When i run into tough mages i usually just unrelenting force them then sprint in and hack away. My toughest enemy thus far has been still the standard wild animal that can drop me in a few hits... Namely snow sabre cat

The mage mentioned in the OP didn't have any shouts for a long time. I know, kind of a self-gimp, but just wasn't ready for dragons yet.

She is now, though. In her 40's.

I find that the smithing perk is quite important... having a decent weapon, along with decent armour IMHO goes a long way

I got smithing to 60 on my mage so she could improve her magical gear. Beyond that, it's not terribly important. However I will get it to 100 soon, but she doesn't have a lot of perks into it beyond the first two.

He one-hits you like almost always unless you have high Magical Resistance Gear though ain't the hardest boss I've fought. A few enchantments and you are good to go for him. I would love to see Skyrim to have more bosses and even Scripted Bosses. I love when Bosses have special scripts. Makes them fun and worth fighting.

Potema was interesting, but not terribly difficult. Was reminiscent of WoW, raid fights who just summoned adds. Maybe if her lightning damage was buffed a little...

I've had no real boss fights since very early in the game before I got that Impact perk mentioned by the OP. Just spam it and nothing can hit you anymore. There have been, like, two random enemies that have been immune to it for some reason.

But the best bossfight with that Impact-Destruction-spamming mage character was Orchendor in Peryite's quest. Fought that guy about 30 minutes. He always healed when I was about to end him. He and his summons did some several damage to me and my companion. I just couldn't finish him off with the magic arsenal I had at that point. Luckily I had taken a two-handed weapon with me for a loot in that ruin, so finally I had to use it. The first and only time in that save when I have been forced to use a weapon to drop anything dead. That was one epic fight. His teleport didn't make it any easier, but the main difficulty was that my spells just didn't do enough damage to finish him off - he always healed enough to recover. So a couple of shots from a staggering two-handed weapon finally did it. Luckily.

Ah.. Yeah. She was quite interesting but I've done that sort of scripting before. Personally, I want to see someone who is as hard, or even harder, than Nomad (From RS) in Skyrim. Now that is someone I can easily call an actually Boss... I died over 30 times fighting him...

Red Eagle, the first time anyway. I lost tract of how many time's I died. I finally just had to back out and go in later. 2 hr's of dieing, it was enough.


I forget the name of the cave but it had mages in it. 1st time I went trough by myself, 2h battleaxe with shock enchant, mowed them down but good. 2nd char went through dual wield, conjuration, with Iona and meeko, they all attacked in a clump in the tunnel and by the time the dust settled I was the only one alive ( til I reloaded that is). Backed out after the 3rd time, I couldn't get them into the cave part instead of the tunnel. Funny how hard it is to push past your companion but how easy they get past you.

Haha, I just encountered that little side-thing. (My mage is doing more exploration than most of my characters have)
I was surprised to see another named Dragon Priest (That wasn't the usual 8), so it definitely caught me off guard.
But my mage is a powerhouse of late. 15 hours later, she's a lot better than what I described in my OP.

Gosh, yes. I really wanted his house, so my mage barged in about level 15. Drelas used Adept level Destruction spells (like Ice Storm), and I only had Apprentice level ones, with no Impact. He rocked me over and over. And of course he heals himself when I finally am about to end it. After a half dozen tries, I was victorious.

My latest unbeatable boss has been Kvenel in Volunruud. I'm on my level 13 cleric character, using mace/shield and restoration. I first encountered Kvenel at level 5. Terrifiying. So I went questing, leveled up, got some nice perks, and came back for revenge. I tried this fight for over 2 hours this morning. One time, I finally won, only to watch Jenassa fall along with the boss. I had accidentally smacked her with my maces' backswing. And she died. I was devastated, and thought, well, I know I can beat him, I'll reload and do it again. Nope, not happening. I should have saved after that win and just mourned the loss of Jenassa.

After my game froze on the 30th or so reload, I decided I was done for the day. Then I look up Kvenel on wiki, to see that he's got 700 HP (if you fight him before level 17- its 1000 HP after!!). No wonder I was having such trouble! I will get my revenge, someday!

Actually, any Undead Boss can be a Dragon Priest. That one you encounter when retrieving the White Potion is a possible Dragon Priest. I always get that one as a Dragon Priest.

Hundreds of hours in, never encountered one that wasn't one of the main eight.
I have happened upon one of those eight while not actually trying, though.
Cue "OSHI" moment.

You gotta be level 50+ to get Dragon Priests as bosses. Only the 8 main ones can be found at any level, due to their masks.

I've run into unnamed dragon priests at levels under 40.

Strange. I never find them until level 50 and they are set as level 50. I should do some research on this.

I happened upon Red Eagle as 52, so I can't say much on this matter.
They're described as "High level" bosses, not "max level".
Also in the E3 Gameplay trailer, the preview guy was like 35 or something and the dragon priest popped up in Bleak Falls.
That was, of course, a heavily edited demo (He had 999 health)

I agree with you. I had all perks in smithing. Good weapons, good gears are very important for a warrior kind. I don't know about mages because I never played using only spells.

