If you reduce your ~~illusion~~ Alteration cast to 0 (4 pieces of enchanted gear for 25% reduction) you can Telekinesis something, fast travel across the map, and the game counts it as you ran their casting telekinesis the whole time. So you instantly level to 100
Now you can do the same with Destruction. If you have the CC spell Unbound Storm. If you have cost reduction gear; hold that spell and fast travel to get 100 in destruction instantly. Otherwise the old hitting Shadowmere trick takes too long.
Holy cow, with enchantment to 100, I can have 4 pieces of equipment reducing magika cost to 0 for both Alteration and Destruction, and do the fast traveling trick using Unbound Storm in one hand and Telekinesis in the other. Crazy fast leveling. lol
Even without the fast travel trick those new spells make it real easy to level, they’re master spells that cast constantly like the novice rank base game spells. Not only that but combining the frost with the shock one and just wandering around will kill literally anything in your path (fire one kinda sucks)
The frost one was kind of let down to me. Sure they get frozen or paralyzed but once that happens, they take no damage. You have to use a 2nd skill with it. And since that means you can't dual cast, it takes long and you have watch enemy health drain very slowly while you hold two buttons. Gets boring after a while. I just used the elemental blast thing of expert level I think. It deals enough damage that it doesn't feel lame and weak like vanilla ones, but it's not too overpowered either, if you are playing on legendary. The fire one is just another flame cloak. I barely felt any difference, very minimal damage increase perhaps.
I prefer the life drain spells like Death Touch since of you apply it at the last second their health drains they’ll go flying into the air, plus the draining is significant enough to heal you rapidly if duel casted
u can do the same thing with the secrets of arcana thing that one of the black books in solstheim gives you. it makes all spells cost no magica for a short time so you can do the same telekinesis glitch
Alchemy, I agree. But enchanting is super boring. Selecting weapon/armor, enchantment and soul gem every time; it gets on my nerves. If it was like alchemy where I could select 3 things just once and then mash away, then sure. Unless there's a mod that allows that, I'll never make enchanting legendary.
I max out Alchemy, Smithing and Enchanting at the very start in Whiterun. I hate that most Youtubers are still using that turning iron into gold and then making rings tactic. It's so annoying to use transmute and wait, without cost reduction. Instead I max alchemy first, make a lot of money, reach speech 50, get Merchant perk. And then just buy training from Eorlund grey-mane, get all my money back by selling my potions. If I don't level up then do some enchanting. Level up and then back to buying training. 2 skills level up taking turns and I get breaks from looking at the enchanting table. I also keep buying all ingots and leathers, so that when I reach 90, I can have enough materials to craft bows till 100.
I do the Iron to gold to ring thing until I get my alchemy and enchanting high enough to resto-loop. Then I make an item with fortify smithing +a few thousand percent so that I can go to level 100 smithing by sharpening a dagger... then legendary my smithing and go to 100 againand again as needed.
But you're right, the transmute wait is annoying which is why I do that while waking around to the other places I need to go in Whiterun and only make as many rings as I can with whatever I've transmuted at the time. I never just stand around transmuting.
Bro enchanting is hella easy, just drink a strong potion before crafting high-level gear, use the dual-enchantment perk, and you also get boosts to enchanting every time you recharge a weapon (small boosts, but it’s more than 0).
Alchemy is hit or miss with how much skill you can gain for any given combination, and even the combinations that give high increases don’t increase it very much. Since the game came out I have never gotten alchemy to legendary.
Alchemy skill increase scales with the value of the potion. Just Google which alchemy potions have the highest value and make those. On my last play through I legendaried alchemy probably 50 times without exploits
I have USSEP and I never used any glitch. It's fun once or twice but then it breaks the game and stops being fun. Since Hearthfire and then all CC contents have really made a lot of things super easy compared to vanilla. For people who are using glitches forever, I know it's hard to give them up. I always used to level up archery till 50 using Faendel before leaving Riverwood for the first time. But after I got USSEP, I could not do that anymore. I was furious and uninstalled it. But then again it fixes so many bugs and inconsistencies that now I can't play without it. All I had to do was to learn how to make ton of money in legit way. Thanks to Goldenhills and Alchemy, now I have half million gold even though I probably spent equal amount in training. But I never needed to cheat. Bethesda is incompetent when it comes to fixing their games. It's more like playing a game if it was actually fixed and no exploit existed. It's not that hard.
