To start off, I must say, Jaber I love your build.]

I've given it a shot and I haven't regretted it since!
I'm currently a level 33 and I've developed a few idea's/tips for this build.


For the Runes, I took frost runes asseen those actualy slow down the speed of enemys, giving you more time to shoot them.


You also might want to look into having mages armor ASAP, asseen playing on master difficulty like I do, can be very challanging with only 40-120 armor....


For the Guardian stones you might want to look into the Serpant stone, especialy on early levels.
Being able to Paralyze a target for 5 seconds is extremely useful early on... especialy when you are facing a tough opponent.


For the bound bow spell, I looked up the position of the spell, because I knew I was going to use it all the time,
I thought I might aswell get it early on, instead of getting to level 50 conjuration first.
For those of you who want to know were to find the Bound Bow spell;

Spoiler

The Bound Bow spell is found on multiple locations;
Hidden under a lantern in a bucket in the NNW corner of Fort Amol Prison.
In the chest across from Thorald Grey-Mane in Northwatch Keep when he is freed during Missing in Action. (Not always)

Further more, I don't realy agree to your 2/3/2 magica/health/stamina build:
I think it would be much more be beneficial for something like this, 3/2/1
I havent realy thought the exact points out, but my guess getting something like, 300-350 (depending if you choose the Altmer race)
Then something like 300-400 Health, depending on how much you need and about 200-250 stamina,
again depending on how much you need.


For the armor part, I decided to go along with mage armor, asseen that is more in the ally way of an arcane archer.
I have about 90 enchanting and things are getting realy interesting now...
Though my advise on this part, as stated before, Take mage armor as soon as possible when you are using robes...
You realy need this on harder difficulties...
For the enchantments I think going with Extra bow damage and more magicka and magicka regeneration.
Possibily some stamina enhancements if you realy need so.
For the robes themselves, I'd go with all unenchanted exept master/archmage robes,
asseen those are better then what you actualy can enchant,


For the quest lines I'd love to be able to join the thalmor, aseen those kinda fit in with the RP element.


I think that concludes it, feel free to reply/message me if you have any more questions about my playthrough or experience.,
I'll be checking this thread regularly.

Hey, great to hear the feedback, thanks!

I just hit level 15 or so last night, and still haven't grabbed Mage Armor, for one reason:

I found a pair of gauntlets that increase my bow damage by 25%, and wearing armor would negate that perk. Of course you can understand I'm hesitant to ditch those gauntlets!

But, I did find a Circlet of Peerless Archery just recently too... for another 20% boost to bow damage. So now I'm running around with 45% archery boost. I know it will be in my best interest to disenchant those gauntlets eventually so I can learn the enchantment myself, but I know I can't do anything that good yet (Enchanting is 49 right now). But since I've also got the Circlet, I guess I may as well do it sooner rather than later, so I can use the Mage Armor perk.

I haven't really adhered to my attribute suggestions, either actually. With enchanted gear, I think I currently have around 230 M / 200 H / 130 S. I haven't needed Stamina as much as I thought, since I have other tactics (spells) rather than simply sprint-kiting. But I may find my Stamina needs increase now that I've grabbed Eagle Eye, I think - the one that lets you zoom in with the bow.

I've found myself needing to fall back on sneak attacks a little bit, actually. Mostly against Hagravens. They are without a doubt my toughest enemy. I don't have the resistance to their fire attacks (apart from the 10% from the Alteration perk and any potions I may have on hand), and my bows don't do enough damage fast enough; and then they end up healing. I was in a cave last night and managed to sneak attack one from a good distance, but she found me easily enough. We traded hits for a little while (there was no cover, and I thought, foolishly, that I could wear her down with just my arrows) until she sprinted toward me with her claws. Raked me across the chest, leaving me with just a sliver of health - you know, when you can hear your heart pounding and begin to think, "I'm gonna die!" Well, she was low on health too, so I bow-bashed her, dug into my inventory - no health potions! - and sprinted away, knowing that if she recovered and shot another fireball, I was dead. There was noplace to hide - just a big, empty cavern.

Then I remembered a weak paralysis poison I had been saving. Paralysis for 3 seconds. Now or never. I grabbed the poison, dipped an arrow, turned, and let fly. The arrow didn't kill her outright, but at least the paralysis took effect, giving me time to loose a final arrow that put the hag down for good.

