Skyrim Assassin Build/Guide

Assassin’s guide to Skyrim

This guide is designed to help those who approach the game with a focus on stealth. This can be a very enjoyable way to experience Skyrim as there are two factions (Dark Brotherhood and Thieves Guild) that provide you with excellent bonuses that help your style of play. In addition, opening attacks against enemies in stealth are among the strongest attacks in the game and this guide will highlight those perks and combat strategies. Perks are in quotations with the associated level needed to unlock that perk in parenthesis.

General Class tips for combat situations - This type of playstyle best lends itself to a ranged approach or a quiet execution of single opponenets depending on your sneak level. Unless you are very advanced in the sneak tree you'll want to limit dagger execution attempts to rooms where no more than two enemies dwell. Remember that the key to stealth is staying in the shadows. Lighted areas will pull you out of stealth quickly and you will be on the retreat a lot at early levels unless you plan attacka carefully. Also keep in mind that line of sight plays a big role in whether or not an enemy will detect you. Use pillars, doorways, rocks and any part of the natural environment to mask your presence from the enemy until it is necessary to move. If you come a cross a staff that allows you to conjure a familiar or daedric companion, i highly recommend using it as they will soak damage while you are attacking and may even provide some kills for you along the way. You can make a staff that allows you to conjure a storm atronach using the atronach forge under the college of Winterhold. The forge is located in the midden under the college and the materials needed to make the staff are void salts/broom/orichalcum ingot/greater or grand soul gem (filled). The staff has a lot of charges and the storm atronach is the strongest of the 3 elementals that can be conjured (flame, frost, storm). You'll find this especially useful early in the game against dragons, bosses or dragon priests.

Race Recommendation – Wood Elves starts with the best archery rating and since it is the slowest of all combat skills to level it is easy to recommend them for this reason. Command animal is also a solid racial power and if you get attacked by a bear between levels 1-10 you may be glad you have it. I also like the built in 50% disease resistance and since I started playing my Nord warrior I’ve come to appreciate it even more. The Khajit race starts with good stealth stats as do Argonians so consider them as well when making your selection.

Magicka-Health-Stamina distribution – Because Illusion was such a big part of my leveling and combat experience in Skyrim I chose to put more points in magic than you may care to. In hindsight, and because of your ability to eventually cast expert and master spells at no cost, you may want to limit your magicka points to the cost of “muffle”. This spell can level you in and out of combat, and should you choose to activate the magic stone to aid in this you will find yourself at 100 in no time. That being said, focus on a health for the most part and stamina if you feel your carry load is lacking.

The primary leveling skills you’ll want to focus on are Archery/Sneak/Illusion/Alchemy. The Lockpicking skill will develop quickly on its own without paying any special attention to it. The upper level perks of picking are fantastic and certainly speed the process quite a bit but it is something I ignored in favor of magic skills that further enhance your ability to be effective as a stealth character. You will also want to pay attention to Smithing along the way…I’ll go into this in greater detail later.

What not to focus on - Pickpocketing does offer some good gold making perks but you might find yourself reloading a lot when you fail to successfully pickpocket your target and without enchanted gear or potions that fortify the skill you might find yourself distracted by this skill early on. It is a great skill to level later in the game once you have access to upper level Thieves Guild gear and advanced alchemy which you can use to make fortify pickpocketing potions.

Daggers are a great option for stealth characters and the One-Handed skill would theoretically add a strong bonus to your stealth attacks. However, the “assassin’s blade” perk which adds 15x damage to dagger attacks coupled with the shrouded gloves you will pick up in your time with the Dark Brother hood will one shot most enemies that aren’t dungeon-boss level or higher. The gloves will double sneak attack damage and bring your dagger attacks to 30x damage when executing a successful sneak attack. So even a modestly upgraded dagger with a 20-30 base damage will do 600-900 damage in stealth!