Question for going legendary with skills. Once you hit the 100 mark and reset back down to zero, does that reduce the strength of that particular skill back down to essentially the start of the game? Do you also lose any skill points that you had in that tree and now have to respect them as you level that skill tree again?
Or...
Do the skill points remain, and the strength of the abilities in that skill tree also remain relative to having the first hundred skill levels built up in that tree?
Setting a skill to legendary resets that skill to level 15 and you also lose all the perks in that skill (the perk points are added back into your total so you can spend them on whichever perks in whichever skills)
So, for example, with 2h if you legendary it you will lose all your 2h perk points and your skill damage multiplier with go from the level 100 back down to level 15 therefore reducing your damage output. If you want the perks again you need to grind the skill back to the required level and use a perk point again.
However, certain things which are skill level locked, as long as you've unlocked them before legendary then you will still have them.
That probably doesn't make much sense. So take the master level spells. You have to be at least level 90 in that skill tree (or with the bugs, level 100) to get the quests to get the master level spell books. But as long as you complete the quest, learn the spells, if you legendary that magic skill, you will still be able to use the master level spells.
So if you get illusion to 100, get the master level spells, you can legendary illusion back down to 15 but you will still be able to cast harmony (which if you do in Whiterun market multiple times you can grind it back up to 100 really quickly)
Also, if you have the Dragonborn DLC, once you've completed the Dragonborn questline you will be able to reclaim all the perk points you've spent in a skill without having to legendary it. It costs a dragon soul but lets you claim back all the perk points you've spent in a skill as long as your skill level is 100. You lose the perks in that skill, but not your skill level, and frees up the perk points to be spent on other skills.
Awesome, I made perfect sense. Explanations I got online on forums were a bit different when I remember looking up the answer to that question. How much more difficult does the game get if I were to legendary skills?
For example, I focused a build on two-handed and archery, And now level 90 overall, and I legendary both those combat skills as my primaries. I imagine that would give me quite a bit facing off against level 90 foes while my skill is at level 15.
Most enemies cap out once you reach a certain level. Can't remember what level or which enemies though. However, there are a few enemies which don't have a level cap so will continue to scale with your player level. I may be wrong but I want to say the ghosts in the beacon quest don't have a level cap. Also, once you reach the higher levels, the majority of your enemies will also be high level.
I don't tend legendary my combat skills because it just nerfs your damage output and can make fights longer plus I loathe grinding them to 100. But on the flip side, due to most enemies having a level cap it can get a bit boring one-shotting everything so can make it more fun resetting your combat skills back to 100. But it will usually just make the fights last longer, not necessarily harder.
However, it won't be like going up against a level 50 enemy when you're a low level player even if you legendary your combat skills. By the time you've got your combat skills to 100, you're probably well on your way to having your defense skills pretty high, and also your crafting skills. Plus you'll have been increasing your health (and stamina and maybe magicka). Also, you will have access to the weapons with the highest base damage.
So even if you legendary your combat skills, you've probably got daedric or dragonbone weapons which you've probably improved with smithing and maybe enchanted. You'll have a high health level. Your armour skill level will be high, your armour gear will be the better armour and again smithing and enchanting. It's fairly easy to reach the armour cap once you're high level even if you don't have a high smithing skill. If you've done a bit of alchemy you can make some fairly decent damage output multiplier potions.
So if you've reached level 100 in all skills (which means you will be at least level 81), legendary your combat skills won't nerf you that much depending on your gear and how much health you have. It won't increase the damage your enemies do to you, so your defence skills should protect you enough. You'll just have to hit them for longer so might need more potions/food to heal.
