I have made this new post because I would like to see different builds which I could possibly test out. I would also like to know how people are going to adapt their builds in anticipation and the release of Dawnguard. Detailed builds would be much appretiated (armor, weapons, enchantments, spells, perks, skill concentraion at certain levels, etc.) Thank you skyrim nation!

One of my favorite builds is the stealth build, consisting of the following-

One handed tree maxed out to where the dual daggers increase damage

Stealth maxed out so sneaking is easier and power attacks are extra damage with daggers

dark brotherhood assasin clothing

dual daedric dagger smithed to legendary

now note that some of the enhanced perks my be in the wrong skill tree, but hopefully you get my point. stealt with dual daggers and power attack equals out to be like 20x damage, so i favor that a bit also archery maxed out is a alot of fun to go around picking off a few enemies un-detected and pillage some village after a quick save

One-handed warrior FTW.

One-handed, shield, smithing, heavy armor. Maybe just a little in archery and/or sneak for the sake of well-roundedness, but they aren't necessary. Everything else is just gravy. Those four skills will turn you into the meanest, baddest viking to ever swing an axe.

Stealth builds usually are what I prefer.

So far my favorite and current build is -

Wood Elf
Archery, Alchemy, Sneak, One Handed (dagger only), Light Armor, Lockpicking.

Nothing is maxed out yet. I'm holding out on making my character too OP by not putting a lot into buffing sneak (3 out of 5 in fortify sneak, and no x15 backstab). I only have 2 in lockpicking to make breaking out of jail less frustrating. My character gets bounties a lot and breaking out of jail is fun and challenging.

Two-handed,heavy armor Dragonslayer

Restoration, one handed, heavy armor
Always wear a Mage hood such as apprentice or adept coupled with armor of your choosing with mace
Perfect paladin character

I'm currently really enjoying my battlemage character.
Heavy Armor, one-handed (swords), destruction and a bit of restoration.

She's currently dressed in a mixture of steel and iron armor, but really any heavy armor can work. She doesn't have any enchanted gear, although I'll probably be putting on some 'reduce destruction' and 'fortify magicka regeneration' enchantments.

As for perk placement ... I just throw perks into whatever skills I feel necessary. Most will probably go into the destruction skill and some of the one-handed and heavy armor trees. The first restoration perk, too.

I just made the following and I'm really excited for it:

* Male Dunmer Vampire: Dunmer Fire Resist helps counter Vampire Fire Weakness; Dunmer are good all-around characters with good racial bonuses, and they just look cool.
* Sign: The Steed: Allows me to use Heavy Armor with zero encumbrance, no Sneak penalty, no speed reduction, and no stamina penalty; also gets +100 carrying capacity. Such an awesome sign...

Primary Skills
* Illusion: Pretty obvious for a Vampire character... Muffle, Invisibility, Calm, and Frenzy are all extremely useful. Also Quiet Casting.
* Sneak: Mostly passive... I sneak everywhere. Not going to go crazy with Sneak perks, but I'm definitely going to get Assassin's Blade.
* One Handed: My primary form of offensive combat. A dagger (or two) is always useful, and occasionally I switch to a sword/shield or sword/spell fighting style in close quarters.
* Heavy Armor: Better protection, and with The Steed, none of the drawbacks. At high levels, there's nothing better than moving swiftly and silently in a full set of Daedric. Also I just haven't spent much time using Heavy Armor in Skyrim yet, so I want to give it a fair shot. Once I get Conditioning, I may consider switching from The Steed to The Lord.

Secondary Skills
* Archery: Useful on occasion for dealing with faraway enemies, or distracting anyone who gets close and starts detecting you. I've barely used it so far, but I like having a bow and some arrows on me, just in case.
* Restoration: Mostly just for Necromage, but the Healing spells are pretty useful between fights, and Respite and Recovery are also useful perks.
* Destruction: Basically only for use in a pinch, I doubt I'll pick up many perks or buy many spells, but it's good to have at times.

-- I may also use some Alchemy and Enchanting on occasion, but not so much for the sake of leveling them as simply to get some short term benefits. it's always nice to have a few potions/poisons on hand, and to be able to make your gear just a bit better).