Damn, those things are rough!

So, with some sneaking around, my Sneak is currently at 38 or so. I haven't taken any perks yet. I am still debating whether or not to take just a single base Sneak perk, then grab the 2 needed to get Deadly Aim. We'll see.

I've been using Fire Rune exclusively so far, because I didn't think the Frost Rune would actually slow down an enemy. The spell description doesn't say it affects Stamina, so for some reason I assumed it wouldn't slow them either. Does it actually work? If so, awesome!

The only part about this character that is a bit annoying is grinding up my Conjuration for the Bound Bow. Familiars are weak. I think my Conjuration is 33 right now, but it's only that high because I go out of my way to pick fights with mudcrabs and summon a Familiar to attack them. I may have to go visit one of those locations to just find the spell, already.

I'm always curious to hear how other peoples' adventures are going. Let me know how you run fights, or any interesting encounters you've had. Might give me some good ideas!

Very nice guide. I enjoyed reading it. One minor correction


It is a common misconception that Warrior Stone helps Archery level quicker, but it is really the Thief Stone that helps Archery. I only learned of this last week. There are mentions of this in the wiki, but it's well hidden. http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Standing_Stones See if you can find the fine print.

It is funny that I have read so many complaints from sneak archers about archery being associated with Warrior Stone, when it was the Thief stone all along!

Bound Bow is beast and fits “arcane” archer perfectly., My favorite character:


Female Breton “Arcane Archer” Master Difficulty

Main Weapon: Bound Bow

Level 2 Magicka- Archery- Overdraw 1/5
Level 3 Magicka- Alchemy- Alchemist 1/5
Level 4 Magicka- Conjuration- Novice Conjuration
Level 5 Magicka- Conjuration-Apprentice Conjuration
Level 6 Magicka- Conjuration- Mystic Binding`
Level 6 Magicka- Alchemy- Alchemist 2/5
Level 7 Magicka- Alchemy- Physcian
Level 8 Magicka- Archery- Overdraw 2/5
Level 9 Magicka- Alchemy- Poisioner
Level 10 Magicka- Archery- Eagle Eye
Level 11 Magicka- Alchemy- Benefactor
Level 12 Stamina- Archery- Steady Hand 1/2
Level 13 Stamina- Archery- Overdraw 3/5
Level 14 Magicka- Conjuration- Soul Steeler
Level 15 Magicka- Illusion- Novice Illusion
Level 16 Magicka- Sneak- Stealth 1/5
Level 17 Magicka- Sneak- Backstab
Level 18 Magicka- Sneak- Deadly Aim Switch to Mage Stone
Level 19 Magicka- Alteration- Novice Alteration
Level 20 Magicka- Alteration- Apprentice Alteration
Level 21 Magicka- Archery- Power Shot
Level 22 Magicka- Alchemy- Alchemist 3/5
Level 23 Magicka- Alteration- Mage Armor 1/3
Level 24 Health- Enchanting- Enchanter 1/5
Level 25 Health- Archery- Overdraw 4/5
Level 26 Health- Enchanting- Enchanter 2/5
Level 27 Health- Enchanting- Enchanter 3/5
Level 28 Health- Enchanting- Enchanter 4/5
Level 29 Health- Enchanting- Insightful Enchanter
Level 30 Health- Archery- Quick Shot
Level 31 Health- Enchanting- Enchanter 5/5
Level 32 Health- Enchanting- Corpus Enchanter
Level 33 Health- Archery- Critical Shot 1/3
Level 34 Magicka- Archery- Critical Shot 2/3
Level 35 Magicka- Alchemy- 4/5
Level 36 Magicka- Enchanting- Extra Effect
Level 37 Magicka- Alteration- Mage Armor 2/3
Level 38 Magicka- Conjuration- Apprentice Conjuration
Level 39 Magicka- Conjuration- Summoner
Level 40 Stamina- Conjuration- Atromacy
Level 41 Stamina- Illusion- Novice Illusion
Level 42 Stamina- Alteration- Magic Resistance 1/3
Level 43 Stamina- Alchemist- 5/5
Level 44- Magicka- Archery- Hunter’s Discipline
Level 45- Magicka- Archery- Ranger
Level 46- Magicka- Alteration- Stability

disenchant and enchant some gloves... I like how thalmor gloves of archery look

I just hit 100 enchanting and finished enchanting my gear;

-My gear gives me 172% extra bow damage, which gets my bound bow to do about 400 damage, at level 86.
-My boots give me 41% resistance to frost and fire, making me close to invurable with the dragonflesh spell.
-My gear in total gives me 266 extra magica.
-My robes give me 150% extra magica regen and 20% less cost for alteration spells.

