I am level a 25 assassin character who uses archery and one handed to deal damage. Each skill is just under level 50.

However, I just took out a dragon priest by firing an arrow, hiding, firing an arrow, hiding, repeat ad infinitum.

It seems very cheap to me. There is no other way I could beat him though. What do you guys think?

Yeah, after the initial stealth hit they should not give a stealth bonus for at least a few minutes.

Be a man, go out and melee him and use some pots.......while I keep using my arrows and never allow myself to be seen... i enjoy it...

Not cheap, you're just exploiting a weakness.

But no you do have a point, its just dumb AI (IMO) , it happens in every game though, computers will never be as smart as us or able to improvise...(que skynet)

Yea AI cannot be as smart as human. But there are still smarter AIs and dumber AIs. Sadly the AI of Skyrim belongs to those dumber ones.

I think the AI of Crysis 1 is pretty good and it's a sandbox game like Skyrim as well. At least the AI will be more aware of the surroundings when they noticed something wrong, unlike the ones in Skyrim, an arrow in the head and still believing it's just imaginations.

I fire arrows to soften up my opponent and then charge in with shield and sword.. Yawr !!

Wouldnt it be better to just get a companion to tank for you instead of using a cheap tactic? I know they can be annoying but that seems like 5x worse.

They should at least investigate fully where the arrow/fireblast/whatever came from.

I know you can snipe Morokei from the balconies and hide behind the last pillar, and he'll only ever come up the stairs and halfway down the balcony, never seeing you, then wander back to his spawn point to get shot again. Although most of the dungeons really don't have much dimension to them for stealth exercises, it tends to be tight halls or one big room with little to hide behind.

Correct me if i am wrong but is that not what stealth is???firing from stealth moving to a different location striking again, the whole point is to not get detected.The whole idea of stealth is to use it and stay hidden.Then again it does not work on dragons!

It's called Guerrilla warfare.
But yeah the AI is pretty stupid. "WOOPS, I'm powerful and can kill you in one shot but this small rock is in the way!"

Pretty sure the point is that after somebody gets stabbed or shot in the back they generally tend not to go back to business as usual walking a route as if nothing happened.

1) One solution is to give the tougher enemies a "TrueSight" type spell/effect that would presumably make them immune to the extra damage from stealth attacks after the first hit.

2) Some of the Dragon Priests could also arguably use a spell that teleports you to their location.

Overall, though, it's the AI that needs tweaking.

yeah, well, archery and stealth are the most broken things in the game so you know, if you're going to use them exclusively they will feel cheap.

Bethesda had to incorporate an NPC animation used exclusively against PC's using eagle eye and reflexes in the form of a pre-congnizant reflex reaction that hurls them 10 ft. to the side in order to make playing the game not be a complete joke with those two skill combos.

Well, my character was a stealth warrior so as to speak, so i could tank quite some damage as well. so i don't bother hiding after the initial hit

I'm sure you can make enemies psychic when the CS comes out.

i have a character wood elf level 45 thief/assassin

Almost everything (on adept)is one shot kill with the dagger since i have x2 backstab,100 stealth,muffle,and assassins blade perk
Its insanely overpowered

The stealth is pretty typical for this type of game. If they make it too realistic people complain. In Skyrim the enemies are pretty aware and give chase for a reasonable amount of time unless you have a super stealthy character and then it's just silly really.

Yeah Sneak + Archery = easy mode

I just made a new account for sneaking without archery

So far it's actually pretty fun with backstabs/pick-pocketing

I'm the stealth theif\assassin. But if they do get close I'm trying to level up some sort of fire spell and dragon shout so they back up off me

This isn't cheap. Warriors can kill the dragon priest within seconds. Your method is slower, but safer. It is only for patient people, and is balanced.

The only way the dragon priest cannot detect you immediately after firing an arrow is because your sneak skill quite high.

Stealth also isn't as effective against dragons, because they are often flying and you cannot always sneak up on one.

But I can see your point. It may be too safe.

To any future modder reading this, maybe dragon priests and casters in general can heal themselves after they have been hit. This way it makes it harder to kill casters, and requires extra strategy, like using dagger sneak attacks, paralyze poisons, etc.

Well, I don't understand the problem, if you think it was the only way to defeat him how can it be cheap? The only other thing I could suggest is not use sneak and just find another way. There are some magic enemies that cannot be beaten that way though, they replenish themselves forcing you to use more rapid tactics.

I'm currently a level 27 Nord with 100 sneak, which I leveled up by purely using sneak, although I don't have many perks in it. I think I "earned" my sneak abilities My archery is around 67 or so, and I altered my ini file to make me actually have to apply drop-over-distance, so when I get a hit at distance, it's because I earned it. I don't consider my sneak + archery overpowered because I am weak in other areas, it kind of forces me to consider my attacks and plan them out, which is fine.

Although I have recently perked my dagger skills to get me a x15 damage bonus, and thanks to my sneak I can do this quite well IF there's only one enemy. If it's far tougher than my initial x15 can deal with I Shout an Ice Form spell at him and wait while the ice inflicts it's damage, then as the creature starts to break out I apply some 2-handed to finish it off.

It's interesting how my tactics are evolving due to happenstance & ability/weakness

I once got a temporary companion teleported right into the arrow I just shot. He got pissed and tried to kill me instead.

That isn't the issue. The issue is that there is no other way for the thief/assassin to win. If you run in with your daggers out you will be one hit killed. The issue is that there is only "melee" combat or "ranged" combat. There should be close quarters melee and standard melee. If someone is right against you you can't swing a mace or sword at them. Daggers should always win close quarters combat.

LMFAO. That doesn't make stealth awful, it makes stealth viable.

It was precisely because of that that I abandoned my first character. This game is in serious need of balancing because there are too many ways to trivialize the combat.

Oh the bug where NPCs teleport around when you try to shoot them? Yeah it is awesome to empty 6-7 arrows into thin air even though they were actually headshots.

It is called realism. Or do you think you'd be able to run over and fight me after taking an arrow to the knee?