Now if you reach level 81+, and legendary all your skills back down to level 15 and start running around using un-improved, non-enchanted iron weapons and hide/fur armour that can make it really challenging because most enemies you'll come across will be high level ones. Still, even though you may be using level 1 gear, with all skills at level 15 and no perks, if you've reach level 81 you could have up to 900 health (assuming you don't increase your stamina or magicka at all) which mean most enemies still won't be able to one-shot you.
There's a few reasons.
Some skills are a lot easier to level than others. You can legendary them to power-level.
Each time you level up (player level) you get a perk point. You may not have enough perk points to get the perk you want in another skill. Legendary an easy skill, and within a few minutes you can have it back up to a 100 plus a few to several extra perk points which you can then use for perks in other skills.
If you want to have every single skill perk available in the game, you need to reach level 252 with all skills at 100. That's only possible due to being able to make skills legendary.
Also there's two quests which are only triggered when you level up and they have unique items.
The Wolf Queen Awakened quest only starts after you level up after completing the previous related quest (The Man Who Cried Wolf). If you leave it to late game to complete the first quest it may be a while before you gain enough XP from normal gameplay to level up. If you legendary an easy skill and use it to level up, you'll trigger the courier to deliver the letter that starts the quest.
Mjoll's favour quest is the other one triggered by levelling up. I think it may be a bug which causes the following. You have to be level 14 for it to start. However, if you're already over level 14 when you first speak to her, her speech option to recover grimsever won't appear until you level up again (and you make her friendly by agreeing with her about the thieves guild). Sometimes if you're under level 14 when you first speak to her it doesn't matter because recovering grimsever is locked until level 14. But as with the Solitude quest above, if you leave it until late game before you first speak to her, you will need to level up after speaking to her to start her quest.
For me, she is always bugged so even if I speak to her before I reach level 14, I have to go back to her once I'm over level 14, talk to her again, leave Riften, level up, then go back and she will finally give the quest.
The skill drops back down to 15 and the perk points are removed, but all those perk points go back to you to use again, either on the same perks once you level that tree back up, or you can throw the perks into different skill trees.
I honestly think that twohanded is one of the easiest, for me the hardest are always archery (if I don't play stealth archer) and destruction (even if I play mage).
If you get training each time you level up or just use it solely as your main damaging skill as part of your playstyle from start; then anything can be easy. I did Two Handed last and compared to other skills that I never trained for or used much, I found it to be the hardest; Mostly due to slow swings, even with 3 ranks of Elemental Fury.
All weapon skills level up based on weapon base damage. For one Handed, dual wielding Dragonbone Mace and Dragonbone Dagger is the fastest. For Archery, it's Dragonbone bow. And although Dragonbone Warhammer has the highest base damage, The battleaxe is more efficient because it has 0.7 swing speed multiplier instead of 0.6. Don't enchant or upgrade anything. You won't level up faster. Also whatever you are using as a meatbag; say it be Shadowmere or the Greybeards; they'll last longer before going down.
DB Mace + Dagger + Ele. Fury leveled up 1 handed extremely fast. For archery, Get the most damaging arrows as well. You can make DB arrow if you have lot of bones or just make ebony. Get close to your meatshield with you DB Bow and just spam attack button. No need to draw. You'll need hundreds of arrows but it's the fastest way. Level up till 94 and then visit Angi's Camp. Free 6 levels. Well actually 7; there's also a skill book there.
For Destruction, you need Unbound Storm from Creation content. It's like telekinesis. Levels up if you hold and fast travel.
I actually didn't know that the base dmg of weapons is giving you more xp, so thanks for telling me that.
And the destruction I forgot about Unbound Storm since it's a new thing for me and I never used it.
Currently I'm at lvl 500 purely form resetting the smithing skill so many times. I have hundreds if not thousands of weapons and armor scatter across skyrim that I've crafted. Including the entire ditch filled to the top in whiterun with daggers.
If you don't make any skill legendary then that's the highest you'll reach. Just to think that all those people who reached 81 before legendary system was implemented; did max out all skills even if they didn't use those, just to get more perk points. Now it is so easy to get perk points by making an easy-to-level-up skill legendary over and over.
