Hey everyone, thanks so much for watching! Hopefully you found this interesting, and it lets you look at both Skyrim and other RPGs a little differently. If you liked this video, what really helps these tiny tiny channels like my own is sharing it around! Our biggest hurdle is always in being seen, so anything helps. And leave a comment! I'll be responding to every and all lol
I ended up playing a stealth archer my very first playthrough of Skyrim, literally just because I picked up the bow at the beginning, thinking it would be a decent backup weapon. It ended up being so good and so much fun that I just didn't bother with anything else.
On one hand, Bethesda made a super fun and rewarding gameplay loop with the sneak archer. It is genuinely a strike of genius. On the other, it's quite sad that the most popular role playing video game in the world feels so boring and lacking when trying to play any other rol besides sneak archer.
Stealth Archers are the apex predator in both games and real life evolutionary theory. The ability to attack at range from a concealed position is the best possible position in any conceivable conflict, and I really can't think of any downsides in this approach within the domain of game theory. The ability to attack from range reduces the limitations imposed by the enemy's distance from you. The ability to be unseen helps both to strike your enemy unprepared and to stay safe from counterattack.
I played stealth archer in my early playthroughs alot, until I revisited the game a couple years later. This time I dedicated to being a mage, yes it was a pain to get through stuff like the trolls and dragons, but it was so worth it. I didn't use any armor at all, just the robes. I enjoyed leveling up my destruction, restoration, buying better and better robes, and enchanting items to lessen my destruction costs. Then before or after I finish the main quest, I pummel through the absolutely everything in my path like they're nothing. Instead of being in a stealth archer craze, I'm in a mage craze, it's just straight up fun to send bandits flying with my destruction magic. I just wish it would work right on higher difficulties efficiently early game.
I admire your dedication! That was me, way back, on my first 'real' run through (that was actually my 2nd) playing as a heavy-armour mage. Did you play Oblivion and also wish (like me) they added Mysticism back into Skyrim?
@@QuestMarkerI haven't started a new playthrough of Oblivion yet, so I wouldn't know. I have played it before, but I never did a dive into the magic systems other than restoration in that game.
This is super interesting. I have never once played a stealth based character. Every single time without fail I play a two handed heavy hitter. Even when I tell myself I'll do something else lol. Perhaps a stealth character is the way to go for my next playthrough
Every arrow fired as a stealth archer is a mini puzzle of calculating distance, gravity, travel time and enemy path prediction in your head, along with a bit of luck, with a small but consistent dopamine hit every time it hits. It's oddly hypnotic. I don't get this feeling with other games with archery or even Sniper Elite games whose entire POINT is stealth + range. The closest I've seen emulate this are Battlefield montages with long-range rifle takedowns.
absolutely. I think there's some fun mental math going on when it comes to sneak archery camp-clearing. Even if it relies on breaking some of the enemy pathing AI, it still has some puzzle-y bits that make it super enjoyable.
Something that I've known for years with melee combat that I found a few people who have played the game extensively have never done before: you can cancel the melee attack animation if you time the power attack correctly during the normal attack. It's easier to abuse with war hammers and great axes but, if you have a bit of finesse, it works with daggers and swords as well. the animations are just really quick and hard to squeeze the power attack into every time.
This is a really neat insight. I had no idea. I've added a 'light' stamina mod along with true directional movement (you can see it in some of the clips around that icy fort), and makes it a lot more enjoyable. Still nothing compared to Elden Ring, but getting there.
When I found that combo during my first play through I was spamming the shit out of it, but it gets repetitive and it's a bit OP because the heavy almost always staggers, where you end up stunlocking your opponent. Imo Requiem makes all builds viable in Skyrim thank god for that mkd
Regarding the cost-benefit of melee vs archery, this can be bypassed with Restoration magic. Restoration synergises with One Handed weapons, and all players start with a healing spell. Form the very beginning of the game, if the notion occurs to you, you can hack at enemies with a one handed weapon while constantly healing any damage they do in return by casting healing in your other hand. Granted, thatt doesn't change the fact that spamming one handed attacks doesn't feel very impressive, especially before you unlock any of the special attacks from the perk tree and especially if you play on a higher difficulty where all the enemies are HP sponges that you're not compensating for with sneak attack multipliers. If you play on Adept and run around staggering and cutting down every foe in a couple of hits with a maxed out dragonbone mace, it feels way better.
Ive definitely always played on higher difficulties so that might skew my perspective - the spongeyness of enemies and early game some bandits hit like a truck. I definitely did consider how you get Restoration right of the gate too -- but I still think the fact it is a heal over time effect rather than an immediate heal (like the Fast Healing spell) really leaves you wanting. Also due to how enemies swarm and the combat puzzle AI etc, I have always viewed early game Restoration as "heal between encounters" rather than viable in-combat healing. But happy to disagree with you here!
I've done stealth archer but my favorite is stealth assassin with daggers. All the perks and specific gear sets up for 30x damage, which, with the right blades, is just almost instant death for anyone lol. Almost 1 hit killed a dragon that way
@@QuestMarker stealth 100, all perks, dagger or daggers. The gloves I use or on the bookshelf next to Astrid as u first meet her in the brotherhood for the first time. Sneak until obviously hidden, I usually jump towards them carefully cuz it doesn't count as moving. Then a quick attack. No power attacks. Works every time. It takes patience. There are videos of people just outright super assassinating people with absolute epic-Ness.
Agree, also the most popular and common Skyrim Magic mod, apocalypse, adds this spell where you become invisible and teleport back from where you casted, the moment you attack or do activate something. This was like the perfect gameplay loop imo.
