Taking the Plunge...

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WTF? I go to play last night, level up, and my archery skill is at 15? (As opposed to 40.) It's also red meaning there's some status affect on it. What kind of status affect would reduce my archery by 25? Anyway, I go through all the active affects, check everything out regarding my equipment. Nothing that says it should be reduced.

So out of frustration, I decided to ask that question, but meanwhile, try out a somewhat different character. An orcish melee fighter modeled after what I listed above. Good god! They definitely intend for you to play a melee type with your first character. It's ridiculously easy. Orcs start with a robust 25 in blacksmithing, so upon arriving in the first town, the blacksmith lets you take all the iron and steel ingots he's got lying around if you do his few blacksmithing requests. So prior to setting off for the first dungeon (well, I did stop at the mine on the way over - so the second dungeon with the gold claw), I had steel everything equipped.

The difference between leather everything and steel everything is immense early on - you can tank everything. The only thing that even hurt me to the point where I had half health was the big ass spider that's getting ready to eat that guy who stole the claw in the first place. I did some searching, and it turns out my build plan actually DOES follow one of the typical Warrior Archetypes. Wish I did some searching before I built my first character, who didn't really fit any of the typical Thief Archetypes, although closest to the assassin.

So I don't know if I'll go back to my initial character, even if I can figure out what went so horribly wrong with his archery skill. The "Keep it Simple, Stupid" Strategy seems to be working pretty well for me at this point. I also have to admit that I like having a companion. Faendal is handy to have around.

 

I wouldn't mind too much about trainers, you will run out of levels long before you run out of game. I train a bit now and then, light armour as a stealth character is as you wrote a pretty good thing to train as it is rather dangerous to practice I also did pickpocket since I really hate getting caught. Otherwise it is easy enough to level things on your own. If you find that your stealth is levelling faster than your combat skills I would recommend switching stones now and then or go find the Lover's stone (the drawback of that one is that you can't get the rested bonus while under its influence).

Pure warrior characters are very efficient and very powerful. My second character was that and he sure was optimized and the path to perfection was kinda fun but the game ends when you get there. I have had much more fun with my less than optimized mage and thief characters.

No idea what you are suffering from, could be some disease I think there might be one that lowers your archery.

 

I must say, I find that POV rather perplexing. And yet, with you having dozens of hours of play time under your belt, and me having only a few, I tend to believe your statements have accuracy. Perhaps I just don't understand the game mechanics as well as you do. Maybe I need some education here, and I'm approaching it the wrong way.

Everything in the game seems to be skill based. You don't actually gain experience by killing stuff or solving quests, as is the case with just about every RPG I have played from the beginning of time. You gain experience and levels by increasing individual skills. Yes, that can be accomplished by just using the skills, but training seems to be a valuable and limited resource.

I look at it this way - when you gain a skill increase in something that you never intend to use - say you're a fighter and you find a book that gives you are free increase in destruction magic. Even though you never intend to use the destruction tree, it's still a benefit, as that counts towards reaching the next character level. In fact, the cap of character level 81 is attained by maxing out everything on every tree.

Therefore, having the opportunity to train is a means of acquiring five skill increases at each level. It's not like you can go back and get them later - once the next level is reached, the ability to increase those skills through training is lost forever - not that you can't train in future levels, but you'll never be able to get the 5 more you could have had back. If you skip training for a level, you'll be five lower in some mixture of skills than had you trained, even if you aren't planning your build around that particular skill.

Since the only limiting factor beyond moving to the next level is money, and that money becomes no object at a certain point, it seems prudent to spend the cash to increase your skills prior to moving on to the next level if possible.

 

In all honesty I only used training at first to raise my pickpocket skill on my rogue so that I had a chance to actually use it successfully. Every so often if I have spare cash and nothing I want in my house I will spend some cash raising magic skills and warrior skills I have no intention of ever using.

My partners' character doesn't need training at all pretty much. He's a mage/warrior who wears one piece of light armour (one of the Dragon Priest Masks) so his light armour is raised in combat as well as heavy armour. He hadn't used two handed weapons in the game ever but there is a conjuration (i believe) spell that gives you an ethereal two handed axe. Within five minutes in one dungeon he'd raised it several points attacking Falmer and enjoying trying something a bit different. Only thing he'd really need to train is pickpocket as he's playing an honourable character (how dull )

Then again my pickpocketing did actually break a quest at one point (Blood On The Ice)

Training isn't *necessary* as reaching the level cap isn't *necessary* and may in fact be to your detriment.

You may reach 100 in heavy armour, your weapon of choice and a magic of your choice. Brilliant! However if you then raise the skills you don't use to 100 all the enemies have now scaled to your new level despite you still having the same armour, weapon and magic capacity that you use regularly.

The level cap is more there as there is simply a limit on all skills, it's not imposed for game balance, it's just how the system works. The only real benefit to attaining it for the player is if you desperately want all those perks and need their benefits to enjoy the game.

Training is helpful getting a foot up, it's not a must have every level, I'd argue that training a skill instead of simply using it to attain the same ability removes a portion of the game or isn't beenficial for developing an understanding of the workings of that skill - which is all well and good if you do not enjoy that portion or have played the game numerous times with other characters.

