I would like to know your opinion, as some shouts seem useless to me, like the fire breath or frost breath, Im level 42 playin in Legendary, and those attacks barely damages the enemy, a normal sword swing makes the Thu'um feel like it has no combat purpose but only a magic trick for amusemant. Before Legendary, I always used to play on Master, and it felt the same. Maybe it needed its unique perk tree? What do you think?

The Thu'um should be treated as something that compliments your build, rather than your main damage dealer.

My character who did the main quest never used a Shout unless it was required. I think Shouts are possibly the most ridiculous combat game mechanic I've ever seen. Every time I see a Youtube video of a character shouting I can't help imagining that they're belching and knocking people back with their bad breath. Shouts, to me, are the opposite of epic: they are unintentionally funny.

If you find it useless, you're using it wrong.

Shouts like Fire breath are pretty useless to me. if i wanted to use anything that relates to fire or ice i would use spells, a lot more effective. however there is some shouts that i love. unrelenting force for example. i use it in every combat situation.

I find some shouts to be useless since a lot don't compliment my character but overall for me its the most useful thing since I can make myself and my followers attack far faster which definitely compliments my build

I understand that, but I can only really get advantage of it when the enemy has fallen on its knee abou to die... I guess I just expected it to be more powerfull beign an ancient magic that only some can do, specially the Dragonborn, as it only feels strong playing in adept but is rather easy...

I like to use only the first word of Whirlwind Sprint to be able to have a short cooldown between blinking back and forth to multiple enemies.

Are you kidding? There is a lot more to shouts, than breathing fire and frost.

Whirlwind Sprint

Elemental Furry

Become Eternal

Marked for Death

Aura Whisper

Granted most of my characters are not the Dragonborn, but the ones that are use the good ones a lot.

That's your own immaturity though, thankfully not everyone sees it that way.

This, this, a million times this.

The game was balanced around Adept. It does decent damage on Master.

Well it depends on your build. As a mage I find most shouts pretty useless. However shouts like kynes peace, drain vitality, dismay, and a few others are always useless IMO.

Well seeing as you can make people go flying across rooms or turn them into ash while trying to make them fly across a room, freeze them solid or yell so loud that their souls get torn out of their bodies and they become undead min,ions. It seems rather powerful

Unrelenting Force, Cyclone, Soul Tear, Whirlwind Sprint, Become Etherial, Storm Call, Summon Odahviing, Summon Durnehviir, Dragon Aspect, and Bend Will are not useless in the slightest.

I was wondering, does soul tear have a level cap?

It is the same mechanic as the Ritual Stone, that would be level 75.

Many shouts aren't particularly powerful, but they can be helpful.

IMO, Marked for Death and Slow Time are good. Ice Form and Unrelenting Force can be really handy for stopping a charge, breaking up groups of enemies, or giving yourself time to improve your position. Several of the others are handy, but aren't great. It just depends on your character.

Many of my character don't ever use shouts, but my dragonborn types do, and definitely get use out of them.

EDIT: Yeah, Cyclone and Dragon Aspect are definitely worthwhile, too.

Shouts are not as useful as you may think. They're, at most, fun gimmicks, but nothing more than that. Oh, they could be useful, sometimes, but not to the degree that it affects how you do combat.

At most, it's one shout per engagement. One shout per 3 engagements if you happen to like summoning dead heroes or play Unlimited Blade Works, unless you really really have a tough time with that one boss and your engagement lasts for half an hour or more, at which point maybe you need to get better gear instead of trying to use Shout.

I use a mod to remove the cooldown entirely. I still forget Shouts actually exist, mainly due to their gimmicky nature and incredibly low reliable damage.

Really i've found shouts to be quite useful in combat depending on what play-style you use. Like using ice form to keep bandits from smacking your mage around, or elemetal fury on a dual welding character to get more DPS. So IMO its really by what your play-style is on which shouts are useful to you.

Playing a Stealth based Archer I found almost all the shouts to be less than worthwhile, with Whirlwind Sprint being the only one I used frequently. Two friends of mine, one a Heavy Armor 2H user and one a pure Caster, use a variety of shouts all the time. It just goes down to playstyle and preference.

While I'm sure you're not the only one, I am sure you're in the minority. Not every thu'um is useful, but most of them are.

I wouldn't call them useless but I never used them much. I really dislike things with cooldowns so I would always be saving my shout for that "Oh crap! " moment that usually never came.

That said, I then tried out the +restoration potion to get 100% cooldown reduction for shouts. They become fun then and I actually feel like I'm playing the Dovahkiin, not some random girl who can shout once in a while for lols.

I definately think there should have been a perk tree for it, whether via normal leveling perks or something like the Werewolf/Vamp Lord ones where you have to kill people with shouts or something. Perks to reduce cooldowns, increase power, duration and so on.

and how in heavens name can I do that? That sounds pretty fun and powerfull. Would that work in Legendary?

I really wish they had a perk tree.

Kyne's Peace is my default shout. It makes it so you don't have to stop your adventures to fight a dumb bear or frostbite spider.