Help, I feel Weak (sneaky illusion one handed type)

[seanxx]

Was wondering if someone can give me some pointers to help me out. Before xmas I played a sneaky archer, avoided magic all together, perks nearly all in archery,sneak and light armor, at adept after level 12ish i felt strong. not a god by any means but someone to be reckoned with, after that bumped it to Expert. points in health60% stamina 40%

 

Now im playing as an illusion, one handed (sword right now as i haven't come across a good dagger yet) light armor mage assassin and i feel WEAK.

Perks in illusion,sneak,one handed, light armor. Usually a sword in one hand and the other for magic. points in magic and health 50/50

 

what am i messing up? Im not great at melee fighting/blocking but playing a second round I should be better

 

any advice?

thanks

Edited January 10, 2012 by seanxx

[Lachdonin]

Work towards the x15 dagger damage and even an Iron dagger becomes a thing to fear.

 

That said, i find stealth characters tend to lag behind until Stealth gets to around skill level 50ish, so it may just be a little lagging your experiencing.

 

I'm not familiar with illusion spells, since i almost never use them, so i can't say whats going on there...

[Perraine]

What level are you currently ? ... There is a very heated debate doing the rounds of cyberspace on the subject of "Bethesda nerfed Mages in Skyrim" Basically the problem seems to be that The higher you level Archery or I handed Swords the more damage you do, so at higher levels your damage output matches the enemy hit point.

 

(NO I DO NOT WANT TO START THE ARGUMENT HERE! I'm just stating what is currently believed by many players)

 

For some reason Magical Damage Effects don't seem to scale, so once you reach the top tier of say, fire damage, that's it! ... it's ok (not great but ok) for say up to a level 20 - 30 character but it seems once you get to higher levels it becomes more difficult

The theory they say is to concentrate on learning crowd control and paralyse/stun spells so that you can 'whittle' down the enemies HP.

 

It seems at the moment at least either all the 'testers (who? ... here at Bethesda you say? sorry never heard of 'em) had the same favourite character type or it really is a bug/oversight which will be rebalanced eventually ...

 

But ATM Bethesda wants us all to play a Sniper Assassin Archer

[forzen]

I'm playing a sneak/illusion character too, on master, and I have felt like I was super powerful all the time. I got perks in Illusion (everything except making stuff cheaper), Sneak (only right tree), One-Handed (only for 50% power attack damage while dual weilding), Alchemy and Pickpocket. Before I got 15x dagger damage I usually just sneaked around and cast frenzy on all opponents until there was only one left, and then did the 3x sneak attack with a sword and calmed him if I didn't think I would be able to kill him. When I got 15x dagger damage I just snuck up and killed everyone dual weilding of course. With calm spells you can always try again if you fail. I leveled really fast until I had maxed both sneak and Illusion, the first 30 levels took about 10 hours maybe, the last 3 levels took the same time.

 

I onehit everything except bosses, and I'm working my way toward the Poisoned perk so that I can just pickpocket poisons into their pockets and watch them die.

[faifh]

(NO I DO NOT WANT TO START THE ARGUMENT HERE! I'm just stating what is currently believed by many players)

 

I started a mage character and while it worked well at the beginning since the firebolt makes staggers I switched to sneak/archer later and improved upon one-handed, since you weapons improve drastically with smithing, but nothing but a few perks improves magic damage, so it doesn't scale as you level.

[BrknSoul]

For bosses, with the right perks, can you Calm the boss to drop back into stealth, or will that cause them to heal too quickly?

[Franzibald]

Using illusion successfully with sneak may be the issue.

 

Frenzy them to attack eachother, last hit with a soultrap weapon if you need souls.

If you attack them while their frenzied you wont get the sneak multiplier for damage.

 

When only 1 left sneak attack and kill. If you get close to death just calm them. Never fear imho as they may run into friends who will come back with them.

 

Once you have high enough illusion you will have invisibility. Then your unstoppable. Also ofcourse: quiet casting is mandatory.

