I've been intrigued by this build for awhile now and am ready to try it . Should i take Smithing or Enchanting with this build. Alchemy will i need it give me your take on this build.

You're going to find the game to be very, very easy.

I would use Smithing. If you're a thief, you can just steal any items you want to use.

what i would do is go smithing with steel and improve enchant wear, but nothing else in smithing. That way you use strictly thieves gear, db gear, or nightingale and improve them to flawless, anything higher just meets the armor cap. Its only a suggestion, but then you have tons of perks to go elsewhere and scrap enchanting. Just a suggestion. I'm using daggers so dual savegry, armsman, savage strike, but not bladesman. Archery, sneak, pick pocket, alchemy, illusion... oh and resto!

For me, since I made a Dark Elf Assassin, go with:

Stealth (obv)
One-Hand (daggers) > Duel Wielding
Light Armor
Archery
Smithing
Enchanting
Alchemy

Taking all three can give you very potent killing tools.

Complete Dark Brotherhood ASAP for amazing/best gear.

You can improve a weapon or armour with smithing but you can't change the enchantment using enchanting is this correct.

no, you can improve the armor rating, but not the enchantment on the armor. I plan on using strictly thieves and db gear and maybe switch them out.

Ever since getting the DB gear I haven't worn anything else, except for swapping in a Dragon Priest mask and making my own weapons.

So i could improve the Nightingale armor with smithing i've not used Smithing yet believe it or not.

check this out as well it gives you an idea of what perks in smithing do with improvements.
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Smithing#Item_Quality
its all how you want to rp but in my opinion its more fun for extra sneak perks or alchemy, illusion, archery. smithing 100 gives you flawless on the gear with just steal and improve enchant. But if you want to make your own, it really is a waste of time imho.



to improve that you just need steel -> improve enchanted and that will get you flawless, in my opinion going up to legendary to spend all those perks are a waste since its above the armor cap. Besides you need a special blacksmith potion.

What I would do is decide, do you want to make dragonscale or use nightingale?

Then decide what weapons you want; what i use is dual dagger with mehrunes and valdr's lucky dagger.

I'm starting the same type of character and am basically doing the same thing as this ^. except no illusion and no restoration. With alchemy you can get your restoration, invisibility and poison. Sneak (all perks), alchemy (all perks), Pickpocket (4 perks to poisoned and pockets), archery (8 perks to left side slow time), one-handed (armsman and some dual wielding perks), smith (2 arcane). Bosmer assassin shadow-warrior poison your ass when you're not looking dark-brotherhood snipe you from a distance. Don't need enchanting or illusion. db and thieves guild armor. Blade of woe, Valdr's lucky dagger etc.

yes i want illusion for some reason. I'm trying to level it anyway, what a pain...

If you want it to stay challenging play with a few restrictions, namely:

- wear light armor and don't perk it; this adds incentive to stay hidden (or die)
- play on master difficulty
- do not cast magic of any kind

(this is how I played my stealth archer)

So far this style of combat is a breath of fresh air from the rush in and hack style i've been playing. I think i'm going to like this build.

I don't think I've ever used magic on my Assassin... ever.


Er... you're going to be one hit killing things... like all the time.

Eventually yes right now i'm just trying to get close enough undetected to use my bow and get the damage bonus. This brings me to my next question what's the quickest way to raise your sneak skill . Getting close enough to use my dagger undetected is not easy i'm at level 2.

My main character is what you're describing and it's really easy after you get past 60 sneak.

Follow everyone in Sneak mode.

The eye doesn't have to even be fully closed, anyone even looking for you raises your Sneak. So go into a dungeon or something, fire an arrow at an enemy, hide behind a corner a good distance away from where you fired the arrow and your Stealth with level.

Also-- no companions

I didn't use daggers on my stealth character, I used a bow. The 3x multiplier was nice, but didn't 1 shot tougher enemies. Fights against Dragons / Dragon Priests still required strategy as you couldn't stay stealthed for the fight.

I hear dual daggers + db gear has you one-shotting pretty much everything. Doesn't sound like a whole lot of fun to me :-/

what im deciding is do i sneak up on enemies to stab them? or do I shoot them with a bow. So I pick perks for sneak archery since the only time I get in close to kill with daggers is combat and assassinations. So I won't be adding backstab perks...

Mercer was a great meat shield to be honest.

He ran into like 6 Draugr Death Lords, kept them busy while I hid, sniped, hid, sniped, etc.

Yea, dual-daggers with the back-stabbing perk is a little too powerful for my liking, but you can stick with a sword and deal considerable damage to any unsuspecting foes.

But if you use Archery, you'll probably never need to go near your enemies because they'll never see you.

also if your going the steel -> improve enchanting route you might want to pre save certain boss fights since that disarm can totally kill the whole idea and you lose your unique weapons. Since you can't make glass for instance...

sometimes after disarm you can't find the weapons...

its a little advanced since you need to know where to find everything.