I'm planning my assassin/archer build and would like some feedback. I've written down my perk distribution below.


Still have some doubts :

- As an assassin, how to train light armor? I think I'll need a trainer
- Same issue with one-handed combat. You won't train it by backstabbing opponents
- Is one handed combat overkill? I've read that the sneak/backstab attack with BH gloves is already insta-kill on tough targets
- Is illusion with silence casting worth it? Which spells are must haves?

Any advice from experienced assassins would be welcome



sneak (min 9 - max 12 )
-----------------------
- Stealth (5) = You are 20% harder to detect when sneaking (+5% per additional rank)
- Muffled Movement(1) = Noise from armor is reduced by 50%
- Backstab(1) = Sneak attacks with one-handed weapons now do six times damage
- Deadly Aim(1) = Sneak attacks with bows now do three times damage
- Assassin's Blade(1) = Sneak attacks with daggers now do a total of fifteen times normal damage

optional:
- Silent Roll(1) = Sprinting while sneaking executes a silent forward roll
^
- Silence(1) = Walking and running does not affect detection
^
Shadow Warrior(1) = Crouching stops combat for a moment and forces distant opponents to search for a target


Light armor (min 7 - max 9)
-----------------------

- Agile Defender(5) = Increase armor rating for Light Armor by 20% (+20% per additional rank))
- custom fit(1) = 25% armor bonus if wearing all Light Armor: head, chest, hands, feet
- matching set(1) = Additional 25% Armor bonus if wearing a matched set of Light Armor.

optional:
- wind walker(1) = Stamina regenerates 50% faster in all Light Armor: head, chest, hands, feet
^
- deft movement(1) = 10% chance of avoiding all damage from a melee attack while wearing all Light Armor: head, chest, hands, feet


Archery (min 9 - max 12)
-----------------------

- Overdraw (5) = Bows do 20% more damage.(+20% per additional rank)
- Eagle Eye(1) = Pressing Block while aiming will zoom in your view
- Critical Shot (3) = 10% chance of a critical hit that does extra damage (+5% chance and +25% critical damage per additional rank)

optional:
- Steady Hand (2) = Zooming in with a bow slows time by 25% (50% for second rank)
- Power Shot(1) = Arrows stagger all but the largest opponents 50% of the time

On-handed combat (min 9)
-----------------------

- Armsman (5) = One-Handed weapons do 20% more damage (+20% per additional rank)
- Fighting Stance(1) = Power attacks with one-handed weapons cost 25% less stamina
- Bladesman (1) = Attacks with swords have a 10% chance of doing critical damage (+5% per additional rank)
- Dual Flurry (1) = Dual wielding attacks are 20% faster (35% for second rank)
- Dual Savagery(1) = Dual wielding power attacks do 50% bonus damage


Illusion (4) => to get the silent casting,invisiblity
-----------------------

- Novice Illusion (1) = Cast Novice level Illusion spells for half magicka
- Animage(1) = Illusion spells now work on higher level animals
- Kindred Mage(1) = All Illusion spells work on higher level people
- Quiet Casting(1) = All spells you cast from any school of magic are silent to others


Alchemy (7)
-----------------------

- Alchemist (5) = Potions and poisons are 20% stronger (+20% per additional rank)
- Poisoner(1) = Poisons you mix are 25% more effective
- Concentrated Poison(1) = Poisons applied to weapons last for twice as many hits


total points used = 45-50

I hope you get some good feedback on this because I am considering the same thing.

My first character was the assassin type (currently level 28 with no trade-skill or money train powerleveling).


I basically perked into sneaking as fast as I could (shadow warrior is awesome by the way) and off-perked into 1hand taking the base damage increase skill as well as the dual wield perks and sword mastery (sword mastery crit chance works for daggers as well).

An important thing to remember is that archery is very good early on for an assassin to get off your sneak attacks and it's quite good for chipping away large groups because with a decent stealth skill they won't even see you when you shoot them in the head (they'll just be confused and alert for about 30 seconds) but it has become almost totally useless to me ever since I became a stealth god. It doesn't do enough damage and at this point I can basically walk 2 steps in front of someone without them seeing me so I never have trouble getting off my 30x backstab. That being said, you may want to hold out on perking into archery too heavily.

With the points invested into the base damage and dual wielding perks with sword mastery, if I'm required to fight toe to toe with something (eg. story events/dragons/etc) doing the dual wield power attack turns me into a lawnmower of death for as long as my stamina holds out.

I don't use any perks for lockpicking because to be honest picking locks seems pretty easy to me in skyrim so I really don't feel the usefulness of the perks.

