Unarmed Build Guide (from a guy who's never wrote one)

[ddmdandaman]

Guide to Unarmed (For players with all DLC)

ATTENTION! Fists of Steel is a bit weird! It only uses the base armor rating of your gauntlet to add damage! The most you can get from it is +18 thanks to Daedric Armor! Bonuses from Heavy Armor perks and smithing are NOT included! That is why those perks are listed as recommended and NOT essential! There is a mod on Steam Workshop that attempts to address this, but it's not perfect.

Essential/Recommended Skills:

Heavy Armor (Essential)

Smithing (Essential)

Restoration (Optional, but great for power-leveling Heavy Armor and/or Block)

Block (Optional, but recommended for shield bashing to give you an upper hand)

Enchanting (Optional, but enchanting your armor with Fortify Unarmed is extremely recommended)

Archery (Very optional, but you can give yourself some range and apply poisons before melee)

Sneak (Very optional, but useful for pretty much every class ever)

Essential Perks:

HEAVY ARMOR

Juggernaut I (Needed for Fists of Steel)

Fists of Steel

SMITHING

Steel Smithing

Dwarven Smithing

Orcish Smithing

Ebony Smithing

Daedric Smithing (You should stop here)

Recommended Perks:

HEAVY ARMOR

Every perk in the Heavy Armor tree is recommended.

RESTORATION

Novice Restoration (Able to heal more and power-level longer)

Regeneration (Healing increased by x1.5, again allows longer leveling)

Recovery I & II (Faster Magicka regen, even more healing)

Avoid Death (Free 250 points of Healing when near death, stacks with Regeneration)

BLOCK

Every perk in Block is recommended, although Shield Charge may be buggy.

ENCHANTING

Enchanter - ALL LEVELS (Makes Fortify Unarmed and all other enchantments better)

Insightful Enchanter (More bonuses for skill enchantments)

Corpus Enchanter (Health enchantments are better)

Extra Effect (Two effects per item, yes please)

ARCHERY

Every perk in Archery is recommended, but should probably be handled after other skills.

SNEAK

Every perk in Sneak is recommended, except Assassin's Blade, should be handled after other skills.

STARTING OUT:

If you don't have an alternate start mod (I suggest this one: Random Alternate Start http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/25404/?), then you'll be heading with Ralof through Helgen Keep. To truly make the best Unarmed character you can build, you'll want to be a Khajiit. Khajiit have a racial ability called Claws that gives your Unarmed strikes an additional 12 damage (even though the game says 14). Khajiits also receive an unnamed bonus of +6 to Unarmed attacks, giving them a total bonus of +18. Add that to the 4 base damage of Unarmed and Khajiits begin the game delivering a whopping 22 points of damage, completely unarmed! That's more than most swords will be dealing this early in the game.

As you're heading through the opening sequence, make sure you wind up following Ralof (the Stormcloak). This way, you can kill that annoying Redguard chick who said you were going to die, even though you weren't on the list. Well, that, and she also holds the game's earliest Heavy Armor. (NOTE: There is one bonus for following Hadvar, and that is the free ingots you can take from Alvor once he knows you helped Hadvar.) Equip the armor as soon as you obtain it, and from now on, try to take as much damage as is safely possible from each of your encounters. Ralof makes this a bit difficult through the Keep, but once you head out into Skyrim, this should be the general rule of thumb. Restoration can help loads with leveling your Heavy Armor skill, allowing you to sit there and soak up more damage without having to find another mob. You start the game with Healing, so I'd go ahead and favorite that.

Don't forget the shield in the torturer's chamber! Unless you don't plan to use Block to your advantage (Which I highly suggest you do!), you should equip this immediately and begin adding it to your combat arsenal. Not only does it increase your Armor rating, but Shield Bashing is going to be your best friend.