Good stuff here. A few other things: archery quite simply outranges magic by a lot. Mages are stuck with a short range torrent of flames, ice, or lightning at something like 4 times melee range and enemies close that quickly. You mentioned health potions for melee combat, and mages will suck up the mana juice in order to burn things to death. Summons help mages but it takes a little while to get a decent one. And those are things the player has to seek out. The stealth archer also doesn't consume any of your resource bars, including stamina except some for repositioning and the like. That means that if you've been killing with your bow you also don't see any particular need to invest in mana or stamina. That makes it so you die less and that helps cycle into investing in sneak and archery more. Also, dragons fly. You don't necessarily need to use archery to kill dragons, but it does make it a lot easier, and it's just the intuitive thing to do to fire arrows at the dragon to try to get it to land if nothing else.
Super good point about how mages also have to consume more resources (i.e. potions, arguably even scrolls too). Also re: resource bars, I never thought of that, but that's true. You're never even stamina-starved for sneak archers -- the fact you can hold a drawn bow for infinity is probably an oversight. Dragons fly, duh. How could I forget talking about that!
I'm one stubborn mf, sneak archer has NEVER been my playstyle, i stick with barehand bonking and cooking people inside their armors while alive. Was the case before knowing about the meme, will remain so even MORE after knowing that meme.
I was thinking of going back to playing Skyrim after many years and I was checking out some videos to remind me of the game mechanics and other things. I obviously ended up finding the sneak archer meme and I remembered that the last time I started with a melee character and ended up as sneak archer, too. I think the main reasons are the sneak attack bonus damage and the ability to engage and disengage from combat whenever we want. With melee and magic builds, once you commit to a fight you don't have any bonus damage and you can't temporarly retreat if things are getting dangerous. Specifically, if weapons and spells did more damage or if there was no sneak attack multiplier then it wouldn't feel the game was nudging players into sneak builds.
The sneak attack multiplier is super crazy - you're totally right. I don't think you get access to any sort of damage multiplier as easily as just toggling crouch. The other comment about Sneak Archer not caring about resources like Stamina or Magicka also builds on this point!
Wonderful video, loved watching a new one! I couldn't believe you almost described the exact progression of my build in my first run through Skyrim (omg over 10 years ago...). I started as a stealth one-handed/bow hybrid, and then in the late game, I switched to magic because it was only then that the spell list was actually viable to use in the range of combat encounter types. I think Skyrim is a bit strange in that way, you're totally right that it has this set of systems built such that the sneak archer is the optimal playstyle, so it's up to how invested you are in the world and in the roleplay aspect to buck the optimal path the game keeps gravitating you towards, and stick with something else for the almost purely extrinsic value of it.
Thanks so much for stopping by, dude! I always want to play as a mage (it was my favourite in Oblivion) so I always have this magical vibe, but you really have to mod Skyrim so hard to get cooler spells and make it worth it. And even then. Part of me wonders how different it would be if the College was like just outside of Whiterun (or High Hrothgar) rather than all the way up in Winterhold. But then again, you don't even need to cast spells to make the College worthwhile, from roleplay or mechanical (which itself says something about the design).
Could be something with the engine itself. While not as railroaded, being a stealth sniper in FO3, NV and FO4 were always powerful options. I do think the lack of a "use to get better" mechanic in all those games are a key reason why they are not as dominant. Starfield took this even further and it takes a long time to become a really good stealth sniper because of how long it takes to get to that point.
@@QuestMarker same reason n it is in Skyrim. Even low level you can stealth somewhat add in headshots and and suppressors for the guns and you can one shot cleanly and not get detected. Once you do put some points into the appropriate skills, you can sit a mile off and clear entire camps. Deathclaws can even be eliminated without them actually ever finding you. That being said, other play styles are more viable early on than it is in Skyrim so while stealth sniper is common, it is not as lopsided as it is in Skyrim.
It's also because arrows are dirt cheap and plentiful. You rarely need to buy any and overpowered sneak bonus damage perks applying to bows ensures you an optimal power and playstyle.
Yeah, honestly. I wonder why arrows are so much more plentiful than potions? Imagine if you could find Minor Potions of Healing/Magicka just like 50% as much as you find arrows
This is the Combat Mod I use - www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/64741 Which relies on the HUD Mod (to your question) - www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/62775 Makes combat and the world a lot cleaner :)
I find it funny you bring up the 'if you had estus flasks or something of that nature' when you... You do. It's called Restoration. It's a perfectly valid school of magic.
Super good point, and one I was considering. I think the problem with early-game Restoration is that it's heal-over-time, and doesn't let you spam Restore Health safely. You can get caught using Healing and still getting pummelled. I know you can get "Fast Healing" later on, where you can heal Health instantaneously on cast... but circle back to that problem with magic and the world design. I do agree that Restoration is just so absolutely essential. But maybe that also influences our player behaviour?
Fantastic video, mate. Even though I haven't had a stealth archer playthrough in probably close to a decade at this point, this is something I always consciously think about when playing Skyrim, and you put it into better words than I ever could!
Hey there, I like your style and just subscribed. Anyway, what's funny about the stealth archer meme is that for me it's reversed: I always end up playing a battlemage. I've tried to be stealthy two or three times now. But sooner or later I get bored, I find a cool melee weapon or make my own, and then I'm back to stabbing bandits and blowing stuff up. It's just more fun. The paladin playstyle is peak Skyrim for me, always has been. I'm in it for the power fantasy.
hey really glad you enjoyed! you're definitely not alone - some other folks in the comments also prefer that paladin playstyle. its funny how some people gravitate to that, whereas I've always always found it the path of greatest resistance
I remember this one time I finally managed to play a mage. I decided to focus on Conjuration and Illusion using these neat spells called Bound Bow and Illusion. Also called....sneak archer. Yeah, thats how far I got with it.....
I ALWAYS end up as a werewolf. Regardless of the other stuff. I've even had an illusion mage playthrough. I did it all. Most of them were werewolfs tho.
Been a sneak archer since TES3. It was pretty mid back then, but the first time I saw an arrow just miss my head and heard the WHOOSH come out of my right speaker, (blew my mind in 2003) I was hooked. Skyrim does few things truly great imo, but the archery kill cam and silly arrow impact knockback are still super satisfying to this day!
