whats a build you had for a character that just didn't turn out to be viable, or didn't turn out the way you imagined?


Mine would have been when I made a character who was only going to use Telekinesis in battle by throwing nearby clutter at my foes... it did not work that well... cool concept i thought though...

My Dunmer Archery/Mage. I really didn't know where I was going with him.

My no combat thief didn't get very far. Maybe two hours and I was missing combat and deleted her.

anything involving destruction gets scrapped pretty quickly for me. doesn't matter what kind of build it is, if i ever try destruction magic as any kind of damage dealing it all goes downhill after level 20 or so, then i just stick to melee or switch to a bow.

it's hard to pick just one build, i try so many that individual ones just get lost in the noise.

my Dunmer assassin because I hate killing innocent people for money. I am currently playing a necromancer who plans on taking over Skyrim though.

Destruction is fine for me. I am level 134 and on Adept. I dual cast and I dont have the Impact perk. I kill draugr Murderboss deathkings in 5-8 incinerate casts.

I don't think I'd classify any "build", if it's really deserving of that title, as not being viable. Literally, ANY combination of skills is absolutely viable for any character. As long as you have a primary damage skill you can advance through the gameworld. Even if you develope the damage skill later than sooner.

?Using the OP's, as an example... Even if you tried using a certain spell like Telekinesis, that's just a single spell in the school of Alteration. One doesn't start out with a spell like that and had to have used something else prior to getting it. That still leaves the rest of the skills open for attention. I don't consider Skyrim's skills to be diverse enough to say that one can create a character that they couldn't easily lead them into another direction.

However, I have discarded several characters on occasion, not because their build wasn't "viable", but due to me growing bored of the character. Again, one just needs a primary skill of dealing damage. The rest is sheer personal choice and doesn't really matter, in a sense. EDIT : Let me reflect on that a little better...

They matter in terms of defence. I mean one has to be able to defend as well. This of course can come in several different allocations. Be that Heavy Armor, Light Armor, Block, Stealth, a massive health pool or from the simple act of avoidance ( running away ). That really comes down to playstyle. The main thing you need is a means of killing.

Hybrid characters that spread out from one Archetype too quickly. The only characters that I have had luck with are Bound Weapon Users. They tend to survive better between levels 10 and 25. Most of My really successful Hybrid characters started out as Warriors that began dabbling in Alteration and Destruction after level 20, or Pure Mages that began branching out after finding set loot during the Mages Guild Quesline.

EDIT I agree with focusing on a Main method of attack early, dividing attack methods early can make a character irritating to play.

yeah i'm aware some people managed to get it to work, though my characters tend to be more "hands on" in general. i kinda have a natural aversion to kiting.

This is essentially the gist of it. Those two sentences could easily replace my entire post. However, spreading too thin isn't something one couldn't recover from. But it could very well lead to discontent and desertion.

Basically same deal for me. And raising the difficulty makes it exponentially worse relative to your other options due to the already restrictive magicka cost. I never went for the 100% reduction in cost though. But even then, it seems like a boring play style. The damage is terrible unless you want to make potions/poisons for it, and I just CBA spending that much time doing so when no other damage dealing method really needs potions to deal reasonable damage.

Legendary dragonbone bow + a couple dremora lords to distract and tank and I don't have to use any resources but 0 weight arrows which I'm practically drowning in. I'd use a bound bow...but on legendary anything you can't improve via smithing is just pathetic damage. Sad since I really liked the bound bow.

My shield mage... God what was i thinking, it was terrible...

My very first character. He was a redgaurd that used heavy armor and two handed weapons. Thing is, he also used various thief skills along with different magic skills. Basically he was all over the place. I really didnt know what I was doing when I made him or where I wanted to go with him. He did all the different guild quests and was a jack of all trades.

It wasn't until my next character that I stayed with one build type and went with that.

Now I add the RP element to all my characters. Big difference from my very first one.

My first character also. I wanted to be a "pure" mage. Although she was making her way through the game, I hated that every cool weapon or piece of armor was just going on display and not being used. I gradually morphed her into a battlemage.

I tried to make a miner but got extremely bored of him after only a few hours so I deleted him.

I had an idea of a chef that would devour everyone with a fork and knife, he never left the drawing table, Im convinced he would fail