I'm talking about a tree with more specialization in Shouts since the shared and long cooldowns make them extremely situational and sometimes not worth using over your normal attacks.

I personally forget a lot they even exist since they are kind of like a 1-use in battles due to the long cooldown AND shared cooldown.

It could include some perks like (keep in mind this is off the top of my mind and it doesn't go into depth so its a generalization of what could be done.

1. More powerful shouts
2. Less cooldown on them (high on the tree I'd imagine)
3. Maybe have a secondary small effect for certain shouts (example: Fire breath now makes the enemies run around for x amount of time but is a bit weaker or something like that)
4. You hone your voice to extremes, The shouts now affect everyone around you instead of a cone. (Running out of ideas this popped out in my mind, seems a bit OP though. Very high in the tree most likely)
5. Maybe the last perk could be a unique Shout you can only get from that last perk.

These are just some idea that sprung in my mind. Because I really love the Shouts and the main features (in my opinion) Bethesda tried very hard to make them shine is the Shouts and the Dragons, and right now the Shouts aren't doing a very good job (in my opinion).

So what do you think about this? :spotted owl:

The only useful ones are stormcall when assaulting a fort or such, when I want an epic feeling.

Normally, I just use Fus to stagger enemies, with 15 second recharge, it's the most practical. Stops enemies from hurling spells or shooting enemies at me.

I would love a shout perk tree and not because of any of your good ideas


But sometimes i avoid doing much shouting at all because I get nothing out of it.


Why should I shout fire breath at someone when if i hit them with my sword i get some one handed experience

Every time you shout someone off a wall, shout them with fire or frost, or even use mark of death your robbing yourself of alot of experience


Now if you could level up in shout, and buy perks it would be completely different

Hmm, maybe.. but.. i don't think it could work, since the Shouts already have kinda of "perks".. if you get the 3 words they are more powerful than 1 word.. i don't think in any perk that could be added for shouts..

Not really, all it does is add a bit more power to the Shout. I haven't seen much difference (except of course Fus Roh Dah) in almost all of the shouts. It's always just a wee bit more DPS or longer duration.

I'm talking about specializing in Shouts so that you can actually battle with them and be more dynamic instead of what we have here.

@Those who voted No; May I ask why its a terrible idea? I would love to start a discussion. I think its a great idea.

I think shouts are perfect without perks

Cheers

It's a potentially good idea, but I have some beef with it.

First and most importantly, we only get one perk point per level. If we got two, I'd be all for it--but what's a Dragonborn to do, sacrifice a potentially critical skill tree in lieu of learning to shout properly? We're supposed to be able to do it without training, anyway :spotted owl:

For that matter, where would the skill lie? Under some special "Dragon" specialization? It would warrant, or perhaps necessitate, five other skill trees--including a crafting skill--and at least one standing stone. I don't think it works with the lore of how skills work, really.

Thirdly, shouts are supposed to be awesome and make us feel powerful without breaking the game, and for the most part, they do exactly that. Are we to be penalized for not investing in the Shout skill tree, like any non-magic character is penalized for not heavily investing in Smithing? Are we to become overpowered and feel our game is too easy, even on master difficulty, just because we like the skill, like with Enchanting? Sure, things like cooldown reductions and power improvements seem obvious, as well as utilities (you mentioned something about the skill working in all directions instead of just a cone with one perk, which I think is awesome, and let's face it: frost and fire breath work much better for dragons than us), but I imagine (and hope!) that shouts will be improved upon and expanded upon in upcoming patches and DLC.

Potentially good idea, but I can't see how it would work. In fact, in retrospect, I'm against it; with a Shout skill tree, your shouts will either be underpowered for not investing (which conflicts with the fact that those of the dragon blood need not train shouts anyway, since language is inherent to dragons), feel "normal," or like they should, after some perks are wasted that could have been spent elsewhere, or even overpowered if the tree goes too deep. That, and even if we got two perks per level--which would absolutely ruin the game for anyone who has so much as one save file with one perk used--it would feel like we're wasting perks on something that should be inherent to us when they could be spent on other trees.

I just want a perk that allows me to resist Unrelenting Force level 3. I fought an enemy today that spammed it over and over. The game isn't much fun when you are sitting there just watching your character go through his stand-up animation in an endless cycle...

Try entering a battle with 3 Draugr Death Lords all using that shout, one doing it as you get up from the previous Death Lord's shout, and repeated

THAT is frustrating as hell

You nailed it Bethy. When something dies by my hand/sword/dagger/arrow/fireball, that particular instrument/spell levels to some degree.. Shouts..I get nothing except, well, awesomeness... But thats besides the point. I would like to see some type of shout tree..even if it's limited to decrease time between shouts. Which would encourage me to use them more..
As it is I barely use shout unless I'm in a 'Oh S***!' position, and it's shout and pray I escape.

Shouts are interesting because they are capable of doing anything. Regardless of your class or how you choose to roleplay, or design a character shouts allow you to have any power and can do anything the mechanics allow. Anything that modifies shouts such as perks or any coding change could cause so many issues that it would need to be very thoroughly tested and even questioned as to its necessity.

Designing the game not knowing what shouts the player has available when they enter a certain room or if they are on cooldown would have been frustratingly difficult and I think they have been tuned to not be essential but rather as enhancements and playing subsequent playthroughs I discoverd that I under use them if anything and could achieve much more with practised play.

Throw voice is my favourite shout. Dropping a held item from while aiming at the sky and then using unrelenting force can cause chaos and hilarity when a cauldron or beartrap lands in town.

We will probably see a lot of shouts added as the game recieves DLC as well.