The Sneaky Bastard Stealth Archer
Skyrim as a lot of playstyles, and is thankfully designed in such a way that you can change your way of playing somewhat easily. The Dragonborn DLC expands on this upon the completion of its main quest by allowing you to alter skill trees, and setting skills to Legendary when they reach level 100 allows you to reset those skills and allocate the regained skill points elsewhere. This is pretty damn good if you suddenly grow tired of playing as a mage or whatever mid game. It’s a simpler system compared to Oblivion and Morrowind, and that isn’t always a bad thing. Of course there are always mods, but that ain’t the point.
Another good thing about Skyrim is that every playstyle has its own strengths and weaknesses, and most of them are viable from the moment you leave Helgen to the moment you shout the Ebony Warrior off a cliff. But there is one particular playstyle that will haunt the average adventurer – the Stealth Archer.
Gameplay-wise, it’s very simple. You make sure you are in stealth mode, then proceed to take pot shots at your enemies. You only really need to specialise in two skills – archery and stealth – as the name suggests. As both are needed occasionally in standard gameplay, they both tend to level up fairly easily. Add in a quick playthrough of the Thieves Guild or Dark Brotherhood, and you can get the single required perk with ease. Because, amazingly, that’s all that a Stealth Archer needs, a single perk that boosts your sneak damage with a bow from x2 to x3. Most other skill trees are optional, although Light Armour or the get-armour-when-wearing-mage-robes perks are optional so you don’t get spotted so easily.
Easily is basically what Stealth Archery is. It’s a very easy and overly rewarding way to play. Enemies die faster due to bonus sneak damage, they struggle to locate you from a distance, you can take your time on each shot and resources are rarely an issue because there are arrows everywhere.
That’s not to say that there aren’t perks that aren’t useful. In the Archery skill tree, there are perks to stagger enemies with a 50% chance, zoom in with your bow and even slow time while you aim. The Sneak skill tree allows you to no longer trigger traps, and also has the way more powerful dagger perk that allows you to do x15 normal damage on sneak attacks. Combined with Dark Brotherhood gear and weaponry, you can boost that to x30 damage.
Other playstyles are the same, once you’ve filled out the skill trees, they are all very powerful. Particularly Conjuration magic.
But that’s where the Stealth Archer comes into its own. The fact that all of its perks are optional means that the Stealth Archer is useful almost all the time, no matter where you are and no matter what your playstyle normally is. If you’re a lowly assassin just starting out, you can use stealth archery to kill isolated enemies and make your target easier to kill. You can use stealth archery in between rooms while your magicka and stamina recover after a long battle. You can even use stealth archery to thin out the herd before you go charging in with your swords, shields, maces and battle axes. Even if you don’t HAVE a bow, if you are a mage (or have read the required spell tome), you can use Bound Bow to summon a Daedric one out of thin air. And bound weapons are all pretty damn powerful, leveling up not just their weapon skill but also conjuration as well.
The only problem is just how easy being a Stealth Archer is. It’s so easy that it can make an already pretty simple game even simpler.
That is, until you turn up the difficulty and miss a shot. Then you’re one hit away from death. Then again, everyone is on Legendary…