Skyrim is more a game of exploration and natural development than the classical RPG of attaining predefined levels and numerical prerequisites. It requires a slight shift in mindset of your expectations.

 

Anything that doesn't involve doing or receiving damage yourself can "easily" be trained to 100 skill, often without even leaving city. Find any buff spell, cast it anywhere between a few hundred to a few thousand times and you're at 100 for that sort of magic.

Pickpocket levels stupendously fast, as in "you don't even need to leave Riverwood to max it" fast and tradeskills can be powerleveled fast if money is not an obstacle, just takes some fast traveling and/or waiting at vendors.

Stuff like Sneak, Speech, Armor and Weapon skills take considerable time to max, but as long as you keep at it, you'll get there in due time. Most of them can be cheesed if you want to exploit game mechanics, such as attacking something that doesn't fight back.

So, a rough order of priority for training if you wish to reach extremely high levels with minimum IRL effort:
1) Anything you plan to NOT use yourself for whatever reason, ever.
2) Anything you use/need occasionally but which is a slow leveler. Say, a melee dude's Archery skill for tickling Dragons off the sky, stealth dude's Armor skill or anyone actively training more than one primary damage skill at once.
3) Any skill in the upper range, ie. 75+.
4) Anything else.

Edit: That is, IF you want to get to a high level. There's hardly ever a reason to, unless you want to artificially lengthen the "i'm still on my way to the level where I deem I'm finished with the character build and therefore lose interest in this character" period of the game.

 

Aldeth you know there's an NPC that can take you to all the major holds for a small fee? Found at the stables.

All things considered your characters were making good progress. Some of the stuff has been covered in other threads, though I concede it wouldn't be wise to visit those until you decide to go all out on character building.

Gold is such a powerful resource in Skyrim a "merchant" class would be just as OP as anything else, played correctly. My level 12 speech/alchemy/illusionist character was on his merry way picking reagents one day when two giants decided it would be nice to pick on him. A few scroll uses later I had two free Giant's Toes. By the time I decided to actually hit something myself, all my relevant combat skills were level 60+ (from trainers).

 

I guess my point is that you shouldn't obsess too much over your skills and character, at least not in your first game. Let the things that happen happen and if need be adjust the difficulty slider. Trainers have a place but I just train when I happen to be close to one. So much to do in the game that planning training sessions isn't worth it.

 

OK, I'm confused then. I would think that if you use a given skill often, then having that skill higher would be better. Assuming all things being equal, having, for example, heavy armor at 90 as opposed to 45, would give you superior protection in melee combat, if you're a heavy fighter. Similarly, you'll do more damage with a bow if your archery skill is higher, and so on.

Didn't notice initially, but I did with my first character, and now I constantly use those guys to fast-travel to places I haven't yet visited.

Truth be told, this game is going to absorb a huge amount of my time. I'm the "do everything" type of person. Once I start a side quest, I'll see it through. Sometimes, it's quick, like go here and get this and bring it back to me. Other times, it takes some doing - like when I did the Companions quest line this weekend. I just finished the line last night, and now I'm their leader. I'm obviously going to pick a Companion as a follower - and yeah, I'll use them all for training, seeing as how the five main members and the blacksmith do everything I need to get this character going at full steam.

Side note: I'm probably going to eventually get rid of the werewolf enchantment. It doesn't really do much for my character. I'm already a heavy melee warrior, and add to that I have a free berserk skill, that is ever so much more useful than transforming into a werewolf anyway. (Although with my stealth character it would have been nice for when I had to enter melee.) While I don't make an active point of resting just for the skill bonus, I DO make a point of using it whenever I want to do some blacksmithing. All of my skills are in the warrior tree, and I have the warrior stone, so it's not like I'm getting nothing.

Some other discoveries, observations: Holy overpowered batman, as soon as you start leveling block, you essentially become indestructible (provided you have your back to the wall, and you don't have to fight more than two guys at a time). In hindsight, the failure of my stealth character to use a light shield was a major failing on my part. Once you get the perk that slows time down during power attacks, you basically have a choice to easily block it, or side step it because you have so much time, especially if you follow the side step up with a power bash.

Dragons STILL kick my arse all over the place. Other than the "free" one you get in Whiterun, I've killed exactly one of them, and it took me about 15 minutes of continual combat to do it - and even that was only because I had a lot of cover to hide behind during the breath attack, and to heal repeatedly. I don't know how you guys kill them so easily. I'd think even a mage would have difficulty - sure you have fireballs, but you still have the issue of hitting a moving target and getting roasted.

It's not so bad once you get them to land, but that's the trick, isn't it? I'm not half bad with a bow - archery skill around 55 - so I should be able to do some damage with it. Granted, I haven't perked up much on the archery side - the only skills I have are the first one in overdraw, and then the ability to zoom in when I draw the bow. I cannot see me investing too much into archery just to fight dragons when the bow isn't my primary damage dealer.

Found an amulet of Mara and equipped it, yet no one offers to marry me (but hey, I'm an orcish werewolf - I can see how that might be a turnoff). I only have two amulets, with the other one giving me a 10% discount at merchants, so it's not like I'm losing much by wearing it all the time - I just switch before shopping.

