I ran into the 'leveling problem' with two-handed!

[InDarkestNight]

Oblivion was infamous for its 'leveling problem'. It had a lot of skills that gave you no benefit in combat. Two of these, atheletics and acrobatics increased as you walked and jumped respectively. This made them virtually impossible to avoid leveling. This inevitably lead to your character not being able to fight anything because your combat skills lagged behind too bad. It could even create a feed-back loop where you trying to flee or kite all the time only made the problem worse.

Skyrim rarely has this problem, since just about every skill does have some combat use. So how then did I end up with this problem through two-handed?
 

I chose two-handed, heavy armor, and block for some of my skills (I did have others, but these are the only relevant ones). For some reason, my two-handed raced ahead of all my other skills. I was forced to keep one-shotting things with power attacks to try and survive since I couldn't tank anything. My block skill never leveled at all, and my heavy armor only got like 5 points in it by the time my two-handed was 90. Seriously. I couldn't level my defensive skills because everything could one-shot me. I was forced to abandon that character because it was just annoying trying to play as a fragile melee character. Everything was tankier than I was despite me wearing heavy armor. It was like I had no armor on at all. Dragons were no fun either due to my archery being so far behind too. Smithing only made things even worse, since I didn't have the skill level or perks to really benefit much from my armor. And yes, I was investing 50% into health as I always do.

I don't really know what went wrong, so I don't know what I could do to prevent this from happening again. Purposely face-tank everything? Use block all the time? And yes, I know block doesn't increase too fast when blocking with a weapon, but its still common for two-handed builds to do so anyway for a variety of reasons.

Honestly, I'm mainly making this post to warn others about what happened to me. Don't really know how this happened or what I could do to avoid it. I've never had this problem before with a two-hander, though this is the first one I've ever played to a high level that didn't mix in some magic.

[AaronOfMpls]

My own characters are often barbarians using 2-handed and light armor.  I tend to put a fair amount into stamina and health on them -- and have 1-3 followers help me fight things as I get further in.

Though I also use Diverse Character Creation (LE, SE) to set my characters' starting skills -- so, say, choosing Barbarian in it will start with higher One- and Two-Handed, Block, Light Armor, Marksman, and Smithing.  (While Warrior is much the same, but Heavy Armor instead.) 

I also use the Warrior Stone (when I get to it) to level my combat skills faster.  And I improve my weapons and armor along the way too -- including with mods like Alternative Crafting System (LE) which let NPC smiths improve your gear to the best of their ability.

Edited July 16 by AaronOfMpls
minor edits

[AaronOfMpls]

And yah, as you found, it's possible for your armor skills to level more slowly if you don't get hit much, and your Block if you don't block much.

Though regarding blocking and power attacks, you can still "shield bash" (after a fashion) with a 2-handed weapon, in the same way as with 1-handed and a shield: hit your Attack button while blocking.*  If I remember right, this does level Block. 

I suspect I block and bash enough that I haven't noticed trouble leveling it -- even if it does stay a goot bit lower than my Two-Handed.

Though I also RP in my head a lot, and screenshot and sightsee a lot, so I level kinda slowly.  And I'm enough of an altaholic that I rarely get to 50, let alone 90.

 

* Default on mouse/keyboard is right mouse to block, left mousecto attack.  Not sure on an Xbox or PS controller, since I don't have either.

Edited July 16 by AaronOfMpls
text size on footnote; revision; removed accidental duplicate text

[IsharaMeradin]

I know it misses out on the matching set bonus but since that perk comes later anyway, start out wearing a mix of light and heavy armor.  Both skill lines will level up as you take damage.  Also, if you find that one weapon line is leveling faster than the others, switch weapon types and work on a lower skill line.

And since you use LE, the Skyrim Community Uncapper can be set to limit the amount of character experience is obtained from each individual skill line.  Thus you can set the experience gain to be tailored to the type of build you want to do.  i.e. only gain character experience when leveling up skills specifically related to your desired build.

I remember using it in LE. I had set all the non-combat skill lines (i.e. enchanting, alchemy, blacksmithing, etc) to provide zero character experience.  I leveled slower overall but had better control over preventing enemies from being extremely strong simply because I chose to stop and build one of the hearthfires homes.

[InDarkestNight]

Sigh, yes I know you can level block with two-handed. In fact, its sorta necessary since you don't have a shield to protect yourself from dragons. As for weapons, I didn't really have an alternative. I was using archery purely to fight dragons, which kept it leveled in the past but didn't this time for some reason. Then again, I never really bothered to keep track of it much. Also, how was I supposed to switch to archery? I was a heavy armor character with a single point in sneak, and my archery hadn't even gotten high enough for me to invest a single point in. Seriously. I have tried combat archers in the past, but never really had much luck with them. I did try to use archery when I was playing a light armor one-handed build, but I was just doing that for the theme; there wasn't really a practical reason to do it.

Either way, that save file is long lost, so what's the point in telling me what I could've done? I will be trying it again yes, but I plan to start all over from the beginnig; I won't be trying to salvage a level 30 character with skills of a level 3 character.

[xkkmEl]

For leveling destruction, I use foxes and goats. I assume you can do the same with archery.

Similar to AaronOfMpls, I've been playing a two-handed, light armored character (with a minor in destruction) for the past few months, using enchantment to powerup armor and weapons, and a bunch of followers to keep bosses distracted. The foxes and goats also contribute significantly to my blacksmith training.

Like you, in this build, I get no love from the armor or blocking. I do have a decent light armor skill, but only because I pay for training from Grelka. The plan is to transition to destruction and blocking, then single-hand weapons as my skills top out.

[InDarkestNight]

Honestly, I rarely play with followers. This is mainly because I mostly play stealth and mage builds. I rarely play straight warriors. Thinking about it though, perhaps I can use followers more often than I've been thinking. Yeah, they don't work out well if you use sneak or destruction, but what other skills cause issues? Alteration only has two offensive spells, one of them being a master spell. Restoration can let you heal followers. Illusion has a series of buff spells I've literally never cast a single time in my entire life. Conjuration does nothing to followers at all, other than maybe accidentally hitting them with soul trap. I've heard two-handed has issues with followers because of the wide attack arc, but why not just use a ranged one? Besides, if you're a tank character you're better off with a ranged follower anyway.

I've long wanted to try various follower/quest mods, but I've never really done so because its so rare I play with followers. Just been thinking that perhaps, I can play with followers while being able to play something other than a straight warrior. So perhaps I should take a follower along this time. I'll still be taking hits though to try and keep my armor up. What's the point in wearing heavy if you're not getting any armor bonus out of it? If you have no armor rating, you're better off with light honestly. The armor rating is the only benefit heavy armor really has over light.

On a side note, I have tried light armor and two-handed in the past. I just can't make it work. You're just too squishy and you have no freaking shield. I just don't get how to make that work. I have done light-armor characters before of course, and in fact my very first character used light armor. They all used shields though. I've even seen people claim you can get away without armor if you use a shield (consistently).