Which should I chose to play as? I have a pure mage. I like to play as 'pure' classes cuz I think it adds replay value. So which is more fun in your opinion?

I hated mage personally. And I enjoy both my stealth archer and warrior equally. Though my warrior does seem much much stronger.

Especially with orc berserking, he's pretty much immortal and hits harder than an atomic bomb.

It depends on ho you want to play. Do you want to sneak and take enemies out from the shadows or do you want to kick doors in a sever heads?

Is there a way to effectively mix the two? I guess ima go back on my statement on pure classes

Warrior. Much more fun IMO

Sneak is overpowered in Skyrim, but if you don't mind easy-mode, it's great roleplaying fun skulking through dungeons, mugging people, assassinating, etc.

trololololol

Nothing OP about stealth.

trololololol
Nothing OP in clearing whole dungeons, including bosses, without taking a single point of damage. Nothing at all!

I had an argonian murderer for quite some time. A complete Nord-a-phobic. Never bought a thing from a shop, or spoke to a person, or did anything good for the Nordish society. Instead, he slept in a cave during the day, and only came out to hunt at night. Killing townspeople would just cause the rest to leave and make the place uninhabited, which is not acceptable. So he restricted himself to guards. If the townspeople are all gone, there's no reason for the guards to stay. But, if you lose two or three or ten guards, the Imperials simply send more.

One of these days I'll have to get a slew of pictures together and tell his story all proper.

I always made my own class in previous ES games. I am playing a stealthy thief, with a bit of magic thrown in for good measure. I always found pure warriors a bit boring, but I guess it comes down to your play style.

Just play the game, and see what happens. That is the beauty of the ES leveling system

Yeah typical AI makes stealth easy. Of course if all you do is pick off enemies from afar in sneak and take no hits, once you get high up there in level, your armor skill is so low that your damage mitigation is out the window. You quickly go from using stealth to completely relying on it.

Also between your choices, Warrior or Thief, I'd rethink the second. If all you do is role play a thief and level up your sneak, lock pick and pick pocket. If you ever decide that you want to level up your combat, just role a new character.

People here just can't seem to grasp that playing your character, as the game allows, in a fashion you currently desire has the capability of fudging yourself over if you ever decide to take your character in a new direction. No "exploits" about it.

Absolutely. I played a pure mage with my first character too. For my second character I played a powerful warrior/rogue. I can't get enough! I am heavily invested in one-handed, archery, stealth and light armor perks. I haven't used any magic perks and only rarely use some illusion spells. I have some perks invested in smithing of course and will probably use a few in enchantments.

It's a great way to play! You can go in on the prowl or kick down the front door. I use dual-wielding as well. Generally, I slip in through the shadows; picking off enemies with arrows and backstabs. If I get spotted, I pull out my sword and dagger and go to work. This character is way more fun to play as than the mage for me.

Every role has pros and cons. The assassin may be able to clear dungeons in that manner, but that's the only way they can clear dungeons. The same assassin will get 2-shotted if detected and will have problems fighting a dragon.

That's like saying warriors are OP because they can charge in and kill 3 enemies at the same time, but a rogue cannot.

Will you get bored pre-strategizing every encounter? I think that's pretty much the deciding factor.

With my sneaking thief, yes, can clear dungeons decently but out in the world? Whole different ball game. At least for me. There are definitely trade-offs. I am scared of dragons yet I see posts where people are bored of them. So...

So true,i learned that the hard way myself. I always play a stealth orientated assassin character in TES games,always. So recently i finished the DB quest chain and my character is basically a pure stealth throat slicing machine mixed with archery and i decided to give the Companions guild a go. Now i have no doubt that i could play out that entire guild as an assassin,but it didn't feel right in a RP sense..so i tried doing one of their starter quests as a Warrior type with heavy armour/2H hoping to level it up and make a mixed character...only to get consistantly destroyed by all enemies lol. Lesson learned =)

Also,an earlier poster was bashing stealth based characters for being too easy and the likes...Yes,that is true..its a pretty OP build in alot of ways,you can one shot pretty much everything if played right. However,thats the nature of the class and it wouldnt make any sense for it to be otherwise..and i doubt Bethesda is going to add Metal Gear Solid levels of AI to enemies purely for stealth gameplay.

However,the fun of the stealth class,particularly in TES,is the atmosphere in my opinion. Slowly skulking around caves and dungeons,exploring everything..hearing everything and seeing everything from the shadows,is alot of fun =) As is hunting in the wilderness. It comes down to personal preferance because for me,i find the more offensive Warrior type builds extremely boring after a while...its basically just charge in and melee cleave the crap out of everything you encounter then move on. Of course you get to engage in the epic boss fights and stand toe to toe with mighy enemies,which is awesome..and something that is sorely missed from a stealth assassin gameplay perspective,since you can pretty much kill everything before they even know you are there,including bosses lol. But thats the fun Sithis be praised and all that....at least in my case lol^^

Again,its personal preferance and to the OP i would say..if you want epic battles,go Warrior..if you want atmosphere and a slower pace,go stealth - thief,assassin..whichever =) The game can be played successfully either way,it just depends on what way you want to play =)

That would be awesome. :ph34r:

Or even letting the enemies know you're there for that matter. They practically line up to be sniped.

Of course there is. Thieving berserker Orc dual wielding axe berzerker, power your way through one handed (with your pref of axe, sword, or hammer), smithing, sneak (minus assassin blade), alchemy for poisons, pickpocket, and light armor (or heavy it can be viable sneak as well).

sneak in, get in your sneak attack dual axe attack, and finish him off in a flurry of strikes. plus you can steal all you want, pick pocketing as you please.

I got a archer-spellsword of sorts. Heavily enchanted ebony or glass bow, glass war axe/sword, few destruction/conjuration/restoration. Boom.

Take the long bow shot, run in for the nitty gritty.

If you could enchant arrows, i'd be inclined to make an Arcane Archer, yet sadly you cannot

Then again if it took a soul per arrow, i'd have wiped out a good portion of Skyrim for even a few decent quivers worth of enchanted arrows.

It's a long road to that point, and it doesn't even work in every dungeon. Of course you can powerlevel and cheese skills, but then the problem is with those approaches, not with the skills. If you play normally, getting an assassin up to speed takes much longer than a 1h/shield build, which does well right from the start. Shields are superb and you can stand all day long in dragon breath if you want to. Dealing with a dragon is harder for a stealth character (unless it is sitting there, but most dragons in the wilderness don't do that).

To the topic starter: Both builds are very viable and you can also mix and match, if you like. While my character did eventually take the assassin route, it was mostly because of the unique armour and the way it looks, or rather, how heavy a lot of the better light armours look. I wanted a lightly armoured shield warrior, but well, he turned into a dual wielding assassin with a bow.