Stealth Archer build

[peepee]

Can anyone give me some advice on what skills and perks to invest in to give me a good build that works

[arcasor]

In addition to the obvious Archery and Stealth, the perks greatly depend on whether you wish to use a physical bow or the Bound Bow; in the first case I usually invest in Light Armor, Smithing and Enchanting; Alchemy may be useful for poisons, though I tend to forget that I carry them. In the second case I invest in Alteration for armor protection, Conjuring (allowing me to enhance the Bound Bow and to summon some useful minion) and Illusion, for Muffle and Quiet Casting.

[peepee]

Thank you :) do you think I need enchanting? or do you think I can get away with smithing, light armor and alchemy, obviously along with Archery and Stealth. Also baring in mind I am only playing on adept?

[One Eye Jack]

Illusion magic is the perfect complement to a stealth archer.

First get the muffle spell and level illusion fast with it.

Then go see the elf at the college. Can't remember his name but get the invisibility spell from him.

Next get the bound bow spell. Google it, but there is a fort where it's hidden in a basket. You can get it whenever you can either sneak in or kill all the people in your way.

Then........have fun. You are a God.

[arcasor]

Originally posted by Little Dolphin:

Thank you :) do you think I need enchanting? or do you think I can get away with smithing, light armor and alchemy, obviously along with Archery and Stealth. Also baring in mind I am only playing on adept?

In Skyrim you can get away with almost everything, especially at low/medium difficulty level. You can safely skip enchanting and attain demi-godhood anyway

[ayrtep]

All you need for a stealth archer is the archery tree with the exception of 'Critical shot' perks with as usual are not worth it.

Plus deadly aim and the two sneak tree perks you need to get it.

That's 17 perks. You don't really need anything else and will have a strong character if you limit skill use to stealth and archery whenever possible.

Any other perks depending on what flavour of archer you want.

You could add the other 4 +5% stealth perks, but it's the first one that makes the biggest effect.

Conjuring works well with stealth archer. You create atronachs to distract the enemy as you shoot them. You can go, full dual archer/conjure and specialise in using the bound bow if you want, this is actually quite a powerful build. It's natural to specialise in enchanting here as well, as binding souls is so easy with this build.

I would not bother much with armour. Wear light armour if you want, shoruded armour a possable choice, but as an archer you should be avoiding close contact, so I would not bother wasting perks here.

You might want to consider smithing your own arrows. But as you don't need much in the way of armour, it's probably not worth getting too involved.

Edit: Alchemy works well if you dont mind the micro-managing. 'Easy' way to make money.

[DrSuperEvil]

All chars must focus on a Smithing, Alchemy and Enchanting core. On harder difficulties (Legendary) the noise of heavy armor is offset by the range of a skilled bowman and the player eneds heavy to not be one hit killed. Get the 3x damage boost from sneak attacks for bows and focus on bows (avoid the paralysis skill because it applies before slow mo arrows impact making them miss). Once the player can make 2.5k damage bows through smithing and +63% fortify archery enchantments combined with +169% damage boosting potions even dragons die fast.