Skyrim Legendary Difficulty Walkthrough - No Exploits

This is my guide for Skyrim on Legendary difficulty. No exploits or secret chests are used! No assassin build either.

Chapter 1: Start - First dragon

Helgen
The race you want to choose is the Breton. Why? Well they get a bonus in conjuration which is important later, start with summon familiar (important before you get to Whiterun), natural magic resistance and have an ability to absorb magicka.
Follow Ralof into the keep and loot the body. Set your healing, conjure familiar, and axe to hotkeys (favorite then go into favorites menu and number them).
Summon your familiar and he should attack the two imperials, use your axe to get some hits in. Should be easy.
After you do that, loot the bodies fully and move on. The next room with the heavy and light armor imperials, summon your wolf again. If they're chasing you, run away. You'll probably need to heal here. If they're distracted on the wolf, use dual imperial swords. Favorite those on hotkey, by the way. Make sure you quicksave after each room!
After thats done, loot the barrel for potions and the one potion on the table. Just leave everything else, its not worth the time.
Next should be the room with the storm mage and cages in it. Do not get hit by the mage! Summon your familiar once more and just hit the enemies while they're concentrated on the stormcloaks and your dog. Pick the one cage, look the knapsack on the short table for some goodies and a potion if I recall. Take the mage gear and equip it.
Next are the frostbite spiders. This is a very tricky one. AGAIN, you want to use your dog. You can't be the center of attention or you will die. Just let your dog handle it, if every single one is concentrated on your dog, go in with dual imperial swords and slash them. To do a dual power attack, hold both mouse 1 and 2 at same time. To attack with both swords at once, just hit mouse 1 and 2. You want to spam it anyway.
Finnally, we have the bear. Theres a little gold in the cart there where Ralof will stop. The bear is sort of a joke compared to the rest of the dungeon, plant your dog next to it and start slashing at it. It should die very quickly.
Now move on out of Helgen, make sure your inventory is stuffed.

Riverwood
When you get to the standing stones, get mage stone, obviously. Avoid the nearby bandit camp, you WILL die even with your dog. I've tried. When you get to Riverwood personally I wouldn't do much here. DON'T sell your stuff. You can get Faendal if you want but I don't think hes much help. You should have leveled up by now. You want to use your first perks in conjuration.
Novice Conjuration > Mystic Binding > Apprentice Conjuration
Now move on and get out of there. Theres nothing worth it there, IMO.

Trail to Whiterun and in Whiterun
The trail is rather easy. There are a few wolves, you can fight the giant if you want for some pretty good level ups in one handed, since he has ALOT of health. Move on to Whiterun, persaude the guard, we've all been through this before. Get in, make sure its daytime, and find the little girl or the beggar and give them one gold. Now, go to one of the blacksmiths and sell EVERYTHING. Your swords, armor, sheilds, everything! The only things you want to keep are your robes and hood, lockpicks, stam/magicka/health potions, and soul gems.

Dragonsreach
You should still have the gift of charity. If not, go get it again by donating another coin. The benefit is worth more than one coin. Go to irileth and just exit out of the conversation so she won't bother you on the way out. Don't even talk to the jarl. Its pointless. Now talk to the court wizard and what you want to buy is oakflesh, summon flame atronach, and bound sword. If you don't consider power leveling exploiting, you can buy soul trap later for power leveling conjuration. Personally I used it a few times in this playthrough, but not much. The spam-muffle, I consider an exploit. You can buy that later if you want. Now next you want to go the standing stones and climb up the side of the mountain to bleak falls barrow. You should have your new spells hotkeyed by now. With your newfound godly powers, summon a flame atronach to dispose of those bandits. See its power, since you are the only one that suffers from the damage penalty. You can pull out your bound swords if you have enough magicka, but I would just use oakflesh a few times to level up alteration. The flame atronach is very powerful on these lowly bandits. Now you fast travel back to Whiterun, and go to the inn and buy a room then sleep for well rested bonus. Fast travel back to Bleak.