You may be tempted to put points intoLight Armor but in my estimation it will be a waste. After a while you will rarely take any kind of life threatening damage if you are skilled at playing this type of character. You will dispatch most of your targets at long range. And because Illusion provides an excellent means of misdirection and defense, the light armor component may feel like overkill. You should eventually put a set of dragonscale armor together, and because your skill will most likely be in the 60-80 range by that time you will get solid armor coverage from the armor itself without the extra perks from the tree.

Class Focus:

Archery – 5/5 in “Overdraw”, “Eagle eye” (30), “Power Shot” (50). Taking any points in “Critical Shot” is optional. The reasoning behind this is that once you have an ebony or daedric bow with an (epic) or (legendary) improvement on it, plus all the fortify archery enchants on your gear and using a fortify marksman potion, you will be able to one shot nearly every enemy in the game if you open in stealth. That includes dragons. At that point the extra perks in critical damage don’t appear to give you a very good bang for your buck…so to speak. I ended up taking “Hunter’s Discipline” but wish I hadn’t as arrow quantity has never been an issue. “Quick Shot” (70) is your call. If you feel the need to take this perk then do it as it is hard to make an argument against it. I just wish that the percentage increase in draw speed was better than 30% because it is hard to notice the difference and might feel like a wasted perk. “Bullseye” is unnecessary because paralysis doesn’t effect things that are already dead J Later in the post I will lay out what Alchemy/Enchanting/Smithing is necessary to craft a seriously bad-ass bow.

Sneak – 1 or 2/5 in “Stealth”, and then take the rest of the tree as every perk is relevant to playing as an assassin. Personal choices you need to make on your own would be the perk that gives you the silent roll and the “shadow warrior” perk. I actually use the roll quite often and it is a prerequisite for taking “Silence” which is a solid perk but it isn’t crucial and doesn’t make you any better in combat. What it does do is speed up your dungeon crawl as you can roll continuously if you have your bow drawn. If you find yourself in open combat too often then shadow warrior may be for you as the aggro reset it provides can be useful. On the other hand, once you’ve mastered the class and play style you will almost never be in a situation where this perk becomes necessary to save you. And if you adhere to this guide you will be making use of several illusion spells for defensive purposes that mix well with a stealthy approach to the game. “Backstab” (30), “Deadly Aim” (40) and “Assassin’s Blade” (50) are all the major combat multipliers that will streamline your stealth abilities.

Illusion – Open the tree by taking the “Novice Illusion” perk. Take “Animage” (20) and “Kindred Mage” (40) and when available you should couple them with “Hypnotic Gaze” (30), “Aspect of Terror” (50), “Rage” (70) and it is your option of whether or not to take “Master of the Mind” (90) which allows illusion spells to work on daedra, mechanical enemies and undead. Daedra are scarce in Skyrim but if you are having issues with draugr and dwarven dungeons then this perk will help a lot. The spells you want to make use of early are calm, fury and fear. All of these spells augment the battlefield and provide good emergency options should you get pulled out of stealth or attacked by multiple enemies. As a stealth character muffle will be your best friend early on and will speed the leveling process. It provides 3 minutes of silent movement and is essential for Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood missions until your sneak is high enough to ignore it. At advanced levels you will move to pacify, frenzy and rout for defense and misdirection and you get access to invisibility at expert level. Invisibility is the perfect pairing for stealth character for obvious reasons but note that you will draw attention when casting it so don’t get spooked if you see the detection eye open slightly in the moments following your cast. At master level you will get access to 3 great spells that have incredibly wide ranges when cast: Harmony, Mayhem and Hysteria. You will need to complete the College of Winterhold’s master level ritual quest for Illusion to attain them but it is well worth your time. Harmony seems to hit everything within a few hundred yards and if you took the “Master of the Mind” perk then this spell can make draugr dungeons laughable as only death overlords will resist your spells at that point. Casting Mayhem in one room and having fights break out all over a dungeon between allies is also a great joy to behold. Be sure to use it now and again as aside from its phenomenal comic relief it provides a great way to navigate a dungeon.

