Nord Commander: 60%health 40% Stamina

In order of priority:
Heavy Armor: Juggernaut (5), Well Fitted (1), Tower of Strength (1), Matching Set (1), Reflect Blows (1), Fist of Steel (1), Cushioned (1), Conditioned (1) = Total 12
One Hand: Armsman (5), Fighting Stance (1), Savage Strike (1), Hack and Slash (3) = Total 10
Block: Shield Wall (5), Quick Reflex (1), Power Bash (1), Deadly Bash (1) = Total 8
Smithing: Steel (1), Dwarven (1), Orcish (1), Ebony (1), Daedric (1), Dragon (2), Arcane (1) = Total 8
Enchanter: Enchanter (5), Insightful (1), Corpus Enchanter (1), Fire (1), Frost (1), Storm (1), Extra Effect (1) = Total 11

Total = 49

Unperked skills used: Alchemy, lockpicking and possibly speech.

The only thing holding my build back is whether or not we can make bows through smithing. Anyone got an answer for this? Because I searched Google and came up with nothing.

Yes, and improve them too. Can't make arrows though.

You guys know you can get more then 49, you get a perk for every level up till you reach the cap, and you start at level 0 so you also get a perk at 1 too.

Anyway, I was a Battlemage in Oblivion, this time I wanna go for a Battlenecromancer type of deal...

[EDIT] Changed my build around a bit to ensure I get all my favorite perks before level 50, cause I'm not sure how slow it will be after, I may not even reach the cap because I won't like to train some skills. I also moved it into a spoiler block so it doesn't spam so much XD

Man this is ganna be awesome, feels well balanced to me, lots of neat stuff to look forward to and some incentive to reach the level cap.

next time just have him check my thread in the spoilers section. Search here for it, I listed all the conjuration perks.

49 perks to spend for my Khajiit Illusionist =

Illusion: Novice Illusion, Apprentice Illusion, Adept Illusion, Expert Illusion, Master Illusion, Illusion Dual Casting, Animage, Kindred Mage, Quiet Casting, Master of the Mind
Destruction: Novice Destruction, Apprentice Destruction, Adept Destruction, Expert Destruction, Master Destruction, Augmented Flames, Destruction Dual Casting, Impact
Alteration: Novice Alteration, Apprentice Alteration, Adept Alteration, Alteration Dual Casting, Mage Armor (3), Stability
Restoration: Novice Restoration, Recovery (2), Regeneration
Archery: Overdraw (5), Critical Shot (3), Eagle Eye, Power Shot, Quick Shot
Sneak: Stealth (5), Backstab, Deadly Blade, Assassins Blade

I will probably also improve my skill in Speech and One-handed, though no perks will be spent on these. Skill in lockpicking will be improved if alteration can not be used for this.

Bow and dagger will be used for sneak attacks. Fire-based destruction magic when forced into close combat.

Version 3.0

Heavy Armour: Juggernaut (5) + Well Fitted (1) + Tower of Strength (1) + Matching Set (1) + Reflect Blows (1) = 9

Smithing: Stee Smithingl (1) + Arcane Blacksmith (1) + Dwarven Smithing (1) + Orcish Smithing (1) + Ebony Smithing (1) + Daedric Smithing (1) + Dragon Armour Smithing (2) = 8

One Handed: Armsman (5) + Bladesman (3) = 8

Enchanting: Enchanter (5) + Insightful Enchanter (1) + Corpus Enchanter (1) + Extra Effect (1) = 8

Restoration: Novice Restoration (1) + Apprentice Restoration (1) + Adept Restoration (1) + Expert Restoration (1) + Master Restoration (1) + Respite (1) + Recovery (2) + Avoid Death (1)= 9

Destruction: Novice Destruction (1) + Apprentice Destruction (1) + Adept Destruction (1) + Expert Destruction (1) + Master Destruction (1) + Augumented Fire (2)/ Augumented Freeze (2) = 6

Overall=49

OK Smithing is giving me a headache, should I use the one I have now, or use Elven, Advanced and Glass which are less and give me more perk space.

I chose the short route to Dragon Armor for this reason, well, that and I'm using Light Armor. But it's the quickest way.

Dragon smithing is only 1 perk..
Avoid death requires restoration 90, by that time you will probably be strong enough without it, you should take regeneration (50%more healing = less mana spend)
You might save a perk or two on master spells, if you find you don't cast them often they might not be worth it.

