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Ereshkigal

Member
Have a pretty good idea on the build I want to create. I was just wondering about your guys' thoughts on the topic. Thanks for any ideas you peeps bring.
 

Spiral Power!

Abenddrachen
As much as I've played Skyrim (500+ hours) I felt that playing a stealth character of almost any variety felt very rewarding. Stealth characters most certainly have the opportunity to be the most powerful in the game. The only obstacle is that unlike a lot of other builds which evolve mainly by scaling (high damage, higher defense, higher stats) stealth evolves by adding more skills and knowing how/when to use them (no footsteps, dodge roll, ranged vs. melee, when to avoid combat entirely).

I've played with a few stealth builds, and generally I found the Illusion Assassin to be my favorite. It is a build that not only works great on master (and beyond with mods), but also because of its required abilities pretty much can take you through every questline without feeling like a fish out of water.

Thieves Guild first and focus almost soley on increasing your stealth, pickpocket, and archery abilities. Make sure you get Shadow Warrior ASAP because its kind of a big deal when
you fight Mercer Frey.
At this point in the game, I was exclusively using a bow, and sneaking around as much as I could without fighting.

College of Winterhold second and focus on increasing your Illusion abilities. I found most of them to become outdated later (calm, fear, frenzy, etc) but the one you MUST HAVE is the invisibility spell. The higher your Illusion skill, the more powerful this will be, so try to aim for 100 Illusion.

Now with both of these all set, its time to find a really good dagger. Mehrune's Razor is what I used for a very long time.

Next its time to join the Companions, as the 1-handed skill is very useful for this build, and they have several trainers you could make use of. There are a lot of enemies you will encounter that are going to be difficult to get crits on, but that's fine because you have invisibility and Shadow Warrior, making escape always possible.

Your playstyle will basically be a dagger in one hand and the invisibility spell in the other. It doesn't do the massive kinds of damage that dual-wielding daggers will do, but it usually gets the job done. You can switch to dual wielding if you want too, but this is how I played it (because I don't like switching a lot). Because of Shadow Warrior, using crouch during a face-to-face encounter will often times teleport you behind your target and killcam them, and giving you a moment to re-cloak yourself.

As for escaping dangerous situations (dragon chasing you, mammoths and/or giants after you, fighting an army of Thalmor in some field), using invisibility AND THEN crouching will make them lose you and then keep them off of you until you are ready again.

After I had all that setup, doing the Dark Brotherhood quests felt EPIC because I felt like the ULTIMATE ASSASSINO! As well I wasn't a very high level when I finished the build (like level 29) so it felt a lot of room for other stuff. I eventually switched my bow out for a bound bow and got my conjuration up so I didn't have to keep arrow counting.

Some important things to note are that you should not but 5 points into Stealth, it will basically be a waste after the first. As well, you do not need any perks in any armor tree because using this build almost guarantees that you aren't going to take any physical damage. I ended up enchanting some of those yellow mantled mage robes :)

It's also important that you get enchanting to reduce the cost of illusion spells as much as you can. You need to be able to spam invisibility A LOT for a very long time, so that's important. And use the Nightingale boots or simply enchant muffle on some of your own.

Here's the base build: build Skyrim Perk Calculator - Plan the perks for your Skyrim character before spending them!

Completely silent, completely invisible, deadly at range or up close, able to vanish at a moment's notice. It's like playing a ghost >: )
 

Ereshkigal

Member
As much as I've played Skyrim (500+ hours) I felt that playing a stealth character of almost any variety felt very rewarding. Stealth characters most certainly have the opportunity to be the most powerful in the game. The only obstacle is that unlike a lot of other builds which evolve mainly by scaling (high damage, higher defense, higher stats) stealth evolves by adding more skills and knowing how/when to use them (no footsteps, dodge roll, ranged vs. melee, when to avoid combat entirely).

I've played with a few stealth builds, and generally I found the Illusion Assassin to be my favorite. It is a build that not only works great on master (and beyond with mods), but also because of its required abilities pretty much can take you through every questline without feeling like a fish out of water.

Thieves Guild first and focus almost soley on increasing your stealth, pickpocket, and archery abilities. Make sure you get Shadow Warrior ASAP because its kind of a big deal when
you fight Mercer Frey.
At this point in the game, I was exclusively using a bow, and sneaking around as much as I could without fighting.

College of Winterhold second and focus on increasing your Illusion abilities. I found most of them to become outdated later (calm, fear, frenzy, etc) but the one you MUST HAVE is the invisibility spell. The higher your Illusion skill, the more powerful this will be, so try to aim for 100 Illusion.

Now with both of these all set, its time to find a really good dagger. Mehrune's Razor is what I used for a very long time.

Next its time to join the Companions, as the 1-handed skill is very useful for this build, and they have several trainers you could make use of. There are a lot of enemies you will encounter that are going to be difficult to get crits on, but that's fine because you have invisibility and Shadow Warrior, making escape always possible.

Your playstyle will basically be a dagger in one hand and the invisibility spell in the other. It doesn't do the massive kinds of damage that dual-wielding daggers will do, but it usually gets the job done. You can switch to dual wielding if you want too, but this is how I played it (because I don't like switching a lot). Because of Shadow Warrior, using crouch during a face-to-face encounter will often times teleport you behind your target and killcam them, and giving you a moment to re-cloak yourself.

