Hey guys,
I've been playing skyrim quite a bit lately, I have about 35 hours played on one of my characters
However, I've decided I want to play a more specific character rather than a jack of all trades as it were

So I'm currently working on creating a Stealth Archer but I need your help
Any tips and tricks?

Heavy or Light armour?
Should I keep dual daggers for close range encounters?
Would illusion magic be beneficial to this character?

Thanks guys

You should make a theme for your character first, and just follow that. The game is more fun that way imo. Or you could take the op route and just do the sneak ambush perks, and illusion magic so u can run right infront of them and 1shot em.. seen some vids looks super boring -.-

Ah thanks,
Any thoughts on what sort of armour would be useful as an archer?

well make sure you get the sneak 3 times bonus for sneak crit, I got a pure stealth bow guy who doesn't use melee weapons so cant help you on the weapon part.I use light armor but its mainly about preference really do you want to be able to tank damage if stuff gets close or do you want to be a bit faster and jut kite enemy's.Haven't tried any magic class or ability's so cant help on that either,I would get blacksmithing tho so you can make the bows and weapon upgrades which total makes bows allot better got a glass bow atm that does 112 dmg or something like that. Make sure you perk the archery tree allot along with the stealth till you get the crit bonus, blacksmith also help you make decent armor when you are advancing in levels.As for tips I usually just kite stuff around till its dead so that means allot of Sta and whirlwind sprint having a blast atm with this guy who is also my first char. Should also note I have no idea about that crit perk skill in the Archer tree if it adds to more crit damage,or it just adds more crit and when you do crit it has a chance of giving more damage would like to see if anyone knows about that.

I played a stealth archer on first run-through...I won't claim to be an expert, but for my $$ here's what I found:
- enchanted dragon scale (light) armor was best...complete set for bonus
- I chose single dagger and shield for up-close backstabs...use health fortify on shield in those cases where the x15 backstab didn't work out
- I never worried about spells...with sneak enchants on armour, wasn't needed
- focused on smith and enchant skills, to make the bows/armour better, before finishing bow line
- early, the slo-mo aim was useful, but was less useful as levels increased (used it more as a time-slow in bad situations than for aiming)
- had 3 bows at all times...standard use (usually 1 second soul trap), boss bow, anti-mage bow
- as many anti-magic enchantments as possible

have fun!

light armour, or heavy armour, really doesnt matter they both have perks to make them weightless and make no sound, defeating any purpose to a stealth role <_< . I play mine with light armour for the role play.

Light Armor for sure, helps with the Sneaking and such. As for melee weapons, you can use anything you want really, I tend to go with a dagger main hand for when I get a chance to backstab, and either a sword or a spell in my offhand. Illusion is handy, but bear in mind the more important spells such as Frenzy and Muffle aren't really needed, as you can get boots with a Muffle enchant, as well being able to tip your arrows with Frenzy poison. Not to mention many perks in the Sneak tree effectively cancel these out anyway.

My tip is to, when clearing dungeons, always keep an eye out for lanterns hanging from the ceiling that can fall and burn any oil on the ground. If you're playing on a harder difficulty this can be a great help. Another effective, yet somewhat cheap trick I like to use when faced with multiple dangerous enemies is to fire a shot or two from a sneaking position with my bow, and then hide in cover and wait for them to stop looking for me, at which point I fire two more shots and repeat until either the room is clear, or the number of enemies remaining is small enough so that I can go toe to toe with them. As a stealthy character, you're not very strong against mutiple enemies, so you may have to use this a lot.

As far as gear goes, I would absolutely recommend joining the Dark Brotherhood. You can obtain their first set of gear very early on in the game (I've done it as early as level 2) and this will last you quite a while. Of particular note are the boots with the Muffle enchant, the gloves with the double damage bonus to backstab, and one other piece that offers a 20% increase in damage to all attacks made with a bow. This can be upgraded even further as you progress through the Dark Brotherhood quest line.

That was a bit of a mouthful, but I hope you find it helpful, I've invested many hours into stealth characters, and they are by far my favourite archetype to play.

You can use both, since Heavy Armor also gets the perk to make it weightless or you can use the Steed Stone, but in terms of immersion and perk extra effects (stamina regen + 10% dodge chance in melee) go for light armor.

Illusion isn't necessarily needed as an archer, it serves more purposes when you play a dagger assassin. Still, you can use it for muffle until you get the equivalent perk from the sneak tree (or you can use the shrouded boots if you got em).

You don't really need dual daggers. You can still use your bow in melee if you got the ranger perk and keep moving while being attacked.

//edit

Oh and go for smithing (6 perks up the light side and for arcane blacksmith), dragonscale armor archers look awesome.

