So I started out the game and had a specific build and play-style in mind, but the game has sorta forced me out of it. I wanted to be a "battlemage", but not in the usual sense. Once I saw the "flames" spell, I immediately thought of doing a heavy armored, ultra blocking, flamethrower type character. A close to mid range destruction spell was ultra cool to me, and I figured I would step in with a war axe with absorb magicka after running out.

Unfortunately, it didn't take me long to find out

a. There is no spell similar to flames at higher level

b. I can't augment my armor using magic unless I'm wearing cloth, defeating the purpose of using heavy armor if I want to use mage armor

c. Trying to be close range and not putting all or most of my points into health is a recipe for a hard road

d. dual casting destruction spells is almost mandatory

The build I had in mind, however, was still ultra fun to play at low levels when it was more or less viable. Now, however, I find myself mainly standing back lobbing firebolts while Lydia tanks(and unfortunately she seems to deal most of the damage too )

I'm now at level 20, with almost even distribution of points into life and Magicka. I've got one perk in block, one in restoration, 4 in destruction, One stealth, two heavy armor, and all the rest into smithing, alchemy, and enchant.

http://www.ign.com/builds/the-elder-scrolls-5-skyrim?d=000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000011000001000010100000000000000000000020000100010000010001000100010000000000000000000000000000000000003100010000000001

After some learning, and seeing how just about any build other than the one I'm trying is likely to be considerably more powerful, I'm tempted to start over to try either a melee or stealth build out, but I'm also thinking of maybe moving in a slightly different direction with the character I have now, such as adding either conjuring or illusion. Not that I'm all about what will be the most powerful, I'm looking for the most enjoyable experience.


With that in mind, What builds has everyone played and which did you have the most fun with?

All out high health, battle axe, heavy armor warrior, i just take down my enimies in a few swings

very fun to see in 3rd person

I find the smithing, enchanting, alchemy, one handed, heavy armor, shield wielding, archer build to be the funnest. Once one is proficient in enchanting they can add in a magic school like conjuration and make it so the cost to cast is free without having to actually put points into magicka at level up or use perks to reduce the cost of the spells. Also nice because not many perk points are needed period... perks points should be heavily invested into base enchanting, alchemy, and smithing but other then that, they're pretty optional everywhere else. One point into all the base skills you use for starters.. after that, meh. You will want to go up the conjuration tree to cast 2 of something if you take conjuration however.

This build takes planning that is already discussed in the main thread about it. You need to make sets of armor that upgrade your smithing/alchemy skill. You'll need to stockpile plenty of ingredients before you even start... 250 iron ores, leather strips... 150 filled soul gems, all the alchemy ingredients you can find... house in whiterun for storage. Basically I just wandered around at random going into caves and exploring, picking up everything I could find. No powerleveling at first.. just playing the game.

Not sure how viable that is on master or expert however, it may take more planning. I started the game on adept, and raised it later. On master or expert I'd probably focus on alchemy first, rather then smithing and enchanting. Alchemy makes more money, money can be used to buy soul gems rather then to have to go out and get them manually. Same with the ore and the leather. And wandering out in the open along roads in generally less dangerous than in caves. Once you get proficient enough in enchanting to reduce spell cost of conjuration to zero however, the sky is the limit on all difficulties up to expert. You should be able to venture into most areas carefully with less of an issue.

It sounds like you are mostly upset about the progression of destruction damage?

Since you are using enchant and alchemy, your destruction can be very useful. I haven't tried this, but according to the uesp wiki, the elemental mastery fire/frost/shock +25% damage perk carry over to enchanted items in addition to the elemental boost perks from enchant. They get calculated again (supposedly) when you put a second effect on with the dual effect perk which (supposedly) can allow you to do around 150 elemental damage per hit with an enchanted weapon and a high destruction skill. I would suggest damage enchants over absorb magicka enchants since magicka regenerates 3x as fast after combat and also, if you are just using destruction, that magicka is just going to elemental damage anyway.

Also, if you are using alchemy, mix nightshade and glowing shrooms for potions that increase your destruction damage output. Also, mix Juniper Berries and Bleeding Crown for weakness to fire potions. (The combination of this simple poison and the simple destruction boost potion can increase fire damage by well over +400% at high alchemy skill.)

But in response to your question, my most fun build has been focusing on just alchemy poisons and making them as powerful as I can but using only weak items otherwise (hunting bow, steel dagger, no armor). Mixing alchemy or enchant with any other offensive skill should make you invincible, it is just a matter of picking the skill that you enjoy using most.