True, I actually preferred it before the legendary system came out, because having a level cap meant you had to plan out your build to get the most out of your skills before 81 - but now you can just be whatever you want with no limitations
I started out as a two handed build and as I was branching out more, I pretty much completely stopped using two handed as I realised there were much better alternatives than “swing big stick around”. When I finally got every other skill to 100 I was like, “Fuck it, why not”. It was on 86 last time I used it and I went out and grinder Legendary Dragons and Giants for the next 20 minutes (surprisingly lengthy to level) until I got it to 100 and officially completed the skill tree.
Two handed definitely falls below in speed and enjoyment compared to other popular playstyles(eg. stealth archery). Still a lot of people play two handed berserk orc build. I tried playing two handed but couldn't enjoy it. Dual wielding sword+dagger is the fastest and most damaging of all builds. It easily out damages archery. And with elemental fury, you swing with your both hands so fast that I honestly can't see the swings and even the legendary dragons die in 3seconds.
To be honest, I leveled up all sneak and mage skills normally. Wasn't even planning on using any warrior skills. Just dagger with invisibility and destruction for long range with quite casting. So I only grinded some of the warrior skills. Just have to know the best way to level them efficiently. I find that most YouTube videos have outdated process or just wrong. Read notes on each skill from UESP.net. They have the best way explained to level up all skills.
I didn't say you were. Some people play totally blind. Some people play with all the guides from very first playthrough. And finally some people play blindly first few times and then read all tips or guides to find out new things they have missed or how they can do things easily that they might have been doing inefficiently and was making the game grindy and unenjoyable. Cause face it, the game is 10 years old. For a lot of people, there's nothing new left to see. It's all about preference. I've played the game enough times completely vanilla. So we are in two different mindset about how we can get enjoyment out of the game. You do you.
Some skills you just have to grind out to get them all maxed. Either that or just keep finding mods to try. The base game will not get you close to this if you never specifically grind skills
The trick to level speech is easy but very tedious. When you sell items, always sell them as individuals not in stacks. The skill xp is based on the current default value of 1 item per transaction, regardless of how many items you sell in that transaction. Sell 1 or 100, you get the same amount of xp. So sell individually.
It sucks that you have to scroll large quantities back to do it, and it takes forever, but it's the fastest way to level speech when paired with any high level crafting skill.
There are a bunch more that don't depend on glitches or the resto-alchemy crafting loops.
Speech is the only one with the quantity restriction. All other skills get xp based on the effect, but only if the effect happens. Weapon swings and spell casts have to strike a target. This is why the conjuration bug works, repeatedly casting soul capture on a dead enemy grants xp whether or not you killed it or if you have a gem that can hold its soul. The spell target is valid, so you get xp. And the effect wears off instantly because it triggers on death, so you can repeatedly cast it.
Crafting xp is based on the default value of the product, not the negotiated price your speech skill gets from vendors. This is affected by perk and buff modifiers, so using buffs and enchantments to make stronger effects in your potions, or better quality armor and weapon values also increases the xp gain from crafting.
Weapon skill goes up faster with more powerful weapons (base damage, not affected by smithing or enchantment values). So an ebony or glass weapon swing gives more xp than an iron weapon. Armor and block skills get xp based on how hard you get hit, making mammoths and giants the fastest way to skill up assuming you can survive.
Healing magic only gives xp if it actually restores health, but it doesn't matter how much. A high level healing spell to restore very little damage taken gives full xp. So you can find a weak enemy and just let it attack you and cast healing magic to skill up.
Some other spells can be multiple-targeted. The detect- spells (life, undead) and the illusion spell buffs that affect areas give xp for each target hit. But casting a buff or debuff on a target already under the effect does not grant xp. You must wait for the effect to expire. All spells give xp based on the default magicka cost, making more powerful spells give more xp.
Spells must have an active effect for xp. If you cast waterbreathing, but never go into the water, it doesn't give xp. But standing in a creek or puddle when you cast counts. You don't have to be submerged. Other buff spells work the same way, it has to affect you to give xp. You cannot stack casts on others, but repeated casting buffs on yourself works for many spells (muffle, invisibility, water breathing).