As for escaping dangerous situations (dragon chasing you, mammoths and/or giants after you, fighting an army of Thalmor in some field), using invisibility AND THEN crouching will make them lose you and then keep them off of you until you are ready again.

After I had all that setup, doing the Dark Brotherhood quests felt EPIC because I felt like the ULTIMATE ASSASSINO! As well I wasn't a very high level when I finished the build (like level 29) so it felt a lot of room for other stuff. I eventually switched my bow out for a bound bow and got my conjuration up so I didn't have to keep arrow counting.

Some important things to note are that you should not but 5 points into Stealth, it will basically be a waste after the first. As well, you do not need any perks in any armor tree because using this build almost guarantees that you aren't going to take any physical damage. I ended up enchanting some of those yellow mantled mage robes :)

It's also important that you get enchanting to reduce the cost of illusion spells as much as you can. You need to be able to spam invisibility A LOT for a very long time, so that's important. And use the Nightingale boots or simply enchant muffle on some of your own.

Here's the base build: build Skyrim Perk Calculator - Plan the perks for your Skyrim character before spending them!

Completely silent, completely invisible, deadly at range or up close, able to vanish at a moment's notice. It's like playing a ghost >: )



What race did you choose ?
 

Twiffle

Well-Known Member
Just one point i would like to make, when you say assassin, do you mean sneaky character that just kills everyone or a pure assassin, i am currently doing a new build of a pure assassin. that means when you are given a job, such as kill the bandit leader, thats what i do, nobody else dies just the leader, just like an assassin would do, only kill the target because the fallout after means the leaders followers will disband and the problem is solved. try it its really good fun sneaking into a bandits lair and only taking out the leader, even more challenging if its a Forsworn camp.
 

Ereshkigal

Member
Just one point i would like to make, when you say assassin, do you mean sneaky character that just kills everyone or a pure assassin, i am currently doing a new build of a pure assassin. that means when you are given a job, such as kill the bandit leader, thats what i do, nobody else dies just the leader, just like an assassin would do, only kill the target because the fallout after means the leaders followers will disband and the problem is solved. try it its really good fun sneaking into a bandits lair and only taking out the leader, even more challenging if its a Forsworn camp.

Very nice, that definitely sounds like it would be fun on the Master Dificulty
 

Twiffle

Well-Known Member
Very nice, that definitely sounds like it would be fun on the Master Dificulty


im currently on adept, due to it being an experiment, and its still fun,, i will prob change to master and start again soon, i just wanted to see if it was a viable style, and upto now its very viable and can imagine on master it will be serious head scratchin fun. . . :)
 

Spiral Power!

Abenddrachen
What race did you choose ?

Race matters little, however I chose Breton for the 25% magic resistance. When a dragon is using a spray and pray tactic against you, staying invisible won't save you from AOE damage and on master can kill you very quickly.

And yeah, playing pure assassin can be VERY fun. I've been doing that with my illusion assassin for a while, and it's very fun on master.
 
I would love it if this game had more "Pure Assassin" quests where you had to kill 1 target without any co-lateral damage. That would be a lot more challenging. One small concern with that is that it causes you to level extremely slowly. Some people like staying low level, other like grinding up to start playing the game. Otherwise, you might run into that problem.
 

Squirrel_killer-

The blade in the dark and the hand at your throat
My main is an assassin, who I made many major mistakes with which resulted in me needing to add skills to make up for wasted perks, and on my main I have done everything in the game possible on one character, that means all quest lines, all non-repeatable quests, collected every unique item, unlocked every shout, and cleared every dungeon. Mind you I play on PS3 so no mods or DLC. That combined with my remastered version of that build and other stealth playthroughs I learnt a lot about stealth and what skills you truly need. I also have a stealth guide here on the forums, Stealth, Thievery, Assassination: A look at being silent and unseen | Skyrim Forums I keep meaning on up dating that, but I feel I would only ruin the guide.

But in my experience you only need maxed out Sneak, Archery, and a good dagger with these perks: Skyrim Perk Calculator - Plan the perks for your Skyrim character before spending them! everything you add after those is just extras which you really don't need.
 

TMMelo

New Member
rogue is cool can do almost everithnig
the better part is (on my opinion) is being a rogue with dual wield
 
<Dreadfall is 2 Handed, Sneak, and Block. Her signature combo is Silent Roll+Great Critical Charge so she doesn't have to get close, and it just about maxes out her damage. Also Staggers, so she can Hack&Bash any survivors to death. Uses Vampire Dust for invisibility, when she needs it, and Jenassa for backup range. The Dark Brotherhood for most of her quests/contracts as well as the Companions (Circle member, doesn't worry about Disease.) Perfectly balanced for Adept, she's underpowered for any higher, but doesn't get boring at that difficulty, ever. All points in Health, since she's unarmored, but her motto is "Don't fight, kill." He primary defence is not being seen until it's too late, followed by keeping them off balance, playing the Reach game with footwork, and then finally being able to take a little damage. Typically the Lord Stone for Magic Resistance, though she's also used the Atronach, it helps with Dragonbreath.
 

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