I agree with this generally. I am only on the fence concerning silence. I am not sure if muffle is covering what it covers, I should test it. . Stealth 1 is needed though for unlocking the backstabs, so 5 perks saved. 5 perks can get you about what you need on the illusion tree (to use as an alternative to stealth) - and is totally "the superior."
Shying away from illusion and making it up with stealth perks will work though, and it is totally doable, but it would be an RP choice, not a power choice. Staying away from magic is fine and dandy RP'd - my wife refuses to use magic (drives me nuts.)

Does the shadow warrior sneak-attack exploit work for pickpocketing? My sneak-mage would love to be able to plant poisons on enemies without using a bow or dagger.

It's difficult to break my old habits. I started playing the original D&D with just the 4 books (DM Guide, Player's Handbook, Monster Manual, and Unearthed Arcana) so we had some strict rules.

I don't think it would work that way - it's pretty much a combat thing.

This isn't DnD. Sneak and alchemy are far better choices for the sneak/thief/assassin/archer in Skyrim than Illusion. Get dual enchant as well and magic is pointless. Muffle? Got it. Invisibility? Got it. Frenzy, calm, etc? Got it, got it, got it.

Yeah- wasn't talking to you about the DnD thing. Also if you don't think illusion (namely invsibility on cast) is one of the powerful options in this game, well then do some testing and come back later. I have had this conversation before. Invisibility got it? Oh- ha, you mean you chug a potion every time? Doesn't compare bud, not even the same thing. Test it out if you don't understand why, unlimited and at will -not-pause-the-game-for-a-menu-to-chug-a-pot- casting is a different ballpark.

Alchemy? ha, what a waste. Unless you are planning on utilizing the enchanting loop and need alchemy for the power upgrade there you are doing it wrong as a thief/assassin/thug/ect. I don't remember the last time I didn't one-shot/two-shot anything (using just arcane smith weapons) as a sneak-theif. Poisons? they are annoying to use and totally uneccessary. Life potions? or anything else? its forced down my throat every dungeon by the bucketload. Not much beats ultimate potions and "elixur" class stuff. I suppose you could RP it and not optimize yourself to where you depended on alchemy to function, but in that case- you can't really argue it being "better."

PS: didn't say no sneak- if you reread my post I was talking about the left side of the tree - which illusion does indeed replace and does a far superior job.

PPS: I don't know what you are referring to when you say dual enchant makes magic worthless- can't wait to see that argument.

I still don't have the Muffle Enchant. Never found a dis-enchantable item with it on it, but I haven't checked vendors for enchanted items since I finally found the Waterbreathing one.

Udey,
Don't hold your breath on seeing any more arguments from me. You've made my ignore list.

Looking forward to it. Way to defend your "way better choices", misread my posts, and interject on replies not directed at you. Have a good one.

Lets start with alchemy- using reverse pickpocket paralysis potions to get free gold:
1- is bordering major exploitive
2- requires no investment in alchemy, paralysis potions being everywhere and commonly available

Frenzy potions- again reverse pickpocket-
Fwhat are you frenzying? You talk about being able to use it to kill anybody- i assume you mean neutral npcs by this. The stock unperked and unimproved frenzy also does this- silent casting from the illusion tree (very important for a stealth build that casts btw) will give this same option, and finally frenzy potions are again commonly available. This doesnt require perks or alchemy investment.

Fortify carry weight/fortify anything, common, buyable, and no investment in alchemy needed.

^this is a problem. I wish potions were not so common and alchemy was needed more

On to the illusion:
If you read earlier, i offer the left side of sneak tree is replaceable with illusion.
Muffle > stealth perk to silence armor
Invisibility > shadow warrior

5 perks saved. 7 perks in illusion to get silenr casting/expert casting.

I dont care about calm or frenzy or fury on illusion spells, wasnt arguing for those (skooma brought that up during his misread) 2 illusion spells perked i argue can stand in for sneak. From there it is true you are deep into illusion, so you totally could go all the way from there.

Clairvoyance- i dont care/argue about this.

And on a note about invisibility on cast vs potions:

You never run out of casts and have to restock, you will be amazed how often you can use it when it is unlimited, and the advantages it brings.
If you havent tried it, and since you argue potions are just as good- ill assume you havent. I suggest trying it.

Retro-edit: it appears my last argument was good enough to make someone delete their post. Unfortunate cuz now no-one sees what i am talking about. I guess i will take it as evidence i did some convincing.

I addressed that in another of my posts. I concede that it's basically forced upon you for backstabs so it doesn't really count against Shadow Warrior.

From my experience, yes they are, once you have 100% muffle. This is extremely easy to achieve unless you REALLY need that foot enchantment, and refuse to use Illusion. You can craft 100% muffle boots yourself with literally 0 skill and 0 perks in Enchanting. Light Foot is the only one that isn't replaceable.

I think either is a legitimate choice (illusion or sneak), and there's nothing stopping you from getting both. That said, sneak just kind of works, especially once you've gotten Shadow Warrior. No cast time, no supporting enchants to discount the mana cost, just pure, functional invisibility, more or less at will. Illusion gives you some other, equally excellent tricks. In point of fact, this whole discussion really devolves into 'what chainsaw shall best cut butter?', because any of the choices you're given is far, far more than adequate to see you through the subterfuge challenges the game presents.