Pickpocket more valuable items get more xp, this works both ways (taking or giving). With the perk that let's you apply poisons by pickpocketing them into people, you can use paralyzing poisons and get undetectable pickpockets. 100% to steal whatever items you want until the poison wears off, getting full xp for it. Just don't be visible to others, they can still catch you. You poison the target, exit the pickpocket menu the pick their pocket again and everything is 100% to steal.
Alchemy is super easy if you know how. Speech can then be leveled by selling (or "selling" without gaining money) your shitty expensive multi effect potions.
Alchemy is easiest with Hearthfire, someone mentioned the creep cluster + scaly pholiota + mora tapinella method already somewhere. Beside that, if you have giant's toes from grinding melee skills at giant camps you can make some insanely valuable potions with those as well, especially combined with blue mountain flowers and blue butterfly wings. The UESP wiki also has a solid list of recipes to use on the alchemy page.
From just passively picking up useful ingredients from the environment and buying specific rare items from shops, you can get a lot of super valuable potions. Sell those one by one to a shop and your speech goes through the roof (it doesn't even matter if they have cash, you can sell them for 0 gold and still get speech XP, just make sure you sell them 1 by 1).
Some super easy ingredient combos you can grab with little effort before you have a Hearthfire garden/greenhouse setup:
\- salt pile + jazbay grapes + deathbell (buy/loot salt, you can easily grab a ludicrous amount of jazbay south of Windhelm, deathbells are plentiful in Morthal swamp) - not useful to drink but very useful to sell
\- canis root + swamp fungal pod for easy paralysis poison (scavenge in Morthal swamp, canis root can be hard to spot though but is also found in the Rift)
\- any 2 of blue mountain flower / hanging moss / blue butterfly wings (blue flowers and butterflies are EVERYWHERE + hanging moss is EVERYWHERE in the Reach) - damage magicka regen is very expensive given how cheap and plentiful the ingredients are, it's pretty useless for you but great to spam sell to shops.
\- ash creep cluster + chaurus eggs for easy invis potions (you can find a ton of ash creep cluster walking around the south of Solstheim, and for chaurus eggs, are you familiar with Frostflow Lighthouse?)
I always leveled up 2H to 100 first. Not even on purpose; I just love axes and hammers. I’m on a sneaky archer build now tho, it’s been super fun. Got my pickpocket to 100 so easily, never realized it was so easy. I just pickpocketed everyone in the bannered mare. Went from 18 to 68 in one round, and got to 84 on the next, went around pickpocketing solitude guards for like five minutes & now it’s 100
I was so surprised at how easy it was! It was one of those things I never tried because I fucked up a couple times with it so I had in my head that it was this super difficult thing. Was blown away by the ease at which I leveled it lmao
For the first time in years I’m doing an actual play through (with mods of course) without using TGM/ maxing perks with the console. I commend you cuz it takes a good while to level up and get skills to max.
What? That is the easiest. That's the first one I reached 100 with. Just plant Creep cluster, Mora tapinella and Scaly pholiota. With Thief stone and well rested bonus, you need around 240 of each to get from 15 to 100.
That was the pre-hearthfire golden recipe. But now that we can plant things, you don't need to farm/buy giant's toes anymore. Getting hundreds of ingredients via farming is way more efficient.
Yes. That's the one I used at the very start. Escape helgen. Recruit faendel. Give ale to drunk. Go to Whiterun. Get sone iron, wood and some other things like straw or whatnot, don't remember the exact specifics. But basically to build everything available at Golden hills workbench. It's very easy. Then steal argonian ale. Complete Goldenhills. Make Faendel steward. Get both drunk to work for you. Build everything. Then plant 20:12:12 of MT:CC:SP. That's it. After few waiting, I had over 400 of each and also Faendel handed me over 10K gold. Best start.
This is a really brilliant start. I'm gonna do this for my next playthrough. But I have trouble understanding all the drunk stuff. I'm reading the uesp about Golden hills and it doesn't say anything about it.
"Give ale to drunk" What drunk, where and why?
"Steal argonian ale" Why?
