I'm planning on making a combat archer (breton) wielding a 2 handed sword in heavy armor.

I'm not going for a sneak archer, but rather a warrior that starts the fight with the bow and cleans up up close with a big two handed weapon.

I'm probably gone smith / enchant my own gear, any idea's on what build I could follow without spreading my points over to many perks.

Maybe going with a crossbow and maybe using the dawn guard armor.

This build is the bane of my existence. Are you going light or heavy? I try heavy, but, the mobility issues annoy me. In light armor, I seem to take a lot of damage. Especially from mages.


Smithing is definitely a viable choice for any build. As for enchanting, I haven't delved to much into it. Though, I'm starting to and liking what I've seen. Do you want to use restoration? That's always a good choice, too. To start, stick with weapon damage, and damage mitigation. Enchanting and Smithing will sort itself out until later in the game.


Maybe Alchemy for fortify weapons and healing? I haven't played with that to much, either. Good luck.

Heavy armor indeed. Still at the begining of the game on my way to high hrotghar, I came across Fort Amol FILLED with mages. I got my ass kicked, hard

So I'm using restoration as well since it always comes in handy. Somehow never really enchanted my gear much before but I feel like I should delve into it.

Never really used alchemy exept to make money, but I could craft a poison ranger / warrior and to enhance my other skills like you mentioned

Yeah, I've got a love/hate relationship with my Battle Archer. I want to love him. I really do. He just makes it so damn hard. Which svcks because heavy armor looks so much cooler than light armor.


Buy fast healing from Farengar. (if you haven't already). Getting the apprentice restoration perk along with respite will cut your fast healing in half and restore your stamina, as well.


Practice kiting. Keeping your distance while shooting. It gets easier with Zephyr and the archer perk that allows you to draw 30% faster.


Poisons can really help. Especially paralyze poisons. I've tried it a little. Didn't have the patience for if, though.

Without mods the best heavy armor to do what you want is Wolf Armor from the Companions. I actually just started what I thought was going to be a tank character that I made look like Lydia and named her Lydia (when I was drunk yesterday). I have morphed her into a Ranger, but I decided to go dual wield Skyforge Steel Sword/Steel Dagger, just taking Steel Perk and Arcane Smithing on that tree and using that kit for the whole game (with the Torturer's Hood on head for that Ranger look). It will def require enchanting at one point. I am on Xb1 so only two hot keys. If you equip bow and sword or sword/dagger than set bow on one hot key all you have to do is hit that same hot key to switch back and forth. My other key is for healing potions.

It is hard to set up perks. I just took the first Sneak which works well enough to get off sneak shots, but she is still low level. I probably won't perk her Sneak a whole lot until way later. I can't decide on whether to go for more perks on archery tree like eagle eye>power shot or go for backstab>deadly aim for bow x3 sneak shots. The Wolf Armor is light enough that you can move almost as fast as light and sneak pretty well for bow shots, not good enough right now to get in for backstab.

To get the Wolf Armor you just have to do Dustman's then buy some if you don't want to be a werewolf, Lydia refused it and left those crazy assed people....

edit: One more thing to consider is not to use perks on armor until well after you have smithed up to a decent level and have a high enough skill to put several perks in at once. I save them up for that. If you put perks on a low dam resist set the net gain is not even noticeable. Just make sure you wear a helmet and not a hood or hat so you can get the full hidden armor bonus.