So I started a new game after 1.4... mainly because I had done nearly everything there was to do on my first save and I had Alchemy/Enchant/Smith looped myself into an ICBM launching Metal Gear-esque tank. I started out rolling a sneak/thief/assassin that used conjuration as a distraction and sniped from the cut… or sneaked around and slit throats. He was supposed to be a “good” Breton… but the necromancy, dead thrall stuff turned out to be too much to pass up. Still, I usually only thrall the biggest a'holes I run into, but it's tough to call yourself a "good' character when kids run from the sight of you and your Weekend-at-Bernie's permanent corpse buddy. Essentially, I was undetectable as I watched my Atronachs or Dead Thralls fight for me. When I did need to fight I’d OHK or TwoHK anything in the game short of Alduin. I had smithing perked up on the Light Armor side and I was pretty disappointed with Elven, Glass, etc. and especially disappointed with the Light Armor tree… so…

In my new game I’m rolling an “evil” Spellsword Dunmer in heavy armor. I wanted to play for real on Master. oh ho hollllyyyyyy crap. I was getting my sh1t pushed in by EVERYTHING in the game. I eventually had to use the carriages to get anywhere. I was hoping to be more Sword than Spell, but I just can’t live long enough to even train the warrior skills. I am getting beasted by Saber Cats, let alone Bears.

So, I find myself reverting into the same character as I was before. Try to turn the numbers of the battles against my foes. Raising zombies, conjuring a flame Atronach (all I can do right now till I get perked)… getting a follower and using the old adage “I don’t need to outrun the bear, I just need to outrun you” faithful companion. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m used to that sneak play style or what, but it’s working… so I find myself falling into the same character now.

Has anyone had success as a straight-up warrior on Master? If so, what's your build and your strategy? I'm still going to smith so I can build and improve the best armor (never had Daedric Armor as of yet, looking forward to that) but not the Alch/Enchant/Smith loop into game breaking territory. So far all I’ve buffed from level 1 to 15 is Health and I still get eaten alive when I try to stand and fight. I'm drinking pots like a fish out of water.

If you're Master rolling a warrior and doing it right, I’d like to hear your strategies for open world/dragon combat and dungeon diving. I keep relying on the 15x (or 30x) dagger sneak multiplier crutch, but I’d rather be taking heads with a great sword or a battle axe.

Yes, it is possible. My build as as follows:

-Max out Alchemy, Enchant, and Smith.

-Armor cap, magic resist at 85%, and spell absorption at 80%

-Put every attribute point into health.

-Enchanted my gear so I have 0 restoration school spell cost.

-Two forsworn ravager dead thralls with the improved and enchanted forsworn gear.

Basically, I have over 600 health at level 50, can spam grand healing all day long at 300 health/stamina a pop. And my blade's sword does ~500 damage with all the enchants.

My dead thrall can basically solo the game for me if their AI doesn't bug out.

This is all done without abusing any sort of bugs or glitches like necromage, restoration/alchemy loop, multiple equpiments, etc.

I've beaten the main and Companions' questlines as a Heavy/1H/Block/Restoration character on Master. I used no followers/summons, and never really struggled.

Focus only on damage and defense, when taking perks, and just in general. On top of that, try to specialize in a single form of each when they do not complement each other (e.g. block+heavy stack, heavy+light do not). Alternative skills will just inflate your level and make your enemies far tougher. This is why I never used sneak mode, never tried to soften up enemies with archery, stuff like that.

Smithing is probably the easiest way to keep yourself powerful. However, it's best done in bursts so you can get that next armor type and reap the large benefit without the intermediate part where you've leveled but gained little in combat efficiency. Also, Skyforge weapons will either outclass or nearly match every other weapon you find, so try to get those quickly (clear Dustman's Cairn to unlock them).

Thanks to crafting pretty much any build is viable on master. Without it, playing a pure warrior is a death sentence.

I managed it on expert. That is, 1h + shield + heavy armour + some basic restoration + smithing. Only used crafting ingredients I found myself for smithing. No exploitation, no custom enchanting, no alchemy.

Relied very, very heavily on block. And reloading. Lots of reloads. Every single attack must be blocked. Every single power attack must be dodged, ie. quick reflexes perk + a quick sidestep. Absorbing a power attack just isn't an option on expert/master. Mages are an absolute nightmare, relied on cover and downing any health potions I'd picked up, though the magic shield perk helped a lot. Deflect arrows is an absolute must, before that you will be killed by archers constantly. Melee enemies are pretty simple, try and save all of your stamina for shield/power bashes. Block every attack and dodge every power attack. If you get surrounded, shout and run, you just can't get hit at all.