Two handed heavy arnor always seemed the simplest to me heavy strikes stunning and the natural highest damage when looting in helgen. I olayed Two handed hard the first two games and always pick it and archery up for early levels whatever I'm planning on
I enjoyed my alchemy-illusion-dagger assassin build the most, but imo playing anything other than stealth archer needs varius magic/combat mods for it to feel natural and rewarding. The most gamechanging imo was the Mod Requiem. It made skyrim combat feel like i thought it was supposed to, without changing the games feel too much, just making it a bit harder and more immersive, since you had to use the whole repartoir, every scroll and potion was useful all of a sudden, every herb you picked up could make an encounter more survivable, picking up a random spell would almost always be useful and define your playstyle for the next two hours, etc. For anyone playing on PC I can heavily recommend requiem.
I DID IT, current game is a warmage, stealth archer to take out the outliers and easy targets, then ebonskin up, atronarch down, and incincerate + sword charge. Works rather well considering
I think the biggest reason for stealth archers kinda stares you in the face. What's the primary enemy of Skyrim? What is it you're supposed to kill, what makes this different from previous Elder Scrolls installments? Dragons. You know what's really hard to do? Run up and smack a dragon while it's flying. You know what's really *easy* to do? Shoot a dragon with a bow.
If only we could level up to acquire a charge in a blur perk that multiplied damage and kept getting faster and better, a carrot they specifically dangle in the other flagship game as a reward for playing against the pistol and stealth grain. That'd be nice.
The thing about a stealth archer is its lets you make more mistakes by having more health, because you don't really need to put a single level into anything other than health. Mages on the other hand end up made of tissue paper because so much of their point economy is tied up in mana.
This is another really good point that fits well into the video thesis - you could even argue that you don't need to invest in Stamina much as a sneak archer either.
@@QuestMarker I still do, just for the purpose of sprinting more then anything else (except maybe having more time with the 'zoom'). When positioning is key, being able to reposition quickly is a must.
personally i sitll find melee builds fun, even unmodded. My current run (although modded, the only mod that overhauls combat is precision, Immersive armours+immersive weapons and Apocalypse for more spells. iirc all these but precision are also on console) is a spellsword build (heavy armour, spalls in left hand, sword in right), bow is only a backup for dragons that refuse to land in decent spots
Have you tried Valhalla Combat? Its what ive been using in my latest run, and it feels like a nice fresh coat of paint rather than a complete reimagining. It has made melee combat have a lot more feedback and feel more dynamic. "Bow for backup" - i hope it goes no further than that! (Or do i????)
@@QuestMarker i haven't tried it yet, but precision is basically vanilla with extra steps (proper collisons and stuff), im a simple person lol and yea it doesnt get to more than that, im currently level 25 ish and my archery is only at like 25-30 compared to my one handed being the funni number (69, nice), my sneak is also dogwater... not like id be very effective at sneaking around in heavy armour without muffle lmao
I think being weak early was intentional for casters because of the history of RPG play. Wizards and psychics in DnD are relatively weak compared to fighters or paladins early for instance, but they get basically apocalyptic spells by the time you're done leveling up. Normally a party of adventurers has a mix of primarily melee and ranged characters and it balances out. The difference in a game like Skyrim is, as a solo player, you don't have your big strong fighter to hide behind in the early levels as a wizard, but you also don't have a backline supporting you if you're a fighter. Sneak archer gives you the best of both worlds because you do damage at range but you also have a very large effective health pool like a fighter since you don't even take damage usually.
I definitely feel like there's fingerprints of that here. I never get the hesitation anymore to give you access to cool spells in the beginning of a game. Like heck, we get the gravity gun in HL2 early on and its like the most awesome gun in the game!
I find that Skyrim level system becomes somewhat detrimental after a few playthroughs. Like for example, I might not bother doing a quest or a dungeon because i know the reward isn't worth it, especially if it doesn't involve combat, while in Fallout i may be more willing to do it because ill at least be guaranteed to get some progression through exp.
Absolutely. I find that without mods, some of the exploration rewards of Skyrim can be really lackluster. I wish there was some sort of system tied with completing quests as a means of progression or customization -- sometimes, after a few playthroughs, there's not really enough to keep them rewarding.
It... It just works, okay? Skyrim's combat always had big issues once you take the rose tinted glasses off. Funny enough when Skyrim first came out, I played it mostly melee focused. Later I did Destruction and other schools with other play throughs. I do recall seeing people joking about doing Stealth Archer all the time. But I didn't try that style until way later. It was very different when I did, compared to my earlier experiences. IMO Stealth Archer was not only more accessible, but it scaled better as you got further into your progression. Melee and Magic did not. Magic in particular I felt fell off the cliff despite the heavier investment with spellbooks to read and juggling spells. Stealth Archer stayed consistently good and simple. Snoop around. Snipe. Repeat. Initiative was almost always on your side. On a semi-related note, the combat system in Starfield is just as borked. Melee is useless. In gun play, Semi Auto >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Full Auto weapons, without a doubt. Damage per single shot on Semi Auto weapons was high while each round in Automatic weapons were low. So you sprayed and prayed on Automatic weapons and you literally can see your money flying away from you. Meanwhile with Semi Auto, every shot is potent and every bit of currency spent maximized. It's been months since I played that game and I do wonder if Bethesda ever addressed the really borked combat. Funny enough in Starfield, Stealth Archer is also the way to go in that game despite some guys saying it's not as good as they had imagined. As mentioned Semi Auto has good damage / shot. It also rewards you for concealed shots the way Skyrim did. It's still potent despite it not being broken OP Stealth Archer was in Skyrim.
Ugh, that's annoying to hear about Starfield! That game isn't at the top of my list, but I do want to get to it one day. Someone else mentioned a good thing about Sneak Archers too - you didn't need to focus on increasing Stamina or Magicka. You could just dump everything into Health which made it even MORE tankier than some other builds.