 

With dual cast and perks you can frenzy most anything even without the master level frenzy spell.

 

Im lvl 60 stealth illusion character on master diff all the way through.

[forzen]

For bosses, with the right perks, can you Calm the boss to drop back into stealth, or will that cause them to heal too quickly?

 

Yes, I do that all the time. I once went into a way to high level crypt, I was about level 20-25 and even the normal dudes two-shoted me, if they wasn't using a two-handed weapon because then I was dead. There were two bosses, one Deathlord with a bow and one without. The one with a bow was impossible, so after 4 deaths I just sneaked past him instead. The other one took three 30x damage dual power sneak attacks to kill, but at last he was dead. First I sneaked his body guards, then him casting Pacify between every sneak. The tricky part was that he was sitting in a throne, so I couldnt sneak him while he was there, so I had to lure him with my bow, cast Pacify and sneak him on his way back.

[Cyrotek]

Stealth is pretty weak at the start. Get into the Dark Brotherhood as soon as possible. the items you get right at the start are a big help.

Also use a dagger, gloves + perk + dagger = 30x damage, but only with daggers. You can kill nearly every opponent on master with one hit (with the right weapons of course).

 

My newest stealth character didnt got one single point into light armor, mostly because i dont need it anyways. 3 points into illusion, but iam going to resspec those because ... its pretty pointless (at least it feels like that).

Most of the points are in sneak and marksmanship. After that comes enchanting and smithing followed by one handed (i used bows for a while just4fun, so its a bit behind).

 

Also enchantments like +onehanded damage or those perks that incerase one handet damage add to the full sneak attack damage, you shout consider that.

 

Blacksmithing 100 + Enchanting 100 + Sneak 50 + One handet 80 = onehitet dragons ... ok, no. But close.

 

Edit: Oh and sorry for saying illusion is pointless. I know it can be strong, but if i have to decide between raw power and some spells that i cant use half of the time (too low mana, enemys too high level, etc.) i go for power. And getting away from enemys to sneak again isnt that hard. Try Mercer on Master with a gimped Sneakchar around lvl 20, its pretty funny if he kills you with 2 hits and illusion doesnt work. Had a like 30 Minutes fight with shoting him twice out of stealth and running away to restealth (He actually coud see me through the whole room as soon as i shot him ...)

Edited January 10, 2012 by Cyrotek

[teklanika]

Illusion is the most powerful magic in Vanilla Skyrim. Make sure you have the ability to Dual Cast your Illusion spells; after that everything should be a cakewalk.

 

The reason I say this is because, once you have a few points in Illusion, there should be NOTHING you cannot calm/fear/fury. I made a brand new character, a mage, and took him down the path of pure Illusion magic. He is currently level 11, and can calm/fear/fury a Giant, a mammoth, any and all bandits, and anything else in the game basically. (minus dragons, of course)

 

If you're looking for fighting tips, here you go:

 

1. Make sure you've purchased Calm/Fear/Fury.

2. Hotkey all 3 spells.

3. When entering a fight, pick out the strongest enemy you see. (for example, the Bandit Chief among two other bandits)

4. Dual Cast FURY on him, and avoid any interaction with ANY of the other enemies until;

5. The enemy you cast FURY on begins attacking his teammates.

6. Sit back and allow them to kill each other, feel free to refresh FURY on your main target (same thing as #4, avoid any confrontation with the enemy until he begins to ignore you and fight his teammates)

7. When the only enemy left standing is the Bandit Chief, simply cast CALM on him.

8. From here, you have many options---FEAR him so he won't fight back as you attack him, CALM him to regenerate mana quicker, or anything else you want to do.

 

These are some of the things I do when fighting using Illusion. Just make sure you have the right perk points in Illusion. You need all the perks that allow you to cast on higher level enemies, as well as Dual Casting. Dual Casting is key, and this is why---If calm only works on a level 9, then when DUAL CASTED it will work on level 20. (2.2x more than the original cast)

 

Hope this helps.

Edited January 10, 2012 by teklanika