If you plan on mixing in Archery for inflicting damage before melee combat (as well as for poisons), you can get a bow as early as the room with all the oil slicks. Since you can't "level up" your Unarmed damage, you may choose to use the bow exclusively for a while, until you're satisfied with where it's at. I'd actually advise you to wait on Archery, and only use it to apply poisons at the moment. Unarmed is at its best at lower levels and it would be a bit of a waste to not take advantage of it. If you want to use Archery to start an encounter then switch to Unarmed, that's a good idea too. And if you plan on making sneaking part of your repertoire, I'd suggest sneaking just about all the time, except in combat. The killmove for a sneak attack critical unarmed kill is just awesome and worth the effort.

Once out in the main world, head directly for the Guardian Stones and pick Warrior OR head through Riverwood to Whiterun and take the carriage to Markarth to get the Lover Stone. If you don't plan on using anything but Heavy Armor, Smithing, and Block, I'd go for the Warrior Stone. If you do plan on using the other skills, the Lover will give every skill an equal 15% boost (although 5% less than the 20% boost from a Guardian Stone).

Then head back to Riverwood and towards Helgen again. There is a mine called Embershard Mine around half-way between them, nestled in the mountainside. Dispatch the bandit guard, make sure you find the Woodcutter's Axe near the wood-chopping block, and head in. Beware the tripwire trap, it will kill at lower levels. Stay to the right of this passage. Kill the two bandits chatting near the campfire. Beside the fire, you can find a Pickaxe. You can now mine ore! Very close to that campfire is the first Iron Ore vein, go ahead and mine the first 3 ores. Head back up the stairs and go right. Directly at the end of this hallway is another ore vein. To the right is a dead end (although there is a flavorful journal near a corpse and a coin bag), to the left is a room with a lever. Pull the lever to drop the bridge, then take out the two bandits that come out. Cross the bridge, head down this corridor, then engage and kill the enemy in the locked room with the window (he'll come to you if he sees you). Loot that boss chest then head back to the corridor by the window. There is another ore vein near that pile of wood. Ahead past the jail cell are two more veins. You'll now come to a rather large room with makeshift restrooms, a bridge suspended over the small pond, and a smithy area. There are three enemies in this room including one archer (who usually attacks from the bridge). Kill them, then head down to the smithy area. Unfortunately this area lacks a smelter, so you can't quite use the ore you've been digging just yet. Still, there are a few iron ingots as well as a book that will increase your Smithing. Past the forge and almost directly under the bridge is another ore vein. Then head back up to the middle level and into the kitchen area. There are a lot of gems and a chest in here. Head back out and towards the bridge, but pass the bridge for now. There is a fairly hard to see passage here, head through it and come out on a ledge overlooking the pond. There is another ore vein here, as well as a chest and coin bag. Now, back to the bridge. Cross it, head up to the top level, and look next to a bone rattler for the last ore vein. You should have 24 Iron Ore from here, in addition to a few Iron Ingots. Head outside, then walk straight for about 10 paces, then look to your left. There should be two more ore veins to round you out to an even 30 ore pieces.

Still with me? Good! If you followed my power-leveling tips, your Heavy Armor should be nearing 30 by now, which is what you need for Fists of Steel. Remember that leveling up refills your health and magicka, so you can level up when you're out of magicka and close to death and take even more hits. If you decided to do a lot of looting, you may want to sell off some stuff (particularly weighty weapons and armors you don't plan on using). We now want to jack up our Smithing, but before we do any actual forging, we're going to head out to Kolskeggr Mine. If you went to the Lover Stone, Kolskeggr Mine is just south of it, not even a full minute's trip. You'll be mining Gold in them thar hills! As you approach, you'll find 3 Forsworn, at least one of which is an archer. They're a bit stronger than the Bandits from earlier, but still fairly easy prey. I'd suggest looting them. Their equipment is light and sells for a lot. The Forsworn Bow is also one of the best bows in the game for quite a while too. Outside of the mine is a Smelter, but no other smithy tools. Go ahead if you'd like and smelt those Iron Ores into Ingots. Not every smithy has a Smelter (for example: Alvor in Riverwood), so it's wise to take advantage of this one. Head inside and prepare for more Forsworn.