No, mostly that my original idea just isn't possible, and I spent some perks toward it that I feel could have been put to better use(looking over my perks though, not as many as I thought) . There is no high level version of the flames spell, and an in-your-face fire-spraying shield tank was my idea, not someone who runs backwards shooting fireballs and stunlocking while chugging potions and lobbing poisons. I honestly expected damage to scale with points into destruction, and I also expected there to be spellcrafting so that in case an upgraded flames or an "on touch" fire spell didn't exist, I'd be able to make one. I'm also aware of a mod that puts a higher level flames spell in as well as the mod that scales destruction magic up, but didn't really want to go that route.

Kinda cool that the augmented frost/fire/shock perks also apply to enchanted weapons, but upsetting that it's just yet another way the game is saying "yeah just do melee and everythign will be fine".

The fact that you can't do a battle mage based on flame spell and offhand weapon is news to me, since that is what my level 35 character is and she does just fine.

I took the Juggernaut perks on Heavy Armor, and the first two Destruction perks for fire spells, and the damage boosting perks for a war axe; invested in Enchanting and a bit into smithing so that she is wearing regular steel armor with good enchantments, high armor rating, and has a good war axe that has fire damage on it. I use a companion, so that helps with some of the melee pressure. Generally speaking, she is quite deadly. Obviously there is some disadvantage in that with an axe and a spell in the off hand, she has no defensive capability. That's why I was so careful to up her armor rating, and I use healing spell, shouts, and Nord Battle Cry to get her out of a tough spot. I go about half and half in Magicka and Health. She has less magicka than a pure mage should, but this is an acceptable offset since she can switch back and forth between magic and melee. Oh, I also use a flame atronach, so quite often the targets are softened up before they get in melee range.

To me, this is a very fun build and you're missing out if you wanted to do it but quit because you thought it was unworkable. I don't play at higher difficulty levels and I'm only level 35, so it's possible the game will become frustrating at some point, but right now it's very fun. She sets enemies on fire and then moves in to http://i678.photobucket.com/albums/vv146/gmosko/applyaxetoface.jpg.

I could be wrong as I haven't played my mage as much as my rogue (just not as powerful feeling) but the wall of spells can be used as a flame thrower. They have the added bonus though of sticking to the ground afterwards and burning even more.

Concerning your worry over not having a high-level version of that flamethrower spell...

Are you on PC by chance? I haven't tried any myself yet, kinda waiting for the CK before starting a mage or my planned Spellsword, but there's some great Destruction mods in the Mod section of these forums.
http://skyrimnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=1236
^that one in particular seems like it could be right up your alley, conditional to whether you're on PC of course.

After making a bunch of builds three right now are my favs. Two handed/heavy armor warrior. Once you get up and running you can really smash stuff and the build is fairly newbie friendly too since after you get some decent armor/weapon your survivability is pretty good. Another is similar light or heavy armor shield pc. Lots of things you can go with it, paladin type, straight warrior,etc. Great survivability(well when the resistances start working again anyway), shield stunning people is great and a lot of flexibility. Finally for me a stealth build. Thief or assassin tend to end up pretty similar. I also like it because you tend to have more flexibility later on when deciding to go try out the mages guild later or you're just trying to start maxing out other skills once you're high level and your basic stuff is taken care of. Doesn't hurt those guilds questlines are generally better than the Companions in the long run.

I'm having lots of fun with a conjurer/illusionist.

Sneak close to some enemies. Cast Fury. Animate the loser. Cackle madly about your plan working perfectly. Find another group. Cast Fury etc.

My main has perks for one-handed, dual wielding, archer, light armor, with smithing, enchanting, and alchemy for support. I haven't powerleveled any skills and they are all within around a 5 point skill range difference, except alchemy is lagging behind a bit. I've been having a lot of fun with archery and dual wielding and I've been able to bump my difficulty level up to Expert with no issues at level 35. I'm at the point where I'm considering going to Master difficulty because I do enjoy a challenge and dying occasionally. Aela from The Companions has been my follower for the last 15 or so levels since she complements my play style.

I've also played around with blocking and sneak on alts and those are also very fun skills.

My first playthrough attempt was pure mage since I usually prefer that play style on these sort of games. I put that character aside because I just wasn't having fun (the same reasons you mentioned) and I figured I would try something else until I understood the game mechanics better. I've been having so much fun with my main and other alts that I haven't wanted to go back.

My build was based around not using one handed(and especially not spending perks on it) except to replenish mana with the mana absorb on the axe, and planned on investing into many of the shield perks. This build does sound cool though, as does trying to use the wall of flame as a replacement for flames. I still have quite a bit of freedom available since I'm only lvl 20, and the majority of my perks have gone into the crafting skills which will be necessary no matter what my build ends up being.


