As the description says, warriors seem to get the best of both worlds in skyrim. Being a Dovakhiin poses as a large advantage to a warrior, because of the fact that dragon shouts make them as deadly from afar as they are in close combat/distance. I can't help but think of a Dovakhiin Warrior as being a warrior with overpowered magic abilities (at least dragon shouts seem to be more powerful than 'regular' spells, the only difference is a battle mage casts spells from his/her hand(s) while a Dovakhiin Warrior casts from his mouth.) and not only that, but they get to have heavy armour, finishing moves, health regeneration, etc. Imagine this warrior :

*Heavy Armour
*LOADS of HP (Since when you level up, you get 10 points and those points can be spent on either Health, Magicka or Stamina and a warrior doesn't need much of anything rather than the Health, a warrior
might as well spend the 10 points in health!)
*Regenerating HP
*Finishing Moves
*Dragon Shouts (making warrior deadly from afar, without the need of having any additional/required magicka)
*Dual Wielding (making the warrior even deadlier from up close).

So now, no longer will a warrior need to come up close to a mage/ranger to inflict damage. Also means that it makes other classes a bit underpowered when compared to the warrior class (well, crusaders maybe not) because their close combat capabilites do not seem that much improved. Thoughts?

Doesnt matter to me since I want my experience to be as difficult as Demon Souls but I'll settle for Skyrim's very hard. I'm playing a Breton Sorcerer by the way.

Anyway, we dont know what perks and other abilities will come with the other general classtypes of mage and thief.

I don't think finishers give the warrior any extra power.
Mages also have dual-wield- what's more: a mage can also have a magical shield while dual wielding
Dragon Shouts all across the board; all classes get the shouts, so we can cancel the shouts out of a 'plus' for warriors

Pure Warriors life in Skyrim would be hard
Not as hard as Pure Rangers life, but still
Only Pure character that could more or less succeed is Pure mage
Battle mages, Rogues and other mixed classes are the overpowered ones here

Doesn't matter to me if warriors are OP. Not like I'm gonna be playing multiplayer ever.

Warriors will need to take some stamina at level ups too, or they will keep running out. Pure thieves can just take stamina, pure mages just magicka. A warrior will need to juggle stamina and health.

I see your point but i assume that shouts will have a down time so yes you mabye able to pull off a big three word shout but that could be it for a while and yes every other class could do this its like saying thieves will be over powered because they can hide and shout

No such thing as overpowered in a TES game.

Magic = Used any time
Dragon Shouts = cool down rates up to 5 minutes long.

100% chameleon. Not that it matters in a single player game though.

Bethesda seem to think it does matter. They slowed back pedalling, gave dw no block, and increased bow damage for a reason.


Any good game will attempt balance, most devs know this.

1) Dragon shouts have cooldowns, magic does not.
2) Morrowind and Oblivion mages are basically Demi-gods. Until proven otherwise, Skyrim mages will be assumed to be as such.
3) The choice to be a pure mage is a role-playing decision. It shouldn't be influenced by warriors been over-powered or not as long as magic is sufficient to get you though the game.

True, Dragon Shouts have cooldowns. That being said, no matter how you look at it, it's still a powerful addition to a warrior making him capable of being deadly to targets his/her sword/dagger/mace/hammer/dagger don't have reach on yet. Also point number 2 : I assume each dragon shout has a cooldown of it's own. If you use DRAGONSHOUT 1 you will have to wait 5 minutes to use it again, but you can use DRAGONSHOUT 2 immediately after you have used DRAGONSHOUT 1, so really the cooldown poses very little limitation as it looks.

That is why you balance things out by playing a battlemage!

You need dragon souls to use shouts don't you? I don't think anyone's really going to be chaining them them that fast.
The rest of your points are just the things that makes a warrior a warrior, non of which seem OP. The regenerating hp applies to everyone, is minimal and it's only out of combat from what i've read. The overpowered warrior you describe doesn't actually sound too far from my oblivion character :tongue:

So, mages still have dragon shouts as well which btw have cooldown timers so you cant use them continuously and between the cooldown they have there own powerful spells to keep you at a distance aswell as there staffs if there magika runs out. They have spells for shields and they can also place runes in front of you to keep you at bay. They can also turn themselves invisible with there spells to get away. They even have spells to make you run away in fear if you get too close too them. This is all while being a pure mage. Pure mage>Pure warrior.

Dual wielding weapons is all well and good, but I think it's a mistake to underestimate shields in this game. Have you had a look at some of the shield perks? They're more than blocking.

(Although that alleged +25% x 5 block effectiveness takes care of that, too.)

There is still a global cooldown. Pete Hines confirmed the cooldown times were disabled for the demo, so they could show more of them off.

They don't seem any more powerful than the other srchetypes IMO.

I'm continually disappointed that melee characters do not have a counterpart to spells in the form of activated combat maneuvers and stances/styles.

In anything, I think that Mages or Battlemages will be the kickasses this time.

mages always have the advantage. The warrior is an underdog character, that's what's attractive about being one. Mages have the natural advantage because magic is basically cheating, in a warrior's opinion. The Nord I'm going to play is going to avoid using any type of magic at all, maybe in extremely hard situations will he break out a dragon shout. I always like fighting on equal levels to my opponents, death over dishonour - unlike mages. You elven ponces!

All classes got finishing moves, and I think you didn't understand what they do, it's just an animation, you would kill the enemy anyway with or without that animation.
Also, dual wielding isn't that good, for me nothing can change sword + shield, or even a bow.

There are no overpowered classes, the way you play will make them overpowered.

I always found Oblivion easiest as a straight-up warrior - playing pure magic or pure stealth was always trickier, in part because the AI was so bizarre (cast one spell/fire on stealth arrow --> all nearby enemies know exactly where you are). At least as a warrior you could handle being charged down by 3 or 4 enemies because you had better defences.

I don't think Skyrim tips the balance much further in warriors' favour to be honest, but I still think it'll be easiest to play as a warrior, just because being able to take a few hits naturally makes staying alive less difficult.

I dont normally do.this, but since you're attacking my favorite class Ill bite.

1) Yes we have heavy armor. Heavy armor means warriors are my much slower = more enemy attacks will land.

2) Im sorry, but warriors need stamina more than anyone else. Archery? Requires stamina. Blocking? Stamina again. Swinging a weapon? Oh wait... More stamina. Stamina is also what determines carrying capacity this time around... And let me tell you those weapons, heavy armor, shields etc. aren't light by any stretch of the imagination.

3) Regenerating hp. Everyone gets this. Its so slow its useless during combat.

4) Finishing moves. Watch closely and you'll see that finishing moves are only performed on a strike that would kill the enemy anyways. Its just something cool to see instead of simple "fall to the ground like a rag doll" like we saw in oblivion.

5) Everyone gets dragon shouts.

6) Almost everyone i have talked to is less than impressed with dual weilding for warriors simply bc there is no blocking while dw. Furthermore, since with all that armor were not very mobile we cant dodge either, so its more of a.rogue thing. If anything the dw has helped nerf the warrior. Bc now for "balance issues" a player with sword n board can no longer power attack, the bread and butter of a real warrior. Block, counter with a power attack.