The least useful skill in Skyrim?

[Dork Angel]

Lockpicking will be used in just about every dungeon by every character. Sure the perks suck, but how often will you realistically use Pickpocket unless you are actually playing a Pickpocket? (I think there are 2 quests I know of where you have to use it, and a few magic items and potions can help there)

 

[Thallik the Orc]

Lockpicking can be used to get those pesky ingots out of lockboxes in "empty" mines, now Illusion, there's a useless skill.

 

[Falmer19]

Pickpocket. There is absolutely no need for it. Even thieves guild quests require little to no skill. Alchemy is also pretty terrible. Potions and poisons i find are 10 times better.

 

[imaginepageant]

Lockpicking will be used in just about every dungeon by every character. Sure the perks suck, but how often will you realistically use Pickpocket unless you are actually playing a Pickpocket?

Yeah, but if you are actually playing a pickpocket, that perk tree is very useful, not to mention a lot of fun. The lockpicking perk tree, however, isn't worthwhile for any build. Even a character who picks every single lock they come across will not need it as long as they have a good amount of lockpicks - I might waste twenty on a master lock, but I can still get it open with zero lockpicking perks!

Illusion, there's a useless skill.

Oh, really? Tell that to my pacifist, whose life has been saved countless times by Calm spells. Or tell it to my mage assassin who can kill someone with a fireball in the middle of Whiterun without being heard thanks to the Quiet Casting perk. Illusion is highly useful for certain builds.

 

[samgurl775]

Lockpicking can be used to get those pesky ingots out of lockboxes in "empty" mines, now Illusion, there's a useless skill.

Child please. My heavy armor wearing assassin disagrees.

 

[Dagmar]

...Even thieves guild quests require little to no skill...

If you're a high level they require very high skill and perks. Diamond necklaces are so expensive it's impossible to pickpocket them successfully without both high skill and perks.

 

[Falmer19]

If you're a high level they require very high skill and perks. Diamond necklaces are so expensive it's impossible to pickpocket them successfully without both high skill and perks.

Are you sure? I'm level 49 and its still pretty easy. I have no pickpocket perks but the skill level is 60.

 

[Kalin of High Rock]

Alchemy.

It's a pain to level, it's a pain to keep track of what combines to make what potion. Gathering everything that can be gathered turns into a special sort of madness AND makes a mess of your inventory.

And at the end of the day you can get along perfectly well without any potions at all.

 

[Nick_Tbolt]

Why isn't block on the list? It by far is the most useless. I don't even use it on my character and I do just fine with out a big ass shield blocking an attack.

I second block, my redguard is just a "one sword" kind of guy, and I never block, so I switched to dual axes on a different character and it is much more useful

Redguard level 81 - Dual Enchanted Dragonbone Axes - Fully Upgraded Werewolf

 

[Kalin of High Rock]

Block is great! Especially when paired with the minor ward effect on the Spellbreaker shield, which stops all Tha'ums and the annoying "Drain Vitality" shout the new dragon types do in Dawnguard. Excellent for defense against both magical and physical attacks.

 

[Shadowbane]

If you're a high level they require very high skill and perks. Diamond necklaces are so expensive it's impossible to pickpocket them successfully without both high skill and perks.

pickpocket is a nice skill but the fact that you can save before you pickpocket makes the skill less needed but not useless. The extra carrying capacity and poisoned perks ad nice

 

[Dagmar]

Are you sure? I'm level 49 and its still pretty easy. I have no pickpocket perks but the skill level is 60.

Yes I'm sure. You wont always get an extremely high valued item like diamond necklace as your objective (in fact it's uncommon to get something that expensive), but the percentage chance of a successful pickpocket is based on the item value. If the item value is too high you will have a 0% chance of success unless you have 100 Pickpocket skill and Pickpocket perks. This is why players can't use Pickpocket on non-follower trainers to get their money back when the training session become more expensive and why saying:

pickpocket is a nice skill but the fact that you can save before you pickpocket makes the skill less needed but not useless.

is not meaningful in this context. 0% chance of success obviously can't be mitigated by saving the game before attempting to pickpocket the item.

 

[Pileggi]

Lockpicking with out a doubt! Even the master chests can be done in a few minutes with some trial and error and enough lock picks, which can be found abundantly on a lot of NPC's in skyrim. Also, I'm pretty sure leveling lock picking to 100 has no effect on how difficult the chest will be. There also A LOT of pointless perks in the lockpicking tree such as all the difficulty perks bar master and maybe expert but you have to get the other perks in order to get them which makes the whole tree really quite pointless.

It's probably the only bad skill, pickpocketing atleast has some uses such as looting enemy weapons before engaging to make things easier. I really think that they should have just made pickpocketing and lockpicking part of one skill tree called ''thievery'' or something, the lockpick skill really does suck!

 

[Epic Keith]

This.

I also personally find Speech pretty useless. I was all over it my first playthrough - "NEED MOAR MONIEZ!" - but then I realized how easy it actually is to make money. Even restricting myself from pilfering burial urns and picking up weapons or armor only to sell them, I was still at 5,000 gold by level 10.

SPeech is useful


When you backrupt the shop keepers! xD

 

[Epic Keith]

Alchemy is oly good for the Fortify Enchanting and Fortify Smithing potions

 

[imaginepageant]

SPeech is useful


When you backrupt the shop keepers! xD

I can (and do) do that very easily with all of my characters, without a single Speech perk. That's why I stopped picking up weapons and armor in dungeons to sell - I get stuck with them too often because the merchants don't have enough cash. And yes, there are perks to help with that, but at a certain point - level 20 or so for me - I already have more money than I know what to do with, so do I really need perks to get me more?

 

[Epic Keith]

I can (and do) do that very easily with all of my characters, without a single Speech perk. That's why I stopped picking up weapons and armor in dungeons to sell - I get stuck with them too often because the merchants don't have enough cash. And yes, there are perks to help with that, but at a certain point - level 20 or so for me - I already have more money than I know what to do with, so do I really need perks to get me more?

 

[Annageckos]

Not everyone needs to agree with each other, everyone plays differently. For me, two handed and heavy armor are useless. I never ever use them, I also rarely use illusion. Putting perk points into lock pick is useless. Lock picking is usually pretty easy without the perks, but that doesn't mean that it is a useless skill.

 

[EleanorUnicorn]

people need to stop being so butthurt about other peoples opinions. just because you use (or do not use) a certain skill, doesn't mean everyone else does. everyone has their own way of playing skyrim differently.
i voted for illusion. it WOULD be a highly useful skill, IF the spells didn't have a level cap. for example, a calm spell = 'creatures and people up to level 9 wont fight for 30 seconds', and the opposite with a fury spell. great, but i am level 25? and so are the majority of my enemies? illusion spells always seem too weak to be used when i want to use them. 'enemy resisted calm' pretty much all the time. also, harmony, the master level calm spell, requires 100 in illusion to be used.. but only works on people/creatures up to level 25? and i'm pretty sure that by the time people get a skill to 100, they have almost definitely gone past level 25. illusion would be amazing if it didnt have a level cap, but it does, so i hardly use it seeing as the majority of my enemies are too strong for it to work! if you really need to calm something down, voice of the emperor or command animal works much better than an illusion spell! only useful thing about illusion = muffle, and the quiet casting perk!

 

[Dork Angel]

Alchemy is oly good for the Fortify Enchanting and Fortify Smithing potions

And those 2 potions make Alchemy totally worthwhile...