I levelled 2/1 health/stamina. Shield bashing and running the hell away were very important strategies.

You're asking about master, and the step up from expert is a huge one. I just can't see it. It depends on how you're limiting yourself. If you're gonna use crafting to it's full extent, I can't imagine it would be too hard. Godlike equipment and 0 cost restoration spells would sure come in handy. If you're gonna play a warrior in the class roleplay sense... all I see is pain. You will die and die and die and die and die constantly until you never ever wanna play the game again.

1h/shield is doable with not too much difficulty and not to hard leaning into the "loop"

Power attacks can just be shieldbashed, but if you can dodge them that's really good.
In fact, power attacks are the only attacks I usually have any succes shieldbashing. Normal attacks always seem to hit me when I try it.

Anyway, I started out on Adept and moved onto Expert when my character got a bit too powerful to be a challenge to play. Mages are really a pain, especially since they always seem to be in narrow grottos where you can't really sidestep their magic attacks. Ice mages are the worst. They drain health AND stamina AND they slow your pace down to a crawl so you can't get out of the way of the next attack

Warrior is definitely the class I have most fun playing. It's just so satisfying to run in to a room and cut people's heads off with a mace lol. Sneaking is kind of fun but gets boring after a while, and constantly switching spells around as a mage gets kind of tedious.

So far so good then. This is why I've been reverting to sneaking, distracting. I've never cared about block. I need to look into this. For my previous sneak builds I didn't care at all, I never used a shield. I would conjure, sneak, kill... dodge if I got into a fist for fist fight.

Heh, on Master I can sometime lose a FREAKEN BRAWL! I was almost killed in a GD fist fight over 100 septims.

I never cared about block either.

I started with Oblivion and then played a lot of Morrowind. In both of those games actual fighting skill means very little. Morrowind is basically automatic, and Oblivion is just a waltz, slash, slash, block, slash, slash, block.

This changed with Skyrim and it took me a while to realize it, the way you fight actually means a whole lot now, thanks to a number of reasons.

- biggest, no insta cast. Can't spam healing spells whilst fighting anymore, you've gotta find some breathing room and charge them.
- no athletics/acrobatics. As a heavily armoured warrior, once you've engaged you're pretty much stuck there until one of you dies.
- smaller health pools overall.
- power attacks are now game changers rather than just bigger hits.
- shield bashing, deadlier archers, deadlier mages, better combat AI.

Not to sound patronizing but if you started with either Morrowind or Oblivion it might be worth taking the time to learn how to fight again, it plays such a bigger role in Skyrim.

It took me a few characters and many hours of getting my ass kicked to realize this myself. Change is hard.

Not patronizing... I'm asking.

Those are good tips. I basically relied on magic, conjuration, buffed gear (100% Chameleon or 100% magic resist) in Oblivion so I really do need to learn. I'm not a huge fan of story tutorials... but it would have been nice if there was someone I could spar with safely. Look for the right time to power attack or dodge.

I feel like I can only stick and move. Every time I try a power attack I get one right back in the face (unless, of course, I stagger the dude).

I finally got to the point where I can kill bears one on one... kinda sad to even say, but it's the truth. I have Dwarven Armor right now so I'm off to Unfathomable Depths to get that perk I happened upon the Curse Tribe accidentally. I waited and waited until the Giant had a sliver left and I charged in...


into a huge club to the balls. OHK. Whoops. There went 15 minutes of my life.

I rarely use power attacks, only if it'll definetly finish the enemy.

Your shield is your friend. Bashing will stagger some enemies if you have a decent block skill and leave them open to attack. Power bashes will stagger almost anyone. Quick reflexes is brilliant, especially for sidestepping those charging power attacks that tend to one hit you. As for specific enemies:

- draugr. Probably the easiest cause they're so easy to dodge, you won't even need to block unless you're surrounded. Stay out of range, let em miss, do some damage, repeat. If you eat a power attack by a 2 hander, you're dead.
- melee NPCs. Use your shield liberally. If they have a 1H, just dodge/interrupt their power attacks, follow up with a power bash and then do some damage. Manage your stamina well and it's pretty simple. If they keep their shield up constantly, just hammer away at it, you can sometimes get them into a lock of never dropping it so you just whittle them down. If they have a 2H just circle strafe them, let them miss, bash them and then attack.
- archers. Blocking is sorta unreliable until you get the perk. If you're good with a bow, use one. I'm not great, I usually just sprint between cover until I reach them, then it's easy.
- mages. Get lucky. Really I can't give you any advice, mages are the reason I don't take this restricted/limited build to master. They're gonna damage you and there's little you can do about it. If you focus them, you're exposing your back to their friends. [censored] em. Down health potions, use cover, use powers, shouts ect.
- beast (trolls, sabre cats, bears, ect.) Pretty tough, bashing isn't as reliable. Always, always keep your shield up, they're not smart enough to find away around it. With quick reflexes perk you'll be able to sidestep all of their power attacks which leaves them open to attack.

