Stealth vampire with bound bow, the synergies created by having a bow that is also a spell are ridiculous. Out dps's any other build, npcs can't find you and you can do it right off bat. So fun.

Except that you have no AoE damage and your bound arrows will actually cause save file bloating.


The most overpowered combat build is a battlemage with -100% destruction cost item set, dual wielding 2 daggers:

-main hand dragonbone dagger with absorb health/chaos damage

-off-hand stahlrim dagger with cold/chaos damage


You just need enough health and armor to avoid getting OHKO'd, the -100% cost set guarantees that you never run out of enchant charges and you should be absorbing 80 health per main-hand attack.


If you need to AoE nuke, you should already be taking all the destruction elemental damage perks which means you can switch to fireball/chain lightning (unlike stealth/archery which has no area damage).

Nope, dmg from bound arrows far exceeds fireballs in any form. That and it instantly kills summons, zooms, gets crit damage multipliers, has a faster fire rate, slows time while aiming, is more precise, gets boosted by thief skills and vampire/resto magic synergy. Aoe doesn't matter if you get one hit kills without being seen. Infinite top tier bow ammo far exceeds whatever drawback having a large save file seems to be for you.

I don't think there's a one build beats all build. There are many Archer builds that are very powerful.

I like Mages myself, zero cost destruction spamming Impacting Fireballs (for old school fun) or whatever... Works well for me. Stealth builds, as powerful as they can be are boring. It just doesn't click with what I roleplay.

There are some downsides to bound bows. You can't cast any other spell or use any other weapon while holding the bow. Casting the spell makes noise, which can alert an enemy. If you take the soul-trapping perk (necessary to get the summon-banishing perk), your bow will automatically trap any low-level thing you kill, so you wind up with a lot of petty souls in high-level gems. And you can't cast the spell while on horseback.

Silent spell affects the bow and you can cast it and get on a horse. The only soul gems worth using are black just don't carry regular ones.

What is this about bound bows causing file bloat? As for the soul gems there is a mod that prevents small souls from filling a larger gem.

Anything that involves restoration, smithing, enchanting, heavy armor, block, one-handed and the defensive perks in the Alteration skill-tree. Between the base-stats of the equipment, what you can temper it to be and that you'll never die because you can just heal for 0 magic, you are effectively immortal. Whether you go Atronach or Lord standing sttone really is a matter of personal preference at this point.

The arrows from the Bound Bow either don't despawn until the area they're in resets or they never despawn (I forgot which). Basically, if you miss a lot with BB you're going to have a ton of arrows lying around that you can't pick up or get rid of.

This is not correct for the vanilla game. If you conjure a bound bow and activate your horse to mount, you will shoulder the bow which causes it to dispel. In other words, you much 'sheath' your weapon before mounting, and sheathing a bound weapon dispels it. My elven horse archer can use a bound bow from the saddle but only via mods.

It's the only ability with that much synergy, mathematically it's by far the best choice. I'm not talking rp potential just pure damage.

If you like elemental damage weapons, take a look at what you can do with the elemental Destruction perks combined with a filled Enchanting tree.

This! Throw in some fortify destruction potions, as well.

A. No, as Acadian points out. You can't use a bound bow on horseback, except with mods.

B. Many character types would find trapping black souls to be abhorrent. It's fine for necromancers.

I also question some of your "math." A spell like Chain Lightning, cast in a room full of enemies, is far more effective than a bow.

I have to wonder how much in-game experience you are working from. A bound bow is pretty useless against any large group of melee enemies. You are going to be rushed and overwhelmed.

I don't play the vanilla game, so this discussion does not really apply to me. Requiem balances out sneak by removing the sneak damage multiplier from undead, daedra and dwemer automatons, vastly increasing the protection armor provides against arrows (and increases the amount of AR many enemies have), adding rapid health regeneration to certain enemies, such as dragon priests, spriggans, trolls, enchanted dwemer spheres, etc. With my mod setup, a sneak archer is probably the least powerful build, easily outclassed by a destruction mage (Requiem completely changes vanilla magic) or a 2H warrior, and requiring enchanted arrows to defeat many high level enemies.