Ex. if an adept spell heals for 50 and cost 50 and expert 75/75 and master 100/100.
With regeneration and adept casting it is: 75/25, 112/75, 150/100.
But you may find that the 75/25 adept spell is more than enough for 90% of you uses..
Then you have no need for the expert casting.. Ofc if you get more in trouble then 112/37 would be better

You should also take shock dmg instead of fire or frost..
1. It can be arced from surfaces
2. all spells do the same dmg, the difference is mana cost and effect, so not much reason to take fire
3. as a heavy armored spellsword you should not need a frost spell to slow your opponent or drain stamina not to mention its the land of the Nords 50% frost resistance
4. you could use a shock drain mana spell on mages

@Sergeant RL-3
Thanks for the info I would have been extremely sad if I could not forge my own bows.



Name - Zeref

six - Male

Race - Bosmer


Archery - Overdraw (5), Eagle Eye (1), Steady Hand (2) = 8
These are pretty much the only perks I needed as my enemies will not be getting up from the first hit.

Alteration - Novice through Master (5), Mage Armor (3), Dual Casting (1), Stability (1) = 10
Since I'm not going to be using armor Alteration is a must. Not to mention having Alteration means I don't need to take Lockpicking.

Enchanting - Enchanter (5), Fire (1), Frost (1), Storm(1), Insightful (1), Corpus (1), Extra (1) = 11
Makes my bow even deadlier and my clothing useful.

Illusion - Novice through Master (5), Dual Casting (1), Animage (1), Kindred Mage (1), Quite Casting (1) = 9
Pretty much took this for Chameleon, Invisibility, and the ability to cast my Alteration spells in silence. Plus I won't need to go far into the Sneak tree.

Smithing - Steel (1), Elven (1), Advanced (1), Arcane (1), Glass (1), Dragon (1) = 6
Gives me access to the best bows and makes them stronger.

Sneak - Stealth (3), Backstab (1), Deadly Aim (1), = 5
Only thing I wanted was Deadly Aim. No Need for sneak when I have Illusion.


Total Points = 49

Since you are going for Heavy Armor, I'd say go for the one you currently have.

I would still try to manually pick a lock..
All skills contribute to leveling now and you should be fine with alteration even if you use open spells only when you can't or don't have time to pick the lock..

Also if you find you are not casting master spells that much you can save a perk or two there..
I would consider power shot, quick shot and maybe even bulls eye (depending on difficulty level) for a dedicated archer as well..
Then if you get extra perks you can get master casting..

Ok, so with staves as my new potential range weapon I have removed Archery and plan on redistributing the perks. I think I will not to pick up Alchemy and instead make those 5 skills more focused. But I am not sure. Here is my old build without Archery.

Heavy Armour: Juggernaut (5) + Well Fitted (1) + Tower of Strength (1) + Matching Set (1) + Reflect Blows (1) = 9

Block: Shield Wall (5) + Deflect Arrows (1) + Elemental Protection (1) = 7

Smithing: Steal (1) + Arcane Blacksmith (1) + Dwarven Smithing (1) + Orcish Smithing (1) + Ebony Smithing (1) + Daedric Smithing (1) + Dragon Armour Smithing (2) = 8

Enchanting: Enchanter (5) + Insightful Enchanter (1) + Corpus Enchanter (1) + Extra Effect (1) = 8

One Handed: Armsman (5) + Bladesman (3) = 8

Now, I have around 9 perks before I hit the soft cap. Some things I have been looking at are the elemental perks in Enchanting, because of my focus on Staves. That would be 6 perks. I am somewhat tempted with the additional magicka from soulstones, given that I am using so many enchanted items, but I really do not like perks which do not really do anything. It would lead on to a auto recharge perk, but it seems it is only 5% which is rather bleh.

I could go 6 Enchanting, then the rest in Alchemy (Alchemist 1 + Physician 1 + Benefactor 1 = 3 perks, for maximum potion effect). But those 3 could be used to getting the 0 weight HA, however imo 2 would be wasted (H2H damage and fall damage). Shield Charge is also an option. I am not sure. What are your thoughts?

I strictly refuse to limit my choice to 49 perks because unlike the OP suggests it will NOT be extraordinarily difficult to get 74.