I think you've missed my main point. With 100% muffle enchanted footwear*, 3 perks are completely redundant (Muffled Movement, Silent Roll, Silence), effectively making Shadow Warrior cost 4 perk points to obtain. 5 if you don't care about Light Foot. And even then, not until you are already at 100 Sneak with at least the 20% from Stealth 1, at which point you are almost never going to be detected to begin with.

The only reason whatsoever I can think of to take this perk is for novelty.

* If you happen to be adamantly against enchanting your own, the Muffled Movement perk and a set of generic enchanted boots will provide 100% coverage. Put them on when you're sneaking, and switch to your resistance boots when in combat against a dragon or whatnot.

@stilt,

While i agree on the fact that illusion can replace the left side of the tree (i agrued about it a little ) i can see the ultimate goal for shadow warrior for 1 important case for a certain build.

A build made to dual weild would be better suited to shadow warriors -pop- version of invisibility so they do not need to sheathe a blade and lose time/initiative for a spellcast.

For spellswords- certainly it is true we should skip left side for the illusion being "the superior"

As said by jackal- totally agree both work fine, i think the argument now is perk placement dependent on builds.

stilts:
You are repeating yourself. People disagree with you. Get over it.

People were completely ignoring parts of my argument, so I thought them missed it. I wasn't trying to be mean. I'll stop now.

I don't think it's a complete novelty though because (cool throat slash animation aside) of the way it stops combat and lets you jump behind the target. Can Illusion do anything like that? I'm legitimately asking because I haven't put anything into magic. I've 'read' all the spell books I've picked up and have Invisibility, but suspect it won't be very effective on higher level 'audiences' without the perks in Illusion. I may mess around with it when I go back to the DB assassinations though.

I've read every post here so if it's been covered maybe an example of how Illusion would do that would help.

FWIW everyone posting here is right...just different.

Personally I just don't use the illusion tree on any assassin/archer type character I build, I really tend to shy away from all magic except for the basic healing spell, which I really don't even use. Most of my characters are Bretons so I automatically start with the healing spell but since I play with base health (no points into it) there really isn't a need. I find that using magic as an assassin just doesn't feel 'right' to me as I believe they should rely on planning, skill of the hit and escape.

Granted if you want to play an optimized build for an assassin, illusion is definitely worth looking into but I also have the impression that casting invisibility would just make the game far to easy, even on master, and since you know how I feel about using magic on an assassin, well the other perks in the tree are meaningless to me.

Yes and better, Invisibility is illusion's version of shadow-warrior, except it won't ever fail to work, and it has 100% chance to cut combat with anything - and has a set duration instead of an instant pass/fail like warrior(which may make you start spamming your sneak key). Also it removes the sight element from detection- meaning if you have that and a total muffle effect, you can sprint through dungeons and just engage anything at your whim. (this is what some of us have been talking about )



A legitimate concern as illusion/invisibility can make any difficulty trivial. I guess what is "too easy" is from there dependent on personal choice and other self-imposed character limitations.

I'll be looking for this, especially the "viable from the beginning" part. I have been frustrated getting this sort of build going and always fall back on Illusion which, of course, slows sneak building even further.
Maybe I'm just not patient enough.

You might consider checking out some videos on youtube by a guy SEPHxxFORxxLIFE (I believe that's the name) he has several walkthroughs on how he plays an assassin and also he does commentaries where he starts a new character and runs through his intial steps. I found them quite fun to watch.

The perk itself does nothing besides giving you 1 second of invisibility, so the same effect could be almost duplicated by casting invisibility and crouching simultaneously. I say almost because invisibility has that brief casting animation.

The reason you jump behind people is because invisibility ends combat, and so you can perform "finishing moves" on enemies. Normally you can only do it on the last enemy that has spotted you, but in this case none of them know where you are. The finishing move animation for sneak attacks puts you behind the enemy, which is what Shadow Warrior is essentially allowing you to do.

Invisibility is a completely binary effect, so it works exactly the same at 15 or 100 Illusion. Note that it does take Mana, but lasts much, much longer (30 seconds) which allows you to position yourself far better, rather than relying on good timing to pull off sneak attacks with Shadow Warrior.

I do have to do that from time to time because the target has to be centered in front of you for the instant kill to go off and they move around a lot.

Don't we get knocked out of Invisiblity when we attack? And, to clarify: casting right in front of someone makes them lose sight of you?

Now, I can actually kill 3 or 4 in a row in a group with Shadow Warrior as long as they're in my 'sights' when I perform the attack.

True- this can also be accomplished with repeat invisibility casts.


Also true, and too invisibility because of duration allows you to disengage and retreat with impunity, this will not work with shadow warrior unless you can "sneak" your way out if it after activating the crouch.

Sidenote- When invisibility cuts combat your magica will start regenning at the non combat rate almost instantly. Given the fact that you can do this at will, a magica regen ring becomes a much more attractive proposition to a spellblade.

Yes- instantly. even falmer lose "sight" of you. Many times they will move where you were, but combat stops unless they touch you(if you are also muffled.)

You do lose invisibility when you attack, or use an object or go through a door, or cast a spell -- THIS is why I take such issue with people saying the spell is equivalent to potions. If you use invisibility all through a deep barrow- say 50 times. That is a lot of time in the menu, and a lot of ingredients and a lot of money. Spell version makes this power trivial.