Stealth archer is for slow pilled nerds. Pick up a greataxe and rush through every dungeon. On a serious note. Melee combat only feels boring cause you dont play around with spacing, timing and proper blocking. Instead relying on chucking down healing potions. The system is simple, but I would argue that it is more skill intensive than stealth archery (at least at higher skill floors.)
It's definitely more skill intensive, and I do think the melee combat holds up in 1v1 scenarios. I just always find whenever it gets more crowded than that, it becomes a panic - and not a dance or roll-spam like in a Fromsoft game.
Yeah, the game is slanted towards stealth. Before you ever use a skill you already have one advance in Sneak. The thing is, stealth archery is fucking DULL. Cheesing the game and kiting enemies gets old fast. Want something fresh? Try a Nord, heavy armor, block, mace, alteration, Lord Stone, Agent of Mara, vegetable soup. Add smithing, enchanting and alchemy and you're unstoppable. By level 14 you can beat just about anything. By level 34 it's a clown show. You played the game and you earned everything.
It’s bad game design when playing what you want is so sub optimal to playing what the game rewards. It’s actually worse than loot based experience … and that was 1974
8:50 Oblivion and Morrowind didn't really have classes, they had favored skills that when leveled would level your character. In those games, the system encouraged a weird min-maxing where you'd select the skills you planned never to use so that you could manually level up when it was most optimal to do so (the point at which you'd get the most skill points because of how the system worked). It was super clunky, and when you don't play it optimally, it feels pretty bad, like you're losing out all the time. It's not as much of a problem in Morrowind because enemies weren't tied to your level, so eventually even the most sub-optimally leveled character would over power everything in the game, so ignoring min-maxing is doable. In Oblivion, sub-optimal leveling leads to a brick wall where you're wailing on enemies and nothing happens. It sucks. Skyrim, by shedding the favored skill system and reducing the skill points you get from leveling to just one no matter how 'sub-optimally' you leveled, made it so that there's no sub-optimal leveling really anymore; you level with what you use in a very comfortable way and you're not really going to feel super outclassed ever. Morrowind also had hit chance (dice rolls basically), which simulated skill with your weapon of choice (higher skill, high chance to hit), so that feeling of progression is lost in Skyrim where hit chance is always 100% if models collide. In Skyrim, skill level is basically just a damage modifier, that's really all that skill advancement changes. But, it's a very small damage modification and the base stats of a good weapon can often make up for poor stats in the associated skill, so that if you pick up a great bow at level 30 with 10 points in archery, with a 100% hit chance, you'll probably be able to kill stuff at your level with a weapon and skill you haven't used. Stealth archery isn't just an option in Skyrim, it's always an option. Not so in previous titles like Morrowind, so stealth archer doesn't become the inevitable end of all player characters. You can't just pick up a bow in Morrowind and go shot a storm atronach with your mage character. You'll hit it about as much as the average gamer would if you thrust a bow into their hand that they've never used before. Also, stealth and archery are both pretty clunky in that game and feel way better in Skyrim.
Yeah, that's true about the weird min-maxing and favoured class stuff. In Oblivion, I remember never picking Athletics or Acrobatics so I could bank getting big bonuses in the related Attributes on leveling up. Do you think they should adopt a more class-focus level-up design in ES6? Or what would you do in Skyrim's sequel?
@@QuestMarker I think ES6 will be Starfield with swords. So, I don't think they will return to a class-based or more accurately an attribute focused system anytime soon if ever. And, I don't know if I would really want them to. Unless they abandoned their go-anywhere-from-the-start approach to world design, abandoned character-centred levelled enemies, just adding attribute focused character builds 'back in' as it were would feel out of place. More important, I think, would be deepening player progression in skills and combat. Skyrim is very one dimensional. Not a ton changes in how a character handles a weapon from skill level 15 and 100. Most of the skill tree perks are just some version of 'do more damage' or 'hit slightly faster' or 'use less resources to attack'. Snore-fest. As I said, any player can pick up a bow at any time in their playthru and start stealth sniping levelled enemies, and in an hour or less, they'll be doing about as well as a player who has been stealth sniping their way thru the whole game. There's a ton of player freedom in that, but it also highlights just how shallow the combat system is. The worst example of all of this is magic. Magic sucks in Skyrim. That's probably why there are so many magic mods. I would love to see a magic system in ES6 with the degree of complexity and depth as Morrowind. But, I don't think that will ever happen.
![The Jade Huntress [Skyrim Vanilla Combat Archer Build] S4E3](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/il_YYK7xfMk/mqdefault.jpg)
Hey everyone, thanks so much for watching! Hopefully you found this interesting, and it lets you look at both Skyrim and other RPGs a little differently.
If you liked this video, what really helps these tiny tiny channels like my own is sharing it around! Our biggest hurdle is always in being seen, so anything helps. And leave a comment! I'll be responding to every and all lol
I ended up playing a stealth archer my very first playthrough of Skyrim, literally just because I picked up the bow at the beginning, thinking it would be a decent backup weapon. It ended up being so good and so much fun that I just didn't bother with anything else.
That's my boy! All of my playthroughs of Skyrim are categorized by whether or not I ever picked up that bow in Helgen.
On one hand, Bethesda made a super fun and rewarding gameplay loop with the sneak archer. It is genuinely a strike of genius. On the other, it's quite sad that the most popular role playing video game in the world feels so boring and lacking when trying to play any other rol besides sneak archer.
Good sir, this is an excellent summation. I wish they added Athletics back - that my give those lowly sword-and-boards something to strive for.
Me roleplaying as a paladin for 12 years
Stealth Archers are the apex predator in both games and real life evolutionary theory. The ability to attack at range from a concealed position is the best possible position in any conceivable conflict, and I really can't think of any downsides in this approach within the domain of game theory. The ability to attack from range reduces the limitations imposed by the enemy's distance from you. The ability to be unseen helps both to strike your enemy unprepared and to stay safe from counterattack.
hundred per-cent! And also as someone else pointed out - Archery is the best way of dealing with one of the main enemies of the game: dragons.
