My first playthrough focused entirely on the perks I thought THAT character should have. I didn't even consider the other trees, only to find some really nifty features in skills like speachcraft. Does anyone have an opinion about perks that every character, no mater what, should have?

Well I would guess at least one or two points in Restoration, healing is always a good choice no matter what. XD

Most of the Enchantment Perks. Other than that? None.

Every character should have some form of protection.

Whether it's armor perks, or alterations spells. Defense is very important. To me, at least.

Enchanting and Smithing (well only smithing if you're playing someone that wears armor )

I think some of the speech perks are useful.

Alchemy is much more beneficial for all types of playthroughs than Restoration. With Alchemy, you can create health, fatigue, magicka, various poisons, etc. and you pause the game to drink them. With restoration, you have to equip, then try to cast it while an enemy attacks you and the little health you have left. The only thing I like about restoration is that you can use certain spells to heal NPC's.

Yep. Enchantment perks (max the first one, and the perks down the middle branch) are a must.


lolwut? I don't even use alchemy. Why bother making potions when you can buy/find/not-even-need them? I'm lv41 now and I rarely drink potions. I usually die before I will touch one. I haven't died in about 10 hours (of gameplay) and I'm playing on Master difficulty.

Edit: Alchemy is completely useless unless you're trying to break the game with the smithing/enchanting combo.

...making your own poisons and potions is useless?

Enchanting, Smithing and Alchemy on everyone.

From there for people that want to bash skulls in grab your weapon skill of choice, heavy or light armor and archery
If you want to be a mage grab conjuration.


I disagree... there are lots of very helpful potions.

lol...what?

I roleplay, therefore every decision is made on a character-by-character basis.

Or hot key them to your right and left dpad out of favorites... Then just tap left or right whichever is 1 or 2 and you can heal better than resto magic and not have to break immersion by pausing

Oblivion honestly had a better alchemy system, if you ignore the numbers at least which got too high at high level. Skyrim's alchemy has too many instant potions which are just boring and too convenient for saving you in combat due to being instant without limits to how many you can chug. I'd say most characters should pass on alchemy actually, it adds pretty much nothing to the game, only detracts from it due to it's exploitable nature.


Enchanting is the one thing pretty much everyone should have.

I think you're confusing the phrases "completely useless" with "not totally necessary"

For example my character hasn't ever touched enchanting but I wouldn't call it "completely useless"

Even if you are not planning on playing a stealthy thief type, 3 perks in pickpocketing will help you out in the long run. Light fingers, Night Thief, and then Extra Pockets. The third perk in the tree gives you +100 carry capacity. The speech tree that increases the gold merchants carry is also a very handy one to have. And if you want some of the best gear in the game, you should probably add to either the light or heavy armor smithing tree, depending on what your character uses.
Alchemy is almost a must, especially as you hit the later levels when you are taking a large amount of damage in a short time. You can create almost any effect in the game, but the dam reduction buffs and healing are obviously fantastic choices.

If you are playing as an assassin and plan on using spells, you will want the illusion perk that makes all spells silent.