Of course there's Falmer, chaurus, dragons, necromancers, spiders, wisps, wraiths ect left, but I just haven't found a reliable method of beating these as a pure warrior yet. If anyone knows, let me know.

Max enchanting with a sword and shield turned the game into an absolute joke on master. Even in steel plate/wolf armor I was almost unkillable. Enchanting just kills the game. I would recommend sword and shield; it's enjoyable and makes combat somewhat tactical, and you have enough damage mitigation to ensure that you don't die every 5 min.

I play 2H+Heavy on Master, so a decent part of my defense comes from Power Attack offense; 2H PAs auto-break blocks and auto-stagger the one blocking in the process, which greatly reduces the amount of incoming. Sword+Board doesn't have that option, however you get a much better bash in return, as well as the ability to block spell attacks, so actually come out ahead at higher difficulties.

One thing to keep in mind: during the early levels, you cannot engage in block-turtling, as their offense will greatly exceed your defense, especially if it's a PA from a 2H-wielder. Kiting and heal-spam will be the order of the day until you get a high armor rating and/or certain Block perks, but once you do have those you'll start overwhelming a fair number of opponents.

As mentioned before, chain-bashing is very important, as it keeps heavy hitters from doing so; it even works on Dragons, assuming you can get one to land before it fries you. You'll need a lot of Stamina to do that, unless you don't mind using potions, as any let-up will allow them to get a hit or two in, and that can kill you. Whether you go this route or not, you'll need a lot of Health; it allows you to both soak normal attacks and (greatly, if high enough) reduce the chance that enemy 2H PAs trigger an auto-kill.

Technically, you really shouldn't be able to cut someone's head off with a blunt weapon... I'm a mace user myself, and that always bugged me. Beth needs to modify the Savage Strike and Devastating Blow perks so they don't use the decap animation with blunt weapons. But it doesn't break the game, so we all know it's probably not going to happen. /nitpick

General Master hit the nail on the head. I have a 1h/light armor warrior on master and they WILL hurt you even when blocking, don't be afraid to run around and kite them while you pop up your healing spell (in both hands preferably) heal up and jump back in.

I ended up doing this a lot in the early levels, especially playing on master with mods like Warzones and Wars in Skyrim installed. Many more enemies and all that jazz. It was tough, but immensely exciting knowing that the Bandit Marauder with the Orcish greatsword could smoke me if I don't time my blocks and fancy footwork right.

Edit: Vegetable Soup/Beef Stew/Venison Stew? not sure about that third one, but there are 3 cooking recipes which will regenerate 1 stam and 1 health for 12 minutes, this pretty much allows you to always have a shield bash ready to keep those pesky mages or 2h badarses from performing their power attacks. It's a life saver, trust me.

I use an Absorb Stamina enchantment on my weapon instead, because I don't allow myself to access my inventory during combat. I take advantage of a quirk in cost calculations to avoid running out of charges mid-fight: if you lower a magic school's spell costs to zero, charge expenditures for that school are also reduced to zero. It takes a while to get there, since you need 100 Enchanting and 4 slots to do it, but at that point you can max both that and an Absorb Health enchantment on the same weapon, which greatly reduces the need to pop a heal spell mid-fight.

I lost a brawl on a mage with 15 one-handed
you just go on the ground like other people when you beat them in brawls, then get up, 100 septims poorer. (and then reload, lol)

Best Thread I've read so far, many, many good tips

Word.

Last night went MUCH better for me. I ditched the training wheels (follower, atronachs) and cleared a bandit fort myself using some of these tips. I still have to pick the ground or else I get surrounded and overwhelmed, but I only died a couple of times (one was a trap I didn't see).

I just upped the difficulty to master. Here's where I'm at. (character rules - no enchanting or alchemy, can only smith using items that I find, smithing skill can't go higher than main dmg skill (one handed))

28 restoration - novice, apprentice, the one that doubles healing spell power. I really want respite soon.
6# one handed - armsman x 2
6# block - shield wall x 3, quick reflexes, power bash, elemental protection, reflect arrows
3# heavy armour - juggernaut x 1, well fitted
3# archery - none
4# smithing - up to dwarven

Wearing full exquisite dwarven armour, dwarven shield, mace of molag bal, dwarven bow
Ring of minor (20) magicka, ring of minor (20) health, amulet of fire restistance (15%) - all found as loot
Switching from a sword to mace was a recent move, liking it a lot more. Wish I'd used it from the start.