Like in Oblivion; I have a stealth archer, almost lvl 40. I have so far spent my skill points on Stealth (full), Archery (almost full), Light Armor, One Hand and some Lockpicking.. a little of this and that - no magicka.
I sneak my way through everything, also while traveling the world to gain more sneaking experience. Like in Oblivion, I started my sneaking boost by not wearing any shoes/boots (so enemies couldn't hear me).
I only use a fire-enchanted Glass Dagger for slashing throats in dungeons, though only when my bow bores me... my fire-enchanted Daedric bow, which now deals 106 dmg, kills a giant with two Steel Arrows.
So, when close combat approaches, I don't switch to a weaker melee weapon.. if an enemy spots me, I crouch and disappear (Sneaking skill 100 pts.: Shadow Warrior).
I'm wearing light armor, which have extra perks in Archery, Sneaking and Lockpicking (all on 35%), plus a necklace and ring that also sport some Sneaking bonus.
Yesterday I killed 3 Dragon Priests and several dragons - only with my bow. I'm looking forward to raiding a city!

Currently I am playing a wood elf archer, sneak, light armor, smithing, and one handed. im also planing on putting a few in enchanting. I focused on archery first. Now Im going 1h. But the sneak archery smith combo is very nice. You can get some nasty weapons pretty easy... depending on if you craft spam. But even if you dont, you can get some good gear, and in the long run smithing rocks.

Good gear + sneak bonus + range to attack freely = good times.

As I was leveling with archery and sneak, I played like what in my mind a combat sniper would play like. Deal some key damage, slink away, repeat.

Stealth archer is the easiest build to play, it's pretty heard to get it wrong tbh. In my experience:

# Pile up on stamina as this allows you to clear groups in slow-time, maintaining your stealth crit bonus. It also means you can carry all the loot you'll pick up.

# Get all the archery dmg multiperk, get the 25% slow perk (50% is a bit redundant), the crits and paralyse are wasted perks imo because you'll be 1-hitting everything anyway.

# Get the stealth perks for moving silenty, rolling (speeds up your movement a lot) and 3x bow crit. You shouldn't really need the initial sneak multiplier multiperk.

# Light armor is DEFINITELY the way to go as you should never really get hit, heavy armor negates your stealth, and even in light armor you'll almost certainly hit the armor cap relatively quickly. Also, heavy armor just looks stupid.

# Alchemy can be a big help for poisons (since you're always going to be relying on front-loaded damage) and the occasional invisibility for stealth quests.

# Late game, you can complete enchanting and smithing and become God if you want. Atm I have I think around +200% bow dmg and +200% stealth. I am Death incarnate.

Light armor is better always.

Remember that arrow damage is multiplied as well so don't hoard crappy arrows, get Hunter's Discipline and use best ones you found.

At the beginning investing in Bound Weapon and Mystic Binding will help a lot as Bound Bow with the perk is equal to Daedric. Later on Daedric is better because of the upgrades.

True, I still though switch to Steel Arrows when I'm out hunting, slaying bandits and one-shot killing Snow Trolls. Only when I meet a dragon or a Dragon Priest I switch to Orcish, Elven or Glass Arrows.

I`d say light armor would be more realistic for a stealth archer and from a RP point of view would make more sense.
I`m playing a stealth archer myself. The char is only level 7 and only wears a roughspun tunic with hide bracers and leather boots, using bow and longsword. It`s incredibly fun being so unprotected! last night i crept into a bandits cave doing stealth kills on the bandits but the Boss heard my archer knock something over and i was impaled on his sword in a classy finishing 1 hit insta-kill. It`s nerve wracking to play but really adds to the tension

Isn't the strength of the bound bow dependent on your conjuration skill?

I made a guy that used bows. He started out being a hunter, but that got old and I kept getting killed all by myself in the wild. When I went to town I started picking pockets and graduated to breaking into houses... I was wondering what the markings on the doors were until I found a book of "shadowmarks" and I went looking for entrance into the thieves guild. During the thieves guild quests I got a taste for killing, mostly with my bow so when I was done with that main questline I started in working for the dark brotherhood. I learned how to really use my blades while in the DB, the gloves are great. By the end of it all, I was insanely rich but the character wasn't anything special.

I could 1 shot kill ANYTHING, and with 100 sneak you can endlessly get stealth attacks which makes quick work of anyone and makes armor redundant. My archery is good but I went up the side of blacksmithing with glass and was unable to wrap around to daedric (so I hear) and wound up wishing I had gone heavy armor since I never got hit anyway (at least not by physical). Also, pickpocketing caps at 90% for anything but keys, there is always a 10% chance to be caught no matter what and at lvl 10 with 35 or so pick pocketing I had capped it for everything but huge sums of gold and heavy weapons. I never even used alchemy much because it was a chore to collect, create potions, and keep going into my inventory to equip them. If only certain poisons could be put on for multiple strikes (say 20) I would have done it. But a menu every kill is tedious.




