Tactics Talk

[Melletch]

An everybody on everything tactics and tactical in skyrim. Wish I could pin it in the forum.

I'll start with a few topics.

Archery gunslinger...do you guys normally switch to a back up weapon when someone closes the range, or just keep firing. I find you can treat it like a pistol and jump or run away, back out of their attacks and fire an arrow for every swing.

Do you think archery bests magic in terms of how easy i find archery and dodging foes and how quick it is to kill too.

Do you choose weapons for roleplay alone sometimes?

And finally, how often so you forget you have powers and shouts?

[Genghis_Caesar]

For question #1:
It depends for me on how much health they have and how much damage they do. If they're super weak I tend to just take the hit if they manage to get close enough and fire the necessary arrows into them to help level that skill. If they're kind of like a middle difficulty then I switch to a melee weapon. If they're like a Draugr Death-Overlord/Drinker-of-Tears type of deal I tend to switch to magic while playing keep-away simply because magic is something you can use in bursts and fire without aiming very well and yet still do damage while staying super mobile.

For question #2:
Archery is certainly really cool, and as you level it up you can do a lot of damage. One major con to playing as an archer, primarily at the earlier portion of the game: Arrows are limited. As long as you loot every arrow you find, you'll be set pretty early on. But it's possible to go for a long time in the game without finding many, if any arrows. And early on in the game when all you have are the arrows you got during the intro quest, you find yourself to be a melee/magic user pretty fast. And another issue one faces is that (until you unlock the perks that change this )you move pretty slow with a nocked arrow that you drew somewhat slowly, and you end up using melee and/or magic again because having to constantly regain enough distance to draw an arrow and make sure an enemy doesn't catch up to you is kind of difficult and somewhat tedious. Once again, once one levels their archery skill enough it gets much easier to use.

For question #3:
Sometimes. I played as a two-handed shock unit character once and had a lot of fun with it. I've tried full mage but I just love the way weapons and armor look too much and usually end up as a spellsword or battlemage.

For question #4:
Shouts I typically remember, just not which shout I have it on. I've accidentally used the whirlwind sprint one before and thrown myself off a cliff.
Powers I often do, and when I remember I try not to use them thinking "I should save it just in case" only to never end up using them.

[Melletch]

Originally posted by Theodore Roosevelt:

For question #1:
It depends for me on how much health they have and how much damage they do. If they're super weak I tend to just take the hit if they manage to get close enough and fire the necessary arrows into them to help level that skill. If they're kind of like a middle difficulty then I switch to a melee weapon. If they're like a Draugr Death-Overlord/Drinker-of-Tears type of deal I tend to switch to magic while playing keep-away simply because magic is something you can use in bursts and fire without aiming very well and yet still do damage while staying super mobile.

For question #2:
Archery is certainly really cool, and as you level it up you can do a lot of damage. One major con to playing as an archer, primarily at the earlier portion of the game: Arrows are limited. As long as you loot every arrow you find, you'll be set pretty early on. But it's possible to go for a long time in the game without finding many, if any arrows. And early on in the game when all you have are the arrows you got during the intro quest, you find yourself to be a melee/magic user pretty fast. And another issue one faces is that (until you unlock the perks that change this )you move pretty slow with a nocked arrow that you drew somewhat slowly, and you end up using melee and/or magic again because having to constantly regain enough distance to draw an arrow and make sure an enemy doesn't catch up to you is kind of difficult and somewhat tedious. Once again, once one levels their archery skill enough it gets much easier to use.

For question #3:
Sometimes. I played as a two-handed shock unit character once and had a lot of fun with it. I've tried full mage but I just love the way weapons and armor look too much and usually end up as a spellsword or battlemage.

For question #4:
Shouts I typically remember, just not which shout I have it on. I've accidentally used the whirlwind sprint one before and thrown myself off a cliff.
Powers I often do, and when I remember I try not to use them thinking "I should save it just in case" only to never end up using them.