Level 75 simply requires getting your skills all to 100. Stuff to take into account: Skill points take longer to grind when you approach 100, late level up requires a bit more skill ups than earlier ones, and it will require using un-perked playstyles (such as heavy armor if you perked light, and 2-handed weapons for a pure mage, etc) for some time to max every skill. For these reasons, especially the latter, most casual gamers may finish the game only a little past level 50. Sure.

For hardcoe fans like us, maxing all the skills will be ridiculously trivial. Within weeks, we will all start using mods that makes leveling up 3-5 times SLOWER to be able to experience the game without being maxed out all the time. The basic skill growth rate is even faster than Oblivion and we will be level 50 very quickly, and level 75 not that long afterwards given an effort to get there.

Personally there's not a single character Ill play that wont get to the real level cap. Everything they said about that being very hard to achieve can be interpreted either as PR-talk or a statement addressed at very casual gamers. It shouldn't be taken for a sacrosanct truth that we build "49 points build around". You will be 50 after a few days with the game.

Cheers!

@Sugar Rush

Staffs. OK they have more charges the better your skill in the school they are from is..
But they level the enchanting skill.

Since you want them to be a ranged weapon, you will be using staff of destruction meaning it will have lower charges since your destruction will not be leveled any other way.
That means you will probably want the extra juice from soul gems (soul squeezer) depending on how often you use the staff.

Cheers for the advice, oh Dragon smithing is 2 perks if you choose to enhance it to its make level.

Version 4.0

Heavy Armour: Juggernaut (5) + Well Fitted (1) + Tower of Strength (1) + Matching Set (1) + Reflect Blows (1) = 9

Smithing: Stee Smithingl (1) + Arcane Blacksmith (1) + Dwarven Smithing (1) + Orcish Smithing (1) + Ebony Smithing (1) + Daedric Smithing (1) + Dragon Armour Smithing (2) = 8

One Handed: Armsman (5) + Bladesman (3) = 8

Enchanting: Enchanter (5) + Insightful Enchanter (1) + Corpus Enchanter (1) + Extra Effect (1) = 8

Restoration: Novice Restoration (1) + Apprentice Restoration (1) + Adept Restoration (1) + Expert Restoration (1) + Master Restoration (1) + Respite (1) + Recovery (2) + Regeneration (1)= 9

Destruction: Novice Destruction (1) + Apprentice Destruction (1) + Adept Destruction (1) + Expert Destruction (1) + Master Destruction (1) + Augumented Shock (2) = 7

Overall=49

Anymore improvements people can come up with?


In that case, why are we limiting ourselves?

@jonnathan28

ALL smithing perks have ONLY 1 rank!!

"improve by double" does not mean second rank, it means that when you take steel smithing or dragon smithing you can improve a sword not by 10% but by 20%..

That was my point, we shouldnt be. Powergamers should be making 74 point builds, and enthusiasts should be making 65-70 builds to account for the fact some people wont want to max both weapon styles and both armor types.

Making a 49 point build is almost saying "I plan to rush through the main quest and then throw this game in a dust bin". Skill ups and levels come worrying fast in Skyrim. Explorers and enthusiasts will blow past 50 at a speed that I predict will generate forum complaints.

Let me put it otherwise: If you've ever had an Oblivion character with all skills maxed, plan 74 points because it's easier to do this time around. As for me, I've had multiple Oblivion characters with all skills maxed -despite using Bofra's Slower Leveling X5- ... so I'm understandably perplexed by the whole "going beyond 50 is HARRRDDD!" nonsense

Well, I made 2 points and you have talked about one of them. The first, that it is hard to get past 50, and the second, that you are achieving less due to game balance.

For the first, we have been told that skill gain is reverse exponential. You level fast at lower levels and slower higher up. I have seen footage of people at lower levels, but nothing high up, so all I can do is take the words of the devs when they say its a real hard grind. Which I think holds true to the idea of a soft cap anyway. It must be a significant difference going from 50 to 51 than 49 to 50 for it to be any kind of cap. But you seem to know(?) otherwise? Or are you simply basing this on your own logic/reasoning..? In which case I would like to hear it.

For the second point, if the game is balanced at level 50, it would generally mean your choices matter less afterwards, as the game is not getting any more difficult. Early on, and even up to level 50, the world will be noticeably progressing with you and so you need to keep up. This, imo, adds meaning to your choices. When the world no longer moves with you, there really is little point to branching out. All you will be doing is dealing with the same stuff but in a different way (which imo again, is better saved for another play through where its more distinct). I would rather see/think it is generally better to focus on builds that cope with the changing and advancing game world rather than those that plan to do this, then tack on a bunch of stuff after. I want to see what you are going to use to get to level 50, to move through the world. Not just all the perks you really really want.

