Restoration works very well for a DG play through on a warrior.. Spell's: . Sun fire, poison rune, Stendar's Aura, Vampire Bane, Healing... need I go on?

Mace or Shield in one hand, spell in the other. Mace with Fire enchant or Sun enchant + Stendar's Aura, then a fire spell... poof dead vampires ( or draugr)

When I said I don't perk it til the 2nd and 4th round of perks that is mostly because I haven't started DG yet and am not running into as many Vampires...I get 1h and armor up first as those are being used just traveling down the road, destruction also.

And just now, I got to a point where I do have to kill a frost giant to proceed.

I give up on this character. I don't care to play him, and this stupid little questline keeps forcing me to fight stuff that's 40 levels above me.

I'm just installing the other mods I have in my list and playing a new character. This is getting rediculous. I shouldn't have to invest in smithing AND enchanting with every character just to play the game. Seriously, is everyone in skyrim a blacksmith AND enchanter???

I've also been thinking about installing perkus maximus, even though the thing is really meta-gamey, just to fix the obvious flaws with this game. And no, I will NOT install skyrim re-done, that makes it so that even the easiest difficulty is like master.

edit: As for what I'm building next? Think I'll try a monster/bounty hunter theme. Probably be focusing on archery, light armor, and smithing, and possibly either dual-wielding or one-handed with shield. Perhaps instead of trying to force myself into a specific theme, I'll just play the game with whatever skills I find useful and let my character grow organically.

Level 16 is early game

Frost giants are powerful, and you don't have to kill them to progress. Also, you really rushed the dawnguard questline if you're in the forgotten vale at level 16. Dragonborn and Dawnguard add a lot of high level content.

Dawnguard plot spoiler warning:

I'm going to just spend a while hunting in the wilderness. I'm not doing the dawnguard quest, and since I just installed the civil war overhaul and deadly dragons I'll probably try doing the main quests again. I would also install cutting room floor, but that mod requires you to get the unofficial skyrim patch to work, which it never has for me. I actually have it in the [censored] mod manager, but it doesn't do anything when I install it. Omfg I hate the nexus.

The room you unlock with the ewer is a secret, not the way you have to go...

starting a new character is up to you.

The very few times I have ever used more than one "craft" on a character was mages with warrior followers ( they used their enchanted gear + bought/found potions to smith gear for their follower) But they never wore any smithed gear themselves. One a Hunter explorer who was a master Alchemist, she would temper found items and create her own fur or leather armor, but never took a single perk in smithing.

It can be done, you just have to balance out the rest of your game with smithing. Generally speaking when I start finding the next lvl of armor or weapons, then I know it's time that my gear is smithed, I try to keep my gear at the same armor rating as what I am finding. That is my bench mark.

That frost Giant is mighty weak to fire, fire enchanted bow, flame atronach, fire scrolls...etc, but not as week as a frost troll. Unless it's a glitch, the giant shouldn't be able to get through the doorway...

This is getting beyond stupid.

Just started a new game, with hunterborn installed. It wasn't until I started using it that i realized: it isn't compatible with my food mod. No, if you want the new meat you harvest to actually decrease your hunger, you have to install [censored]-up needs and diseases. So I have to find some way to uninstall my current food mod, which I downloaded from the workshop btw, BC ITS THE ONLY SITE THAT'S RELIABLE AND ACTUALLY WORKS. WHY IN THE LIVING HELL ANYONE WOULD USE THE NEXUS OR EVEN THAT STUPIOD WORTHLESS [censored] MODD MANAGER IS BEYOND ME. So anyway, I have to find some way to uninstall the food mod THAT I WANT, and install a food mod THAT I DON'T WANT AND VOWED TO NEVER USE BC IT LOOKS LIKE ABSOLUTE [censored].

Just venting. Oh, and after this, I probably have to start a new game. Do the tutorial all over again. Make my character all over again. Wow. Just [censored] wow. Be nice if the idiot who made hunterborn would actually put something in his description about problems like this.

Or maybe simpler yet: I'll just uninstall hunterborn, then I get to keep the mod I like that I may not able to remove anyway, and I'm not forced to install a mod that will [censored] up everything.

Yeah, really pissed with my game today. Sorry.

If something is incompatible do the smart thing and tell the mod makers hoping they would make a patch OR ask for someone to make a patch on the Skyrimmods reddit or the Nexus forums or even on the mod forum here. There are PLENTY of broken mods on the workshop and if you can't use NMM or manually install the mods that's on YOU no one else. It's fairly easy if you took the few minutes to learn how to install mods. Hell, modders on the workshop don't even clean their mods with TSE5Edit which leads to numerous broken navmeshes and dirty edits which lead to save game bloating and makes some saves completely impossible to resume.

I couldn't get it to work before long ago, even though I was in fact doing everything right. I actually avoided using it for so long because it just wouldn't work for me. But recently, it did finally work for me. I don't know why. I did nothing different. Now, mods for that do finally have an effect on my game. Well, except the unofficial patches, which still don't work. And I do follow the instructions very carefully.

Of course, even if you can get it to work its still a garbage program. Downloads ramdomly freeze on you, and the thing can't handle files above a certain size. Luckily though, if a mod is big enough to not be installable with the mod manager the mod maker will at least warn you and tell you how to do a manual install; I had to do manual installs for immersive armors and weapons, and those mods do appear to be working. Well the armor one at least, haven't gotten far enough to see any new weapons yet. I have noticed a minor bug with ulfric: at the beginning when he's gagged, he didn't have the gag on his face this time. I was also surprised that both he and ralof were wearing new armors, along with general tulius and hadvar. I'm guessing the new armor on Ulfric is what's causing the bug. No matter. Not like its game-breaking.

And I can apparently disable my current food mod in the [censored] mod manager, so that helps I guess. Hmm, now that I think about it, maybe I can use my current food mod in tandem with realistic needs and diseases. How can I do that??? The food mod I have now is eat drink sleep bathe. The last feature, which requires you to bathe, I can probably still use. I can disable the other 3 features and use the ones from RN&D instead perhaps. As long as I don't use the other 3 features of my current mod I think I'll be fine. And yes, the mod is disabled by default when you start a new game. You have to manually enable it once you start a game. Hunterborn works the same way, I just found out.

And another thing I've noticed: now that I've started a new game, my frostfall meters finally display. Before they wouldn't show no matter what my settings were. That's handy. Now I don't have to sit there and press V constantly just to check the weather and my current temperature.

edit: opted to just disable my old food mod. The bathing thing honestly was kind of a nuisance. You can take food, water, and shelter with you, but not a bath. I mean, I had to install another mod just so I could take a bath in places other than rivers. So yeah, that's gone, along with the 'showers in inns' mod. Kinda thinking I had too many mods active anyway. I hear there's a limit to how many you should have at once, but I don't know what that limit is. Pretty much have all the mods active now that I want anyway. Kinda iffy about this deadly dragons thing though. Not sure what I'm getting myself into. All I know is while trying to escape helgen, I got a brief taste of the mod. I got knocked down while running through a building, which obviously doesn't normally happen. I guess alduin landed nearby outside or something. Thankfully I'll be playing an archer character this game. And hopefully he'll get past level 20.