Here are my tips for getting some essential gear/abilties (contains spoilers):
****SPOILERS*****

1. There is a quest to kill the wicked woman who owns the orphanage in Riften. Speaking with the appropriate person to start the quest to kill her, will spark a chain of events after she is dead that will have you tagged and bagged by the brotherhood with an invitation to join. At this point you can either refuse to commit the task they've given you by killing the lone assassin or you can join the brotherhood. If you kill her you get one of the best daggers in the game as well as the amazing shrouded armor of the Dark Brotherhood. At this point you'll be able to do 30x damage out of stealth and you'll have a quest followup to wipe out the brotherhood and collect some more assassin loot. If you choose to join the brotherhood you'll get this gear through the quest chains. The assassin is the leader of the brotherhood and she puts up a strong fight but if you play it right it's not too hard (I think I was around level 12 when I ran into this quest) and you're going to end up with some of the best gear out there for this style of character.

2. The thieves guild in Riften has a long main quest chain that results in you acquiring the incredible Nightingale Armor set. This armor looks incredible and has some amazing mods. You'll also get a really nice offhand sword out of this quest chain and a decent bow. But the most important thing you'll get out of this is the ability to become an Agent of Nightingale. This will give you 3 choices on 1 day powers (you can change which of 3 agent specialties at any time but you can only have 1 active). I took the Agent of Shadow specialty and never looked back. This basically make you a ninja god. What this power does is on a 1 day timer you're able to buff yourself for 120 seconds so that any time you sneak (in combat our out) you immediately vanish into invisibility. AKA: approaching a group of enemies? NP just pop this baby backstab the first for a 30x instakill vanish into thin air repeat. This is also great for when you're spotted and swarmed by anything you don't want to kill as well as confusing the hell out of bosses and dragons and allowing you to get off those 15/30x backstabs that the build revolves around. Welcome to godmode ninja status friends . I would suggest tackling this quest line when you have a very good stealth skill because a lot of these quests task you will sneaking in and around enemies without killing them (I was around 75 stealth at this point with improved stealth perks).

*note the additional Agent powers allow to
a. force enemies to attack each other
b. throw out a dark tendril that damage a single enemy and siphons its power.

Basically at the point I'm at I have all the tools to react to any situation.
1. Tasked with clearing out a city or a keep? No worries just sneaking alone allowed me to wipe out the entire place literally without ever being seen.
2. Need to take on a group of badguys? No worries just backstab>vanish>backstab>etc, they'll never know what happened.
3. Need to face up to that dragon or boss? No worries just utilize shadow warrior, Agent of Shadow to get off your sneak attacks, and toss out your devastating dual wield attacks with some poison thrown in, they never had a chance.

I didn't really touch into pickpocket perks because honestly my character isn't going around robbing the world blind or killing off innocent people. He just takes a silent and deadly approach at saving the world.

My final suggestion would be to pick up the detect life spell (it shows enemies through walls when used). It comes in useful.

Sorry for the wall of text but you asked for it . These are just my experiences and I REALLY love the character and the playstyle.

ARCHERY
-You may consider ranger and quick shot on archery if you have some extra perks. Makes a big difference in sticky situations.
-I don't personally use steady hand. Most targets go stationary if they don't detect you.
-The staggering perk is good, as it slows enemies down and keeps them in one place. Combined with quick shot its pretty easy to control the movement of an enemy just by shooting them.

O HANDED-
-Crits with a dagger OHK almost anything with the right perks. I would only invest heavily into this skill if you enjoy the combat, as its not really necessary to be effective in sneak. You picked the same perks I did, so good job

SNEAK
-You don't really need muffled perk.. There are spells and armor pieces that cover that.
-The perks you listed as optional should remain as such. They are cool, but sneak is so powerful you don't "need" them.

LIGHT ARMOR
-I don't really care about my armor skill, so if you want to put more perks in something else, light armor can be sacrificed for a stealth character as long as you maintain your stealth most of the time.

ALCHEMY
-Sounds like you are on the right track with this, though I haven't really done a whole lot with it.

ILLUSION
-This really depends on how you use it. I rely more on using it to control battle when I am compromised with calm or frenzy. So silent casting would be redundant for me. Also, if your sneak skill is high enough, you won't really be detected anyway from casting a spell. It might alert someone, but they probably won't find you.



Hope this helps, PM me if you want to discuss anything further or see my build. We can share our findings.

Thank you for the detailled description of your experiences as an assassin build !
I think my character plan is solid and I'l probably end up the same way you did. Your style is
exactly what I'm aiming for. I'm a bit surprised that you don't need any archery anymore ...
That's good news because I don't want to be an archer. I just tought it was an important second
survival skill for an assassin.

I might do a little experiment and invest more than planned into
illusion or pickpocketing. I'd really like to see that skill where you put poison into someone's pocket.

I've just read on the wiki that the bladesman skill does not work with daggers.