Alerting the Forsworn in the first area will likely alert ALL of the other ones, so if you would like a huge melee encounter with around 5 enemies (including a boss-leveled Forsworn Briarheart), go ahead and fight fists flying. If you'd like to be a bit more methodical, try and take them out silently. It's pretty hard at this stage of the game to be sneaky enough to drop the guy without signaling the horde, so I don't blame you if you take the first option (or you get forced into it). Once everything is clear, there are about 17 ore veins throughout the entire mine, along with 4 Gold Ingots and 3 more Gold Ore, so you should be leaving the mine with about 54 Ore and 4 Ingots. For a more detailed walkthrough of where each vein is, head here: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Kolskeggr_Mine .

Hopefully, by this time you have 30 Heavy Armor and have bought the Fists of Steel perk. If not, don't fret! Enemies are still extremely weak to Unarmed right now. Just make that a priority. But for now, we're about to rack up our Smithing. Smelt all those Gold Ores into Ingots outside the mine, and head to a wood-chopping block (Remember, there's one outside of Embershard Mine where you should've grabbed the Woodcutter's Axe!). For every one Iron Ingot you have, get the same amount of Firewood. Then head to a smithy. Doesn't matter where as long as you have access to a forge at this point. Craft as many Iron Arrows as you have materials for it, then do the same with Gold Rings (2). You should've gotten quite a bit of Smithing by now, almost certainly enough to start making Dwarven materials. Try to hold onto the rings, you can enchant them later to boost your Enchanting skill.

Once you have your Fists of Steel perk, you can pretty much do what you want from here. Try to keep making the best armor you are able to make. Your Fists of Steel perk depends on how high your gauntlet's armor rating is, so always upgrade your gauntlets first. I've made a list of things you should accomplish as soon as possible, in no particular order.

- Obtain the Gloves of the Pugilist from Gian the Fist in the Ratway in Riften

- Disenchant the Gloves so they can be applied to your armor

- Enchant every Gauntlet you wear with the Fortify Unarmed enchantment

- OPTIONAL: You may also enchant a ring with Fortify Unarmed and it will stack

- Get the Ring of the Beast (requires you to become a Vampire Lord) from Rings of Blood Magic quest

- If you wish to get rid of your Vampirism after obtaining the ring, talk to an innkeeper to start Rising at Dawn

So, with a base damage of 4, +6 from a racial bonus, +12 from Claws, +14 Fortify Unarmed (best case, only through 100 Enchanting with a 100 Alchemy-created Fortify Enchanting) applied twice through Gauntlets and a Ring, +18 from Fists of Steel and Daedric Gauntlets, and +20 from the Ring of the Beast, the max damage is 4+6+12+14+14+18+20 = 88. Not the most in the world, but this build is meant to challenge you late game. Plus, you can always fall back on Archery. :P

How to Power Level (kinda):

Heavy Armor

Depending on whether or not you think this is cheating, the best way is to use Farkas in the Companions. By completing the questline, you gain access to Farkas as a follower. Pay him to train you, then take the gold from his inventory. I've heard pickpocketing the money back will work too, and doesn't require you to finish the Companions' questline. It also has the bonus of increasing your Pickpocket skill too, which has a few nice perks. Other than that, finding a mudcrab and letting it smack you for while works too.

Smithing

Once you have access to Dwarven Smithing, you should be making Dwarven bows. A LOT of them. You can get a buttload of Dwarven Metal Ingots by looting Dwarven ruins for scrap metal (I'll provide a full list of ruins a bit later). They require 2 Dwarven Metal Ingots and 1 Iron Ingot per bow, so they are very resource-efficient. You'll also find a list of Iron mines later.

Restoration

A good way to increase your Restoration is through Equilibrium + Fast Healing. It is a slow process, but it works. Equilibrium can only be obtained near the end of the Winterhold College's questline, so you may not want to go this route. Another good method is through Turn Undead spells. Especially at lower levels, using Turn Undead on Draugr is going to work pretty well. Also, you should be gaining Restoration points naturally from power-leveling Heavy Armor should you choose to go the "take damage" route.

