Give yourself to the dark side. Strike out with all of your anger and all your hate and your journey to the dark side will be complete.

Seriously though, he's right. Assassins aren't the only ones who can use stealth. I wrote of a choice/challenge I made for myself doing the Thieve's guild quest that involved getting a family heirloom back from the Summerset Shadows. I basically decided to go in there, pickpocket the item off the leader and leave in total stealth. I not only pulled it off, I got the optional objective of flaming their banner too. No killing, but as a strategic challenge involving frequent use of distraction from bow shot arrows, it was one of the most fun things I've done in the game.

Edit: Incidentally, I didn't have it on that character, but it occurs to me that shadow warrior would be useful for such an endeavor. Though the challenge for me was to NOT be in a situation where escape with it would be necessary, namely to not be detected once.

Eh, I am content with the conclusions on page 4, and the realization about the perk displacements.
If people still want to argue that shadow warrior is the equivalent of invisibility, that is fine and I am done providing points on it. I have tried both pretty extensively, my reasoning is on the previous pages, and pretty well spelled out I think.

I put the points into Illusion and have been playing around with Invisibility and it's fun to F with the targets. It feels a little like cheating though because I don't have to plan and wait until multiple targets in one room are not facing the mark, but I'm gonna' be using it off and on. When I go back to the assassinations I may use Calm if I'm spotted in public and guards start attacking me.

My Pickpocket skill is pretty high, but I don't have any perks in that constellation because I only used Pickpocketing for a few of the Fishing jobs. I liked the TG main questline, but I see my chick as more of an assassin than a straight-out thief. That being said I will usually clean out Radiant Raiment if I happen to be running by it at night on the way to Proudspire or Gulum-Ei.

One thing I've noticed about the Shadow Warrior perk is that it does seem to interact with a Necromage Vampire. The increased duration doesn't make it last MUCH longer, but the invisibility definitely seems to last longer, maybe 3 seconds instead of 2. I can hold my invisibility indefinitely just by continuously crouching over and over again.

This perk makes me feel like Yoshimitsu and I love it.

Does Dual Flurry work with Dual daggers? I thought you had to have another one handed weapon type in the other hand for the speed increase to activate.

IDK actually. I never timed or payed enough attention to her dual attacks before and after the perk. They are fast as hell though.

Yes, it does.

addendum: did I manage to convert any unbelievers to invisibility? If so, how is it working out?

I didn't convert per se, but I added the Illusion perks and it's pretty f-ing funny. Feels kinda' like cheating though that I cast it right in front of them and they can't find me, but, hey, they'd do it to me if they could.

Nope Udey.... not my thing. I'm pretty much a melee, in-your-face type of a player. I don't sneak, I don't use anything but destruction spells, no invis.... Seriously NOT my playstyle.

According to the wiki, daggers do not benefit from 1H perks. I cannot possibly imagine why unless it was an oversight on Beth's part.

Yeah, me too. I've been trying out a Breton Illusion mage and I was just in Forelhorst frenzying some Draugrs then sitting back invisible. It's kinda fun but I couldn't help thinking; am I watching or playing? It's a little too passive - interesting experience, though.

I've never been able to be passive in CRPGs. That's a lot to do with DECADES of background - and more to do with my own nature.... which is shoot first and ask questions if anyone is still alive.

To any that have tested it: how does the shadow warrior trick do against grounded dragons?

Daggers do benefit from the dual wield perks.

Well, I seem to do more damage and use less Stamina from power attacks. Maybe I'm seeing what I want to see. However I can 1-shot Draugr Deathlords with a single power attack...could be my LVL though (I noticed it around low-60s).

Edit:
I haven't tested it because I just slash like crazy hoping to get them dead before they take off flying again, but I'll try it on the next one.

Invisibility will break combat with them.

There you go giving me bad ideas again.

you sure? I know it doesn't benefit from fortify one handed and a lot of other things.

I thought I had found a mod on the Nexus that would grant 1H perks to daggers but no dice, All the author did was rclassify all daggers as swords, thus breaking backstab and Assasin's Blade. Blech.

Oh, hell no! He'd be eligible for the death penalty in Texas for that.

Well it (dual flurry) does appear to work for daggers, I thought I had read otherwise. Niiiiiice.

yup

I love shadow warrior to for my assassin build. I used it during the MQ qhen Delphine/Esbern assaulted Karthspire camp. I was able to hang back and pick off forsworn, and when they detected and ran up to attack me, I re-crouched and that got them off me and on to Esbern/Delphine again.

As for invisibility, I don't get the point. I don't have the quiet casting perk, but when I cast the spell in a sub-level, go up 2 floor levels and into another room, forsworn/hags/witches have no problem detecting me even if I was totally hidden before entering the room. My sneak is 100 with perks all the way up to shadow warrior and I had the muffle spell active, as well as 50% noise reduction on my armor.

I gave up trying to move in invisibly for dagger attacks and just stuck to using a bow to enter a room, and the dagger for fights where I simply can't hide.

It works for me, but my Class-less LVL is 67, Illusion is 87, and I have the Kindred Mage perk. I'm thinking it's mainly the Kindred Mage perk that made the difference for me because I had given up on Invisibility until people here (stilts and/or Udey - I'm too lazy to reread every post to see who exactly said it ) convinced me Invisibility will work with the right 'conditions'. ...and, now, just like they said: I can cast Invisibility right in front of a target who is actively attacking me and *poof*, "I'm gonna' find you." and "You can't hide from me.".

Don't get me wrong: of the two I like the Sneak and Shadow Warrior side better, but the Invisibility works on the magic side.