Alchemy – This skill is necessary for 2 reasons. First, fortify marksman potions and damage health poisons are great compliments to bow and dagger attacks and can cripple an ordinarily tough enemy. Second, with a high enough skill to make an 85-100% fortify Smithing potion you can really craft a mean bow. For this reason you will need to take at least 3 or 4/5 in “Alchemist. Then take “Physician” (20) as a bridge to “Benefactor” (30) and you can stop there. If this sounds simple it is, but there’s a catch…there always is. To craft the really high level Smithing potion you will need more than just these perks and the ingredients needed to make the potion itself. You need 4 pieces of gear (head/hands/neck/ring) enchanted with the Fortify Alchemy skill to really add punch to your potions and poisons. So that means that you will need to level Enchanting as well. To craft the kind of bow that can really be a game changer you will need 4 or 5/5 in “Enchanter” and “Insightful Enchanter” (50). “Extra Effect” is amazing for obvious reasons and should be a long term goal but it is unnecessary in the pure crafting sense of the weapon.

So here’s the shorthand explanation of how to make the awesome bow. You need Daedric Smithing which lets you make the best crafted bow. You need to be wearing 4 pieces of Smithing gear carrying the Fortify Smithing skill (22% per piece is a good goal) and also drink a Fortify Smithing potion when improving the bow at the grindstone. Before that can all take place you need to drink a Fortify Enchanting potion to get an extra few percentage points when enchanting your gear. And only the best fortification potions can be made from a high Alchemy skill. The hard part is attaining a high proficiency in all 3 crafting skills to achieve a really overpowered weapon. If you do this all correctly then you can make a Daedric bow with approximately 450-500 base damage before stealth multipliers put that number into really nasty territory. The final catch is that you will also need Fortify Archeryon head/hands/neck/ring to see that kind of base damage when you highlight the weapon on the menu screen. Make sure you have all your fortify archery apparel equipped or the number will appear low. Don’t panic when you are improving the weapon and see a low number in the 100-125 range as you will be wearing your Smithing gear at the time. For really ridiculous (overkill) damage you can drink a fortify marksman potion and can push your base damage to over 1000 before you even attack your enemy. So if you attack in stealth at that point you will net over 3000 damage because of the “Deadly Aim” which you took in the sneak tree. This process will take you a long time to put into place but it is the cornerstone of the crafting system in Skyrim and applies to all manner of classes. *A little disclaimer about this crafting method is also in order. It will make the game incredibly easy on the default difficulty setting (adept). I had to push the slider up to master level in order to make the game challenging. So be warned that creating a weapon like this may trivialize the difficulty somewhat*. If you have any questions about this process fell free to comment at the bottom of the page. I can go into greater detail if necessary.

Shouts

Slow Time is a particular favorite of mine, especially if pulled out of stealth. You can easily dispatch 2-3 enemies during the shouts’ duration. Ice form is helpful if you ever feel overwhelmed and because it lasts for so long it can help you single out bigger threats and prioritize your kills in a sticky situation. Marked for Death will help you early against dragons when your bows are still doing meager damage and any shout that does damage should be considered for the same reason. **Spoiler ahead** Upon completing the main quest you attain the Call of Valor shout which summons very powerful heroes from Sovngarde which are great for drawing enemies away from you when dealing with a crowd. Dismay, which acts as a fear spell can also come in handy if you’ve been pulled out of stealth and need a quick fix and you don’t have a racial ability that let’s you do so.

If you have some extra perks and aren’t sure what to do with them then I recommend the left side of the Conjuration tree. Your goal is the “Twin Souls” perk which allows you to summon any combination of 2 creatures (Atronachs, Zombies, Dremora Lords) at a time. This is a truly powerful perk and there is something extremely cool about having Daedric bodyguards wherever you go. I hope this guide helped and I hope you’ll comment if you have any questions about the information in this guide.