Yes, recharging enchanted weapons improves your enchantment skill. I'd speculate it might be based on either value of the weapon, and/or size of soul gem used to recharge it, as far as experience gain is concerned.I can only think of one challenge I've had in Skyrim. Bear in mind, I don't mess with the difficulty; Whatever the default is, I haven't changed it. I think my 1h character was about level 8 or so... Pretty early on in the game, but I felt powerful. So, I was exploring outside of Whiterun and came across the cave I've only recently discovered on a different character, to be the cave in which one finds Amren's family sword from his little questipoo. Level 8 Kahjiit, not understanding how fluffy and unthreatening unarmed combat really is, I charged in, dropped the dog and the first bandit, go through the tunnel, and get devastated by the bandit chief and her lackey. F9! Drop the pooch, down with the first broad, lure out the lackey, finish her, then I let my health refill... Still refilling... Thwack the lackey's corpse out of spite, then head into the chief's lair, and get stomped. This repeated itself two more times before I applied the definition of insanity (doing the same thing twice, but expecting different results), and forsook the stupid hideout. Ever since, I really focus on side missions so that when I go back to the main questline, I'm ready for whatever's in store. Or, I just load my cheat character and run through everything with Dremora Lords and tilde -> k-i-l-l -> Enter -> tilde -> "Simon says: ingest cyanide pill!"

Their level does not necessarily have anything to do with when you can encounter them, as some of them are preset encounters and will occur regardless of what level your character is. Those are mostly the Named ones, though; there are only a couple of preset generic ones, and they're in quest-specific dungeons.

Well normally the spawn system, which spawns creatures in the game, is set up in a way that it'll spawn stuff according to your level. In the past, each creature is within an 'X', 'X+1', 'X+2', 'X-1', and 'X-2' spawn. X being their level. Dragon Priests are level 50 thus meaning, you can begin seeing them at level 48+ as long it isn't a Dragon Priest that was placed at a spot from the start of the game. (The 8 Masked ones are placed at the start).

Same thing goes for bosses. It is actually set that there is more than one of that boss. In this case, some are being Draugrs for lower levels then higher level Draugrs, and lastly, a Dragon Priest form of that boss for those players at 48+.

Also note that, if the lowest level possibility in a Spawner is something that is 20 levels above the player's level, it will still spawn that creature. This explains why you can find Frost Trolls at level 1 because they are the only creature found in the Spawner they are in. Btw, a Spawner is the thing used to spawn creatures according to your level, thought I should say it so.

But I maybe incorrect on this since I hadn't begun modding Skyrim yet but I've modded past Elder Scrolls Games so I do have an idea what I am talking about.

I actually knew all that, as I'm a modder too, but it's still useful for those who didn't. My point was more that Dragon Priests don't follow the normal spawning rules, mostly because the vast majority of them are preset encounters.

The thing you're thinking of is Leveled Lists, although not all of them are actually leveled. The Dragon Priest spawn list is one such, since they're all level 50, but you're right about the other Draugr bosses, whose lists have level tiers that govern which one shows up when you cause it to spawn. They also govern its gear, which is why almost all Draugr Death Overlords (the L46 version) have Ebony weapons and (where applicable) arrows.

Ah, Malkoran. I shot him in the back of the head in sneak mode.

The best boss fight I had was at Skuldafn, level 18. Nahkriin wasn't much of a problem, but the Elder and Frost Dragons(which I had provoked on purpose) were an epic fight.

Rupert, my level 32, great-sword wielding warrior came up against Raghot yesterday, accompanied by his friend, the fragrant Aela (for Buck and Serethil, he has given her new armour and insists that she swims in the rivers regularly so that the odour of wet dog just adds a hint of mystique). The usual tactics applied - drop the door, shout "Y'all know what this is!" and charge in. Rupert went for the boss fellow as he was getting out of his box, leaving Aela to swing Dawnbreaker against any followers. Thirty seconds of furious sword swinging and it was all over; Rupert had his first dragon mask and a load more loot that he is going to struggle to find a buyer for.

My problem is that this just keep happening with this character. For example, on the way through Forelhost to get to Raghot's lair there was one point when Rupert saw a Draugr ahead of him. Naturally he charged forward into combat. Turned out his target was a Draugr Wight but that made no difference, still got the nice skewer animation. However, before he re-died the Wight obviously had a chance to hit the panic button and all his friends turned up to help - Draugrs, including a death lord, just kept coming - and falling. Rupert got into his battle rhythm (slash, block, slash, slash, there is a solid target - power attack), Aela was doing her thing with her bow, and suddenly it was all over. Took less than a minute. Rupert came close to needing to chug a healing potion, but never to losing and once again he forgot to use (i.e. didn't need) shouts.

Even at level 32, with a two-handed warrior combat seems a little too easy - at least with my squishy sneak I had to think about it.

An elder at 18? Yeesh. I mostly just fight normal Dragons, I think they underlevel those because you fight like, 4 in quick succession. I usually cut them down fairly quick. (If I'm not bumping up the difficulty to make it interesting)