My recollection of vanilla was it was pretty easy to become overpowered with any build.

Ive clocked about 3k hours in skyrim. You can't get rushed because no one can spot a sneaking vampire. Especially if you throw your voice. You never have to deal with more than one at a time. The max damage for chain lighting is negligible compared to maxed out bow boosted by multiple sources.


Mage spells do fixed damage with minor % boosts. Chain lighting isn't even a good spell for anything but trash mobs. It's like comparing a chainsaw to a dagger.

Max smithing, enchanting, and alchemy and every combat build is OP.

I consider that a game breaking exploit, this is about legitimate builds.

How can it be a game breaking exploit when it easily doable by normal in-game actions? It's not as if I said use the restoration loop.

I thought that's what you were saying. I'm not saying overkill has a point, I'm saying that this build objectively does the most damage. The Frenzy spell alone renders all combat meaningless.

Pretty much.

How is using the normal game assets an "exploit"?

Here's the thing. If you play in a certain way, you perfect that style. Then, if you try something else, it seems weak by comparison, because you're not as adept at is as you are with your "favorite" style. The result is that one can think that a certain way is "better."

The fact that you didn't know about the inability to use a bound bow on horseback is proof that you don't know the vanilla game as well as you think you do.

Edit: Also, in thinking about it, I'd say that your sneaking vampire example is pretty close to being an "exploit" in itself. Sneak is definitely already overpowered in Skyrim, and you are compounding it with the vampire. The bound bow is almost immaterial.

Being able to enchant a ring to give you 200k hp is game breaking. The exponentially powerful potion glitch is just sloppy game design that never got fixed.

I haven't played skyrim since the xbox one was released nor played anything but vanilla + expansions. Excuse me for remembering horse archery.

Forgive me for asking what may seem to be a pointless question, Roachor

You have come to a forum intended for (and populated by) fans of Skyrim. The purpose of this forum is for individuals to converse with others and thereby enrich each others' enjoyment of the game and understanding of lore as well as provide a safe space to express a level or method of enjoyment which would perhaps be less well accepted in many places.

If one accepts that to create a topic here is to invite differing opinions, then I have to wonder what is the point to your topic if you are unwilling to accept these differences of opinion?

I am trying to be as inoffensive as possible, but to refute other opinions with "sloppy game design" (direct quote) and "i only made a mistake because I haven't played the game in 27 months" (paraphrasing, not directly quoting, of course) is about as immature as one can appear online without resorting to name calling.

So, are you willing to accept other peoples' opinions or should we accept this as a troll topic hoping to rile up fans of a game you haven't played since november 2013? (release date of the xbox one, which you yourself stated as the point you ceased to play skyrim)

My purpose was to talk about the game since I felt I should share the results of my extensive testing. All I said was this mechanics maximizes potential damage and proved it. People felt the need to argue with feelings despite the fact I'm empirically correct. Horse archery is something I remembered working, I ll have to take your word that it doesn't because my 360 broke a long time ago. It was irrelevant anyways who fights regularly from a horse?


And yes, sloppy. Bethesda has a terrible record for leaving major bugs unpatched. Can you honestly say that giving the player a way to become immortal and punch a dragon for 100k damage was by design?


The final spell in restoration was broken for like 2 years.

To be clear, horse archery works fine. It is bound weapons that dispel upon mounting a horse. So, as we said, it is not possible without mods to use a bound bow from a horse.

As far as fighting regularly from the saddle, my elf does exactly that - and only with a bow (she will not touch melee weapons). If not inside a dungeon or building, she is generally in the saddle. Thanks to mods, she even rides inside the walled cities. It is certainly the only way she travels the wilderness. She does use a critter 'follower' as a distraction to help her keep her distance. Horse archery in Skyrim is a challenging artform that takes a lot of effort and patience to become good with. The key is having some sort of follower/distraction to help keep foes at a distance.