I really like this build and its potential. Good defense, good stealth, and good deception should make my character very formidable in pretty much any situation -- Heavy Armor gives me good protection in close combat, One Handed lets me hold my own offensively, while Sneak and Illusion all minimize the chances of actually getting myself into a close melee. If all else fails, I can fall back on Potions and Healing Spells, but really, I don't think I need to worry about that much. My "primary skills" all level at a nice pace just by the nature of my playing style, and for the most part, so do my "secondaries." I've joined the Thieves Guild and College of Winterhold, and I also plan on joining the Dark Brotherhood sometime in the near future. I'm going to put off the Main Quest for a while though, but eventually I look forward to adding Shouts as a viable form of combat. I've made a list of all the perks I know I want, as well as all the perks I'd like to have. I should be able to get all my "essential" perks by about level 30, and then by level 60-65, I should have every relevant tiered perk maxed, every relevant Dual Casting perk, and a handful more helpful but non-essential perks. I made this build with Dawnguard in mind, and obviously as a Vampire, I'll be siding with Harkon. I don't think I'll be joining the Companions, and I have no real need to do the Civil War lines, though I may end up doing them anyway at some point...

I tried a few builds before really starting.Enchanting and smithing helps with any build so you can tailor your gear to boost your classes' specific skills.
Example...
Warrior/Tank build : 2-3 lvls hp then 1 lvl stamina.
Skills / Perks : 100 Heavy Armor max perks,100 Blocking Max perks,100 One-Handed Max perks in weapon of choice.
Gear : Heavy Armor,Shield,Weapon of choice.Smithing helps to nearly double the defense or damage.
Enchanting : Armor - Boost either hp, weapon damage or magic resistance,etc. Weapon - hp and or stamina absorb, etc.

If you want more examples let me know on this topic.

Arcane-Warrior

race: Breton
Armor-robes mixed with either heavy or light
-Destruction
-Conjuration
-Marksman
-Some one-handed
-Sneak

Master Thief:

.Imperial
.Shadow Stone/Thief Stone/Tower Stone (Fitting for RP)
.Sneak, Archery, Alchemy, Speech, Pickpocket.
.All stamina.
.Use Light Armour for good enchantments available.
.Use Alchemy for poisons, Invisibility etc.
.For combat, you can afford all the best gear. Attack from the shadows at range with a poison.

Very fun to play.

my main characters always seem to be warrior with heavy armor and sword'n'board. well... more like axe'n'board.

My favorite is a MageSlayer. Sneak, OneHanded (dual daggers), Destruction, Conjuration, Light Armor, Alteration.

My second favorite is a Druid. Destruction (ice, lightning), light armor using forsworn armor, restoration, alchemy, hide shield, scimitar.

I am 99% sure my favorite build is the Crusader, which is basicly just the word used in TES about the characters who are something akin to Paladins(or at least it was with the Premade Classes in Morrowind and Oblivion). Heavy armor, restoration and one melee skill(two-handed in my case).

This guys Battlemage build was incredibly powerful when I played it. (at level 15 I HAD TO up the difficulty, way to easy)

But full on warrior and spellsword/battlemage are my favorite

I don't even know what i would consider my guy to be he's a nord with all the perks from one and two handed that benefit the ebony blade.

"Because everyone knows it's the coolest sword"

He's a vampire necromancer too with the necromage perk plus a master in stealth and illusion.

And he only has the first armor increasing perks from light and heavy so he wears boethiah's ebony mail with the head, feet and hands of the nightingale with a quiver full of ebony arrows.

So i guess he would be considered a hybrid. He looks so badass.

My current build, the no-named build (I need a name for it...)

Race: Argonian
Stone: Atronach Stone
Stat focus: 5 Health/ 3 Stamina/ 2 Magicka
Skills: One-Handed, Block, Archery, Alteration, Light Armor and Smithing

I have a build perk plan that goes up to level 64, and the build ended up having a lot of magic resistance bonuses. Uses a bow for ranged and a sword (no shield, only sword blocks) for melee.