I played stealth archer in my early playthroughs alot, until I revisited the game a couple years later. This time I dedicated to being a mage, yes it was a pain to get through stuff like the trolls and dragons, but it was so worth it. I didn't use any armor at all, just the robes. I enjoyed leveling up my destruction, restoration, buying better and better robes, and enchanting items to lessen my destruction costs. Then before or after I finish the main quest, I pummel through the absolutely everything in my path like they're nothing. Instead of being in a stealth archer craze, I'm in a mage craze, it's just straight up fun to send bandits flying with my destruction magic. I just wish it would work right on higher difficulties efficiently early game.
I admire your dedication! That was me, way back, on my first 'real' run through (that was actually my 2nd) playing as a heavy-armour mage. Did you play Oblivion and also wish (like me) they added Mysticism back into Skyrim?
@@QuestMarkerI haven't started a new playthrough of Oblivion yet, so I wouldn't know. I have played it before, but I never did a dive into the magic systems other than restoration in that game.
This is super interesting. I have never once played a stealth based character. Every single time without fail I play a two handed heavy hitter. Even when I tell myself I'll do something else lol. Perhaps a stealth character is the way to go for my next playthrough
Haha that's awesome. You're a rare breed! Keep swinging that warhammer all the way to Sovngarde
Every arrow fired as a stealth archer is a mini puzzle of calculating distance, gravity, travel time and enemy path prediction in your head, along with a bit of luck, with a small but consistent dopamine hit every time it hits. It's oddly hypnotic. I don't get this feeling with other games with archery or even Sniper Elite games whose entire POINT is stealth + range. The closest I've seen emulate this are Battlefield montages with long-range rifle takedowns.
absolutely. I think there's some fun mental math going on when it comes to sneak archery camp-clearing. Even if it relies on breaking some of the enemy pathing AI, it still has some puzzle-y bits that make it super enjoyable.
Something that I've known for years with melee combat that I found a few people who have played the game extensively have never done before: you can cancel the melee attack animation if you time the power attack correctly during the normal attack. It's easier to abuse with war hammers and great axes but, if you have a bit of finesse, it works with daggers and swords as well. the animations are just really quick and hard to squeeze the power attack into every time.
This is a really neat insight. I had no idea. I've added a 'light' stamina mod along with true directional movement (you can see it in some of the clips around that icy fort), and makes it a lot more enjoyable. Still nothing compared to Elden Ring, but getting there.
When I found that combo during my first play through I was spamming the shit out of it, but it gets repetitive and it's a bit OP because the heavy almost always staggers, where you end up stunlocking your opponent. Imo Requiem makes all builds viable in Skyrim thank god for that mkd
Regarding the cost-benefit of melee vs archery, this can be bypassed with Restoration magic. Restoration synergises with One Handed weapons, and all players start with a healing spell. Form the very beginning of the game, if the notion occurs to you, you can hack at enemies with a one handed weapon while constantly healing any damage they do in return by casting healing in your other hand. Granted, thatt doesn't change the fact that spamming one handed attacks doesn't feel very impressive, especially before you unlock any of the special attacks from the perk tree and especially if you play on a higher difficulty where all the enemies are HP sponges that you're not compensating for with sneak attack multipliers. If you play on Adept and run around staggering and cutting down every foe in a couple of hits with a maxed out dragonbone mace, it feels way better.
Ive definitely always played on higher difficulties so that might skew my perspective - the spongeyness of enemies and early game some bandits hit like a truck.
I definitely did consider how you get Restoration right of the gate too -- but I still think the fact it is a heal over time effect rather than an immediate heal (like the Fast Healing spell) really leaves you wanting. Also due to how enemies swarm and the combat puzzle AI etc, I have always viewed early game Restoration as "heal between encounters" rather than viable in-combat healing.
But happy to disagree with you here!
I've done stealth archer but my favorite is stealth assassin with daggers. All the perks and specific gear sets up for 30x damage, which, with the right blades, is just almost instant death for anyone lol. Almost 1 hit killed a dragon that way
this is awesome. I can never seem to be able to trigger sneak damage on one-handed. Idk what I do wrong!
@@QuestMarker stealth 100, all perks, dagger or daggers. The gloves I use or on the bookshelf next to Astrid as u first meet her in the brotherhood for the first time. Sneak until obviously hidden, I usually jump towards them carefully cuz it doesn't count as moving. Then a quick attack. No power attacks. Works every time. It takes patience. There are videos of people just outright super assassinating people with absolute epic-Ness.
I didn't know about the jump trick - that's a good one. I'm probably never patient enough haha
Agree, also the most popular and common Skyrim Magic mod, apocalypse, adds this spell where you become invisible and teleport back from where you casted, the moment you attack or do activate something. This was like the perfect gameplay loop imo.
“The safe and wealthy sneak archer.”
The safer and healthier paladins:
haha I applaud your boldness, good sir. (psst what build do you use for paladins? resto/heavy armour/sword-and-board?)
@@QuestMarker sword restoration alchemy. Honestly I’m more of a witch knight with destruction.
Good stuff here. A few other things: archery quite simply outranges magic by a lot. Mages are stuck with a short range torrent of flames, ice, or lightning at something like 4 times melee range and enemies close that quickly. You mentioned health potions for melee combat, and mages will suck up the mana juice in order to burn things to death. Summons help mages but it takes a little while to get a decent one. And those are things the player has to seek out.
The stealth archer also doesn't consume any of your resource bars, including stamina except some for repositioning and the like. That means that if you've been killing with your bow you also don't see any particular need to invest in mana or stamina. That makes it so you die less and that helps cycle into investing in sneak and archery more.
Also, dragons fly. You don't necessarily need to use archery to kill dragons, but it does make it a lot easier, and it's just the intuitive thing to do to fire arrows at the dragon to try to get it to land if nothing else.
Super good point about how mages also have to consume more resources (i.e. potions, arguably even scrolls too). Also re: resource bars, I never thought of that, but that's true. You're never even stamina-starved for sneak archers -- the fact you can hold a drawn bow for infinity is probably an oversight.