"Note: While not specifically mentioned in-game, the Bladesman skill does modify critical chance for daggers."

=> http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Dagger#Dagger

Did you invest in that perk?

I'm also curious in which attributes you invested? I'm pumping 80% into health and
20% into stamina. Maby it sould be the other way around?

^Ah I meant with the sneak bonus, sorry. I was a little bit vague. You may be correct.


I

No problem, like I said archery is pretty good with low sneaking levels but sneaking in 20x better in this game so it's very easy to get multiple backstabs off, especially with the vanishing abilities at your disposal.

Also the Brotherhood quests are pretty fun but if it's just the gear you're after you don't really NEED to join them to get the best gear. I don't want to spoil too much of it for you but in the ultimatum situation you'll get the best gear the brotherhood can offer you by taking it from her cold dead hands. The only exception is the steed Shadowmere you get from the brotherhood quests. However Shadowmere isn't nearly as good as she was in Oblivion (she's the same speed as all the other horses but she can kick some serious ass in a fight).

I chose to invest in the perk because it adds a lot of value to your out of stealth combat potential. It's been tested and reported by multiple people that it works for daggers. I use a sword as my offhand so I haven't done any specific dagger testing on my own.

As far as Health/Stamina goes I go about 60%health 40%stamina to keep my out of stealth combat damage up. The dual wield power attack is a MASSIVE stamina hog but it is very strong.

Your's is the basic build I'm playing right now. Some changes I'd suggest: drop Bladesmen. It's only for swords and dual daggers and bows are the only way to go. If you go about 60/40 stamina/health you will be a killing machine. Get all Archery, Stealth and Light Armor perks you have marked as optional. They are a must. The stamina gain from Wind Walker is great if you're forced to fight toe to toe. Staggering with your bow is fantastic as well. The forward silent roll in Stealth is actually great too. I use it in combat to get distance at times. Alchemy is a take or leave it for me personally. I use a little enchantment on weapons instead. I also use no magic aside from Healing now and again.

Gear you want: Do both the Dark Brotherhood Quest (you don't have to join if you don't want) and the Thieves Guild as early as possible. I don't want to get spoilerish but the gear is worth it.

Stealth archer is a viable build but it's in no way "the only way to go" in Skyrim. They completely reworked the stealth values and you can easily walk up to someone to Backstab them (in amazing cinematic stealth kill fasion). And there's no way you can overlook at 30x damage backstab that is super easy to get off and say it's not viable. By level 13 I was 1 shotting giants.

You definitely want to get silent roll. It is extremely useful.

I think I'm just gonna do the Dark Brotherhood quests, instead of killing that lady.The quests are fun and I still get the gear
I'm now level 10, so I'm not sure if I'm already strong enough for that quest. So maby first the thieves guild and then Dark Brother quest.

It looks like there are 2 roads for an assassin. You can go pure assassin without archery OR a mixed assassin/archer build.

Both builds are viable, but my first intention was to build a pure über assassin. The reason why I added archery to my list, was because
unsure if I could handle every situation with daggers.

Ultratron has pointed out that archery isn't required. I'm glad to hear this

I'll probably invest extra points into the optional perks of my sneak skill and less points into the light armor and archery skills.

Keep a bow with you because you have to get the stealth bow damage perk to get to backstab and it will come in useful for taking out weaker enemies especially early on. Even without archery perks I use a bow from time to time. You can always use it early on to disperse groups of enemies as well. There were a lot of situations that I would find a group of 2-4 enemies together and I would use my bow to either distract or alert them and force them to move around and look for what's going on, then when they're split up take them 1 by 1 and slip back into the shadows(this is actually an extremely useful technique especially early on when you don't have access to the ninja vanish abilities). I basically played the entire first 20 levels of my Skyrim life like I was playing Splinter Cell .

Make sure you beef up your stealth or bring some invis pots if you're doing the thief guild quest line first, there are some sticky situations where you need to get past without killing everyone and good luck, I love the pure assassin it's a blast to play.

just want to say thank you to everyone in this thread. just the type of info and experience I've been looking for. the whole one hand/archery debate sounds similar to my experience in oblivion, where archery rocks early on, but after your stealth gets really awesome it's all about one hand and the ensuing DMG multipliers.

so I'm putting a few points into archery to help me early on, then as far as DMG dealing goes focus on one hand. I am already deep into the stealth tree, it will be the only tree I go full spec on.

Exactly, I still use my bow now because my stealth and dagger damage isn't high enough yet. So it's very useful, but I'm just not going to spend precious perk points into archery.

I didn't say go full stealth archer. I told him to drop Bladesmen and stick with daggers AND a bow. Bladesmen is a wasted perk in this build.

Perks in Archery are well spent for a stealth build.