Anyway, that is my reasons for wanting to see builds at or under the 49 limit. Each to their own of course!

Breton/Nord – Red Mage

One Handed: Armsman (5), Bladesman (3) = 8

Light Armor: Agile Defender (5), Custom Fit (1), Matching Set (1), Deft Movement (1) = 8

Archery: Overdraw (5), Critical Shot (1), Eagle Eye (1) = 7 Variable

Smithing: Steel Smithing (1), Elven Smithing (1), Advanced Armors (1), Glass Smithing (1), Dragon Armor (1), Arcane Blacksmith (1) = 6

Destruction: Novice Destruction (1), Apprentice Destruction (1), Adapt Destruction (1), Augmented Shock (2), Disintegrate (1) = 6

Enchanting: Master Enchanter (5), Insightful Enchanter (1), Corpus Enchanter (1), Extra Effect (1) Soul Squeezer(1), Soul Siphon (1) = 10

Restoration: Novice Restoration (1), Apprentice Restoration (1), Regeneration (1), Recovery (1)= 4

=49

I think this works out pretty well, and touches on all aspects of gameplay I want to play with. Debating using Heavy Armor, but that just doesn't seem right for my character.

Are you sure? I'm going to go to video on this.

Also its important to know your priorities..

You can have 100 perks but its vital to know which ones are important to you so you can take them asap..
By setting a number of perks to a certain number you start thinking which are the best..

Are you sure? It was not this way in Oblivion. Could you link (here or in a PM) me the source of this?


http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Smithing <-- I am going from this.


When I plan a 49 perk build, it is because I want my perks to be relevant to my play-through, not because I want to experience everything in one go in a context where I am no longer challenged for an exorbitant amount of work. But again, if you know more about the levelling than videos (leaked and not) and what the devs have said, then please enlighten.

TWO-HANDED WEAPONS: 12
Barbarian x5 - 2h weapon damage +100%
Limbsplitter x3 - battleaxe bleed damage x3
Champion's Stance - power attack stamina cost -25%
Great Critical Charge - sprint power attack crit
Devastating Blow - standing power attack damage +25% +decap
Sweep - sideways power attack hits all enemies in front
SUBTOTAL: 12

HEAVY ARMOUR: 12
Juggernaut x5 - heavy armour rating +100%
Fists of Steel - h2h damage +gauntlet armour rating
Cushioned - half fall damage
Conditioning - heavy armour weightless
Well Fitted - armour bonus +25% if all heavy
Tower of Strength - stagger -50% if all heavy
Matching Set - Armour bonus +25% if matched
Reflect Blows - Reflect melee +10% if all heavy
SUBTOTAL: 24

Smithing: 9
Steel Smithing
Arcane Blacksmith - improve magical weapons/armour
Elven Smithing
Advanced armours - make scale/plate armour
Dwarven Smithing
Orcish Smithing
Ebony Smithing
Daedric Smithing
Dragon Armour
SUBTOTAL: 33

RESTORATION: 7
Novice Restoration - novice spell cost -50%
Restoration Dual Casting - overcharge
Respite - healing spells also restore stamina
Regeneration - healing spells +50%
Recovery x2 - Magicka regen +50%
Avoid Death - once-a-day 250-health lifesaver
SUBTOTAL: 40

DESTRUCTION: 4
Novice Destruction - novice spell cost -50%
Destruction Dual Casting - overcharge
Augmented Shock x2 - Shock spell damage +50%
SUBTOTAL: 44

ENCHANTING: 11
Enchanter x5 - new enchants +100%
Fire Enchanter - Fire enchants +25%
Frost Enchanter - Frost enchants +25%
Storm Enchanter - Shock enchants +25%
Insightful Enchanter - skill enchants +25%
Corpus Enchanter - HMS enchants +25%
Extra Effect - 2 enchants per item
SUBTOTAL: 55


Ok, so the total is actually 55 perks, but I'm planning on going a little over the soft cap. It may well be that raising my 6 skills of choice to 100 will push me above level 50 in any case. Any extra perks will go on the Apprentice --> Master magicka cost -50% perks for Restoration and Destruction, and Impact (Destruction dual wield --> stagger).

I'm 90% sure ^this^ is correct...


...and ^this^ is not.