I'm doing another character right now that is a cool mix of stealth and magic. I use sneak, archery, conjuration and illusion. I sneak around and when I find people I cast illusion spells on them from the shadows. I frenzy people against each other mostly but sometimes just fear and let them sort each other out and for some groups I turn someone and throw a daedra into the mix. Once someone dies I raise dead and keep them in the fight. I also use conjuration for bound bow... which is a spectral bow that comes with 100 arrows every time you conjur it. Not only does this let you skip blacksmithing to sharpen weapons (they get better via talents in conjur AND archery) but it has cool perks only summoned weapons can get and looks cool as well... by that I mean through talents it soul traps so the spectral bow kills svck souls into you as you sulk in the shadows. The conjured weapons also have the ability to instantly banish summoned daedra and instantly turn summoned undead. This works great because with the illusion perk for silent casting, all this is going on and you are still in sneak so you can get multiple sneak kills without exposing yourself and it's HILARIOUS to watch.

The coolest part of this is the fact that I use nothing. My pets are casted, my spells are usually 1 time cast then I rely on my bow, I wear no armor(I only carry a shield with shock resist, as that is the only reason I wouldn't have the mana to defend myself otherwise), and I carry no weapons.... and I mean none, not even arrows or a backup sword. If by some weird happening I get thrown in jail or get unarmed for a quest, all it means is I'll have to circle back for my loot later on (no scrounging for shivs for me). This leaves huge amounts of my persons open for carrying goods as well.

EDIT: As for your original question? The best armor for a stealth archer is none, getting the stealth attack bonus modifier means no fighting. At low levels you will one shot most trash mobs, at higher levels you will have talents to kite easier. If you had to choose between light and heavy, I'd go light I guess... but none of them really help much. The equipment you are going to get during thieves guild and DB quests is all either light armor or cloth (yes, it's melee and archery clothing, not armor).

There is a formula used. It is dependent on both archery AND conjuration for talents and skill. It is only overshadowed around lvl 30 to 40 something when you get a daedric bow and have smithing maxed to upgrade it twice as good. Plus you can't abuse the exploits with a bound weapon.

Ok great, thanks for the clarification.

Stealth is fun. I'd go for Light Armor, kind of makes more sense. And Alchemy for invisibility potions and poisons.

Personally I use light armor

duel daggers for close ranger

and bow for long range works really good

great advice everyone only thing i would add to the mix is paralyzing poison is great for tough mobs , only had 1 or 2 things resist it and one of them was a dragon. I found it was much easier carrying this around than trying to buff up the perfect type of resistance potion etc. just put them to sleep instead

Light armor, and a bow should be all you need. Maybe a nice sword if stuff gets really nasty in tight dungeons etc, and a dagger.

I am playing a archer/ sneak charater right now, funnest way to play for me.

Alot of it depends on your own commen sense, using dark shadows to hide, plan out your attacks before you start shooting everything you see, wait for good opertunites to guarentee a one shot kill. Wait for enemies to wonder off alone if they are in packs, shooting one bandit that is surronded by 5 other bandits will just cuase a frenzy.

I am a level 30, wood elf, that specialzes in sneak, one handed, archery, smithing, and light armor.

Using illusion magic to become invisble is just way to easy, id stay away from that if you want a decent challenge and longevity in the game, same with enchanting, not needed unless you want to become god himself. Smithing alone can make you very powerfull. I use a glass bow with steel arrows most of the time and I can 2-3 shot a giant while sneaking on adept. With glass arrows even less, so illusion and enchanting are game breaking FOR ME, and Id assume for most aswell.

Playin Nord since is my first toon and its his homeland

Any armor is good either heavy or light cuz of perks both are weightless and soundless (i went light for rp)

I went Archery full
Sneak deadly aim and silent roll
Smith Heavy armor all the way to dragon for Daedric weapons and dragon scale
Enchanter Extra Effect and Fire enchanter Fiery soul enchant (not sure what other enchant for bow ) and +bow dmg and magic resist to gear
Light armor Full

So far that works awesome for me in dungeons stealth is great and full archery for outside im still exploring lotz!

Dungeons easy just stealth 1 shot almost anything atm why i cant just shoot, do barrel roll (silent roll ) hide and then keep shooting x3 :3
Skyrim Ranger+quick shot+ power shot+steady hand+ bullseye awesome kitting when im not sneaking

Still more lvls to go maybe ill get some destru for Augmented Flames for enchant boost and some resto for Avoid death for the lulz to many perk pts

Stats all Stamina and only 150hp atm no magicka

Last resource Battle Cry (fear)
Beast form (awesome wolf melee+fear rawr)
Shouts Fire Breath (Dungeon is they get close to finish them off ^_^)
Whirlwind Sprint (Skyrim to kite !)

Gluckz Archers ftw!!!