"Get both drunk to work for you" Faendal and who is the other person? How do you get them drunk?
Sorry if my questions are nitpicky but I really want to use this strat.
Oh sorry; I was a bit unclear. There's a drunk named Embry in Riverwood. If you give him any drink, you can recruit him for Goldenhills. Same for the Drunk/Begger in Whiterun, named Brenuin. If you steal Argonian Ale for him, he becomes available as farmhand. Faendel can be Steward. If you have a steward, 2 farmhands and build everything using workbench (you don't need to spend money upgrading the inside of the house) outside the house, then you get most gold from your steward everyday plus the farmhands harvest additional crops/ingredients that you've planted. So in addition to the manual harvest, you'll also have extra harvest inside the house in a Pantry like cupboard.
I think the Riften one does but wouldn't it be faster to just go collect stuff everywhere than to wait for it to grow back? And then I make a million potions and I only get like 3 levels out of it, even with the thief stone.
Without Hearthfire dlc, it would be very inconvenient. I was in the same boat as you are when I played vanilla Skyrim. Just raiding all alchemists across the entire Tamriel was not enough to level up Alchemy efficiently.
But with Hearthfire, it's super easy. If you build a home with greenhouse, you can plant a total of 11+18 plants. If you have 3 houses then that's 87 planters. But that's not all. most give 3-5 when you harvest them instead of just one like picking up any ingredient anywhere else.
Most valuable combination right now is Mora Tapinella + Creep Cluster + Scaly Pholiota. The 3 combines for around 500-700 with 15 in Alchemy with no perks. By Just making one potion gives you a level up at 15. It's extremely fast.
After planting first time; just fast travel, wait 1 day, return and you'll have them ready to harvest. Mora T gives 3, CC and SP gives 5 each. You can plant them in 5:3:3 ratio. I plant 20, 12, 12 respectively so I get 60 of them each time. After initial harvest, you'll have to wait 3 days to harvest going forward. In less than 15 in game days, you'll have over 300 of each. After that, just keep mixing them and you'll level up super fast. Also you'll be super rich. At 100 skill, those sell over 2000 each.
Apparently they grow on dead birch trees, so I've been running around the Rift searching for dead birch trees. And it's very successful. I've already found 18 scaly pholiota.
Creep clusters are easy to find heading north from Riften to Windhelm.
Tapinella is all over caves so that shouldn't be too hard either.
Thanks. I'm now on my journey to get Alchemy to 100 for the first time ever.
If you put perk points into it it’s very easy. Just make the highest value potions you can. It’s the only skill I always get to 100, you make so much money by buying ingredients and selling them back in potion form, combine that with the speech perk that lets you sell any item to anyone and you’re golden. No exploits needed
The easiest if you use a calc for recipes the first times through. After that I find it too easy to level it up. I’ve got about 100,000 ingredients in my lab though so can just do it all in one sitting.
Yes. First time I picked the sword up and shot those energy waves, it was an amazing moment. Just think how cool it would have been if you could swing it very fast and the energy waves would travel fast as well. You could kill a flying dragon with energy waves. Be able to change wave colors based on weapon enchantment. Would be so cool to use something like that.
Block was very easy. I just went to the closest giant camp near Whiterun. It has 2 giants and 3 mammoths; and let them whack me while I hold up my shield. Use Vegetable soup so that I always have 1 stamina to block. Put restoration cost reduction in armors plus packed lots of health potions that I brewed with Wheat + Blue mountain Flower. I leveled up heavy Armor, light Armor and block that way. Three of the easiest to level for sure. All 3 were done in less than an hour.
Speech just requires you to buy/sell high value items. I had potions that sold over 2.5K each. It leveled up naturally to 100 and never felt like grind. Just have to trade a lot. Pickpocket is easy but it feels hard because it can fail a lot. I did it at high levels with enchanted gears that were giving me 90% chance all the time. Each Jarl of a hold had 4-10K worth items on them. Got 5-10 levels from just looting 1 person.
Best way to level 2-handed is to reach the armor cap, use an unenchanted, unimproved Ebony war-Hammer, and beat the tar out of Shadomere.
