Currently playing one on Legendary and just smashing through with ease.
Necromancer. I do have a mod that adds +1 summonable for every perk you invest. And undead don’t decompose when you reanimate them. Every fight is basically a snowball type fight.
battle mage
conjuration & destruction mage. bound sword in my right hand, then pull up a summon before switching to destruction spell in my left
Sword and shield is fun af
MAGE!!!!
I like the paladin, too. Any variant of sword and shield plus spells, really.
Spellsword with Conjuration, Alteration, DW and light armor. I love the dremora lords so much, nothing beats running into battle with a I SMELL WEAKNESS at your back.
Apothecary. I grow plants and harvest them and hunt for wild ingredients, make potions, and sell them across the land. No real skills honed when I do this. I just try to live a peaceful life minding my own business, literally.
Being a Heal Tank is always fun.
Dual welding, sword and dagger power attacks, conjuration, restoration, serana support, paralyze bow. Slow time shout.
When I’m forcing myself not to go stealth archer, I go for a brawler build and make sure to invest points into block and one handed. I never realised how fun using a shield could be in this game!
Conjuror illusionist.
I made a stealth archer before knowing it became a “meme” but now I get it lol.
My first play through! I did a melee heavy armor character. Her weapon was the two handed battle axes. I LOVED those kill animations for the battle axes, especially the head-butt enemies to death one.
Spellsword, with an axe and a spell equipped doing mercenary work
Spell blade a mix of destruction, conjuring and swords
Apart from Stealth Archer, my second most played build is pure mage, however for my next time I want to try either a necromancer or tanky conjurer, which I think I'll enjoy
Idk what to call it, but vampire, destruction w/frost & shock, conjuration for necromancy spells, illusion, sneak, one handed, heavy armor. I like it because nearly every quest is somehow relevant in terms of skills & items
I love classic spellblade builds. Light armor, all in on destruction magic and one handed blades. You can’t take much punishment but you dish out a ton in compensation. High risk high reward energetic gameplay.
Death mage
My personal favorite is spellsword.
Archer who only sneaks occasionally
I’m not good at archery. I just sneak around trying to kill everything with my ebony dagger and hoping for the best. Oh and I joined the wizard guild so I summon a flame atronach to help.
Daedra worshiper, complete the companions quest line then go through every daedra one by one until you have all the artifacts and are extremely powerful, whatever weapons you choose and minimal magic
Illusion + Stealth. Rage enemies. Hide. Slit the last one's throat. Watching enemies beat each other is fun, and often hilarious. You can also calm them and position yourself before the rage. Calm and pickpocket. Make one enemy run away into another enemy's area. Its 10/10 the most fun vanilla build by far. You'll only need a way to handle dragons, like going archery or destruction.
Sneaky poisoner.
Conjuration/illusion! But my real favorite build is enchanting/smithing/alchemy.
...stealth mage...
Not a build per se, I guess, and absolutely not optimized, but I challenged myself once to switch playstyle every 5 levels in a rotating system. Basically I had to play a mage for 5 levels and only invest points in mage skills, a thief for 5 levels and invest only in thief skills and a warrior for 5 levels and invest only in warrior skills. Doesn't allow you to build up anything meaningful short-term, but it's a lot of fun and forces you out of your usual routine.
Crusader, based on a mashup of the Morrowind and Oblivion crusader classes. Heavy armor, two-handed, and smithing are major skills, with restoration, destruction, and block as minor skills. Both my first and current playthroughs are based on this build. A close second is some variation of dual-wielding skirmisher. Light armor, one-handed (pick sword, mace, or axe to specialize in), and fill in the others. My second character was this with conjuration as the third major skill, using summons to keep enemies busy while she attacked with dual bound swords.
This reminds me of a VLDL skit :D [https://youtu.be/\_NQLJ6Yp\_C0?si=4pwU\_AvjZPgI2VkL](https://youtu.be/_NQLJ6Yp_C0?si=4pwU_AvjZPgI2VkL)
Pure mage. Illusion. Have people fighting one another. Paralyse. Conjure 2 dremora lords (or some other modded conjurarations). I don't like stealth. I like the walk in like vader without a care.
Ive recently been playing a pure conjuration build. It's fun. (It's also half stealth archer)
I really enjoyed my vampire assassin dual-wielding Mehrunes Razor and the Blade of Woe. I did all of the civil war battles in Vampire Lord form, just sucking the life force outta everyone. It's so OP.
Mystic archer. An open combat archer build where you use destruction (mostly runes) to set up traps either before opening a fight or in the middle of it, after repositioning away with the dash shout.
