New Character: Need Suggestions

I've been playing Skyrim a lot, since I just got hooked on it not that long ago. However, my first character (Nord) is kind of a mess, in terms of skills and perks. This is mostly because he's the product of my first run through Skyrim and my first experience with any Elder Scrolls game, for that matter. I'm not necessarily unhappy with the character, but before I really learned how things worked, I ended up tossing perk points in random directions and experimenting with different combat styles and schools of magic - Which brings me to my question:

I am considering starting a new character (although I'm not entirely done with my first run through). The race I am most interested in is the Bosmer and the gender will probably be chosen by coin toss. What I would like to do is focus my new character on their strengths as a hunter/healer type. The skills I want to focus on are primarily Archery, Sneak, and Alchemy. The secondary skills I'd like to develop are Restoration, Light Armor and One-Handed.

Does this make sense for a Bosmer character and, if so, what attributes should I focus on leveling up and where should I invest my perks?

Thanks for the advice!

Oh well you have a solid build.

I would say focus perks on archery, and then as you go fill in your other skills. Whenever i ran someone with restoration it lagged behind a touch but that is an easy fix.

Any race can do any build but especially for a bosmer I think you have a solid setup.

I know I am being vague but you will perk around naturally as you level.

For attributes. I would focus on health and stamina

so for ever 5 times you level up put one into stamina the rest health. Stamina usually only needs to go to 300 at the most anyway.

Yeah, it makes perfect sense. Although, I would add smithing for 2 reasons: 1. You get better armor, faster; and 2. You level up more. You only need to take a couple of sneak perks to make a big difference. As you get to higher levels, you might add a third, then a 4th.

Get your archery to 100 and take every perk except the ranger, hunter's discipline and bullseye. You will have paralysis potions to take care of bullseye, with smithing, you will about about 3000 arrows, and you will almost never need to move faster with your bow in hand.

Restoration doesn't need any perks, but some people won't agree. Yeah, you restore yourself, your follower, your dog, and any animal you don't want to kill after shouting Kyne's peace at them. You level up with it, and spend the perks elsewhere.

Light armor could use about 5 perk points. For one-handed, choose your weapon type and only spend perks on that weapon. I personally like dual-wielding war axes.

Finally, if you have Dragonborn, defeat Miraak and you can shuffle your perk points any way you want to by spending one dragon soul. I don't keep any perks in alchemy unless I want to make potions. I make said potions, then I redstribute my perks elsewhere.

Thanks again for the suggestions. I know you can take any character in any direction you want, but I figured since my first was kind of a random hodgepodge of whatever whim I was on, I should either make a go-with-the-flow character or one that's totally against the grain.

I would actually drop Restoration altogether when going with Alchemy. You'll be able to craft so many healing potions you won't know what to do with all of them. Also, Alchemy gets you unlimited invisibility potions, which is always fun.

Other than that, I think your build looks solid.

But I actually disagree with ColleenG about the Archery perk, Ranger. Moving at full speed with a drawn bow is extremely useful in my experience. It doesn't really help when going for stealth kills, but when you're detected, you can dart around the battlefield while raining arrows at your foes like damn Legolas.

I second dropping restoration. If archery is your primary you will end up using potions (i.e. alchemy) for more of your go-to healing due to the fact that bows are two-handed.

W'rkncacnter said:

I second dropping restoration. If archery is your primary you will end up using potions (i.e. alchemy) for more of your go-to healing due to the fact that bows are two-handed.

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Thats a good point. I never thought about it that way. I'm glad I found somewhere to get others' perspectives - especially since I'm pretty new to Skyrim.

I've enjoyed my Bosmer alternate character I started a few weeks ago. Overall I think your basic build idea is solid. They are the best archers and typically are naturals for sneaking due to their smaller stature than some other races.

My Bosmer is pretty similar to your idea with the only difference I see being mine having smithing around where yours has alchemy. I picked that due to the weapon improvements being useful, but it's not a game changer.. My other influence was somewhat lore based on the idea of the Green Pact in their homeland though mine doesn't fully follow that 100%.


I like what you have so far though

Excellent advice so far, I agree. The only caution I might have is not to skimp on Stamina as much as recommended. For one, Stamina depletes rapidly as you use the Steady Hand perk...and it is a very helpful perk to use (time slows by 25% (2nd tier of the perk is 50%) when zooming in with a drawn bow). Secondly, especially in the early game, Stamina is quite helpful for when you need to outrun multiple enemies that threaten too close, and then get yourself in a better spot for shooting again...

At the very least, try to hang onto any gear that has the Stamina boost effect on it and either use it or dis-enchant it and put the enchantment on something you use a lot. I found that my Archer didn't have as much need for Health (since things were killed long before they even got close) and much more need for Stamina.

khazan99 said:

Excellent advice so far, I agree. The only caution I might have is not to skimp on Stamina as much as recommended. For one, Stamina depletes rapidly as you use the Steady Hand perk...and it is a very helpful perk to use (time slows by 25% (2nd tier of the perk is 50%) when zooming in with a drawn bow). Secondly, especially in the early game, Stamina is quite helpful for when you need to outrun multiple enemies that threaten too close, and then get yourself in a better spot for shooting again...

