Hey guys, a friend of mine invited me to play Skyrim a few days back and ever since then I've been hooked. Although, he's more of a magic person so I couldn't rely on him for sound advice, he said so himself. I'll be posting a few questions below and it would be nice if you could answer and help me out as a newbie in the game. Right now, I'm a level 11 wood elf and I'm working on a archery + stealth build. Also, I've done bits of research myself and heard that illusion spells match well with wood elves. Anywyay...

1) Out of the two, Stamina and health, which one should I focuse more? Magicka will have its time later, as of the moment, I plan to focuse of archery and stealth. Once I'm content with filling those two up then I'll go with Illusion and Light Armor. At the moment, I've balanced Health and Staimina at 150 each and left Magicka at 100 (or 140 plus equipnents). Should I continue balancing them 50-50? That aside, which one should I value more as a stat in the case of my build (Stamina or health?)

2) At what point should I start putting illusion perks? Also, how often should I increase magicka?

3) Should I increase steady hand (archery) from 1/2 to 2/2? (There's no downside to making zoom-ins slower right?

Thanks in advance, i'll be asleep soon so I'll reply back in the morning.

I'm also playing a Bosmer Archery/Stealth build. I've been pumping health at 3:1 to stamina, since the only thing I've found stamina useful for is Eagle Eye. I plan on taking Steady Hand 2, but haven't gotten there yet. But I've found Steady Hand 1 to be useful, so I can't imagine the second level mucking things up any. Can't help you on the Illusion question, as other than the occasional Restoration spell, I don't use magic.

I recommand this build

http://au.ign.com/builds/the-elder-scrolls-5-skyrim/create?d=00000000000000000010110011111110000000000000000000000000000000000000000010101000035000111001000010000000000000000000000000000000000000000111112111000000000511111

Stamina is a bit more important than health IMO. I run a Wood Elf murderer/thief/archer. I'd probably say a 3:1 or 4:1 would be alright, with 1 being health. Your replacement for health is the shadows. Stamina gives you the ability to run away better, do more power attacks and carry more. Who doesn't like stealing a crapton of stuff?

That's my opinion.

1) Stamina is not very important to an archer. You need some points in it to be able to sprint and aim, but beyond 200 is just wasteful. Health isn't terribly important if you can keep at range, but enemy archers and mages still do insane damage if they can hit you, so you still need a lot.

2) Without the perks, Illusion spells quickly become useless. Take the perks as you unlock them to get the most use out of those spells. They can be extremely powerful.

3) Yes, take the second rank.

1) you should focus on health and stamina equally being able to run for long periods of time will do you no good if you are dead

2) you dont really even need illusion focus more on sneak and remember stick to the shadows whenever you can if anything later rank up illusion to apprentice so you can use muffle for when your not sure if you can approach a target without being spotted but other then that illusion isnt needed.

3) archery should be your primary skill as a bosmer but also dabble in one handed as well and keep a sword mace or war axe handy for when a melee target gets to you i prefer war axes they have most of the speed of a sword but with the power of a mace.

A lot of conflicting answers, then again, Skyrim really is a game of preference xD.


@Akaryu Adding Illusion perks in the latter parts of my game would be alright though right? I hear illusion spells can complement woold elves pretty well. Though I don't know how much truth is behind that statement, I've seen a good number of answers supporting that position. The thing is, playing without illusion is just fine with me. Tthe thing is, I fear that during the latter stages of my game, where mobs are so much stronger it all, my lack of versatility (bow and stealth) will give me a hard time in later stages. Are archery and stealth sufficient to propel me during Skyrim's later stages?

@Squid Is that so? I find stamina pretty useful. Are you saying I should stop at 200 and go health all the way?

Scratching off illusion for a second, are there any magic spells that suit the Bosmer race - destruction, etc? Or is illusion really the best option if I decide to introduce the use of magic to my wood elf?

Right now, I decided to temporarily go 2:1 with two being health. Thanks for the answers. I'll check on the thread again in the morning, night!

a steady aim and good stealth can take you as far as you can go. just so long as you remember to stick to the shadows and remember that arrows have an arc so if a target is at long distance aim slightly above them aiming higher depending upon how far away they are but be sure to not aim to high otherwise you will miss and might possibly alert your foe. now that i remember alchemy will also be a big help when you think a foe will be able to survive your arrows in other words rank alchemy so you can make poisons. and of course wear light armor so you dont alert your foes by the clanking of metal footsteps. and as i said earlier rank one handed for when melee foes reach you because back peddling is slow now.

Sounds good, i'll try to work on my one handed skill as well.

In big melee fights (e.g. 3 Draugr Deathlords) I find steady aim on 2/2 and a stamina pool of 300 extremely useful. How you should distribute Health/Stamina depends on your aim, perks and difficulty, I myself went 20 Stamina, 10 Magicka later on, rest Health.

