Give yourself a critical hit bonus to one handed blades and it looks fine without tampering it out too much.

If you are going to utilize invisibility and muffle (from the illusion list) you should drop the entire left side of the sneak tree. +5 perks for you.

I would drop all the bow perks (the fluff) and instead just get bow damage 5/5. YMMV

If you take to wind walker, you should take deft movement when you can (its great) -1 perk.

If you plan on doing any enchanting, pockets doesn't make sense, since 2 lb daggers powered by petty souls are worth 600-800GP each. If you don't plan on enchanting, then yeah you could get pockets to dump truck stuff from dungeon to town.

You are 1 perk away from mystic binding, should you consider a bound bow.

He is using restoration for being a vampire (he said so in the OP...)

Arguably the best sneak perk is shadow warrior, I also like the silent roll perk, so I'll stick to those sneak perks.

This is more about skill than damage, on master I struggle to one shot anything with a bow, so I have to use poisons (slow/paralyse etc) to survive. Zooming in is helpful as is the stagger.

I imagine I would get the deft movement perk, but I doubt I'll ever get to light armor 100. It takes forever to level light armor, even more so when I'm sneaking the majority of the time.

I don't plan on enchanting at all, much better to find my own stuff. +125 carry weight is always useful, combined with my stamina I'll be able to carry a good few items.

I don't think I will as I'm using poisons, especially with poison lasting two hits. Incase I don't use the poison, I don't want t to be wasted.

But I'll wait for 1.6/dlc for the archery bug to be fixed before I continue, it's kinda ruined the game.

I'll be using daggers, even if I was using swords the bonus damage is to small for it to be worth a perk IMO.

Its your perks then. You could save 5.

I would argue the best perks in sneak are the right side perks (backstabs/multipliers) otherwise, there is hardly a point.

Whats the archery bug you are referring to? The 1.5 bug?

Edit: thats cool on the bow choice (to utilize poison instead) if you are also limiting smithing then i would vote for bound bow +1. (with binding)

Concerning light armor- gotta spend all the unlimited money somewhere, train it with nazihrr? (DB guy)

Grelka is a good option to buy training from, the money goes into her shops inventory. She is only an expert trainer though, not sure what skill level Nazir trains too.

Taking the perks means I get too sneak roll, making sneak much quicker. Having the muffle perk and silence perk means I don't have to keep casting muffle, but I suppose it's not a problem with muffled boots. Then the final perk allows you to hide again much quicker.

After 1.5 your bows damage increases depending on your arrows, for example a long bow does 10 damage with no arrows, 26 damage with iron arrows (should be 18) and 50-60 with daedric arrows when it should be 34. It's made archery stupidly overpowered, especially with sneak. So I'll wait until the next patch (it should be fixed) to use archery.

Not sure about the bound bow, I would waste to many poisons. I like my own bow tbh, then I can make use of the enchantments as well.

Grelka is the expert trainer, so yes it is really easy to train light armor to 70 with her. Nazirr is the master trainer.

I dont know if a formula change constitutes a "glitch" as that would be a deliberate function
Change, not some byproduct of a new addon/object/parameter. So i wouldn't hold
My breath. Guess we will see.

Up to 75 with her, then the rest you will have to do with Nazir.

I don't think it's deliberate, using daedric arrows boosts the bows damage by such huge amounts, it makes the game pointless. The arrow damage isn't changing btw, it's the bows damage that increases when you equip arrows.

Im familiar with the change we are referring to as a "glitch" it is actually the damage formula that is changed. Arrows are being factored into the base before multipliers are being added. There is a thread on this somewhere back in tbe logs. Its not the bow, is now (bow + arrows) * enchants/multipliers.. It used to be ((bow)* enchant/multipliers) + arrows. (basically)

A change in a (probably encapsulated) function makes it not seem like an accident. Maybe an ill-thought out change (like destruction without scaling) but not a glitch.. But now its just semantics.

--just to add: this change really positively effects the bound bow (relatively) since it will always have daedric arrows.

Hmm, I'll take your word for it ha. I just hope they revert back to the old way, archery was pretty balanced then.

Yeah I'm using bound bow on my current character (light armor, 2h, restoration, conjuration undead and illusion) even though I have no perks and my archery skill is around 30, the bound bow does 85 damage when I use it. I just tested it and without the bound daedric arrows the bound bow does 21 damage, add in the 24 from the daedric arrows and I'm doing 40 extra damage than I should be.

Also destruction damage is fine, it's the magicka cost that's the problem.

On this we disagree. Am I to guess that you are on a console?

Yes, I've used destruction fine right up to level 67 on master from the beginning. If you sort out the magicka problem, you will be okay.

I have a similar build to this, more of a shadow ranger then a "theif". Since you are picking alchemy perks and are an assassin, id suggest picking the poisoned perk. Some think its useless but I found it very useful for silent kills. Also you can paralyze people and steal their gold, even when it say 0%. Free training, lol.

Do you know which perks are affected by necromage as a vamp, and do all of them have to be taken after you have both the necromage perk and vampirism to be affected?

Might not be to your taste but if you really need restoration leveled you just need Equilibrium in one hand and Healing in the other and some patience.

Marked for Death and Aura Whisper in my opinion. Aura Whsper to detect enemies, Marked for Death then disappear to get the enemy low.

Takes to long and it means I have to do the college questline early on. My above method is pretty quick, pickpocket training up to level 51, then use close wounds with the mage stone at High Hrothgar, in the ice wind. Use as many fortify restoration enchantments as you can find.

Yeah I haven't used this perk before, sounds quite useful, I'll give it a go considering I have the previous perks anyway.

These need to be taken while you have the necromage perk and are a vampire.
The ones I can confirm are: Hypnotic Gaze, Aspect of terror, Rage, Extra pockets, Augmented flames (not the others it seems).

But I imagine quite a few more do, I'm sure the damage perks (armsman for example) are boosted, also the dual flurry perks I think. I also think kindred mage and animage are affected but I haven't tested it, it's a little difficult to test it on xbox.
I'd say become ethereal, it allows you to be invincible for a few seconds (boosted by necromage) it's great combined with power attacks mid combat.