Run to cover > aim + snipe > repeat and hope its breath weapon doesn't catch you in its area of effect? I'm not seeing a huge increase in damage with Marksman potion, and I haven't tried Invisiblity. Any way to get a SA in with random dragon spawns?

archery is the easiest way to kill a dragon for me

Yeah I can take a dragon down from safety with a bow... Just "Fus" them when they hover up trying to blast you, wait until they land, get out of range and continue to pepper with arrows.

I am at Elder Dragons at this point and as a light armor character I have a hard time melee fighting one.

If I'm already in sneak before a dragon sees me I can usually get 1 or 2 sneak attacks in with no problem, given that I'm at a decent range away and the dragon is already engaged.

Take the zoom/slow down time perks in Marksman ASAP. After that, plucking dragons from the sky becomes a piece of... sweetroll.

And poison.

Are you using Dragonrend? How many arrows do you need? What's the damage on your bow? Are you using any enchantment on your bows?

For the record I'm using an elven bow with 300+ atk from smithings. Bowsman 3/5 and yes I have one perk taken to slow time down while zooming. Problem I'm facing now is the damage is pathetic against an ancient dragon on masters... One arrow does about 5~7% to the dragon and it takes 15~20 to kill one.

Aye, I honestly wouldn't know how to do it without a bow. What else is there? Run up and hope it lands near you? With a bow, you can keep the attack up constantly.

That's kinda what you sign up for when you select master difficulty, unless if you craft a Daedric Bow of Cheese.

my character is a mage and has no skills in archery

takes 20-30 arrows but i find the dragon fights fun and challenging

it would be silly if i could kill them in 3 or 4 hits imo

Deadric 2h Greataxe of Cheese with a Great Critical Charge takes away 35~40% of its life. Half assed elven bow does nothing.


This completely slipped my mind.

Back to weakness to magic + weakness to fire + one strong fire enchantment on my bow....I was really hoping for some easy way to SA it...

Which I will be able to soon

Marked for Death takes dragons down a notch.

I have managed to assassinate two blood dragons Sneaked behind them and used a sword+dagger sneak power attack, didn't kill them, but close enough to finish them before they could fly away.

Fighting those already in air involves a lot potions and running. Oh, and dragons that breathe fire are weak to frost, and dragons that breath frost are weak to fire, useful to have bows with those enchantments with you.

Those slowing ones make it harder for me. Slowing down time looks cool, though.

I hide behind a rock and put an arrow in their knee.

Arrows work way better than destruction magic. Of course having 100 marksman and an enchanted ebony bow with deadric arrows helps. But I still did better with arrows when I had a Ancient Nord bow and arrows.
Anyway, every time I have gotten close to a dragon, they pick me up in their jaws and fling me several hundred yards like a rag puppet. I have no desire to melee with one.

Dragonrend is always your friend. As is Shadowmere. Stand back and fire while your seemingly invincible horse takes the damage.

I like to conjure an atronach to distract the dragon's breath attack and then kill it with arrows and the "Mark of Death" shout. I always forget poison for some reason.

I found one dragon area where I was able to stand directly underneath the dragon's perch, which was one of those word of power walls, and shoot him from below from stealth. He'd fly off and try to find me, fail to find me, and then come back to his perch again. Rinse and repeat. Took a while though, and not every dragon you run across has that good of terrain available to fight them in. Another fight there was an arching rock formation nearby so I stayed under there and shot him. He couldn't breath attack me from above, and when he landed to do the same I just sidestepped behind the rocks. In general I just look for a well protected stealth spot and try my best not to get revealed (though that can be quite difficult with dragons) and just patience and more stealth shots. As a sneaky archer one tactic I employ against difficult enemies is: shoot once from stealth, move out of the area you shot from whilst remaining stealthed. They will come try to find you, but fail. Then do it over and over again until they're dead.

Tried this, doesn't work when solo. It only works when some other NPC ( a wandering necromancer, or Thalmor Justice) is in the vicinity and acts as a tank...I'll give Mark for Death and Dragonrend a shot though. I have very little desire to craft poisons just to fight dragons. There has to be a better way to SA those random ones...if all else fails I think I'll use conjuration as a support skill...

I use the slow time shout and the slow time archery perk. Makes my arrow go regular speed while everything else goes slow speed.

I have no issues as an archer character, let your follower or summons distract it while you swoop in and pelt it with arrows/dragonrend. Even if I get caught in an elemental blast, I still survive. My assassin character isn't frail by any means.

I was an Archer and since i had put all my points in Health i didn't take so much damage... Just shoot it! It is really easy to kill a dragon with a bow!(especially Bound Bow )

Bah, finally killed that pesky tough as nails ancient dragon near Morthal. This needs some testing since I think I got the order wrong the first few times I tried poisons. You can actually hit up fortify destruction + marksman first, apply weakness to magic and launch one arrow. I watched the dragon's remaining 35% HP drop to zero instantly. A normal arrow from my fire/frost enchanted elven bow does only 8~10% per hit.

*previously in Oblivion we stack weaknesses first then fire off a destruction spell.

edit: made a mistake. Corrected the estimates. After reloading and running a few more tests, I understand better why the dragon's last 20% of its HP dropped instantly. Fortify destruction pumped up my fire81/frost81 bow to fire212/frost212, while a Marksman potion raised the damage of bow to 700+. That's why it died in one hit.

I use Daedric bow with the damage perk upped all the way up. It takes about 15 shots to drop one now. Poison helps, but enchanting your bow does more (mine does 20 shock + 10 magicka damage). My shots do 218 damage without poison, plus the 50% critical shot gives me 300+ half the time...