In my opinion it's the one the adds 100 pounds to your carry weight. What's a perk that you think doesn't get enough love?

If you use one-handed weapons I'd say blocking. I don't know if there are many one-handed warriors are out there. The two-handed seems more popular.

Dual casting illusion. Hands down the most op perk in the game. You can make nearly anything fear you, fight for you, or not even notice you're there. Not to mention the 1 1/2 minute invis and 6 MINUTE muffle! Illusion magic school will be as good as what you invest into it.

Another is respite. Great for non fast travelers and low stamina people. You can heal AND unfatigue at the same time which = more power attacks.

Hmmm I really can't think of many more "underrated " perks ATM.

I've always wondered how effective the disintegrate perk was in destruction. Anyone know?

Ehh..it's ok..not really overpowered or anything

The OP asked for underappreciated perks, not overpowered perks

Treasure hunter. Given you have to go through a lot of worthless perks to get to it, but it's quite handy.

Yes. Blocking is awesome now. In Oblivion it was just annoying, and 1-handed was no where near as good as 2-handed, and blocking svcked. It was better to use 2-handed to take down fast, than to try and mitigate damage. Now, shields have a great offensive perks.The perk system has really added to blocking. When I play melee types, I go sword & board. Power Bash, Deadly Bash, and Disarming Bash, don't get enough respect. They are FUN. I love to bash stuff. It stuns the enemy for like 1-1.5 seconds, interrupting their casting and special ability use.

Small mobs, petty and lesser soul-gem mobs, you don't have to waste a charge on your weapon to kill them. You just bash them to death with the shield. 1 or 2 hits. Whirlwind Sprint to close the distance to the caster then BASH! Slice, slice...caster starts to cast again and BASH! Slice, slice. It's tons of fun. Mobs that would kill my thief/archer over and over, because on master level, the sneak attack in the back wouldn't one shot them sometimes (on lower levels), and one or two spells would kill me. Now I can just BASH!

It's fun

My first character was a one sword kinda guy and the second block perk you can get that slows time down when blocking during an enemies power attack, "quick reflexes," is the bee's knees.

Persuasion is a good perk to get if you're going for the fence perk. You will level up Speech with a small bounty very quickly - much more quickly than selling loot.

Treasure hunter is nice, I only wish the skill requirement wasn't so high, since the earlier you get it, the better it is.

Poisoned is also underrated. It's not particularly useful outside of Dark Brotherhood applications, but funny every time you use it.

The Axe perks, Deep Wounds/Limbsplitter are extremely useful on Master difficulty if you don't abuse smithing. Easily the best Weapon Spec perks, though I hope one day they give these perks a buff, while reducing the global power of individual weapons to create a more unique feel and applicability of use for individual weapons.

wax key. /sarcasm

Woo! Came just for this The Disintegrate perk can be absolutely invaluable.

See that group of level 40+ mages that always gives everyone a hard time, even on Adept? Well, they're surrounded by undead, and if you kill one, his buddy will simply raise him right back. With groups of powerful mages, you essentially have to fight them twice. But with the Disintegrate perk, you leave no chance for that.

On top of that, it works when enemies are at low health. That means that you can potentially get a one-hit-kill on someone who would otherwise take a few more shots. If you brought down an ancient dragon's health to maybe ten or twenty percent (and, say, there's a freakin' dragon priest nearby), you can switch to a simple spell like Lightningbolt or Sparks to get the job done.

I think it's also a bit of under appreciation when people take Block perks to compliment One Handed but ignore the dual wielding branch. For just three perks, you can significantly change combat on the fly and become offensive or defensive whenever you need to be.

The specific weapon perks are also under appreciated, as far as I've seen. Of them, the axe perks are the best--almost everything bleeds, and bleeding damage stacks. That means it's already good enough with a battleaxe or to give your warrior defensive DoT if they're using a shield, but two axes can make quick work of anything, even ancient dragons.

The right side of the Enchanting tree isn't popular, either. Just two perks and you can now use enchanted weapons with a lot more lenience. Definitely worth the investment, IMO.

