If these are my main skills, it would be best to take on higher level enemies and higher level dragons later right?

I would say so. Remember to use your surroundings.

Yea cause in a straight fight you'd probably die.

Ok. I will also take light armor and one handed.

For my characters of this type it helped a lot having companions with me. They rarely break my stealth in dungeons, but so often saved my skin by being cannon fodder to powerful enemies while I take my time shooting arrows and healing myself.

I've actually found this combo to be a little overpowered. Some of the stronger potions you can make combined with stealth bonuses will have you dropping powerful enemies in no time.

I have to disagree. Especially the sneaky archer is able to take on almost any enemy from the start. Your main skills will level fast, so after Helgen and one dungeon (Bleak Falls Barrow) you will be around level 10 with sneak and archery around level 40-50 with some perks in it. After that you can sneak attack any enemy.

As long as you don't run out of arrows your fine. And trying to attack enemies one by one is a safe tactic. Enemies will level with you, so the higher level enemies will only appear when you are also ready for it.

An archer just hides behind something when fighting dragons, and for all other enemies you just stay far

Well. I don't plan on taking smithing or enchanting. Maybe just the steel or elven perk.

Definitely get one handed weapons, because bows are absolutely useless in close combat, as getting hit with a sword will make your bow shoot sideways until you recover. Get daggers, if you want to fit the sneak profile.

Bashing with the bow staggers the enemy long enough to get off another shot.

With a sneak level of 100 with the 5/5 stealth perk, and the other perks up the right side of the sneak tree, along with 100 in archery with the 5/5 overdraw perks, its difficult to find another form of offense more deadly in my opinion as you will be constantly one-shotting most enemies while remaining undetected. IT is in your best interest to invest in one handed also as a backup for close quarter combat in addition to dragon fights.

What? No way.

Use Alchemy to make poisons, which can easily aid in battle, especially those that damage health and stamina.

Tip the arrow, fire, and watch the agony unfold.

Yes

Because this style is so overpowered, I make archery and sneak (and one-handed) 'legendary' each time they reach 100 to keep the game challenging, while I still also keep leveling up fast. With just sneak or archery close to 100 and the other skill made legendary, its still overpowered.

It is overpowered, but thats the point of being sneaky. Trying to kill before youre spotted.

Hmm ...

Hmm ...

Not really going to work without Smithing. Just like Skyrim is designed for you to have to svck down a half dozen pots during a time freeze in every major fight, it also requires you to upgrade your gear to stay alive. I hate it myself, but that's just how it is.

Course ... now someone is going to post how they played a level 500 character on Impossible difficulty without ever using Smithing ...

Love the internet.

Is the stealth perk any good? I've always wondered if I should go 5/5 or just leave it 1/5.

Sorry to represent the internet, but I think it is very normal to play Skyrim without smithing. Smithing only makes your armor and weapons about 50% to 100% better, which is the same effect as a difficulty setting.

In this case, a sneaky archer, smithing doesnt add anything useful. You only need some more arrows, because the bow will do less damage. This is also the reason why the difficulty setting doesn't change the game when you use sneak or illusion (Frenzy and Calm spell) or similar gameplay.

In my opinion the Muffled Movement and Silence perks are better, but if you got all other sneak perks already and have some skillpoints to use, it can never hurt to have some extra Stealth. The 1/5 point adds 20% stealth and all points after that just 5% each time, which makes them quite weak. Still 5/5 is a nice 40% bonus in total and my sneak Characters all get the 5/5.