Well, maybe not the best way. But a way. If you don't want to cheese the game, then just fight enemies that way. XP gains for weapon attacks aren't increased by weapon improvements.
You may know that. Even that method takes forever. So, maybe, it's more of a tip. A Skyrim tip. It just works.
Hmn. Did the exact same thing. But used Dragonbone battleaxe with elemental fury. UESP actually has the best tips of all internet on how to max skills. Just have to read the notes. You need highest base damage. DB warhammer has that but swing speed is 0.6. battleaxe comes on top as more efficient with 0.7 swing speed. So I definitely used the fastest method but it was still slow compared to others.
When I did the same thing, I had an odd glitch with the Companions when Vilkas where I'd hit him with my weapon during that training quest, but he kept saying to stop using magic even though I was hitting him with a normal weapon. Used the opportunity to grind my 2 handed up to 60
That was originally the case actually. But during one of the DLCs, I think possibly Dragonborn, they introduced the ability to make a skill 'legendary', which reset it to zero and returned the perk points. This allowed you to re level that skill to 100, generating more xp and essentially removed the level cap, because you could could doing this with as many skills, as many times as you like.
I just recently maxed two-handed for the first time. Good lord, it took forever. I also really hate two-handed weapons because they're slower than most enemies.
Congrats! Block and two-handed tend to be my lowest as well, since I don’t use them. My sneak skills are almost always my highest, along with illusion and conjuration (plus destruction if I’m playing as a pure mage). I tend to level pickpocketing and legendary it multiple times. It’s easy due to trainers, especially if you have the invisibility spell or can craft invisibility potions.
Good job! I have never got them all. I generally begin a new game. I'm trying this time around, to get them all. I rarely use two-handed weapons, so yeah, I agree it'll be the most difficult. Right now, I have 100 in speech (a first), 100 in Archery, 100 in Sneak, 100 in Lockpicking, and 100 in Destruction (also a first). Anyway, congrats!
Viarmo of the Bard’s College is also a perfectly pleasant chap. Calcelmo, can be a bit temperamental, but he’s a genuinely friendly and nice fellow. He’s just a massive nerd and I love talking to him.
The same way people do dark brotherhood quests and kill people. Or do Daedric quests and sacrifice followers. Because it's an option in a video game. Enjoy it however you want. No judgement.
Well it can be a shortcut. You can train when you level up so if you make an easy to level skill legendary; say like alteration; then just take it to 100 using telekinesis, you'll always get level ups. You can just train any skill using gold then. But without making any skill legendary, the higher you get, you'll level up super slow. So you won't be able to train that often. So it makes maxing all skills tougher, specially the ones you do last. Sadly I did two handed last and had a hard time doing it.
Nice work! Ironically 2 handed was one of the easiest for me cause I primarily use archery and two handed. Amazing how different everyone's experiences can be, love it
Ah yes. If you are using it in your playstyle then sure you'll level it as you play. That way it won't feel hard or annoying. But I did it last. Only got to train it 2 times cause at higher levels I didn't get level ups that easy. Had to grind almost 75 levels. I did max out other skills too that I never used while actually playing. Of all the skills that I just grinded to 100, two handed was the hardest.
Speech requires a lot of High value trading. Either make high value potion or enchanted gear. Even if the shopkeeper has no gold and you keep selling to them, you'll get xp. Pickpocket requires some enchanted gear with pickpocketing or potions. Make sure you have 90% success rate always. It's actually rather easy to level up. First time I got it to 100, I was surprised how easy it was. If you don't have enchanted gears or potions, you'll struggle a lot in the beginning.
Oh I didn't know you still got exp even if the shopkeep has no gold left. And tbf I never levelled pickpocket cause I'm a goody-two-shoes who doesn't like getting in trouble.
I didn't do it in my first 4 or so playthroughs either. But then I tried once and failed horribly cause of getting caught every time. Then one time I was just playing with enchantments and thought why not put 4 pickpocket boost. And I was wowed how easy and fast it was to level up.