I did bleak falls barrow so dragons would start appearing, I'm mostly running from them, although I've managed to kill two with archery. Took forever. I'm gonna wait till I get spellbreaker before attempting to fight them head on, even then I'm doubtful. Getting unlucky with shouts too, I have fus lvl 1, animal allies and detect life. Bleh.

My first opponent with this limited build on master was a snow bear. I was pleasantly surprised at how comfortable the fight was. I only got hit once, which nearly killed me, luckily it wasn't a PA. My second opponent was a group of forsworn, the mage absolutely destroyed me. Melee enemies, not much has changed. I can still absorb regular attacks with my shield, they just take a bit longer to die. Plus I can cast fast healing 4 times in one magicka bar now which is damn helpful.

I think I'm gonna struggle with mages up until I get block runner + spellbreaker, or until I get a some lucky resist gear as loot.

Next steps are to up myself to full orcish and then get spellbreaker. The trip to a mine will be tough enough.

Respite is godly, I think you'll really enjoy it. Reflect Arrows is bugged, so you wasted 2 perks on Shield Wall.

For mages, shouts are your friend. FRD and Whirlwind Sprint let you close the gap and cut through their low reserves of HP. Especially against upgraded weapons, they shouldn't last long. Also, why no Armsman 4? IMO that is the most important perk you can take.

@Mishaxi:

Yes, mages will svck mightily until you get high magic resistance, since they bypass armor.

Oddly enough, if you know what you're doing then certain wolves and cats are more dangerous than bears, as they have faster attack rates and use hit-and-run tactics while the bear just stands in and whales away. Granted a Power hit from a bear can kill you instantly, but they have to land it first and it's fairly easy to either dodge it or bash them out of it once you recognize the delivery (paw swung high is one such sign, they usually side-swipe).

I find shield wall too useful not to use. Granted, dodging every attack is preferable, but I just can't do that yet.
As far armsman, it's just the way I was going. I was playing on expert to begin with and thought a defensive fighter would be the way to go because of how I was limiting myself. And yeah, I need to start grabbing more shouts.

Wish I'd done a lot differently.

Heavy armour - it's just not levelling, I'm failing to see it's usefulness over light. It saves me in some situations but I would've been better just dodging in all of them.
Archery - I seriously underestimated it. Even though I never use sneak attacks I think combat archery is still very powerful and I should've at least perked into damage increases.
Block - seriously overestimated it's usefulness on master. It's main use right now is for quick reflexes so I can dodge PA's.

I might start again and do things differently, I've kinda lost control of this character. Thinking a light armoured Orc, sword and board who uses archery more often. I think the increased mobility could help more than anything else.

Plus I just like how light armour looks. I just got ebony and can't stand it, looks too grimdark.

Reflect arrows is NOT bugged The arrows bounce off you shield --> arrows must hit your shield. So a big shield helps.

My newest character uses a greatsword (Elven or Dwarven I forget), it does 82 damage with 25 fire damage I think. I don't smith weps or armour and get by fine.

Most places I breeze through, but now and then I'll come across something tricky, those Chaurus Reapers were chewing through me big style and I also felt very weak when I did the companions Silver Hand mission there's some big bunches of enemies that took some getting through and a lot of running about. Just how I want it!. Oh and the first civil war mission was tricky as hell, painful arrows!.

It's important to spend your perks wisely, don't get carried away putting points into stamina just because you think you have to because your a warrior, health health and more health if you want to survive, use the lord stone for extra armor and magic resist. It's also worth levelling up destruction, use it on weak enemies or if your a strict role playing buy training, because there's perks in Destruction that up the damage of the fire, frost etc enchants on weapons you find. Of course this is only important for a purer warrior who doesn't enchant his own gear.

Don't waste perks either, you don't need points in speech or soft things like sneak, lockpicking just not needed for a warrior.

Never spend money on potions, use the cash you save from now buying potions and selling to invest in training. Does your warrior heal?, because I've got close wounds spell with mine and it's so much better for me than drinking potions all the time.

I've had a lot of fun playing an illusionist/alteration swordsman at master, using frenzy to cause infighting in a group of foes and attacking into the fray, using calm to force an enemy to drop his guard before running him through, fear-ing away extras when I'm overwhelmed plus of fus-ro-da to knock down foes allowing me to knock them off ledges or force an opening so I can leap into the fray.

All the while only wearing cloth armour and no shield. "Elegant an intelligent swordsmanship"