Basicly, enchanting allows you to become a Demi-god

WOW - I am actually flabbergasted by that.

When I learned Archery was in the Warrior category, I was actually fine with it. Dang. Yet another bug/oversight, I guess. Anyway, thanks for the heads up! Will need to ditch the Warrior stone, then, as it's not doing me any good apparently.

ChosenFrozen - thanks for the build, and the tip about Thalmor gloves. I imagine this character as a sort of Thalmor renegade, so that would make sense. I don't have time right now to check out your build, but I'll comment when I get a chance.

As said earlier, frost runes will slow the enemy (if the enemy isnt high resistant to frost- which makes them more resistant to slow)
All humanoids will get severely slowed by frost runes

I use frost runes almost exclusively- use the fire runes on top of the oil.

if you are on a PC get the "four runes limited" mod- placing 4 runes at a time makes for a much cooler experience. Curse bethesda for capping 50 damage 1 placement runes.

Choson frozen-

Your build listing is taking novice illusion twice- are you heading towards silent casting? Since then you can summon the bow and place the runes with more stealth.

Well, I guess I need to pick up Frost Rune then! I have tended to avoid frost magic because so much in Skyrim seems to be immune/resistant to it. Thanks again, Udey.

Chosenfrozen - interesting build. I was considering going Alchemy as well, but in the end I figured I had too many skills already. I have played around with Alchemy some, though, and it is awesome for archers obviously. Slow poisons alone are incredibly useful if you're not a dedicated stealth archer.

Haedshootar - 100 Enchanting is probably a long ways off for me, but it does seem to be advancing pretty quickly now that I have access to more powerful soul gems.

I'm noticing that money seems to be more of an issue for this character than previous ones. I've usually got around 3,000 septims, but if I invest in potions (which I often do, since I'm not making my own) or training, it goes down quickly. Granted, I don't scrounge for every last gold piece either. I'm enjoying this aspect of the challenge as well, so far.

Enchanting is the way to make money in the most efficient manner in the game.

Start picking up iron daggers (they are everywhere) and enchanting them using your lowest quality gems (petty lesser common) with your most expensive enchants (absorb health or banish if you can find it) and just start selling those. You wont need to carry truckloads of junk out of dungeons anymore just to make a dime

Make sure to buy petties and lessers (filled and unfilled) from any merchants you find, and just fill them and resell the daggers and you will make heavy profit.

Potions are another way to quick cash for low weight. Try blue butterflywing/blue mountainflower/bonemeal - that potion will sell for hundreds and is made of cheap components that are very easy to find.

Gem size (soul size) will not affect the rate at which enchant skill increases. Enchanting using petties advances the skill as rapidly as enchanting grand souls.

Chosenfrozen has gone alchemy, which is good for an archery build (especially one utilizing bound bow) I would have chosen poisoner (? the perk that lets poisons last for 2 shots) as that is very very useful for an archer. Stack lingering damage health that way. If I was doing choson's build I would substitute the two-shot poison over the benefactor perk.

orange dartwing
moria toppellia
impstool
slaughterfish eggs/scales
human flesh

All have linger damage health.

Deathbells/riverbetties make a nice slow/high health damage

Best place to sell is riften- it has the most merchants to start with, and depending on your status in the thief guild, it will have many more merchants than any other competing town.

Pick up salt piles. They are everywhere and have regen magica (awesome) and slow (excellent) attributes. Regen magica can be great for an arcane archer, and slow.. is excellent.

Garlic+salt+ juniper berries IIRC is regen health/regen magica combined.