Ranking Alchemy isn't as useful as ranking Smithing and Enchanting imo, since the poisons you can creat aren't that good compared to getting decent dual enchantments and legendary weapons/armor. Otherwise Archery and Stealth are nearly everything you need, if you don't get yourself backed up into a corner and have the Ranger Perk.

//edit

Oh and One-Handed isn't really needed, when you just stick to moving out of the way whenever your opponent is going for the strike. It is possible to never get hit at all this way.

Bosmer have essentially no benefits. Nothing compliments them especially better than other things. Illusion spells work well for everyone though.



Stealth+archery is all you ever need at any point in the game. Illusion or Conjuration can certainly help a lot with Archery, though.



200 or earlier. I'm playing an archer right now and I regret my 250 stamina. It's totally wasteful. Stamina is very important for melee builds, but I don't use melee weapons. Bows don't demand much stamina at all.



Again, you have basically no benefits for playing as a bosmer. Perks usefulness rarely has anything to do with race, though. You mentioned Destruction in that, which I'll recommend against. My archer has perks in Destruction. I use runes for trapping and I'll burn weaker enemies in battles, but I only do it for novelty. Destruction magic is horribly weak compared to the damage I can do with my bow. I only use it because I like to watch the world burn.

Stamina is worthless for a sneak archer. You don't need the slow time perk unless you have terrible aim, and you won't need to do much sprinting (some rolling at times), so go all out in health. I'm level 30 and every point has gone into health.

I'm a lv35~40 (seriously, I forgot) archer, has been pumping nothing but health, stamina is useless for us, even for the Eagle Eye perk. Also, money is easy to come by, no point dragging every loot you see back to sell.

Eh, it's not entirely useless. It's impossible to stay undetected at all times. Sometimes you will get spotted, and that's when slowing time is useful. It's hard to aim carefully at melee enemies, and slowing time helps you better predict the movements of enemy archers or mages, who are notoriously good at dodging arrows. Stamina is certainly useful to an archer in small amounts, but beyond 150-200 seems wasteful unless you use melee too.

Health is worthless for a sneak archer. You should never get hit in the first place. Steady Hand is extremely useful - if the enemy is too strong to be killed with 1-2 sneak shots and is coming for you, or when you have to fight in an open field, this perk combined with a big stamina pool allows you to kill them before they have a chance to reach you (stagger WON'T always save you...)
There's also increased carrying capacity and being able to sprint for miles.

What difficulty do you play on? On Expert, in full glass armor with several light armor perks and 330 health, high-level enemy archers can kill me in two or three hits. Mages would rip me apart too if I wasn't a breton. It's impossible to stay hidden at all times, and when you're spotted, you'll wish you had more health. Meanwhile, my 250 stamina is enough to have Matrix-style fights against enemies if I wanted to do that. It's fun, but totally overkill.

It's extremely easy to not ever be detected by midgame.



Well if you stand there like an idiot waiting for melee to reach you instead of sneaking away between every 1-2 shots so as to not get detected, then you're doing it wrong. And Steady Hand slows you as well, so it has no practical use other than being a crutch for people that can't aim very well.

Truth be told, I don't really think health is useless, I just disagree with anyone who says that stamina is. But my playstyle is never to be targeted, never get involved in a melee fight, because I know I'll get ripped apart - exactly for the reason you state. It doesn't really matter if I have 200, 300 or 400 health, I'll still get killed in an instant. It's better to focus on not getting hit.

I believe a decent stamina pool can be a great help to a sneak archer, that's all. Once you get to the point when you feel comfortable with its amount, nothing's stopping you from putting the rest of the points in health (you could start with building up health, though, the beginning can be pretty tough).

Btw, I'm playing on Master.


I'm not standing there like an idiot, there are some areas when you can't hide back in shadows, not to mention that it takes some time before your sneak is high enough to make you practically indetectable.
I'm not saying everybody should put all their points into stamina, I'm just saying it's not worthless... Or, better, that it's not worthless IN MY PLAYSTYLE. You guys have different experience, I understand that.

I play a Bosmer and I mainly focus on Archery, Stealth & Alchemy. I do love the Illusion spell Fury, though. I mainly split Health and Stamina 50/50. I do love to poison my bows. I made a very powerful poison causing about 1200 points of health damage using Falmer Ear, Hanging Moss & Jarrin Root.

If you like Alchemy this https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/lv?hl=en_US&key=0Aj_bdEnICFt8dE4xLUtraTJfcUxoeHFDTXlUeGNxMHc&toomany=true#gid=1 will really help you level up fast.

same here but i'm a redguard and i havn't invested in illusion but smithing & some speech

well im dummer warrior with support magic what i can recomend you is focus on Stamina for archery and evry 2 level on stam go for 1 in health and then when you get some caps on Stam like 180 200 240 put 1 point in Magika, for perk what i do is just spend 1 point when i can in the perk that cut the cost of your spell for that level of magic, like i use alot of restored magic so i just put perk on the one that cut the cost on magic on half and that way i can heal my self and dont denpend on potions