I can tell you that even without the dark brotherhood's gloves, I can still 1-shot enemies. My one-handed skill is not even 40.

As for your light armor and weapon skills, if your plan is to be a dagger sneak specialist, why do you need light armor? If you want to kill people in 1 hit, you will never get hit. So no point having high light armor skill. Just let it increase at its pace. But if you are paranoid, you can always buy training.

My sneak is 90+ from all the sneaking around, and I have taken all the perks in the sneak tree. What happens is in a dungeon where there are no light sources, I can even sneak up to directly in front of an enemy, just millimeters away from his face, and he won't even know I'm there.

Poisons from alchemy do not get multiplied with the x15 sneak attack multiplier. Enchants do not get multiplied too.

But, blacksmithing sharpenings will get multiplied, because the base damage of the dagger (the number you see in your inventory screen) is the one that gets multiplied, and blacksmithing sharpenings increase that base damage.

But there are some useful poisons, such as paralyze. Can be handy for opponents that take more than 1 sneak attack to die.

Is there scope to be a dagger + bow wielding thief/assassin and still be able to have smithing and enchanting?

Seems to me you will struggle to fill out your combat perks and will have to abandon completely thief 'flavour' perks such as pickpocket, lockpicking, speech?

In my experience you don't need any pickpocket/lockpick/speech perks, I've never had any issues doing any of these tasks with zero perks and I'm up to level level 30 (with zero tradeskill or money train powerleveling) now.

I don't think it would be much of an issue to pick up smithing/enchanting at high levels because at level 30 I'm pretty much sitting on extra perks because I've obtained everything I need for combat. But I also didn't bother to use any points for archery as to me it became quite useless with high sneak levels. I was able to completely max out the sneak tree while taking all the essential dual wield talents and and some light armor perks.

At this point I'm trying to decide if I want to start dumping points into light armor or blacksmithing but I haven't decided yet. Light armor is not really that essential in a stealth build and I 1 shot everything anyways so I'm not sure how much the sharpening's would pay off at this point. I was actually debating on taking some Conjuration so if anything get's really harry I can just throw up a summon, Shadow warrior out so they all start attacking the summon, and get back to more backstabbing. I don't use companions so at the very least a perked astronach will be like a throwaway companion I can get rid of after a big fight without much fuss.

Sounds cool ... must be very fun if your combat is optimized and you can do some experiments

Am in a similar boat, just turned L25, Sneak is nearly 90 and one hand / archery around 55 - 60, I've been slowly training up Alchemy but am about to spend the weekend nerding out over all things alchemy. Until now I've been thinking of complimenting it with Enchanting but have found Enchanting to be kinda poo, the enchants are nice but having a hard time filling up soul batteries to recharge them!

I am now torn between illusion and blacksmithing for my final skill to raise, blacksmithing will work nicely with just the huge amount of damage and armor I can unlock, but illusion might make my combat more fun and tactical. Hm.

Personally I'm dropping alchemy because poison is redundant when you can hit for 1500-3000 at a time with certain perks while dual wielding daggers. I'm also dropping light armour because it's redundant when you can't be seen or heard. Finally I'm not bothering with archery because why shoot someone from a distance when you can walk up to their face and take their head off in one hit?

I'm going for:

- One handed perks related to one handed damage, power attacks and duel wielding.

- Illusion perks that deal with fear, calm and frenzy.

- Sneak perks basically up to the max.

- Alteration perks that deal with detecting life and paralysis.

My way is to sneak in, use spells to cause chaos and then run around chopping heads off all over the place. I am basically the god of death I take very few hits as I can't be seen nor heard and my one hit damage is incredible with duel wielding daggers. My character does not use any form of potions or restoration magic as it's just not needed when everything is dead in 5 seconds

I made the mistake of starting with archery, though to me it made sense as a Bosmer, so I've put more perk points in to that then I wish I had now.

However, as a level 45~ Assassin/Thief a few of my skills:


Now I consider maxing sneak the only real must, along with the talents I've taken in One Handed. I haven't spent any points into the Light Armour perk, simply because a) I've not built as well as I should due to spending too much in Archery, and B) my main aim on this char is essentially not to need armour.

Lockpicking and the few Pickpocket perks has netted me a fortune, ok its not really needed because you can generate enough gold without stealing, but there are several traps you can bypass, and shortcuts that enable you to get your character behind a group of enemies that make the lockpicking worthwhile for me; especially in the multitude of Dwemer ruins you can explore.

I have taken two perks in Smithing which are a no brainer to me. I won't spend more, even though I'd like the option of crafting Glass/Daedric armour, but the ability to upgrade magical items is a neccessity as far as I'm concerned.

I would at some point like to take the Alchemy talents for boosting poison damage, but that might not be doable.