 

Note that once you get rid of the werewolf condition you won't be able to re-afflict yourself with it. That just leaves the other major affliction in the game. Of course, you can choose to ignore both.
Block is indeed amazing.

The dragons just need some getting used to - yep, you'll be fighting quite a lot. Sooner or later you might even get to the point where you'll be able to predict when one will show up.
Fire/Cold Resistance Potions/gear are really helpful against them. As for melee... I think that's all tactics and better gear. Yep the trick is unleash hell on them while they're on the ground, unless you're a Half-life:Counterstrike veteran or an Xbox Robin Hood or something.

 

One thing I've noticed that helps in dragon fights as a Melee fighter - there is a shout that leaps you forward quickly, can't remember what it's called. You get it from the Greybeards. Anyway, I always used to take on dragons from a distance. But my new character is a take-danger-head-on-eat-my-shield-sucka kind of fighter, using the bow only to start toe-to-toe fights. But this strategy is tougher with Ancient Dragons and above, since they do that I'mma-chomp-you-and-toss-you-like-a-chew-toy thing they do, which is always an insta-kill for me.

What I do with the shout is, I run up and wail on them, and then when they start to face me - and therefore get into position to do the chew-toy-chomp, I use the dash shout to run past and flank them. I get it a few good swings, and they either take flight or (hopefully) take long enough to reposition that I can use it again. I'm starting to think that's the purpose of the shout, actually.

Anyone else use a similar tactic?

 

Yeah, you're talking about whirlwind sprint. The thing is getting them to land in the first place - they are very difficult to hit when you are using a bow and they are flying. And not many of the bow skills are going to help you much. In fact, just two of them - overdraw and critical strike - and going to increase your damage.

 

Skyrim actually uses a pretty old engine and despite its gorgeous graphics it's pretty forgiving to less than stellar computers. I am fairly confident you will be able to run it.

As for dragons I just wait them out. Sooner or later they will land and then I just wail on them. The chomp attack they only do if your hp is so low that one melee attack will kill you. Either get more hp and armour or lower the difficulty if you don't want to dance too much. It sounds though that you have levelled faster than your combat skills and then a straight up battle is challenging. What I find the most annoying with dragons is when they fly around you forever or find some bear or something a million miles away more interesting and you have to go chasing after it which often ends up with you having to fight bear, dragon and not uncommonly some bandits or spiders at the same time. The first few dragons are really challenging though and some of the most fun I have had in Skyrim. The dragon fights is one aspect of the game that actually gets a bit dull and repetetive after a while as the further you get into the game the more common they become and soon they start attacking settlements while you are just trying to unload the loot you picked up in the latest cave.

 

WOOOHOOOO! I killed me a dragon! I think it was actually a set encounter - I was near Labyrinthine. And the dragon flew towards those ruins. Evidently, there were 3 snow trolls in the area, one of which came after me, the other two went for the dragon. So step one was kill the snow troll. (Any type of melee combatant is now ridiculously easy for me - the block perk that slows time down during any power attack makes battles so much easier.)

Then, while the dragon was focused on the snow trolls, I just started pelting it with arrows. Eventually it crash landed, and the trolls went for it, so I just kept hitting it with arrows until it died. (Of course, immediately after that, I had to fight the two snow trolls.) Now that I'm thinking of it, I might have to fast-travel back there. I'm thinking that since that dragon was perched atop a cliff face, that there might have been a shout below it that I could have learned.

I'm also finally making progress in the main story line, trying to recover the horn - it's not really my fault - if they could just make the main story line as interesting as the side quests, I wouldn't have done so many side quests.

dmc, I'll PM you my thoughts.

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I am unsure. Keep in mind that while I have spent some money on training, I've spent most of my money on smithing ingredients and houses. The largest reason for my level being relatively high (23) relative to my progress through the game (getting the Horn for the Greybeards) is not because I've power leveled, it's because I've done a rather hefty number of side quests, including the entire Companions story line, which, as you're aware is a rather lengthy one.

With the exception of Smithing - which I admit to deliberately crafting a lot of items even if I don't intend to use them - most of my skill increases are due to normal wear and tear of adventuring.

 

But that's the point. You don't NEED to powergame like that. Sure, 90 in Heavy Armor gives you more protection than 45, but since you'll gain at least a couple levels acquiring that, all you really get is a bit higher percentage of protection against a slightly tougher dude (due to your level) that hits for a bit more. All you're doing is buying yourself a partial level-up if you train up skills that you're eventually going to max yourself.

Yes, it sounds totally silly for a powergamer. Trust me, I'm one. But it's kinda refreshing to not have to worry about it for a change.

Now, if they could only fix the fact that skills aren't really comparable to each others in powergaming terms. You get one mighty warrior by maxing one-handed, block and armor of your choice (both get "easily" to the armor cap), but someone concentrating their efforts into Lockpicking, Speech and Pickpocket is going to end up at the ouchy end of the difficulty slider. Which may or may not be exactly what the player wanted to begin with, but doesn't remove the apparent imbalance that caused it.