Bleak Falls Barrow
Why are we doing this so early, you might ask? Because you want to get dragons out as soon as possible since they make you serious cash, I'm talking 1000+ gold per dragon kill. Anyway, the next perks you want to go for are
One handed damage > Dual flurry > One handed damage > Novice alteration (and third one handed damage if you got enough one handed skill, I did, if not you should by the end of the dungeon)
When you enter there are two more lowly bandits. You don't need to use atronach here, pull out dual bound swords and slaughter them. Trust me, you will. With mystic binding, bound weapons do the same amount of damage as daedric weapons. Why no bound bow? Because dual bound swords do more dps, and bound bow is adept level spell. Pick the small chest and loot the bandits completely. There are some pots up ahead.
I don't remember too well what was next, I think it was the skeevers. They are a PAIN. Make sure to quicksave so you don't keep any diseases. Let your atronach do the work this time because the skeevers can kill you, just use oakflesh to level up alt while atronach attacks skeevers.. I beleive there are dragr next. Atronach can do the work on them. When you have enough magicka, pull out bound swords on the dragr. There is one restless dragr. Hes a toughie! Your atronach again, does the work... Its all about not even getting hit. This part was the toughest in this playthrough (by that I mean up until dragon) since there were multiple dragr and a restless dragr. I had to run around abit and heal. Theres a spiked door trap if you want to lure them into it. Just walk past the button and they'll walk right onto it.
After you've cleared out the room, there is a short tunnel with blades. Quicksave and attempt to run through it, because if one slashes you, you're dead, or at least I was when I got hit.
Next is another tough room with a few dragr and dragr archers. You're just going to have to plant the flame atronach and run around/hide somewhere because a few will be after you probably! Don't bring out your swords either, heal while you're running away because you're bound to get hit.
After that room I beleive up next is the frostbite spider. Like most single target enemies, this one is a joke. Plant your atronach in front of it before it hits the ground and it should attack it. Bring out your swords when you get enough magicka and slash it to death. Keep/get your bound swords ready for the guy whose holding the claw. Should only take a few slashes to kill. There are a few pots here with some goodies, so loot those.
Next are a few more dragr and chests, your bound swords should do the trick. If you run into a frost troll instead of a skeleton, use your atronach and slash it to death. At least thats what I would do, I got a skeleton. Skeleton dies very quick from a few sword slashes. Did I forget that part with the puzzle? Let the guy die, and do the puzzle. You should have it memorized, hit first one once, and second and third twice. The last enemy should be a dragr with a greatsword, he can kill you easily so atronach and bound swords if you have enough magicka. Move on to the door. Hit them all twice and it will open the door, works every time.

Chapter 1: Part 2

Onto the boss. Hes a joke, really. Loot the weak poison, soul gem, and chest. When you are prepared (quicksave, as you should after every room!), receive the shout and plant your atronach in front of the coffin once it starts to crack open (if you do it too late he'll be concentrated on you) This fight is pretty easy, really, I've done it myself. Break out your swords and slash him to death while hes concentrated on your atronach. Loot him, drop a few greatswords if you need room. Leave Bleak falls, get the small chest on the way out.

Pre-Dragon
Fast travel back to Whiterun and wait until day if it isn't. Get the gift of charity. If you have more perks, then the next you want to go for is 2 perks into speech, for better prices. Its worth the investment once you start killing dragons for 1000+ gold each. You don't have to, though. Sell your things, including the enchanted sword (or whatever type of weapon you get). It weighs more in money than in disenchanting.
Go to Dragonsreach and sell whatever items aren't important. Buy lesser ward from the court wizard and hotkey it. Talk to Irileth now, the jarl, yada yada yada, we've all done this before. The Jarl should give you two items, sell those to the blacksmith whiile you still have the gift of charity.

The Dragon
Get well rested bonus at inn, then head to the dragon. This is a big one! You will want to quicksave ALOT! This fight is fairly simple but it is a VERY long fight! Do NOT use your swords, even if you have the oppurtunity because the dragon can switch targets, at least by my experience. When hes about to breathe, put up your ward! if you managed to put it up before he started, you will take no damage! Do not get near the dragon, let your atronach and everyone else handle it. You can heal and use oakflesh. One chomp and its over. Quicksave very often! After quite a long while he should be dead. I'd imagine if you wanted to make it as easy as humanly possible you could put yourself in the tower and go get something to drink or something while everyone else handles the dragon. If you didn't buy anything I didn't tell you to buy, you should get alot of money. Get the gift of charity and sell those dragon bones and scales! To the alchemist, at Arcadias Cauldron. You will definetly need to wait 2 days to reset stock. Don't buy any potions, you don't need any. Look at how much money you have! And made it so far on Legendary! Congratulations if you made it this far.

That was the end of the first part of my walkthrough on Legendary difficulty, if people like this I will add more. I am going back to playing now.

[OverLordGoldDragon]

Best guide. 11/10. Would skip through again.

[Heather]

It's been a long time since I played Skyrim. I'm pretty sure I don't even have this file anymore. I didn't think I would get such good feedback, either. I will re-download Skyrim and re-enact my own guide, then add to that. Expect to see more soon.

[Heather]

@brad Which door are you reffering to? The one in Bleak Falls Barrow? You just hit each one twice.... Or are you reffering to something else?

[The Dovah's Talon]

more more

[Δ Warner bros.]

Next chapter!!!

[money123451™]

Not a bad guide (i play with requiem and frostfall installed) but i avoid starting the dragon quests until i am at least level 50 on legendary so i can use what ever i am going to use to kill it be that a bow or a sward or magic (magic takes a lot more then 50 levels to become as powerful as a dragon) i also don't like to exploit quick saves. your saved games has a 1-2 sec delay with the loading so it will somtimes make a dead save (a save where you die when you load) also i keep bones and scales because there are few chances to get large numbers of it (i like making my armor and weapons so 20-30 scales or bones are needed) but all in all yours is the speed runing guide to legendary difficulty.

[ZeroTyreal]

It needs a few tweaks but overall this is a good walkthrough. A few things I would like to see is for example: What enchantments are good to keep instead selling? or Should I invest more in stamina or in magicka? In other words, I'm looking forward in seeing your next chapter! :D

[Ratalia]

I am waiting for next chapter ;D

[Ratalia]

Nice walkthrough. I really like it. Good job! :)