Dragons fly, duh. How could I forget talking about that!
I'm one stubborn mf, sneak archer has NEVER been my playstyle, i stick with barehand bonking and cooking people inside their armors while alive. Was the case before knowing about the meme, will remain so even MORE after knowing that meme.
haha you're super stubborn then!
Sorry, I can’t hear you over the sound of Two-handed battleaxe combat.
keep on unga bunga'ing!
I was thinking of going back to playing Skyrim after many years and I was checking out some videos to remind me of the game mechanics and other things. I obviously ended up finding the sneak archer meme and I remembered that the last time I started with a melee character and ended up as sneak archer, too.
I think the main reasons are the sneak attack bonus damage and the ability to engage and disengage from combat whenever we want. With melee and magic builds, once you commit to a fight you don't have any bonus damage and you can't temporarly retreat if things are getting dangerous.
Specifically, if weapons and spells did more damage or if there was no sneak attack multiplier then it wouldn't feel the game was nudging players into sneak builds.
The sneak attack multiplier is super crazy - you're totally right. I don't think you get access to any sort of damage multiplier as easily as just toggling crouch. The other comment about Sneak Archer not caring about resources like Stamina or Magicka also builds on this point!
Wonderful video, loved watching a new one!
I couldn't believe you almost described the exact progression of my build in my first run through Skyrim (omg over 10 years ago...). I started as a stealth one-handed/bow hybrid, and then in the late game, I switched to magic because it was only then that the spell list was actually viable to use in the range of combat encounter types. I think Skyrim is a bit strange in that way, you're totally right that it has this set of systems built such that the sneak archer is the optimal playstyle, so it's up to how invested you are in the world and in the roleplay aspect to buck the optimal path the game keeps gravitating you towards, and stick with something else for the almost purely extrinsic value of it.
Thanks so much for stopping by, dude!
I always want to play as a mage (it was my favourite in Oblivion) so I always have this magical vibe, but you really have to mod Skyrim so hard to get cooler spells and make it worth it. And even then.
Part of me wonders how different it would be if the College was like just outside of Whiterun (or High Hrothgar) rather than all the way up in Winterhold. But then again, you don't even need to cast spells to make the College worthwhile, from roleplay or mechanical (which itself says something about the design).
Could be something with the engine itself. While not as railroaded, being a stealth sniper in FO3, NV and FO4 were always powerful options. I do think the lack of a "use to get better" mechanic in all those games are a key reason why they are not as dominant. Starfield took this even further and it takes a long time to become a really good stealth sniper because of how long it takes to get to that point.
This is really interesting - I didn't know stealth sniper was something considered in the Fallout Games. What's the reason they're so dominant there?
@@QuestMarker same reason n it is in Skyrim. Even low level you can stealth somewhat add in headshots and and suppressors for the guns and you can one shot cleanly and not get detected. Once you do put some points into the appropriate skills, you can sit a mile off and clear entire camps. Deathclaws can even be eliminated without them actually ever finding you. That being said, other play styles are more viable early on than it is in Skyrim so while stealth sniper is common, it is not as lopsided as it is in Skyrim.
It's also because arrows are dirt cheap and plentiful. You rarely need to buy any and overpowered sneak bonus damage perks applying to bows ensures you an optimal power and playstyle.
Yeah, honestly. I wonder why arrows are so much more plentiful than potions? Imagine if you could find Minor Potions of Healing/Magicka just like 50% as much as you find arrows
What is the name of the mod where the health meter is on the enemies heads? I’ve tried to find it but can’t.
This is the Combat Mod I use - www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/64741
Which relies on the HUD Mod (to your question) - www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/62775
Makes combat and the world a lot cleaner :)
@@QuestMarker Thanks!
I find it funny you bring up the 'if you had estus flasks or something of that nature' when you... You do. It's called Restoration. It's a perfectly valid school of magic.
Super good point, and one I was considering. I think the problem with early-game Restoration is that it's heal-over-time, and doesn't let you spam Restore Health safely. You can get caught using Healing and still getting pummelled. I know you can get "Fast Healing" later on, where you can heal Health instantaneously on cast... but circle back to that problem with magic and the world design.
I do agree that Restoration is just so absolutely essential. But maybe that also influences our player behaviour?
Fantastic video, mate. Even though I haven't had a stealth archer playthrough in probably close to a decade at this point, this is something I always consciously think about when playing Skyrim, and you put it into better words than I ever could!
Dude, super glad you enjoyed it. Thank you for stopping by!
That Bow in Helgen is the toughest decision of the whole playthrough. Plan to be Mage, see that bow......
Hey there, I like your style and just subscribed.
Anyway, what's funny about the stealth archer meme is that for me it's reversed: I always end up playing a battlemage. I've tried to be stealthy two or three times now. But sooner or later I get bored, I find a cool melee weapon or make my own, and then I'm back to stabbing bandits and blowing stuff up. It's just more fun. The paladin playstyle is peak Skyrim for me, always has been. I'm in it for the power fantasy.
hey really glad you enjoyed!
you're definitely not alone - some other folks in the comments also prefer that paladin playstyle. its funny how some people gravitate to that, whereas I've always always found it the path of greatest resistance
I remember this one time I finally managed to play a mage. I decided to focus on Conjuration and Illusion using these neat spells called Bound Bow and Illusion. Also called....sneak archer. Yeah, thats how far I got with it.....
hahahahahaha that's awesome (and hilarious)
I ALWAYS end up as a werewolf. Regardless of the other stuff. I've even had an illusion mage playthrough. I did it all. Most of them were werewolfs tho.
haha I never like playing as a werewolf! all the power to you.
Been a sneak archer since TES3. It was pretty mid back then, but the first time I saw an arrow just miss my head and heard the WHOOSH come out of my right speaker, (blew my mind in 2003) I was hooked.
Skyrim does few things truly great imo, but the archery kill cam and silly arrow impact knockback are still super satisfying to this day!
