How to fight after lvl 20?

[creamcone]

After reaching level 20 I start having serious difficulty with fighting.
Do you have any helpful tips?

[Delta 1038]

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/comicsandcosplay/comics/critical-miss/9245-Skyrim-Tales

What's your fighting style?

[Pirate Beard]

Swing, swing, block, swing, swing, block. Health potion. And repeat.

[Randox]

Is your game modded?

The biggest problem I can think of is if you raise a skill like Smithing or Alchemy really high really early in the game. That will raise your overall level up, and thus increase the difficulty of enemies, while providing minimal increased combat ability in return. Worse if you somehow manage to really crank up say, lockpicking, which has no combat function at all.

Basically, you probably don't want any one skill massively out levelling all your others, especially in the early game. Expect your weapon and armor skill to be fairly high, and block will probably be a bit lower, but don't race off to something like 90 smithing with a level 30 one handed skill of 35. If you've done this, and it's causing you grief, you could turn the difficulty down to a lower setting until you're primary combat levels are higher (or you could do that no matter the cause of your issues).

Also note that this applies to perk placement. If you've not been putting at least a few perk points into stuff like the base perks for blocking, armor, and weapon type (the ones with multiple levels), they you will suffer in combat. You need those 'do 10% more damage' and 'increase armor rating by 15%' perks.

Other than that, I'm not sure what to tell you. I seem to recall someplace around 20 being a rather awkward stage in general, where you are rapidly starting to meet more powerful enemies, but I don't remember any particular issues with it, just longer fights mostly.

[Bomb Bloke]

Knowing how you're fighting now would make it a lot easier to suggest changes.

But one thing players often neglect are resistances. Your armour rating does squat against spell damage; without enchantments or potions to deal with that, you might as well be running in naked.

[PerpetualNomad]

Always snipe mages from a distance.

[Avrie]

You hit that annoying critical point where the game levels your enemies ... usually around level 24. you start seeing less drougers and more death lords. It will balance out soon enough, but for now it all comes down to strategy and survival. Attack from stealth where you can, sneak, backstab, shoot arrows from a distance... it depends on how you like to play, but getting that first shot in makes all the difference.

[kdodds]

I've never had this problem, really, when not forcing levels. If you pump Alchemy, Enchanting, and Smithing, you can't expect that those skills will be very useful when going toe-to-toe with a giant, dragon, or death lord. Skyrim was sort of built on the premise complete freedom with the expectation of roleplaying and reliance on the part of the player NOT to grind levels. If played in this way, combat (if you even engage in it) is rarely problematic.

[jreese46]

As others have mentioned, it's easy to neglect your weapon and armor skills, in favor of things like enchanting, alchemy, etc. While those are certainly useful, you need to keep up on the combat skills. (For me, it's 1H, light armor, archery) One of the things you can do is seek trainers, such as Faendal for archery. (Since I've installed the unofficial patch, it's no longer "free," but still helps get my levels where they need to be.) Amren, in Whiterun, is a 1H trainer, and Grelka (in Riften) is a light armor trainer. If you've gotten your speech to 50, try out the merchant perk and you can actually use acquired loot to recoup some or all of your training money.

Anyway, the higher your combat levels are, the more perks you can put into them. I know it's tempting to perk alchemy and enchanting, sneak, etc., but I only do that when I have no room for perks in my combat skills. Weapon and archery skills are fairly easy to level by hunting, but armor isn't quite so easy as you have to be hit to level it.

In the short term, here are a few helpful tricks.

Even if you haven't perked alchemy, buy/collect/find/steal all the canis root and imp stool you can find. Those make a paralysis potion, which makes those bandit chiefs way eaiser to deal with. Hit the Lord Stone (between Dawnstar and Morthal) for a bit more physical resistance and 25% magic resistance, and do the Mara quest for another 15% magic resistance. That will help you to survive the mages, especially if you have other resistances or enchantments to stack. If you're a Breton, with that quest and the Lord stone, you're suddenly 65% magic resistant, right off the bat.