I am usually a very vocal advocate of the invisibility spell, but since bow requires both hands, you will have to put your bow away to go invisibile every time, and if it is bound bow you can forget it. Use potions in this case for invisibility needs. Luna moth and vamp dust makes an invis potion that regens health

Like Udey stated, Enchantments and Alchemy is the best way to make some gold,
Further than that I'd recommand the Giants Toe Anomaly website,
This is a website for Alchemy, you just select all your ingredients you currently are using,
with that data it'll calculate the best profitable potion/poison.

This is the quickest way to make money and gain experience,
Asseen Alchemy experience is based on the value of the potion/poisons

Asseen my rank does not allow me to post links,
I'd recommand google'ing "Alchemy Immersion" or "The giants toe anomaly"
Then the link "Alchemy immersion" will lead you towards it.

My problem with these builds is on master even with daedric bows and my archery leveled considerably for the points of the game I'm in and with it maxed out for perks it takes like 20 shots to kill a simple human boss. Like the pirates you have to take out when you sneak into the East Empire Company. On master that boss took a solid 15 or so sneak attack shots with whatever the best bow I could get at the time was. If it wasn't the daedric bow it was one that was beyond what I should have had at the time.

This sounds like you are not properly utilizing smithing and using archery damage enhancers. Most people have the opposite problem you do (i.e. the game is too easy because my bow 1-shots everything)

Strive to strike a balance between difficulty and power. On my master play (DID with a bunch of difficulty mods) I am doing well with weapon damages in the 120-130 range.

Interesting stuff guys, thanks.

I'm fine with being poor in Skyrim, actually - it gives me a reason to do quests for rewards, and makes finding stuff more meaningful.

Right now I've been working up Enchanting by enchanting all the pieces of jewelry I can find, and selling them for a little profit. I also have way more bows than I'll ever use - that's by design, as my Enchanting skill will inevitably increase and the lower-level enchants on bows will be less useful, so I want to have plenty to practice on and replace.

I currently have a bow that absorbs health for 10 pts on strike, but I haven't used it yet. Absorb Health bows are actually a little odd, since you ideally don't want to get hit at all. My (found) Imperial Bow of Soul Snares keeps my gems fed (and looks/sounds awesome when it traps a soul, by the way). I've got a fine hunting bow I named 'Flint' which does some decent fire damage, and another that does shock. I'm probably carrying around a dozen bows, actually. Most are just waiting for me to get higher levels of Enchanting.


Nova - that's one of the reasons I don't play Master! I've never felt a need to increase the difficulty beyond Adept actually. NPC damage sponges aren't fun, nor particularly realistic.

Jaber, how many shots does it generally take you on enemies without sneak-attacking? My impression is the "OP Archery" sentiment I've seen on the forums over the months is mostly due to Sneak....not Archery, per se. I'm hoping to make due with just a sick enchanted bow and runes, but I welcome your input.

I'm travelling for work this week, can't wait to get home and try out this new build! (And damn you Diablo III for coming out this week.)

Well, I play on Adept, so YMMV here, but currently at level 15, I can one-shot Forsworn without sneaking. I would guess the next higher category of Forsworn (Foragers) would take about 3-5 shots, and Looters around 5.

Wolves are one-shots. Last time I checked, Ice Wolves were around 3-5, but it's been several levels since I've faced one of those (I'm hanging around the Reach mostly right now).

Similarly, Draugr are one-shots, but Restless Draugr are 3-5.

The '3-5' estimates are just guesses, but that seems about right. Most of my bows are doing around 60 damage without enchants; most of my enchants add around 10 damage. And then I have one rank in the critical shot perk, which does seem to make a difference when I get a crit.

Of course, I don't only use the bows. Since I'm working up my Conjuration, I usually have a Familiar hanging around, generally being ineffectual except as a minor distraction. If I'm worried about a tougher enemy, I often have a Rune ready to trigger. And sometimes I'll fall back to a Firebolt when I need to run away but still deal some damage.

It all adds up to being quite doable.

Boss fights require a bit more preparation, obviously. As an example, last night I was following a particular questline in the Reach ( ). I had done this before, so I knew I needed a bit of prep. Fortunately, I had found a scroll of Bane of the Undead in some ruin previously. Knew that would come in handy.

I sneaked into the central boss chamber, put up my Stoneflesh, and slapped down a rune, which woke up the inhabitants. I had plenty of time to cast the scroll before anyone came up to me, so I did that and then enjoyed 30 seconds or so of taking pot-shots at the fleeing boss and his couple minions who survived the scroll.