A lot of really fun sounding builds going on in here folks, I almost can't wait to start playing with new characters even though mine is relatively babyish

It is kind of a standard build, but of all my characters, I love my assassin the best. Focus on sneak, one-handed, smithing and enchant. Once you get the x15 backstab and smith up a godly dagger, then all kills are cut-scene kills. Once you get the black star and enchant your dagger with soul trap, the world is your evil oyster. If you are careful enough, you can murder the Jarl's guards (undetected) the stroll over to the enchant table and make some new toy. Rinse, repeat until there are no more guards in town.

Then you can pile all the dead guards on top of the Jarl and get yourself your very own Abu Ghraib screen cap.

sneak, archery, one-handed

assassin/hunter type character, finish off enemies with dual wielding when they get in close

98% sneak
2% one handed

100% insta kill

Stealth based build

Dual Daggers for Primary, Bow Secondary.

Quite the fun build. Throw in some Illusion for even more stealth and to mess with your enemies

With regards to illusion or conjuration - illusion is best paired with sneak which is best paired with light armor so I'd say have some fun watching ur minions do the work for u

I've heard of one guy going with just 3 skills: Sneak, Alchemy, Pickpocketing.

Guess what he did.

He made insanely powerful poisons that paralyzed and did about 200 damage over time that he pickpocketed into his enemies.



Sounded super fun actually. I, myself, went the pure assassin 1h/bow sneak route with a touch of alchemy.

The key to having "fun" in Skyrim is to do whatever you want while maintaining an effective level of combat effectiveness. It sounds like you've spread your perk points too think and are falling behind the curve with combat effectiveness, thus your dissatisfaction.

Focus on only one mode of combat. Feel free to use both magic and melee in combat if that's more fun, but spreading your perks between two modes of combat will make the game more difficult.

Focus on only one mode of defense. If you want to want to rely on Mage armor spells, invest in Alteration early. If you like Heavy Armor, make sure your skills and perks are up to snuff; Smithing is also highly recommended for defense if the Alteration route isn't appealing to you.

Once you have offense and defense covered, feel free to dabble in utility trees like Lockpicking and Speech; just realize that you're sacrificing combat effectiveness to do so.

Properly perking into one crafting tree will make you good; perking into two will make you great; perking into all three will make you a god. If god mode appeals to you, that may be the way to maximize your enjoyment; you certainly won't be alone in that. But if trivializing most of the game's content will bore you, I wouldn't recommend perking more than 1-2 crafting trees.

I've been finding the "sword and board" option works best for me. Shield basing to keep the opponent staggered saves me from taking a huge amount of damage, especially against spell casters who completely ignore my armor rating. I've tried this on a couple of characters so far (one light armor and one heavy armor) and in one on one fights I hardly ever take any hits. In scrums with several opponents you still need the heavy armor though.

One piece of advice (unless you want to use the Vegetable Soup exploit) you're going to need a lot of stamina boosting potions and foods. Early on Apple Cabbage Stew is going to be your best friend .

i love conjuration. summoning a dramora (spelling) lord chop people's heads off while i run in wielding my blue flaming sword never gets old

Personally, I went with a dual wielding, light armour assassin build, and I'm having a BLAST. The sneak minigame is a bunch of fun, and I can still throw down and mix it up with swords when I get caught. Smithing/Enchanting ensures I have burly gear, as well as enough money to buy armour training, because armour skillups are hard to come by when you're killing stuff before they can spot you.

I play a pure mage and am level 55 and loving it. Haven't picked up a single weapon except a staff, and use no armor. Play on normal difficulty.

Yeah, flames/sparks/frostbite become useless after a while. But honestly they're not that great anyway. Very limited ranged and you have to sustain it = awful. Much better to fire off an instant-cast projectile like thunderbolt or fireball and move on. Or better yet, just cast Frenzy and watch the enemy kill each other, or Mass Paralysis once you're an Alteration master. And Bane of the Undead just might be my favorite spell in the game. Set even Draugr Death Overlords on fire and fleeing for their (non)lives.

Yes, the magic system is more rigid and limited than previous ES games. But it's still freaking awesome to play.

Pure magic. Say what you want, the magic in Skyrim is just pure fun for me. Difficulty doesn't even factor into it. All attributes go to magicka, all money goes to buying new spells and new robes, and all enemies fall before a torrent of fire, ice, and lightning.

Definitely Steampunk!

And also...Greater Ward spell can block all dragon breath and just about every spell out there. Great spell! No need to run for cover when a dragon shows up, I just put up my hand and its breath doesn't touch me! "Really, dragon? That's your best? Yawn..."