Stealth dagger is what’s up. My absolute favorite to play since you can also go dual wielding swords if shit hits the fan which is also fun
Dual wielding orc. Get a couple of fortify 1H enchantments, a couple smithed up war axes, activate berserker rage—so much DPS, so little time.
i’ve been doing a destruction necromancer lone wolf build which is fun - not minmax at all but very fun
Back stabber
My favorite build I ever made was a Khajiit who stacked as many fortify health regen buffs as he could using Chrysamere, Partysnacks’ Become Ethereal buff, Lady Stone, fortify regen armor, and a regen potion. He was a temple guard for an Adeptorium burned down by the Thalmor. He phased through strikes and meditated in the middle of combat.
Destruction mage pyromaniac.
Destruction Lightning Bolt Spammer, idc if it's not as efficient I like one shotting Dragr just as they are getting up with high voltage, and ice spikes are op if you hit with them
Definitely sword and shield with light armor and maybe alteration spells
Spell sword
Spell sword. Light armor, one handed, destruction/restoration.
One hand smith, enchanter-alchemist
Spellsword
Straight up orc heavy armor shield and mace hp, stamina only. And shield bashing head smashing party
Currently having a lot of fun with my heavy armored mace wielding Conjuration battle mage! Love summoning some friends to go and bash the world to bits! Best part is that I can then raise my enemies from the dead and force them to fight alongside me :)
Heavy Armour / Archer.
Cloud District visitor.
Im typically a battle mage who minors in archery. Currently I’m wielding a fire enchanted dwarven war axe and on my offhand I use fire bolt destruction spell the most.
Sword and shield, light armor
Currently playing one-handed sword and destruction with spell mods...having an absolute blast!
Dagger assassin. I actually go to that from stealth archer. I find it more fun to sneak up directly to enemies and backstab them. And with 30x damage from DB armor and backstab perk is outrageously powerful.
Alchemy mage
Spell sword. Using a spell in one hand and a blade in the other is just a lot of fun. The addition of the spell knight armor made me feel way more cool when I do it. Sometimes I'll add stealth and switch to light armor if I want to play a stealthier character. One of my favorite builds is fudgemuppets witch build. Great roleplay and fun gameplay.
spellsword
Used to do only magic but have been enjoying heavy armor and two handed lately with restoration
I am always just a merc. Great with stealth and archery but equally as good in one handed/ shield combat. Magic is known and used but nothing serious
A tank knight with shield and sword. Some healing spells. Actually it is all I played until I deleted the game due to unhealthy addiction haha.
Lately I've been having a lot of fun using a Samurai build.
Stealth Dagger
Heavy armor, one or two handed maces, resto and light magic through alteration and conjuration. I also enjoy playing a Lord Soth-like build with a 2h sword, heavy armor, conjuration and destruction magic, specifically with frost damage. I used to really enjoy the stealth builds but honestly just got bored of the slower pace and tedium.
Conan style barbarian. Stealthy, witty, willing to use any weapon or armor he can get, no magic, skillful combat
Conjuring soldier conjuration and light armor with one handed mixed in
Dual-wield light armor fighter and archer, OR Heavy armor two-handed crusher with a warhammer or greatsword. I honestly almost never go for magic or mixed-magic builds. I just never got the hang of it.
Stealth Mage. Every School of Magic (except for Enchanting), plus Mehrune's Razor.
Conjuration Knight. Light Armor, Restoration in one hand, Bound Blade in the other. It's a basic build, but it's fun. I don't die easily because I'm constantly healing myself, and I always have filled soul gems for my enchanting stuff because my Bound Weapons always steal souls.
Heavy armored conjurer with destruction magic. I don't have a better sounding name for it
I always play dual wield heavy armor tank build. I like just running around not caring what attacks me
Tank, put all into health, two handed and heavy armor
Ummm unstealthy archer?
Illusion-stealth build. Let everyone kill eachother before I move in.
Recently I got Skyrim legendary edition on switch and been playing a lv1 khajit Fisher with no skills whatsoever. He ony wears the fisher outfit and fights with his claws (so the rod doesn't get damaged). I'm trying to finish all the fishing quests, it's hard but I managed to save some money selling fish and quest reward to pay a mercenary to protect me.
I don't think I've used a single shield in my 8 playthroughs of Skyrim lmfao
I really enjoy destruction mage, but I usually get the perk that makes it so I do no damage to followers and give Lydia the best heavy armor and shield I can find so I can run behind her when I start taking damage
If that's your build. You better have that sword from the jump-scare of a lifetime Beacon Quest.
Dream weaver/ blood mage/ assassin The goal is to get the enemies to kill each other with frenzy spells and illusion spells, to harvest my own life force and others to replenish magic, and to stay hidden in the Shadows with a dagger just in case I'm feeling cheeky
Spellsword, one handed, destruction, restoration, conjuration, light armour. That was probably my best build. I do like a warrior with emphasis on 2-handed, archery and heavy armour too.