Pick up the first word of the ice form shout. That will freeze them solid, knock them down, and you can hack away at them for a bit. It also recharges more quickly than the full, 3 word unrelenting force. If you have Dragonborn, then getting the Cyclone first word will help you even more.

Depending on how much magicka you have, mage armor and a conjure can always help you. I put 2 perks into each, so I could simultaneously case mage armor and a flame atronach, before drawing my sword and shield, or bow. I keep a good one-word shout handy, as a get-away-from-me move.

Buy a Flame Atronach spell, and get into the habit of casting that before every combat. If you find/buy another conjuration staff, give it to your follower and then there are suddenly four of you, rather than two.

As others mentioned, snipe from a distance, but always do so from sneak. A perk, fairly high in the sneak tree, will give you triple damage when using a bow while hidden, but you still get a lesser bonus for sneak, even without the perk. Deathbell is your friend here, as it combines with a lot of things to make a stronger-than-average poison, including the ubiquitous red mountain flower.

Shield bash, if you use one. You don't even need a perk. Just the quick tap of both keys, belts them in the face and staggers them, so you can launch an attack and then get out, without taking a hit. What I do is quick bash, then do a tap-release-tap and hold combo with my sword. It combines the quick swipe attack with an overhead power attack, and does a lot of damage, compared to normal attacks. It also sucks stamina, so be cautious. But, you can take out even more powerful enemies, by doing the dance with them, instead of just going toe to toe. Bash, in, hit, out, dance, bash, in, hit, out, dance...etc. By dancing, you're circling them, so they have to keep turning to hit you. If you charge straight in, be prepared to either shield bash or slide to one side as you attack. The best time for the bash is when they're about to strike, have ♥♥♥♥♥♥ back their weapon but not begun their swing yet.

It will still be harder if your combat skills are down, but you can survive it this way, until you get them where you want them to be.

[Bomb Bloke]

Originally posted by jreese46:

As others have mentioned, it's easy to neglect your weapon and armor skills, in favor of things like enchanting, alchemy, etc. While those are certainly useful, you need to keep up on the combat skills.

Well, up to a point, anyway. Eventually you can reset all your combat skills back down to 15 and still merrily tank anything and everything, and that happens well before your crafting skills hit their caps.

[Delta 1038]

Originally posted by jreese46:

Even if you haven't perked alchemy, buy/collect/find/steal all the canis root and imp stool you can find. Those make a paralysis potion, which makes those bandit chiefs way eaiser to deal with.

What is up with you and paralysis poisons?

[talkingmute]

Also somthing I've found is that even if you use light armor, grab a heavy shield. the damage blocked applies to the armor rating of the shield. Also using shield bash while fighting is a good way to open the enemy to land hits (I use a dagger so I can usually land 2 before they recover).

The shield perk that "slows time" while blocking during their power attacks can be helpful too. not only is it a supposed cue to bash (to be honest it seems like that bash has to land, not just started before they hit to interupt) it allows time to release your block and move back, then forward again for a hit while they finish their after animation.

EDIT: *base armor rating of the shield

[Bomb Bloke]

Originally posted by Delta 1038:

What is up with you and paralysis poisons? :OhNoBlue:

These days, I run around dual-wielding paralysis weapons while wearing -100% Alteration spell cost armour. Mwuahaha.

[jreese46]

Originally posted by Delta 1038:

What is up with you and paralysis poisons? :OhNoBlue:

The best enemy is a horizontal enemy.

[jreese46]

Originally posted by Bomb Bloke:

These days, I run around dual-wielding paralysis weapons while wearing -100% Alteration spell cost armour. Mwuahaha.

>:-D

[76561198034396398]

never hurts to run away,were possible use terrian,use a tree for cover,(good for avoiding spells) jump into a lake,one on one fights are rare always take out the biggest first