Are there any perks that you always avoid? If so, why? Unless of course you stick to a particular class (or particular classes), and never even need to pay attention to certain skill trees; that's not what I'm asking.

One that I avoid is the "Conditioning" perk on the heavy armour skill tree. When I'm wearing heavy armour, I like to be slower; it's part of the fun.

I avoid Conditioning and Unhindered too. I hate the idea that armor suddenly weighs nothing at all. I think armor should always weigh something and should always slow a character down. I might agree with a perk that minimizes these effects but I can't agree with a perk that eliminates them. Fortunately we can choose not to pick them in Skyrim, which is an improvement over Oblivion where we were forced to take Master perks in Heavy and Light armor.

Other than that, I've never picked any perks in the Speech, Lockpicking or Pickpocketing trees.

Same here.

Also never take Bladesman in 1-H or the Deep Wounds/ Limbsplitter/ Skullcrusher perks in 2-H.

Yes. Moreover, I think that the player should be fatigued if they use their weapon a lot within a short space of time, with the weight of armour actually worsening it. However, as you say, I'm grateful at least for the choice not to pick these perks.

My mystic archer now avoids two archery perks:

Steady Hand 1 & 2 (slows time while zoomed in). I don't care for the effect - especially while trying to shoot moving targets.

Bullseye (15% chance of paralyzing target). Shoot the arrow. Game calculates a kill cam hit. Paralysis effect beats the arrow to the target, dropping him to the ground. Arrow whizzes harmlessly overhead during failed kill cam cut scene. Hilarious but aggravating. After several such instances, become aggravated enough to delete perk from character. Also a paralyzed target (when things work okay without the kill cam) is harder to hit while on the ground than when standing up.

The entire Lockpicking tree. Even when playing a Theif I never touch it, same goes for modded as well. Once you know how to lockpick, even Master level locks at novice lockpicking levels are pretty damn easy... not to mention lockpicks being plentiful, as money is easy to obtain. In the end I modded the game so you can smash open locks with a 2-hander, or melt them open with magic, though you can only bust open certain locks depending on your skill level in destruction/2-handed.

Speech is another one, though the only reason I ever put points into it was to unlock the rare Alchemy ingredients from vendors. Asides from that, it ended up the same as lockpicking for me. Modded however, It became a must have if playing as the Dragonborn, since shouts are powered up by the speech tree <3 *seriously, why the hell did they not do this in the vanilla game =_=*

With Enchanting and Smithing being in the game I never touched the armour perk trees as well. Pretty much all the armour perks are made redundant with the crafting trees, and with player skill. Once again, mods balance all of this, making those trees needed if using armour.

In the end it all comes down to roleplaying ect. Before I played the PC version I had the min-maxing mind set, so pretty much 75% of the perks in the game were unused, with just over half of them being useless or redundant due to player skill, or spells/enchantments/whatever already added by the game… or bugs/glitches.

I love the Block tree, but not Quick Reflexes. I never take that perk any more.

Never take anything in lockpicking either.

I also agree with the conditioning kinda ruining immersion when your armour is now weightless!

That one REALLY and TRULY annoyed me. First time it happened, I must have had a pretty funny look on my face, as my wife burst out laughing......... I think one of the dogs stepped on my jaw, wondering why it was on the floor......

I like steady hands. makes me imaging that I've slowed my breath... taking my time and then loosing that arrow.

HOWEVER. the perks I avoid like the plague are Bullseye for the very obvious reasons of completely missing a target who toppled over paralyzed while the arrow sails overhead. And the shot should have killed him instead.

None since I roleplay a lot of different characters.

I didn't know that that was a thing. Interesting.

Difficult one, but I've managed to live without any perks on three of the mage trees pretty well (alteration, illusion and conjuration). Block seems a bit useless to me, as I only ever use a greatsword and never carry a shield. I do without light armour as well and prefer the clanking and more realistic heavy armour.

As for perks themselves - perhaps the one handed ones (why use a dagger when you can still sneak up on someone and smash them with a greatsword?), warhammer ones (greatswords are more nimble).

I avoided Bull's Eye for a long time for that very reason. Got it on a character a few months back, and it honestly wasn't such an issue. Well, let me put it this way: it's the least problematic of the kill-cam glitches. When that glitch triggers, the worst thing that happens is that you have a paralyzed foe. I guess it's a problem if you're wasting high-quality arrows, or if it triggers time after time after time.

I don't think I've ever taken 2/2 Steady Hand. I like 1/2 Steady Hand just fine, and I guess I'm afraid that that second tier will slow things down so much as to be annoying.

But no, overall I like to think that I could find a use for any perk, depending on the character - even if it's just for a bit of RP flavor.

There is a perk in lockpicking (sorry I can not recall the name) that I abhor. It is the one that sets the pick "closer to the sweet spot." I made the mistake of choosing that in my first playthrough and it totally messed up my lockpicking mojo.

Pickpocket.

Lockpick.

Alteration.

No character has bothered with anything on these trees.

The one perk I avoid, is steady hand's 2nd rank. Slows the time too much for my tastes.

Atronach perk in Alteration, because it absorbs my conjuration spells at the worst times.

Disintegrate perk in Destruction, because I hate ash piles.

Soul squeezer and Soul siphon, not sure. They didn't seem that crucial to me.

Lockpicking perks, all of them.

Bullseye. Many have already stated why.

- Right side of the heavy armor tree. No real need for most of them. Conditioning i always go for, though. Im a big bad warrior, i shouldnt feel like im a scrawny child trying to wear my armor.

- Any of the weapon-specific perks (sword, axe, mace/hammer perks). They are all useless for different reasons.

- Elemental bonuses in Enchanting. No need for them most of the time

- Many of the lockpicking perks, the only ones i sometimes pick are the novice/apprentice/etc perks and the treasure-related perks.

- Dialogue-related perks in speech

Lockpicking perks - never have gone beyond the first one, because lockpicking is easy enough

Disintegrate destruction perk - ash piles annoy me, especially when they don't clean up

Dialogue speech perks - never have used those

That's what armour does. It slows you down. How exactly does that make you feel like a scrawny child?

That may be what many video game designers think, but a knight in full plate in the medieval ages could move and fight just fine in battle.

If you think that just because someone's trained in the art of combat they can shrug off the weight of their armour, then you clearly know nothing about armour, or combat for that matter. You'd get more used to it, but you'd never be able to move as fast in armour as you would in normal clothing. Ever.

The armor's weight is distributed across the entire body. They wont be wearing it all day every day, but they wont be a slow lumbering giant games tend to portay them.

Either way, my statement still stands. The perk is there and i enjoy using it.