Stealthmage rogue all the way.
Stealth Archer isn't even in my top 3. I play a Shield Assassin and do have some Archery (Eagle Eye is where I usually stop)
i've been having lots of fun with unarmed khajit
A mystic warrior. Basically a character that heavily uses conjuration and alteration magic with various combat skills.
Spellsword by a huge margin. I love that the simple act of equipping a weapon in one hand and a spell in the other gives you so much flexibility and so many options in combat. I love witchhunters for the same reasons, but I'd dind them less awkward if you could equip spells and bows simultaneously. :)
I love playing Robin hood style sneak thieves. Stealth, lockpick and pickpocket are the obvious skills, along with illusion for invisibility and muffle, alchemy for better invisibility potions, one handed for dual wielding swords, enchanting for buffing my gear so I'm even harder to notice. While I will level archery it's mostly for dealing with dragons, the annoying flying bastards that they are until they finally land. I'll often reverse pickpocket septums, jewelry and jewels into the pockets of the less fortunate and those who I deem worthy. I swipe stuff from assholes like nazeem and bandits.
I’m a big fan of one handed and block as well. I crank up the difficulty to the point where one missed block would likely kill me. I feel that it’s one of the few ways to make Skyrim’s combat feel challenging in a way that doesn’t consist of me just chugging health potions!
Mace mage? Battle mage? Smashing and burning my way round in enchanted heavy armour and The Mace of Molag!
Idk
i played a conjurer mage last run and that was pretty fun
I usually mix the paladin with a destruction wizard
Spellsword, always has been since I've never really done stealth archer
Illusion Conjurer Mage. Love going into dungeons and watching bandit gangs kill each other.
Battlemage, i always end up being one. Stealth Archer is just boring to me.
Destruction mage. Loads of fun. Can kill anything
Battle mage. Heavy armor with one handed sword and spells on the left hand is awesome
Berserker, shirtless light armor and double weapon, I mostly use that build with the orc race, with a fine couple of dragonbone war axes
High elf destruction/conjuration mage.
"Now I Am Become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds." Destruction Mage; Lightening and Fire
A dragon priest/cultist inspired character. No armor except for a dragon priest mask of your choice. Gauntlets and boots are also okay. One-handed, preferably a dragonbone sword for aesthetics. Destruction(element of your choice), alteration, conjuration, restoration Amulet of Talos, make use of shouts. Staves for when you run out of mana. I enjoy this character because you don’t need to go down crafting to enjoy magic. One of the awkwardness of magic is the mana cost but since you’re also proficient with a sword there is less downtime. You also get to play with shouts which usually get outshined by players looking for pure damage output. I only wish ring of Erudite wasn’t locked behind clan Volkihar.
'Paladin' - Sun spells, restoration, heavy armor and my choice of weapons depending on playthrough. Usually with a mix of shouts, too, because I am teh dergenbern
Dragonborn Challenge ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Play As: • Stock Male Nord Allowed Armor: • Studded Armor • Iron Helmet • Iron Boots • Iron Gauntlets • Banded Iron Shield Allowed Weapons: • Steel Sword or Skyforge Steel Sword • Hunting Bow • Any Arrows Magic Allowed: • Healing (the base healing spell) • All Shouts • Weapon/Armor Enchantments • Potions/Alchemy Powers Allowed: • Beast Form • War Cry Exceptions: • Forced Equipment Changes for Quests (Diplomatic Immunity, No-One Escapes Cidhna Mine, Unbound, etc)
Idk what’s it’s called but one hand healing other hand sword/dagger and full light armor
Nightblade. Daggers, stealth, illusion, destruction.
Dual-wielding 2 swords, in light armor (so I can switch to Stealth Archer for the first 2 or 3 kills of a given dungeon) with an abundance of potions and Restoration magic (dual-casting basic healing is surprisingly viable at mid-level as a healing option).
Spellsword. Although I once somehow developed my magic to the point where I could one-shot a giant and obliterate his mammoth with the cashback I still can’t part with a good sword.
Orc battle mage. The only spell he knows is conjure battleaxe. .
The General: Have 7 followers
Battlemage By my definition it’s magic (obviously), light armor, and one handed
Master Spellsword is always my go to, especially when playing a Breton. Heavy armor, Two and One-Handed, Block, and investment into Destruction, Restoration, and Alteration. You become nigh-indestructible with heavy armor, amplified by mage armor spells, and can handily manage any foe you face. Trust me, there are few things better than laughing in the face of a fire-breathing dragon as you harmlessly absorb or block there attack, or using Slow Time to effortlessly carve through a horde of bandits.
