Let's continue this topic shall we!

Why on earth are people so confused about what the original OP, myself, and a few others are trying to say. Basically, the point we are trying to get across is...
1. Bandit chiefs are overpowered. We had less trouble with Alduin.
2. WE DONT WANT TO CHANGE OUR PLAY STYLE IN ORDER TO KILL THIS FOE.
3. If I am specializing in 2-H weapons...why should I need to use a bow to kill this foe.

In other words...
Why should we have to change our method of playing because of a poorly designed enemy. The game is designed to meet the standards of any class you decide to play (except in certain circumstances like these, which shouldnt exist.), whether it be a thief, mage, warrior, assassin, hobo, whatever. If I play a thief who strictly uses a bow, I should be able to win the game using only a bow. If I play a warrior who uses only a 1 handed sword and block, I should be able to win the game using only sword and shield.

I dont know how to make myself any clearer.

I'm sure theres a mod for that... *runs*

oh good sir believe me, I checked.

I never found Bandit Chiefs hard when i was a two handed warrior. With the exception of the few dungeons that are very crouded with bandits including the chief. Other that that i just take them on one by one which isnt very hard to do, especially with the narrow tunnels, and us plenty of FUS shouts. But yeah, i kinda know what you mean. That lone silverblood chief that is north of for dunstad is a real pain in the ars.

1. Alduin is underpowered. Like way underpowered.

2. That's why you're having so many problems. I've give you an example: I was playing through a quest with my spellsword in a cave system and there was basically a chokepoint where an acrher with a high powered bow, and a potent spellcaster basically made it near impossible to enter the room. I tried to fling firebolts at them and take them out, they battered me with both arrows and spells and I died. The second time, I changed tactics, quickly backing in and out, landing a few shots on the mage while getting him to miss me repeatedly. He eventually charged in and then I took him out with my sword. The archer I then baited into moving closer towards me and I used Unrelenting Force to stagger her, and then cut her head off.

3. There is no foe in the game that you NEED a bow to defeat. Even though I'm not a big fan of shouts, the use of them (Fire Breath, Ice Breath) and the proper use of cover and some patience will eventually lead to enemies like dragons landing in order to take advantage of your speciality. For high powered mages or archers, using Whirlwind Sprint to close the distance is highly effective, and so called "archer" swarms a good tactic I found is to keep moving and eventually some space will open up between your enemies, and you can take them out one-by-one. Also, having a companion to help is useful, and making sure you have a good stock of potions is always a good idea.

I'll agree that some builds are a bit tougher then others in game, but there's really not a damage type you can't use by itself with some creativity. I think people are just accostumed to charging straight through enemies and ripping them to pieces, but some builds just require a greater use of tactics and ingenuity.

What?
This is just ridiculous. On Adept....A Blood Dragon has 1421 HPs. Alduin has 2250 + (PC *1.2) * 14.
A Bandit Chief is maxed at level 28 with less than 500 HPs


What?


What?
Why on earth would you think that a Bow is mandatory against any enemy in the game? None of my 2H Warriors ever touches a Bow. As a matter of fact, only two characters out of 20 have even used a Bow and actually invested in the Archery tree.

Briar Hearts are way worse than bandit chiefs, but yes, there is a problem. The problem is that the devs thought increasing the health and damage of enemies was the best way to make a hierarchy of difficulty. The problem is, it just makes avoidance superior to every other method of dealing with damage. And of course it ruins immersion when nearly identical enemies with roughly the same quality of weapons and armor deal and take dramatically different amounts of damage. And... it just makes most enemies really, really boring.

I'm not really against the game making us change tactics though, and I think part of the problem with TES games is they have so many different variables they have to balance for that there's no way they can balance the game for every odd character build. I'd rather they balance it for a reasonably powerful, reasonably versatile build and assume players will use some ingenuity. I don't think everything needs to be vulnerable to melee - really it barely makes any sense for a dragon to decide to land and fight a melee character - at least w/out the shout. It just makes dragons seem stupid. However, bandit chiefs are obviously a different story since they can't fly.

They really need to clean up their character building and leveling system before balance becomes a possibility though. It's not working very well currently, since leveling non-combat skills and/or taking non-combat perks can gimp characters, and doing the opposite to an extreme of course can make things too easy. I hope they'll get rid of skills leveling up through use which just encourages grinding and weird behavior(intentionally getting hit because it's the only way to level armor skills......) - though I doubt they will sadly.

I'd understand what your means OP.
Again, you don't need to change your playstyle in order to defeats tough enemies. You just have to place a good strategy and tactics.
Example :
As two-handed warrior, in order to defeat a two-handed warrior boss, first thing you should notice is the terrain you'll take place to battle. Make sure you pick a large area to battle between two-handed melee. If you're in small area, then bait them to a larger area to battle them.
And secondly, you need right timing to evade your enemy's power attack, and take that chance to counter attack. Keep focus. Try running and hitting if you think your opponent too tough.
If your enemy can kill you only in three hits or less, then DO NOT try to block. Instead of bashing or evading when they power-attacking.
Hope it helps.

the problem is that you also do not want to use shouts. so no magic, no bow, no shout... also no kiting and no use of terrain. only smashing face to face with a weapon. sounds boring, sorry.

Briar Hearts can be neutralized through weapon bashing as well. But I do agree, avoidance is the best tactic, but thats actually kind of realistic, an actual swordfight wouldn't involve two people slashing away at each other because, well, swords and axes are kinda dangerous

I've had stubborn dragons who want to stay airborne, and I'll just shift around and take cover and keep avoiding their breath weapons multiple times. If I'm a hungry, arrogant dragon, I wouldn't hesistate to land and take a more direct approach to dealing with my potential meal. Dragons underestimating human targets is kind of a staple of fantasy.

It would be realistic if they'd have implemented dodge and parry as well as making a more sensible armor system in which heavy armor actually makes a significant difference over light armor. Currently, it's just bad design, they didn't make enemies with realistic health levels/durability either - and even the PC is a tank to most enemies excluding the few leveled types that deal several times the damage of most enemies. It's overall just...bad.

Smashing face to face without strategy isn't boring thing. But, foolish thing.

And from the old topic:

1) Bandit chiefs are not overpowered. Less than 500 hp max- I have never had trouble with a generic bandit camp. And they aren't "unfairly" similar to other bandits since they appear at the end of a dungeon, have better armor than the other bandits, and have a big red bar at the top of the screen that labels them as bandit chiefs.

2 & 3) You never have to change your playstyle except for ONE ENCOUNTER (Pyrite's quest)! You can be a two-handed claymore wielding arch-mage! Enemy archers are not somehow immune to swords!

The counterbalance is to level enchanting and have numerous "Fortify Two-Handed" enchants which can make the game ridiculously easy too.

But yeah, the AR on heavy armor should have been higher, with the tradeoff being that the heavier the armor you wear, the weaker the enchantments. But thats a whole different conversation about how they screwed up cloth mages.