The resort to magic I wasn't expecting. Can you say the Drinker of Tears In Dragon.

I sense that Arrow problem already in my playthrough and have now made a few extra arrows.

Love the armor have a problem using two handed but like it for some reason. I just don't do it that often I like it alot.

Yeah I said not to save Powers anymore.

[Melletch]

Roosevelt, how do you handle up close with two handed most then?

[Melletch]

Some days two handed feels like dodging with magic or arrows.

[mysticfall]

I know I might sound like a pathetic fanboy because I already mentioned of this mod a couple more times recently, but I strongly recommends Requiem for anyone who's interested in a more immersive and tactical gameplay.

I mainly play as an archer in Requiem and it needs much more planning before beginning an attack. For instance, I can take out lightly armored opponents with a single arrow, but the enemy archers or mages and do the same, especially when I cannot wear heavy armor myself.

So, I usually try to take out ranged opponents one by one, using hit and run tactic or utilizing a cover. And when only heavy hitters are remaining, I try to outrun them while wearing them down with poison.

In requiem, enemies with heavy armor will have hard time catching up on you, but once they do they can kill you with a single power attack, or at least break your bow if it's made of wood.

So, keep shooting arrows without running away when they close the distance is not really an option, unless they are very low on health.

And most of all, I need to manage my stamina very carefully, because unlike in vanilla Skyrim, depleting it during a combat normally ends up in a disaster.

If everything fails, you can just put some arrows in a tough opponent and run away, so you can come back later to finish him, as most of the enemies don't regenerate health.

You can't even carry too many arrows with you all the time, because in Requiem, arrows have weight and you have much smaller carrying capacity than in the vanilla Skyrim.

Lastly, in Requiem, I acutally spend much time and money in training. With certain mod, you can train your archery by shooting dummies, and I often spend large sums of money to trainers because perks and skill levels have much more significant impact on my gameplay than they did in a vanilla Skyrim.

[Uncle64]

I do close combat if it is up to 3 whit my bow :P Right perks and you can easy do powerful bashes whit it.
Also have one handed and one shield, when it gets to many.

[Melletch]

Originally posted by fender:

I know I might sound like a pathetic fanboy because I already mentioned of this mod a couple more times recently, but I strongly recommends Requiem for anyone who's interested in a more immersive and tactical gameplay.

I mainly play as an archer in Requiem and it needs much more planning before beginning an attack. For instance, I can take out lightly armored opponents with a single arrow, but the enemy archers or mages and do the same, especially when I cannot wear heavy armor myself.

So, I usually try to take out ranged opponents one by one, using hit and run tactic or utilizing a cover. And when only heavy hitters are remaining, I try to outrun them while wearing them down with poison.

In requiem, enemies with heavy armor will have hard time catching up on you, but once they do they can kill you with a single power attack, or at least break your bow if it's made of wood.

So, keep shooting arrows without running away when they close the distance is not really an option, unless they are very low on health.

And most of all, I need to manage my stamina very carefully, because unlike in vanilla Skyrim, depleting it during a combat normally ends up in a disaster.

You can't even carry too many arrows with you all the time, because in Requiem, arrows have weight and you have much smaller carrying capacity than in the vanilla Skyrim.

Lastly, in Requiem, I acutally spend much time and money in training. With certain mod, you can train your archery by shooting dummies, and I often spend large sums of money to trainers because perks and skill levels have much more significant impact on my gameplay than they did in a vanilla Skyrim.

Stuck on xbox, but used to use those kind of things and that sounds like my cup of tee. Nother realism mod is belua sanguinare revisited. The best vampire immersion.

Had that dummy mod, but not enough other mods like requiem to use it with game started crashing more before my laptop quit running games anyway.

Opposite tactics I've been using for vanilla, shoot out the heavies and melee guys to duel with the archers. It is like the opposite of what melee Warriors do to wizards as the player, you know?

