Making a sword and boarder with light armor (like the mobility and look), and wondering what other combat skill I should take?

I like using a bow, but I'm told that's too many combat skills to level up at once and that it can be tedious to keep switching out

I guess stealth wouldn't hurt... but then it would kind of be a waste not to go with a bow as well


I'm picturing moments when I see enemies long range in open world, or in a dungeon before they see me...
What to do here? Any magic that has long range?? What are the options in these far opportunistic distances

If you don't care about role-playing, just go for a little bit of everything.

I like entering a dungeon and being able to choose from every option. Keeps the experience very diverse :]

I play with pretty strict rules on my Cleric-- I'm trying to totally avoid the bow, sneaking, as well as offensive magic (specializing in Restoration and Alteration). I usually get an enemy's attention and then LoS them, usually forcing them to run into close range to be able to attack me.

Again though, wondering what my range options are Is bow the only long range option?

do you go maces, just curious.

How is that not caring for role-playing? XD He can freely role-play a character that's efficient in all styles of combat if he wants to.


Nope, you can use destruction magic too. However

Whoever told you that is utterly wrong, almost all (8 out of 10 for example) my characters use bow along with other melee skill, and it's not tedious to switch them at all. Minor problem might be that archery won't follow up as your primary skill, but you could pay for a training here and there. I'll tell you it's not needed at all and am convincing you that you can handle both skills.

And I will choose to believe you because I want to! Because that is how I want to roleplay my character! I'll have to look into destruction magic for long range options tho too.. I just find bow use so satisfying

Everything can eventually be equally useful. Roleplaying is more important than making an "optimal" build. It has always been that way for me and always will. Happy gaming!

I agree as long as you have some idea of where your going with it. I usually decide what I want a character to be at the start and stick to it.

Of course, even in roleplaying character will have a pre-defined class.

I made a sword and board character, leveled destruction mostly via trainers, then enchanted a bunch of -destruction cost gear so I didn't really need magicka. Worked pretty well, you can dual cast pretty destructive fireballs with only maybe 4 perks invested. Of course if it were up to me that wouldn't really be possible, but I won't be making those sort of changes until the CK is out and I can do a complete job of it (need scripts if I'm going to make magicka regenerate while casting.)

What do you mean by "other combat skill I should take"? If you use it, it will go up. If you don't, it won't. If you use it enough that you can get a useful perk and want that perk, then take the perk. Simple as that, really.

I find I ended up buying only perks for heavy armor and two handed, because of my play style of using those almost exclusively. Which of course, lead me to use only items that were boosted by those skills... feedback loop, eh? That left me plenty of other perks to play with in other areas.

I did take some stealth perks, and they are well worth it when I decide to avoid conflict / do some scouting. Stealth synergizes very well with one handed weapons, so you'd still get a big benefit even if you never used a bow.
I took a block perk, but almost never do any blocking, as I'd rather just kill the enemy and move on than sit around blocking while somebody else shows up to shoot me in the back.

I do have a bow for ranged attacks (two actually - one frost, one fire, both legendary dwemer) that I use exclusively vs dragons (and for the occasional snipe / poisoning), but I never felt the need for any bow perks. Staffs and followers provide all the ranged ability I've needed otherwise.

If you get blocking to 100 and use the sprint perk you can clear a room and kill everyone before they get up or use mass paralysis and keep them down. I use a Shield/Axe/Alteration build and at lvl 40 something I can kill rooms of people wearing nothing but the shield and axe.

Yeah maces only-- no edged weapons.