Ultimate Guide to Skyrim on Master or Legendary Difficulty From Start to Finnish

[TomLukman]

I managed to find what I believe to be the perfect setup which enabled me to play through these difficulties with ease. The key strategy to exploit is the fact that your folowers are not influenced by lower damage as your character is. So, in order to beat the game you have to focus on getting as many folowers as possible.

Folowers can be people you hire or your summoned minions, so the key to winning is to play a Conjurer. Race isn't that important but Bretons work best since they get the best starting conjuration and some magica resistance. The intro shouldn't be a problem since you get folowers. Once you get to riverwood you can get Sven or Faendal (I recommend Faendal because he's ranged). Get to Whiterun ASAP and get yourself a Flame Atronarch spell.

How you go on is up to you. You can powerlevel conjuration by spamming bound weapons when you're under attack (boring) or just play the game. Two folowers should be enough to keep you alive. Jenasa in Whiterun is a mage and I recommend you take her if you're going to play without power leveling.

When playing remember not to rush through the dungeons. Lead your folowers but withdraw behind them as soon as you are attacked. NPC's almost always focus on your folowers so stay behind them. Don't use destruction spells to help your folowers, save your mana to respawn atronarchs if they die. If you're going to attack, invest in mystic binding and bound bow instead (I actually maxed out my marksman doing it.)

You can use other magic schools if you like, but all except destruction. Focus on supporting your minions through illusion or protect yourself with alteration/restoration. Your main goal at this point is to max out conjuration as soon as possible.

Once you max out your conjuration you'll be able to summon two dremora lords. Those two are enough to anihilate anything in your way. You probably won't even need an NPC folower.

Also, it's safe to continue the main quest early in the game. Jenasa + atronarch are enough to shoot dragons down, not to mention when you have 2 atronarchs. Doing the main quest early is actually helpful because FUS-RO-DAH is a great life saver when you get rushed by enemies. (In some tight corridor situations you won't be able to escape behind your minions). Become ethreal is another useful shout for such situations. Also, when fighting dragons, replace your atronarch(s) with dremora lord(s) once the dragon can no longer fly.

Once you've maxed your conjuration, you can focus on other magic schools. I recommend you save destruction for last because it will drain your magica leaving you helpless if your minions get killed. Better wait with destruction until you get some -destruction cost gear.

The only issue with this strategy is that it gets really boring once you get to the point where your dremora lords kill everything. At that point you stop leveling since they do all the work which forces you to take some riskier strategies or just yawn-quit.

Enjoy Skyrim on Legendary...

[FiercerDeity]

Good point! I knew followers weren't affected on Legendary, but I forgot about conjured creatures. Thanks for the hint!

[Zes]

What is the point of sitting back and waiting your followers do the job, it is a game and you are supposed to play it and have fun from your experiences..

nobody has courage to say the truth but legendary difficulty is very boring, you die like a fragile flower even you have a coolest baddasset super duper armor on And your foes are like built from steel...

i prefer master difficulty even it is some easy, at least it is more realistic. no one can just walk like nothing happened after you hit his head with a warhammer twenty times...

sorry for the bad critic but i couldnt hold it much longer.

best regards.

[Brandybuck]

Jenassa is a ranger. No spells listed in CK.

[TomLukman]

Actually, I always said master and legendary difficulties were boring and that is due to the fact that you have to rely on your folowers to the job or spend a lot of time healing if you do the fighting yourself as warrior. Playing as assasin doesn't work because you'll die when you get caught (leading to boring reloads/retries) and destruction mages run out of mana and die. Personally, my favorite is some form of warrior build on adept difficulty - fast combat, no need to strategize with stealth or magic and you don't have a damage cap (like mage spells do). Thanks for comments.