[Melletch]

Originally posted by Uncle64SwE:

I do close combat if it is up to 3 whit my bow :P Right perks and you can easy do powerful bashes whit it.
Also have one handed and one shield, when it gets to many.

How many is too much? Three is a bit if hard pressed.

[Genghis_Caesar]

Originally posted by Melletch:

Roosevelt, how do you handle up close with two handed most then?

This may sound odd because of how slow two-handed weapons swing but speed. Make sure you have lots of of healing and stamina potions on hand and, if you have any, enchanted gear that buffs two-handed damage. If there's mages or high powered archers you want to get to them first before taking out the other enemies. Make good use of your shouts and powers. Just about any of the human races' powers work really well with two-handed from what I've heard, with a stamina boost for the Redguards, calming enemies as the Imperials, and causing fear as a Nord.

As for close up, just lots and lots of power attacks. Once you start to really level up two-handed, which in my personal experience is faster and than archery simply because of how much time you spend in melee, it becomes a lot easier pretty quickly, with many enemies being down in two to three hits, sometimes one power attack even. And then if things get out of hand that's where the light armor comes in: you can run away, using up less stamina in the process than you would with heavy armor. You can sprint just far enough away to use healing spells or regenerate if you're out of potions.

[alexander_dougherty]

Originally posted by Melletch:

An everybody on everything tactics and tactical in skyrim. Wish I could pin it in the forum.

I'll start with a few topics.

Archery gunslinger...do you guys normally switch to a back up weapon when someone closes the range, or just keep firing. I find you can treat it like a pistol and jump or run away, back out of their attacks and fire an arrow for every swing.

Do you think archery bests magic in terms of how easy i find archery and dodging foes and how quick it is to kill too.

Do you choose weapons for roleplay alone sometimes?

And finally, how often so you forget you have powers and shouts?

1. Switch to onehanded and shield.
2. Magic is generally underpowered, and apart from summoning Daedra it is of minor use. Yes I know you can get it to works as well as combat and archery for a bit, but as you level up it gets weaker again.
3. Yes.
4. Depends on how quickly I was surprised. I generally don't use shouts because they tend to overwhelm weaker enemies, and save them for the stronger foes, but you do get caught out occassionally.

[Melletch]

How much do you guys block? Passive blocking or dodging. I always dodge too much, because even on Master difficulty, you just take too much damage with that shield. I bash, but not much pure blocking. I will meet a blow if I have no choice with a shield or weapon's edge.

[Melletch]

And how do you aim the stupid bow on horseback third person! Do any of you aim third person normally?

[Melletch]

How do we get this article pinned anyway?

[Genghis_Caesar]

Originally posted by Melletch:

And how do you aim the stupid bow on horseback third person! Do any of you aim third person normally?

I always ♥♥♥ with horse archery whenever it's an option in a game. In Skyrim it's really difficult, especially when compared to mount and blade where cavalry combat is buckets of fun. I aim in third person, rarely and often for the purpose of having greater FOV. It's pretty damn hard to use.

As for blocking I was always just super lazy and rarely remembered to do so or bother. Block gets pretty fun when you level it up, especially if you have the ordinator mod.

[Melletch]

Originally posted by Theodore Roosevelt:

Originally posted by Melletch:

And how do you aim the stupid bow on horseback third person! Do any of you aim third person normally?

I always ♥♥♥ with horse archery whenever it's an option in a game. In Skyrim it's really difficult, especially when compared to mount and blade where cavalry combat is buckets of fun. I aim in third person, rarely and often for the purpose of having greater FOV. It's pretty damn hard to use.

As for blocking I was always just super lazy and rarely remembered to do so or bother. Block gets pretty fun when you level it up, especially if you have the ordinator mod.

Forgot to mention I
I take off my cross hairs for immersion. So you don't use shields then and are offensive. Do you dual wield?