Obviously, very few people like the Cushioned perk under Heavy Armor. So few, in fact, that most people just use the Steed stone to save them the trouble of getting that perk just to have Conditioning (and I don't blame them).

In Smithing, Advanced Armors is under appreciated. People don't like that you don't get weapons or shields with it and that it comes with a heavy armor set. What people don't consider is that Scale armor is cheap to make, valuable to sell, and a whole lot easier to acquire (material-wise) than the components for Elven armor. Also, no one other than myself (that I know of) is fond of creating a heavy armor warrior who uses the light side of the Smithing tree. You get great steel plate armor and lightweight weapons--while they may not be as damaging, that means more weapon sets (for weapon masters/collectors/enchanters) for different encounters and faster-drawing bows.

That's all I'm going to go over for now (don't even get me started on Lockpicking), but a lot of the game's most interesting (and useful) perks go unappreciated.

Ditto.

ROFL! Yeah, "wax key" in the lockpicking tree, it's my vote for the most useless and pointless perk in the game. What were they thinking? When could it ever be useful? If you picked the lock, you'll never need to open it again...why would it matter if you had a copy of the key after you pick the lock? I don't think anyone has ever actually taken this perk.

Scaled armor looks better than any other Skyrim light armor too, both Male and Female... Minus the Helment of course, but how many helmets actually look good in Skyrim? Iron Helmet... Daedric Helmet... and Dragonbone helmet isn't too bad either.

I swear, I'd kill for a Light Armor version of the Iron Helmet.

"Wax Key" is useful for:

-Repeated targets (such as homes -- if you befriend someone, you won't be trespassing in their home, but you need to pick the lock repeatedly; or, shops).
-Multiple doors that open with one key.

This, and


this.

For those who plays warrior style with small amount of magic (ie only enchant and/or restoration) may miss that destruction perks improves not only power of destruction spells but also flame/freeze/storm enchants too. Iirc, you can get from top 31 damage points to 78.

One Handed > Swordsman Crit. Hit. Even if you just have 1 point in it.. it helps alot. This combo with Valdr's Lucky Dagger/Razor/etc. you got a sickening Dagger DW combo.

and the Power Attack perk. Reduces stamina cost when doing PAs. If I'm using 1H this is staple...

Restoration > Respite. Love it to death. This thing really helps in almost any build.. Restorations becoming staple for most my builds. Found it's quite helpful for Vampires (sunlight).

Many people say vampires are weak.
A vampire illusionist with the necromage perk however is probably the most powerful class to play.

So I would say necromage, because still many people dont know all the wonderful things it does to your vampire.

speech perks, love them on my thief

Necromage, easily the best perk in the game by far.
Since I found out about its awesomeness I never want to make a non-vampire build again, my number 1 priority on new characters will now always be to complete danica pure springs quest and start saving up for training to reach 70 restoration ASAP. Getting nettlebane from that hargraven and surrounding mages is a pain in the buttox at low levels.

Also the perk that allows any goods to be sold to any vendor is a huge time saver and is well worth spending 3 perks on IMO.

Like the OP I like the 100 extra carry slot - shame you have to 'waste' several non-useful perks to get it.

on lower levels, i never used to get quick shot, steady hand and ranger for archery.
but, getting them on master (before the game becomes too easy) is hugely beneficial.

obviously, necro.

completely agree with hippnotic: getting novice, respite and regen are all you need, but, are very powerful.

for those players who like to steal, but, don't want to join the guild: fence.

overused perks: sneak/armor/block base x 2-5. not needed.

Hack and Slash, the "bleed damage" perk for war axes, is one I've seen get crapped on in the forum, but is one I found incredibly effective. Especially after the 2nd and 3rd perk point. I had plenty of encounters where I'm fighting a group of enemies with my dual-wielding Orc warrior where he'd land a couple of blows on one enemy then move on to the next threat. While fighting the new threat, the initial one dies from his bleeding wounds without having to go back to him. Certainly helps to dispatch Draugr Deathlords and dragons much quicker, as well.