Archery is so satisfying. I wonder if it's because the FPS-like nature of it is just handled by the Engine better!
Two handed heavy arnor always seemed the simplest to me heavy strikes stunning and the natural highest damage when looting in helgen. I olayed Two handed hard the first two games and always pick it and archery up for early levels whatever I'm planning on
I enjoyed my alchemy-illusion-dagger assassin build the most, but imo playing anything other than stealth archer needs varius magic/combat mods for it to feel natural and rewarding.
The most gamechanging imo was the Mod Requiem. It made skyrim combat feel like i thought it was supposed to, without changing the games feel too much, just making it a bit harder and more immersive, since you had to use the whole repartoir, every scroll and potion was useful all of a sudden, every herb you picked up could make an encounter more survivable, picking up a random spell would almost always be useful and define your playstyle for the next two hours, etc.
For anyone playing on PC I can heavily recommend requiem.
I can say it here: I never played any archer build in Skyrim. Always played Two-Hand Tank :D
Bless you sir! You do what I cannot haha
I DID IT, current game is a warmage, stealth archer to take out the outliers and easy targets, then ebonskin up, atronarch down, and incincerate + sword charge. Works rather well considering
you did what I could not! ... but glad to see the sneak archer is still there ;)
I think the biggest reason for stealth archers kinda stares you in the face. What's the primary enemy of Skyrim? What is it you're supposed to kill, what makes this different from previous Elder Scrolls installments?
Dragons. You know what's really hard to do? Run up and smack a dragon while it's flying. You know what's really *easy* to do? Shoot a dragon with a bow.
If only we could level up to acquire a charge in a blur perk that multiplied damage and kept getting faster and better, a carrot they specifically dangle in the other flagship game as a reward for playing against the pistol and stealth grain. That'd be nice.
The thing about a stealth archer is its lets you make more mistakes by having more health, because you don't really need to put a single level into anything other than health. Mages on the other hand end up made of tissue paper because so much of their point economy is tied up in mana.
This is another really good point that fits well into the video thesis - you could even argue that you don't need to invest in Stamina much as a sneak archer either.
@@QuestMarker I still do, just for the purpose of sprinting more then anything else (except maybe having more time with the 'zoom'). When positioning is key, being able to reposition quickly is a must.
I didn't know this was a thing, but it makes sense.
personally i sitll find melee builds fun, even unmodded. My current run (although modded, the only mod that overhauls combat is precision, Immersive armours+immersive weapons and Apocalypse for more spells. iirc all these but precision are also on console) is a spellsword build (heavy armour, spalls in left hand, sword in right), bow is only a backup for dragons that refuse to land in decent spots
Have you tried Valhalla Combat? Its what ive been using in my latest run, and it feels like a nice fresh coat of paint rather than a complete reimagining. It has made melee combat have a lot more feedback and feel more dynamic.
"Bow for backup" - i hope it goes no further than that! (Or do i????)
@@QuestMarker i haven't tried it yet, but precision is basically vanilla with extra steps (proper collisons and stuff), im a simple person lol
and yea it doesnt get to more than that, im currently level 25 ish and my archery is only at like 25-30 compared to my one handed being the funni number (69, nice), my sneak is also dogwater... not like id be very effective at sneaking around in heavy armour without muffle lmao
Currently playing a healer, kitting my companions out with all the good gear while I keep them from dying.
I've definitely seen more of these 'support' builds around, buffing/supporting companions. Are you playing with just 1 companion, or more?
@@QuestMarker i have Lucian, Inigo, and Uthgerd
that's awesome!
@@QuestMarker Yeah! I have the requiem overhaul installed and Uthgerd is really kitted out to be a dragon and mage killer it's great
I think being weak early was intentional for casters because of the history of RPG play. Wizards and psychics in DnD are relatively weak compared to fighters or paladins early for instance, but they get basically apocalyptic spells by the time you're done leveling up. Normally a party of adventurers has a mix of primarily melee and ranged characters and it balances out. The difference in a game like Skyrim is, as a solo player, you don't have your big strong fighter to hide behind in the early levels as a wizard, but you also don't have a backline supporting you if you're a fighter. Sneak archer gives you the best of both worlds because you do damage at range but you also have a very large effective health pool like a fighter since you don't even take damage usually.
I definitely feel like there's fingerprints of that here. I never get the hesitation anymore to give you access to cool spells in the beginning of a game. Like heck, we get the gravity gun in HL2 early on and its like the most awesome gun in the game!
I find that Skyrim level system becomes somewhat detrimental after a few playthroughs. Like for example, I might not bother doing a quest or a dungeon because i know the reward isn't worth it, especially if it doesn't involve combat, while in Fallout i may be more willing to do it because ill at least be guaranteed to get some progression through exp.
Absolutely. I find that without mods, some of the exploration rewards of Skyrim can be really lackluster. I wish there was some sort of system tied with completing quests as a means of progression or customization -- sometimes, after a few playthroughs, there's not really enough to keep them rewarding.
Firstest! Good vid btw.
"Sneak Archer"
You sir get the 'Firstest' badge! Thanks for being first :)
It... It just works, okay?
Skyrim's combat always had big issues once you take the rose tinted glasses off. Funny enough when Skyrim first came out, I played it mostly melee focused. Later I did Destruction and other schools with other play throughs. I do recall seeing people joking about doing Stealth Archer all the time. But I didn't try that style until way later.
It was very different when I did, compared to my earlier experiences. IMO Stealth Archer was not only more accessible, but it scaled better as you got further into your progression. Melee and Magic did not. Magic in particular I felt fell off the cliff despite the heavier investment with spellbooks to read and juggling spells. Stealth Archer stayed consistently good and simple.
Snoop around.
Snipe.
Repeat.
Initiative was almost always on your side.
On a semi-related note, the combat system in Starfield is just as borked. Melee is useless. In gun play, Semi Auto >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Full Auto weapons, without a doubt. Damage per single shot on Semi Auto weapons was high while each round in Automatic weapons were low. So you sprayed and prayed on Automatic weapons and you literally can see your money flying away from you. Meanwhile with Semi Auto, every shot is potent and every bit of currency spent maximized. It's been months since I played that game and I do wonder if Bethesda ever addressed the really borked combat.