At the very least, try to hang onto any gear that has the Stamina boost effect on it and either use it or dis-enchant it and put the enchantment on something you use a lot. I found that my Archer didn't have as much need for Health (since things were killed long before they even got close) and much more need for Stamina.

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I agree w khazan99 on

I also agree on the stamina point. This goes for most all of my characters. HP and stamina usually are at about even levels. You also get the carry weight boosts with stamina upgrades so that's particularly useful either before you get boosts from enchantments or freeing you up to use other enchantments. I hate having to give up something decent because I ran out of room to carry it.

Archery is awesome. I wouldn't even bother with one handed (or at least wouldn't bother spending many perks on it) because at low levels you can get what you need done through sneaky hit and hide tactics, and when you get certain perks in archery (namely quick draw, power shot and ranger) you can often abandon sneaking altogether and run around putting arrows in fools. I've played three archery games and recommend taking all perks except the ones that slow time. If you have the perks free you might want to try them, but if they're competing for other perks I wouldn't bother

I'd go as far as to claim archery is the most powerful and versatile offensive style- more than one handed, two handed, dual wielding, destruction and even the dagger assassin build. A dagger assassin is useless against a dragon, and the game's final boss is a dragon. There's nothing archery can't deal with, take a lot of perks and enchant your ring, necklace, helmet and bracers with archery enchantments. Smithing, enchanting and archery will give you a bow doing well over 400 damage per shot. 1200+ when sneaking

I always put plenty of points into stamina regardless of the build, and I'll definitely take the stamina regen perk in the light armour tree if I'm wearing light armour. There's nothing as tedious as going from a high level character who can run from one city to the next in two sprint moves, to starting again with a 100 stamina and default stamina regen character who gets of breath after 100 metres. I see stamina the same way I do a lot of the speech perks- it can make the game slow and frustrating if you don't invest in it.

For archer
- archery full and all perks
- Stealth, i use all but last (Shadow warrior). It just feel stupid, WHERE SHE GO. This is skill three which makes Falmers easy to pick. I wonder when peoples say Falmers are difficult, I play legendary but they are stupid, no vision just hearing.
- Alchemy is must, choose perks wise. I dont use that help know effects.
- One handed sometimes its just go close and personal. Pickup perks wise, no need to all (like all three weapon types, running meka more damage etc)

others
- enhancting
- smithing
- barter (no need perks) but it will rise if you sell stuff

Heath and stamina are must. Stamina used zooming, slowing time (yes I use this a lot), silent roll and running.

There's always an enchanted bow at the top of Valtheim towers. You'd have to deal with a bandit chief to get it, but it might be worth it to have a stronger weapon at a lower level.

I always wanted to play a stealthy archer - I never had the chance. Like the above poster said, don't even bother with 2h weapons, makes you play so cautiously!

W'rkncacnter said:

There's always an enchanted bow at the top of Valtheim towers. You'd have to deal with a bandit chief to get it, but it might be worth it to have a stronger weapon at a lower level.

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Nice suggestion! You're right on; there's always a pretty good bow sitting up on that table (along with the Bandit Chief's delicious wedge of cheese...).

Lot of good points in this thread. However I would probably recommend spending a couple perks in One Handed right off the bat. Mainly because until your Archery levels a bit, you're going to see a lot of face time with enemies since you won't be killing them very fast.

After those two perks though, you can ignore the skill tree entirely, and only spend perks there when you don't have any other viable options.

I started my character a couple days ago. It's been a challenge to stay disciplined and stick to sneak and archery, but I'm leveling both up quickly. I snagged an imperial bow of burning at the top of Valthiem tower. It actually works great in tandem with a dab of weakness to fire poison. The biggest challenge for me is to stick to stealth and keep my distance from enemies. This new character is kind of opening some new horizons in Skyrim for me.

cjclemens said:

I started my character a couple days ago. It's been a challenge to stay disciplined and stick to sneak and archery, but I'm leveling both up quickly. I snagged an imperial bow of burning at the top of Valthiem tower. It actually works great in tandem with a dab of weakness to fire poison. The biggest challenge for me is to stick to stealth and keep my distance from enemies. This new character is kind of opening some new horizons in Skyrim for me.

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Good luck! I myself usually find Archery to be tedious and frustrating, unless used as a secondary skill, like my current Orc character. He only shoots a few bolts from his crossbow before drawing a Sword and a Handaxe and swinging them around until everything stops moving.

It has been tedious and frustrating. I used to do the same thing with my more character - fling a few arrows and charge in with my war hammer to finish the job. However, I can start to see the benefits of being disciplined. Archery and sneak are leveling up like a rocket. I'm also getting used to checking my stock of potions before I go out exploring or on a quest. All it took was a poison of slow and a poison of weakness to fire, and I managed to take down a frost troll without breaking too much of a sweat (I'm only at level 16 so far). It's a challenge, but it's rewarding in its own right.