So I'm 30 hours into the game and I love it so far. But I play a warrior and I can basically plow myself through most dungeons. I joined the thief guild just for the moneyz.

But I have started to think about other builds, such as the assassin/thief type player.

The more I think about it the harder it seems to play. For example looking at youtube vids about it I came to the conclusion:

- You need a lot of time, because you stealth, snipe with bow, have to be careful all the time because you are weak etc.
- Everything takes much longer than a warrior because you can't plow through dungeons as fast
- You can't kill some stuff at all, as my warrior I had trouble with some weird NPCs that were strong as hell and I had to go werewolf on them
- How are dragons? I had no trouble killing a blood dragon as warrior with a bunch of potions


This build seems like a ton of fun just to mess around with a second character, but doesn't seem viable for a main if you want to experience most of the game on the first run.

So am I correct about this?

I'm a stealth character and play hardest diffuculty. I'm level 18 and I one shot most things, besides high level creatures. Stealth is at mid 50 and now I'm practically invisible. Stealth is more then viable. The beginning isn't hrs really, but you'll need to rely on another weapon beside the bow because you will be seen. Now I just carry around the best sword I can find, but haven't used one in a while.

Bow/sneak is very viable. It scales with level so you can constantly keep up with the enemies.

In large battles its invaluble to stand in the center and just knock down enemies at a distance quickly to help your allies. 1v1 against stronger opponents that don't die in 1-3 hits can be an issue though,.

Took my thief until mid 20s to be able to be comfortably playable.

Level 42, not much left in the game that's an issue now.

It works really well. I fought a dragon today and started shooting arrows at him as soon as he landed, and killed him before he even took off again. I think the stealth build works a lot better than it did on Oblivion. Plus, I put all my points into health/fatigue around 50/50, so I'm decent on health.

Ya, pickpocket is overpowered (90% chance at anything the person has on them at like 71 pickpocket), sneak makes you practically invisible if you are in the dark at all. And also sneak attacks with dagger and bows have great multipliers. More so daggers. Also dont have a lot of trouble with dragons because i usually use the terrain for cover. Fire arrows and duck is my philosophy!

It works very well, once you get the X30 bonus damage on sneak attack with daggers (and a good dagger), you can take out a bunch of people silently before being noticed. (on a sunny dock I slit the throat of a guard while standing 10 feet away from another guard without them noticing.

Just sneak attack makes being a sneak character doable. You can't really go head on and sometimes you may have to run away if sneaking fails, but it's part of the game. Plus at high sneak levels, most of the time sneaking works.

But how does one kill a dragon with an assassin? He's just limited to the bow at this point, isn't he?

I got a Archer/Assassin up to 15 (archery, 1 hand/dual wield, light armor, alchemy for poison weps, sneak) or so then decided to start over. While smaller fights against normal bad guys was a lot of fun and 1 shot kills aways make you feel like a bad ass, bigger rooms and strong bosses became a serious issue. Strong enemies just end up charging you and get in your face and line of sight tricks and staying mobile won't always work (unless you're just abusing potion guzzling - there really should be a cooldown on these) . Also sometimes you get 4-5 guys + charging you, and that build didn't have any good ways of dealing with it. I'm sure there is a stealther pro who has a good solution.

I started over pure destruction/conjurer high elf and I'm just dominating big groups and bosses in a way I couldn't with my stealth build. Powerful and fun. I'm playing on Expert, but it makes me consider bumping it up to Master.

I may revisit a sneak class after my caster playthough with some better strategy hopefully.

Abuse line of sight and stay out of full on dragon shouts

Your hirelings or summoned creatures also serve as decent distractions while you fill the dragon full of arrows

This is true. It can take longer. But, this is a very safe method. You can take down enemies that are too hard for you by whittling their health down. This is how I take down giants and mammoths with relative safety compared to a warrior that charges in.


Again true, but it is relatively safer. You can take down all enemies as long as they don't heal themselves.


Whatever your warrior can kill, the assassin/thief can also kill, just takes longer.


Well ok this is where my character has some problem. A bit hard to hide from a dragon, but with my Sneak skill at 90, it may be possible.


Well you are correct about the part where this build is slow, and you have trouble against dragons. But you are the king in dungeons.

Generally, if you don't pool points into magicka, you can double up on another skill set for fighting, such as One-Handed, making you an effective hybrid class. You won't be as defensible due to armor and shield constraints, but if you combine the stealth attacks with a short battle afterwards, you can make most 1 vs 1 boss encounters relatively controllable, it just requires more brains than brawn is all. As for time... being slow is almost funner than just blasting through a dungeon. One, you don't miss things, two, you have a better enjoyment just exploring and taking in scenery.

As a level 19, I am finding a sneak archer to be extremely efficient. Not slow at all going through dungeons; no need to plow when you can kill before being detected. Slowing down time allows for multiple targets to be eliminated in one breath. Even when detected, the stagger effect of the bow yields most enemies immobile. I would wager that an archer assassin can kill more efficiently and quickly than a warrior. Big game such as giants and dragons are not an issue either.

Not just viable, slightly OP if played correctly.
I can clear out entire dungeons and open world forts without being seen. Level 37 with stealth maxed at 100. I dual-wield daggers and use a lot of alchemy and illusion (for invisibility for mobs like trolls that I can't kill instantly).

the stealth forward roll is absolutely essential if you want to play a dagger-wielding assassin.

I planned to go stealth-bow and two handed in light armour. But I don't think i've used my two handed skill since the very start before you get a bow. I one-shot most everything from stealth, and enjoy it a lot. The AI could be a little better in terms of saying things like, "I must be hearing things," and returning to what they were doing after I shoot their buddy next to them through the neck. While they're briefly agitated I think a better system would be if you returned to hidden status faster, but they patrolled around looking for you for MUCH longer. As it is you can simply back off around a corner and wait to return to hidden status. The enemy will totally forget you just impaled their buddy after 10-20 seconds and sit down next to him again. But it's still a HUGE improvement over the previous systems, so i'm not complaining.

I think the hardest fight I had as a sneaker was against a troll. Their health regeneration is insane, it almost beats out my damage when i'm not getting 3x sneak damage. At the level I was at when I took my first one down anyway. So, in short it's totally viable.

I'm pretty sure the environment still levels as you do though, just not as brokenly as Oblivions did. For example my Archery is 51, but things have gotten a lot harder since I levelled pickpocketing to 90+ (I really want the sneak ring the lord in Whiterun has and for that I need 100). In saying that though, i'm still not complaining as I love a challenge. I play on the highest difficulty anyway and this just makes it even more interesting. I can see it being a real problem if a melee character way outlevels their combat skill with non-combat skills though.

I just killed a blood dragon by myself with just a bow. I had to use some potions after getting the full-on flame breath in the face. It went slow until I used the mark of death shout, then he fell pretty quick. Archery is pretty powerful.

Sneak bow at Master difficulty can one shot many enemies, 2 for some. Harder ones will require abit more tactics.

That being said, my character is a deadly tissue paper. Few blades can reach her but those that do will kill her.