Block

You need Vegetable Soup. Make it at a cooking pot with 1 of each of the following: Cabbage, Potato, Leek, Tomato. DO NOT TAKE DEADLY BASH UNTIL YOU REACH 100! Find an enemy, eat the soup, then do nothing but Shield Bash over and over and over again. You will level up quite quickly, can do it an unlimited number of times for the next 12 minutes, and won't damage your enemy that much. Lather, rinse, repeat until 100.

Enchanting

Not much to help here. Buy all the soul gems you can, grab all the soul gems you can, disenchant lots of stuff, get the Black Star, use Soul Trap on everything, make lots of stuff. I suggest making a Bow with a Soul Trap enchantment as soon as possible, preferrably one that can last a little while to give you time to finish enemies off. That or finish them with the bow if you want the most number of charges possible by setting it to 1 second. But you're going to want to make lots of stuff to increase your skill here. If you truly want to min/max, you should also go for 100 Alchemy and do the Fortify Enchanting potion into Fortify Alchemy armor loop to make the best possible Fortify Enchanting potion, which will allow you to get the highest possible Fortify Unarmed enchantment.

Archery

Not much help here either. You can do the follower/trainer thing with Faendal in Riverwood up to 50, then use Niruin in the Thieves Guild or Sorine Jurard in Fort Dawnguard to train you further. Other than that, it's simply shooting things with your bow. Good things to shoot at are Shadowmere (if you're doing Dark Brotherhood) or your summoned creatures. Once you hit 93, there is an NPC called Angi up in the mountains near Falkreath. In her house is a book for Archery. Then she gives you 6 challenges. For each one you complete, you gain 1 point in Archery. This is by far the fastest way to get from 93 to 100.

Sneak

Sneaking around all the time is great, but Shadowmere once again proves helpful as a punching bag. Sneak attacking Shadowmere and allowing its health to regenerate can level you up very quickly.

Lists of Ore Locations:

Iron Mines (http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Iron_Ore#Locations)

Corundum Mines (http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Corundum_Ore)

Dwarven Ruins (http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Dwemer_Ruins)

Orichalcum Mines (http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Orichalcum_Ore#Locations)

Ebony Mines (http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Ebony_Ore#Locations)

Moonstone Mines (http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Moonstone_Ore#Locations) FOR LIGHT ARMOR

Malachite Mines (http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Malachite_Ore#Locations) FOR LIGHT ARMOR

That's about it for my little guide here. I might come back to it and change some stuff around. I'll also be looking to upload this on Steam, so I'll link to it there once it goes live. What do you guys think? Feedback appreciated!

Edited May 21, 2014 by ddmdandaman

[Kikabut]

You can also get sneak up by attacking Hadavar at the very start while sneaking or by Attacking the Greybeards.... Be very careful with the Greybeards otherwise they littlerally shout you apart

Edited May 21, 2014 by Kikabut

[ddmdandaman]

You can also get sneak up by attacking Hadavar at the very start while sneaking or by Attacking the Greybeards.... Be very careful with the Greybeards otherwise they littlerally shout you apart

 

Yes, I know about that one too. I find Shadowmere to be the best because of his high HP regen and the fact that I've never seen him turn hostile (am I lucky or is that actually normal?). By doing it to Hadvar/Ralof at the beginning, you gain a ton of levels before you're able to really use them, so you'll have to only check your perk screen sparingly, or you may outlevel your own combat abilities. Not saying you can't go that route, just level wisely afterwards.

[Lord Garon]

Depending on your sensitivities and sense of humor, this vid might be amusing.

 

 

 

 

Warning: Constant stream of 4-letter expletives. Don't watch if you're easily offended.

 

Bad Ass

 

 

 

Edited May 21, 2014 by Lord Garon

[Oplox]

I know this is super necro'd but you forgot necromage perk that amplifies all enchants and spells on undead, being vampire makes you undead hence increasing all unarmed enchants on your character.

Edited January 26, 2020 by Oplox