Hello! I'd like to hear some feedback from anyone that has managed to create a successful and powerful melee stealth fighter, focusing on dual wield, sneak, and light armor with as few perks in archery as possible.
First off you cannot completely ignore archery. You still need it at the very least, to hit dragons when they are flying.
I really want to make this work, but so far at level 13 it's feeling as if the game pressures you into pure warrior, archer or mage archetypes given the wildly varying difficulty levels of creatures throughout the environment, leaving few options for the lightly armored skirmisher. The problem seems to be that stealth-based play is only useful against enemies that would be easy enough to kill using ANY skills or tactics, i.e. bandits and common nuisances. My character is fantastic at clearing out dungeons of humanoids, yet out in the open I am absolutely demolished by bears, trolls, wispmothers, and other mythical, hard-hitting monsters. Basically, if stealth openers aren't possible or the one-hit kill doesn't happen, going toe to toe with these creatures will be disastrous even with as many perks into weapon and armor skills as the current level will allow, and a healthy amount of stamina for power attack chaining. Defense and survival in open combat is a serious problem. I end up just pulling out my bow most of the time to chip away at these enemies using terrain to screw up the AI, and this is highly unsatisfying.
You need a very strong dagger and increase its base damage. It is very possible to 1 or 2 shot those wild creatures.
1st, make sure you have the dagger perk in sneak that does x15 damage with daggers. That is the main source of the assassin's power.
In fact, do your best to increase your sneak and take the perks to make you sneak better. Also sneak at night. I am guessing you tried to sneak up on them during the day where they can see you clearly.
2nd, take up blacksmithing. This allows you to craft the strongest possible dagger before you find the fabled legendary daggers with inhuman damage.
Blacksmithing also allows you to sharpen your dagger to increase the base damage even further.
3rd, use a power attack for 2x more damage.
4th, train up your one-handed skill, and take the first perk to increase your damage with 1H weapons. This will further increase the base damage.
Miscellaneous stuff, if you have trouble sneaking at the start, trying sneaking with no armor because the weight of your armor makes noise. Wear normal clothes and shoes instead.
If you don't kill them in 1 hit, you can hit them again to get another sneak attack in before they turn and spot you.
If you still cannot kill them with 2 sneak attacks in succession, consider taking alchemy. You can make paralyze poisons.
For those that have stuck with it through these rough patches, when and how does it get better? I am getting destroyed so powerfully that I can't imagine this dual-wielding, lightly-armored stealth route ever turning into something satisfying. Are the thief-type characters meant to simply avoid most of the creatures and encounters in the world, while focusing on humanoid populations in which their skill sets represent laughable overkill? I'm hearing a lot about magic being underpowered (feels strong imo), heavy warriors being overpowered (seems balanced), and yet very little in the way of thief or assassination viability. What gives?
Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
No, the assassin is a terror in dungeons and at night. You don't avoid anything. Anything can be sneak attacked, even dragons, but you have to somehow get the dragon to land without it detecting you, which I haven't figured out yet.
Such a specialized role of course has it's share of cons, as you have pointed out, you don't fare as well in open-combat where you do not have the initiative to sneak. But the ability to 1-shot any enemy is very possible. You just have to maximize your dagger damage.
» Tue May 15, 2012 1:38 pm 
