Do you somehow manage to avoid repeating the same build?

If not, why do you find it enjoyable even you've done it before?

These are the combat styles I can think of: Two-handed + Archery, One-handed + Shield, Dual wielding, Thief, Pure Mage and Battlemage/Spellsword.

I make different builds every time but after a while I make characters with builds I have already used.

basically I avoid using the same build until after a couple of months, I will use an old build.

There are way more builds than that; it depends entirely on how creative you are and what questlines you RP yourself into. (For example, not ALWAYS saying 'lol I'm evil' and doing both the thieves guild and the Dark Brotherhood.)

What I've used:

Stealth Archer, Dagger+Sword assasin, 1h heal paladin, pure mage, sword/shield stormcloak clone, dual mace+illusion assasin, 2h warrior, 1h+destruction battlemage, crossbow+lone 1h sword thief

I can think of countless other builds off the top of my head. To me though, a good RP for a character makes them much more interesting than just a playstyle. My current character, the crossbow/1h hybrid, is my longest played character of all time simply because I'm 'in' to her RP so much and she has a rather complicated history and personality. Your character is never just 'evil and doing evil things like killing people and is maybe a vampire' and never just 'a heroic nord man doing all the nordy hero questlines!' My shortest-lived character was my mage, simply because I had no plan with him and just thought of him as a dunmer magician that would do the wizardy questlines. Needless to say I got bored of him quickly, even if magic isn't altogether a boring playstyle.

I haven't played that many characters, but so far they have been:

-Warrior: 2H+archery+restoration+dual-wielding+some other things I tried out (yes, that was my first character). Mostly light armor. Crafting: Mostly alchemy.

-Warrior: Sword-and-board with archery, no magic, heavy armor. Crafting: Smithing and a little alchemy.

-Pure mage: destruction, restoration, alteration, conjuration, used only robes and clothes. Crafting: Enchanting and some alchemy.

-"Witch" (my definition): Destruction (only fire spells), conjuration, restoration, light armor, one-handed (dagger). Crafting: All three, but mostly alchemy.

-Hunter: Archery, dual-wielding, light armor. Very short-lived, no crafting.

-Thief: Sneak, archery, dual-wielding, light armor. Crafting: alchemy and smithing. No magic.

-Warrior/spellsword: 2H, archery, light armor, sneak, restoration, conjuration and a little illusion. Crafting: mostly smithing, but some alchemy and a little enchanting. Basically a more focus reroll of my first character.

I still feel like I have lots of other playstyles to try out.

I usually only have two or three characters saved. As far as repeating builds I've done in the past goes, I try to alternate, maybe play a Mage then do a stealth based character then switch it up to a warrior. After that I'm ready to play a Mage again. That way to me the game never gets dull.

Four characters, four different builds. I have no idea if they are like previous builds though. It's odd to say but the characters somehow dictate their behaviour.

Before I cared abour RP and didn't have an AI mod installed to make melee combat challenging, all of my characters ended up as over-smithed, over-enchanted, sword-wielding battlemages of overpoweredness and stupidity. That was, what, the last 3 or 4 of them? It's not actually that many.

I've finally decided to care about building a character around RP, and my current character is an almost-pure mage, though he prefers light armor and avoids the school of Illusion.

The builds are usually different, but even if they are similar, each character has their "personality" so it makes it seem totally different.

For example, you like game of thrones right? Everyone is a sword weilding warrior but each has different personalities. Also, Star Wars, there are a lot of different jedi, there are different sith, they all use light sabers (with exception of Maul) and they are all different. Same with Skyrim. Its not so much the build, its the look of the character, their background, their goals, their skills, etc. is what makes each unique.

The combinations of specialities are never ending. The Battlemage is probably the best definition of this. Ask 100 people what a Battlemage is to them and you will get 100 different skill combinations.

You can't just look at it like Warrior, Mage, Assassin. ( I use the name Assassin because I don't consider a "thief" to be anything associated with a character's archetype. I absolutely loathe that name. ) Nonetheless, if one looks at specific skill sets, they can easily see a different lineup for every character they create, pending that given character's personality.

I have several different builds and some which are very similar to my earlier builds. But this game is not about builds for me - it's about characters. Each character is individual and has his own story, feelings, history, mentality etc. They are unique and interesting. I enjoy roleplaying - not playing through different builds.

I don't. Pure warrior is the only build I really enjoy so that's what my two main characters use. I also have a Rogue but it just lacks the "hero" feel Skyrim revolves around, and my mage I accidentally removed a few days ago.

The only time I've done a character strictly for the build was my all destruction mage (someone else's build) just to see if I could manage it.

My other characters have a backstory and a reason for crossing the border into Skyrim. My favorite was an Imperial female who came to Skyrim to join the Dark Brotherhood in order to take revenge on the family who threw her out, the Maro family.

I usually Don't start a Character with any build in mind. I just play and see how the character develops on their own.

This way I sometimes become severely under skilled at higher levels, which makes it all the more challenging.