I went in there with about 20 steel arrows. After killing the boss and 2 or 3 other minions with my bow, I probably walked out with 12.

I agree that a lot of archery's reputation as OP comes from sneak. With a high sneak, it just doesn't matter how much damage your bow does, since you can essentially shoot forever.

The other factor is your crafting skills. I'm sort of gimping myself here by avoiding sneak as well as smithing and alchemy. But there's only so many perks you can take, and to be honest I don't feel like I'm really missing out on anything. It's more fun IMO to have to plan your encounters carefully and use your resources rather than just point + shoot.

Let me know how your experience with the build turns out!

With my current build, playing on Master difficulty,
Having 250 health, and using Ironflesh, I still find it that I have a random chance to survive.
Sometimes there will be a fornsword archer, or a draugh archer and he'll do about 1/3rd of my health, when the next arrow might kill me with full health...

Further that I found that Silent-casting might be a very usefull perk for this build, eventhough I don't use sneak.
It's more that people don't go looking for you when your trying to set up.

Except dragons, I found this build gets quite powerfull once you get the right enchantments, Like I've stated before, my bow does 400 damage with about 85 archery.

You're probably right about Silent Casting. That's almost always a good idea, if you feel like getting Illusion up to 50 and taking 3 perks.

I don't think I'll do that this time around, though. Haven't used any Illusion at all yet. And in a way, I like having the runes act as little attention-getters for enemies who may be around a corner. Better to draw them out while I'm waiting with a drawn arrow than to be surprised when I walk by.

Seriously, haven't been this amped to try a new build in a good while. I get home tomorrow night, then it's ON. I usually find the first 25-30 levels the most interesting for a character. Tend to feel the "grind" around that point and get restless to try something new. By that time, most of the "real" skills are learned/perked anyway; the rest are just details and filler.

Could almost treat this like a tactical FPS, lol. At least, that's what I'm anticipating.

Let this rule be known forever:

If you are casting sneaking and casting spells, you should be taking silent casting.

Runes still make noise with silent casting fyi, so they can still be used to draw enemies.

Hm... Thats rather interesting,
I actualy didn't go for the sneaking part of this build, but I might still pick it up.
Especialy now that runes don't make noise
You can summon your armor, pre-summon your bow and then put a rune down, get the bow out and they'll investigate!

My current character is VERY similar to this. So far having a lot of fun. Haven't got bound bow yet though, but did just get archery to level 60 which unlocks several new perks so that will keep me busy for a little while.

One quick note. The atronach stone(and any spell absorb) bug ONLY effects summoned creatures(atronachs, dremora). It does not effect raise dead spells or bound weapons. So feel free to use that stone, the only real downside is no dremoras... unless you want to cast the spell multiple times which is not hard as everytime you absorb it your magicka refills.

I'm learning a lot from the responses here. Thanks everyone!

Last night I broke down and bought a Flame Atronach spell. I was going after , and thought I might need some heavier artillery. Turns out it was a nice distraction, but I really don't want to go too far down the summoning road, since it can make things too easy - especially considering all the other options I'm working on.

Oh, and I found my third piece of Fortify Archery gear - a Dwarven helmet that adds something like 30% damage to bows. Of course, can't wear that with the circlet, so I stopped over in Markarth to do some disenchanting. Now I'm totally armor-free (I had been wearing Fortify Archery gauntlets, but sold those after I enchanted some gloves), so I can benefit from those Mage Armor perks once I get them.

Enchanting just got to 50 (it's my highest skill by a few points).

I'm 90% sure I won't be perking out Sneak after all. My Sneak skill is 41 currently, and I'm finding that I'm able to get in a sneak shot or two when I really want. And the 2x damage is decent enough. Getting Deadly Aim would give me little reason to use magic, I think; at that point, I'd be better off just turning into a dedicated sneak-shooter, which isn't want I want for the character.

Totally agree about the first levels being the most fun. I don't think I've ever got a character to 25, actually - though I have had a few over lvl 20.

This one just hit 17, and there's plenty I still want him to do (lots of unfinished Winterhold quests, some Daedric stuff, etc.), so I'm hopeful I'll be able to see this one through a bit longer than most!