Exactly, no one is forcing people to get them, and people can READ the descriptions before taking them, shadow warrior is something i never got, because i read it and was like....yeah, thats just dumb.

Quit my main character because he became too OP..

To the issue with dragons, combining invisibility muffle and sneak will overcome their canny eyesight. Then they just sit on their rocks or sleep next to word walls. The only time I have to actually fight dragons usually happens at the mage guild hall. Other than that you can just climb up to them and one-shot.

As long as you keep invisibility running with silent casting and recasts they wont ever detect you and wont move.

PS- if you can run invisibility- do not bother to take the shadow warrior perk, as it is a poor-mans version. You can save a perk this way.

I find this to be true. It's almost like light sources in dungeons are ignored for sneak purposes. I think if sneak in dungeons is as difficult as sneak in the outdoors, it would be balanced.

This^

When you shoot down someone from a hidden position but don't kill them right away, they should be in search mode from then on. If I suddenly found an arrow sticking through my chest I wouldn't just look around and go back to doing nothing just because I couldn't see who shot me. The same goes when there's more than one villain in the room. You can gun down one of them but if you're hidden, the other NPC says "Huh, must've just been hearing things". I don't know about anyone else, but I don't think I've ever ran across a situation where just hearing things kills people.

I have no problem with being able to hide in plain sight. That's one of the benefits of getting good at Sneak and it even says that one of the functions of Sneak is to be able to do just that. But even if they can't see you, they should begin a search to find you and then post themselves both in the rooms surrounding the area and be looking for you from there on out rather than going back to a mindless and unaware sitting duck position.

It seems like it's something that could be fixed by difficulty level.

Sneak + Archery is definitely op.. Try it without a bow maybe? I'm doing that on my next character..

If you're playing DiD, especially on Master, then none of the combat skills are overpowered.

On my Assassin, with invisibility and shadow warrior, if I do not take enemies out from stealth I'm in trouble. Re-casting invisibility or using shadow warrior in melee range if my initial backstab did not 1 shot is very risky because I cannot risk taking a hit or two. (lvl 38, 300AR 400HP) I also did not use any of the crafting skills besides arcane blacksmith. The trade off was I perk'd Illusion. Anyways, I'm sure people who talk about how combat skills are overpowered are still dying in the game. And most, like the OP, use his/her combat skills and run into a situation where one particular enemy, boss lvl or not, was easy for them. With a Thief build, 1v1, you will have trouble with Ancient/Elder dragons for example, unless using a summoning staff.

More OT, yes Draugr of all levels are very easy to sneak up on and get away to re-enter stealth. It's when they find you, that's when you're in trouble. If you fired an arrow and it didn't kill a Dragr Deathlord out right, and he did search hard for you, that wouldn't be any fun as you would have to run far away or wait forever. Imagine it like this, if they search for you for 20 sec real time, that's like 20min game time. Sounds reasonable enough to me.

No it's not. It's actually really tedious, and it is easier to dagger sneak attack something in 1 hit.

You deserve the relative safety of sneak bow attacks, in exchange for a relatively slower way to kill things.

it's a challenge in the beginning, but at like.. lvl 10 it starts to become easy mode, because your sneak is getting so good that you basically turn invisible

Slower lol. 3x damage with a dadric bow is no way close to slow.

I'd just like to say that whatever the case sneaking up behind someone with a dagger and getting the throat cutting kill move animation never gets old. At least for me. Maybe I'm easily pleased.

On master it's hard. Right now I'm looking for fire res stuff because this dragon keeps killing me in 1 attack

This is true. My first sneak character (a dual wielder) took all the sneak perks and felt way overpowered, even on expert. I am going to bump him up to master and see how that works. But for my second sneak character (an archer) I am not taking any sneak perks and so far Adept is presenting a good level of challenge. I play with no crosshairs, which adds quite a bit of challenge for an archer, but also adds considerably to the realism and immersion. I have shot a bow in real life and there is no magical crosshair telling you where to shoot. Skyrim archery is well done and the sandbox nature of the game allowing people to do things like toggle the crosshair on and off allows for many playstyles.

Just wish there were an option for turning off the compass without turning off the health/magicka/stamina HUD.

Sneak isn't overpowered.

great insight, really. A worthy post


Anyway, I often feel compelled to equip things I find and make things that boost my prominent stats. Like, when i got nightingale boots, it was total overkill because I was undetectable without it, yet it felt good and reassuring that ain't nobody gonna know I'm there. Also, I tend to equip anything I find that increases archery. I found a 30% bonus archery damage ring and the forsworn gauntlets that add 20%. Sometimes I just don't think about it and would rather be safe then sorry. Then i explore a big dungeon, and I'm so good it's a borderline snoozefest and I wonder if OP is really the way to go... It's like I prepared for the big battle... only to find that it isn't a "big battle" when I've prepared. so now i just do weak worthless enchants and only use gear that ups things like carrying capacity and wear the amulet of mara so I'm a certified playa

Compared to dual daggers with the DB gloves? On Master it took me quite a few shots to down stronger enemies with the bow. Some fights (i.e. Dragons and Dragon Priests) your first shot was stealthed, after that I was seen and it was ON!