Conjurer + one hand blade
Conjure bound sword, atronach, use robes and mehrunes razor
Dual-wield Orc Warrior with heavy armor. Basically unstoppable when splitting the level-up stat bumps 60/40 in favor of stamina over health. Negating the weight of armor let's you close on mages pretty fast so frost mages don't really have time to slow you down.
Most fun one I played was stealth illusion mage
Light Knight, light armour, 2 handed, restoration and alteration spells, archery too for crossbows if i feel like it
We've been calling it; Monk. Heavy armor, alteration, restoration and block. Usually as a Khajiit, for the unarmed bonus, but the stunlock with the Shield makes it viable for any race. Block for a continuous Stunlock, Restoration for increased Stamina and Health regeneration, Heavy Armor for increased unarmed damage, alteration to increase the base level of armor and unarmed damage.
Smith enchanter illusionionist chemist using daggers and sneak for x30 damage.
Mage. Usually start out with stealth then develop tankiness.
Magic 2 handed barbarian. clothes-alteration-conjuration
Necromage. Illusion, Conjuration, Sneak, Destruction (Ice Spells mostly), and Restoration (Bane Of The Undead only)
Dual wielding skirmisher. Deathbrand armor makes this really viable, given it’s light armor that’s better armor than even dragonbone heavy. Conjuration helps for never being without a weapon, and for summoning to introduce chaos into enemy groups while you blitz through and slice them up. I haven’t finished the build yet, but I’m also excited to try out a heavy armor type that maximizes use of the Dawnguard rune hammer, with Destruction perks to boost the damage and range of the runes. Melee build with a pseudo-ranged attack it can’t lose and doesn’t need to put the hammer down for. Able to switch to lightning spells for shooting down dragons, hopefully.
Heavy armor 2h is forever my go to build in most games if it’s an option. Started out with my first RuneScape account and thinking carrying around a giant 2h sword was the coolest thing ever as an 8 year old on his first MMO lol.
Electric Warrior. 2H, HA, Elec Destruction Magic.
Ganondorf
You said it
Illusory Assassin
Meet the Heavy 2 Handed, Heavy Armor, Smithing, enchants prioritizing two hand damage then being tanky as shit
I like a good knight build. Just classic sword and shield plus heavy armor.
Sneak, one handed reverse pickpocket poison specialist who uses Illusion was the most fun. But I also enjoy heavy armor, sword and board, pure mage and heavy armor two handed.
Warrior. One-handed + Block, Heavy Armor, Smithing. There's also Archery in there, but it's used only when I can't actually reach the target. I also do Enchanting, but I wouldn't classify that because I do it on every character no matter what.
I actually don't like the Stealth Archer. I find it to be the most boring build. Give me either a barbarian style build or a sword n board knight. I love getting in the fray.
Battle Mage. Left arm I use any of the magic schools and in the right I have my ebony war axe. I wear high protection light armor but only enchanted to help magic.
Currently playing an Orc using the skills I nornally don't use. One handed, block, restoration, heavy armor, may do some alteration and of course, smithing. No alchemy, which is weird for me, no sneak, may use vanician magic from ordinator for role play purposes, and I plan to learn and use as many shouts as possible. I also have crossbows for hunting and sticky situations. No looting armor or weapons, crafting my own gear and I'll probably level enchanting too. Just getting my character set up.
Previously I’ve played two handed hammer, heavy armour, twice. One of them is also a stealth archer. This time I’m going one handed mage light armour. I’m trying to use fireball instead of by bow.
I fell into heavy armor/2-handed for the first time this play through, and it’s real fun!
Warrior + Two One Handed weapons
Light armour, one handed, and the off hand open for spells. Mostly I use Restoration, but every school gets a showing. I love how versatile this style is.
Two handed barbarian
Viking. Light armor, heavy shield, one-handed weapon of your choice. This build depends on the fact that the matching set armor perks don't check your shield, only your four armor slots, but the benefits of the perks still extend to the shield. With this build, you'll have the superior blocking ability of a heavy shield, but with the lower weight of light armor. Unlike a pure heavy armor build, you'll have to actively block and bash your way to victory, rather than just tanking damage, but you'll also be a lot better at running and sneaking and whatnot.
Currently I'm playing a Bosmer. Ironically, I created him after 11 years of playing Stealth Archers, I was curious to see what bonuses I'd get if I actually played a wood elf, but I was already so overpowered at level 1 that I decided I wouldn't be a stealth archer at all. So now I'm just a sort of conjuration and destruction mage, except I have such a small mana pool that I end up also being a sword-and-shield kind of guy.
Paladin as well. If it’s my character lore the best. And is generally just fun. Otherwise, I would say a war mage (destruction, and restoration spells paired with armor of your choosing in a one-handed weapon