Funny enough in Starfield, Stealth Archer is also the way to go in that game despite some guys saying it's not as good as they had imagined. As mentioned Semi Auto has good damage / shot. It also rewards you for concealed shots the way Skyrim did. It's still potent despite it not being broken OP Stealth Archer was in Skyrim.
Ugh, that's annoying to hear about Starfield! That game isn't at the top of my list, but I do want to get to it one day.
Someone else mentioned a good thing about Sneak Archers too - you didn't need to focus on increasing Stamina or Magicka. You could just dump everything into Health which made it even MORE tankier than some other builds.
It started before Skyrim.
think it started with Morrowind or Oblivion?
Stealth archer is for slow pilled nerds. Pick up a greataxe and rush through every dungeon.
On a serious note. Melee combat only feels boring cause you dont play around with spacing, timing and proper blocking. Instead relying on chucking down healing potions. The system is simple, but I would argue that it is more skill intensive than stealth archery (at least at higher skill floors.)
It's definitely more skill intensive, and I do think the melee combat holds up in 1v1 scenarios. I just always find whenever it gets more crowded than that, it becomes a panic - and not a dance or roll-spam like in a Fromsoft game.
good video bro
thank you, bro
Imagine Bethesda did game about that. But they stupid!
Yeah, the game is slanted towards stealth. Before you ever use a skill you already have one advance in Sneak. The thing is, stealth archery is fucking DULL. Cheesing the game and kiting enemies gets old fast. Want something fresh? Try a Nord, heavy armor, block, mace, alteration, Lord Stone, Agent of Mara, vegetable soup. Add smithing, enchanting and alchemy and you're unstoppable. By level 14 you can beat just about anything. By level 34 it's a clown show. You played the game and you earned everything.
I definitely want to try a Heavy Armour / 2hand build on the next one.
@@QuestMarker For a 2h build invest in Block and get Power Bash. If the weapon in enchanted there's a chance it will affect who you blocked.
I didn't know about that! that's a good tip, thanks!
maylay, not mealy
yeah big oops
@@QuestMarker All good, I apologize if my initial comment came off as rude in any way.
@@Anti_Mage haha absolutely not at all. my enunciation (or mispronunciation) is often my bane!
It's pronounced "maylay"
big oops on my part here
It’s bad game design when playing what you want is so sub optimal to playing what the game rewards.
It’s actually worse than loot based experience … and that was 1974
8:50 Oblivion and Morrowind didn't really have classes, they had favored skills that when leveled would level your character. In those games, the system encouraged a weird min-maxing where you'd select the skills you planned never to use so that you could manually level up when it was most optimal to do so (the point at which you'd get the most skill points because of how the system worked). It was super clunky, and when you don't play it optimally, it feels pretty bad, like you're losing out all the time. It's not as much of a problem in Morrowind because enemies weren't tied to your level, so eventually even the most sub-optimally leveled character would over power everything in the game, so ignoring min-maxing is doable. In Oblivion, sub-optimal leveling leads to a brick wall where you're wailing on enemies and nothing happens. It sucks. Skyrim, by shedding the favored skill system and reducing the skill points you get from leveling to just one no matter how 'sub-optimally' you leveled, made it so that there's no sub-optimal leveling really anymore; you level with what you use in a very comfortable way and you're not really going to feel super outclassed ever. Morrowind also had hit chance (dice rolls basically), which simulated skill with your weapon of choice (higher skill, high chance to hit), so that feeling of progression is lost in Skyrim where hit chance is always 100% if models collide. In Skyrim, skill level is basically just a damage modifier, that's really all that skill advancement changes. But, it's a very small damage modification and the base stats of a good weapon can often make up for poor stats in the associated skill, so that if you pick up a great bow at level 30 with 10 points in archery, with a 100% hit chance, you'll probably be able to kill stuff at your level with a weapon and skill you haven't used. Stealth archery isn't just an option in Skyrim, it's always an option. Not so in previous titles like Morrowind, so stealth archer doesn't become the inevitable end of all player characters. You can't just pick up a bow in Morrowind and go shot a storm atronach with your mage character. You'll hit it about as much as the average gamer would if you thrust a bow into their hand that they've never used before. Also, stealth and archery are both pretty clunky in that game and feel way better in Skyrim.
Yeah, that's true about the weird min-maxing and favoured class stuff. In Oblivion, I remember never picking Athletics or Acrobatics so I could bank getting big bonuses in the related Attributes on leveling up.
Do you think they should adopt a more class-focus level-up design in ES6? Or what would you do in Skyrim's sequel?
@@QuestMarker I think ES6 will be Starfield with swords. So, I don't think they will return to a class-based or more accurately an attribute focused system anytime soon if ever. And, I don't know if I would really want them to. Unless they abandoned their go-anywhere-from-the-start approach to world design, abandoned character-centred levelled enemies, just adding attribute focused character builds 'back in' as it were would feel out of place.
More important, I think, would be deepening player progression in skills and combat. Skyrim is very one dimensional. Not a ton changes in how a character handles a weapon from skill level 15 and 100. Most of the skill tree perks are just some version of 'do more damage' or 'hit slightly faster' or 'use less resources to attack'. Snore-fest. As I said, any player can pick up a bow at any time in their playthru and start stealth sniping levelled enemies, and in an hour or less, they'll be doing about as well as a player who has been stealth sniping their way thru the whole game. There's a ton of player freedom in that, but it also highlights just how shallow the combat system is.
The worst example of all of this is magic. Magic sucks in Skyrim. That's probably why there are so many magic mods. I would love to see a magic system in ES6 with the degree of complexity and depth as Morrowind. But, I don't think that will ever happen.
Underrated video.
really glad you think so! thanks for leaving a comment
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bless your dear sweet heart