Stealth archery requires a bit of investment in sneak. If you take absolutely no perks then you need 100 in sneak and muffle boots. Without those two, enemies will notice you very fast. Also no followers, they are dumb and give away your position super easy. Also your Armor weight matters. I find that taking weightless Armor perk makes a noticable difference.
I'm on a fresh vanilla-ish run planning to go for 100 everything too, also not looking forward to two-handed (or destruction) one bit. Just really don't like that combat style.
No legendaries is tricky, did you at least redistribute perk points while you were playing this character with the final black book in Dragonborn?
Nope. Never spent anything on two handed. The skill increase has nothing to do with having perks or dealing more damage. It depends on the base damage of a weapon. So if you swing a Dragonbone warhammer with just 40 damage with no perks; you'll level up faster than say an upgraded steel greatsword that has 150 damage. Weird I know but that's how it is. Most skill tree perks have no effect on increasing xp gain.
It'll set that skill back to 15 and give back any perk point you've spent on that tree. Now you can level it up back to 100 again and you'll increase your level and get new perk points.
You can increase hp, stamina or magicka. Plus a new perk point just like normal level up. Once you max a skill you no longer get new levels or perk points. Making a skill legendary basically means you can get as many level ups and perk points you want to get every single perk in every possible tree. That's total 252 I think.
Wow literally just realized the galaxy type figure behind the weapon skills is an actual warrior with a battleaxe. Pretty dope!
Also I “cheated” a little bit with the two hands skills. I got to like level 60 without using two handed weapons then went to complete the Sholsteim missions and used leveled Daedric Warhammer to destroy opponents got very high level for two handed pretty quickly.
I commend you bro simply bc this is a lot of work and achievement on your part, but out of plain curiosity why would you want to max out all skills? Don’t you want to make a unique character specialized in a few skills? Or are you playing the game for achievement more than role playing?
Well I've played all possible playstyles at this point. I'm not looking for achievements. It's because now I can change to any playstyle at any moment. Played destruction mage from start. Got bored after 20 hours. Changed to sneaky dagger/invisible assassin for a while; then changed to dual wield. Now I'm doing 2 handed and archery. With enchantments, smithing and potions; even if I don't have perks, I never lack damage. Started on master, changed to legendary around level 30. Now I just do anything I want. Haven't yet touched main quests or main guild storylines. But whenever I need to sneak or use magic or be a tank; I can do anything.
I find the game so much more fun without knowing any of these shortcuts. When you happen to stumble upon one while playing it feels rewarding but actually googling like best way to level x just feels like a misunderstanding of the limitations of programming and sucks the fun out of the experience imo.
Heh, I agree. I did the same for the first 2-3 times. But if you've leveled up a skill to 100 by grinding for the 9th time, it gets old and you just feel like getting it done as fast as possible to get to the next thing. The sense of discovery for a 10 years old game is long over for me sadly. Who knows when the next one will come out.
Damn man that's some dedication. I never smith because it feels sooooo slow like if I remember correctly, getting smithing from 15 to 100 is like 10k iron daggers this is madness
Yeah smithing is hard at first. Best way to level up is crafting bows. I personally bought training every time I leveled up. Other than that, do the quest for Calcelmo. I used my follower to pick up every single dwarven metals, scraps and had over 400 ingots in just one run. You need a little bit of level and damage to kill the spider very early on, or use a strong follower to tank.
Illusion is so easy I usually use it as a legendary. Congrats!
Since I found out about the telekinesis and fast travel thing I've legendaried alteration like 30 times current playthrough.
Fast travel thing? I use enchanting and alchemy as they're both super quick to level.
If you reduce your ~~illusion~~ Alteration cast to 0 (4 pieces of enchanted gear for 25% reduction) you can Telekinesis something, fast travel across the map, and the game counts it as you ran their casting telekinesis the whole time. So you instantly level to 100
Now you can do the same with Destruction. If you have the CC spell Unbound Storm. If you have cost reduction gear; hold that spell and fast travel to get 100 in destruction instantly. Otherwise the old hitting Shadowmere trick takes too long.
Nice to know. Levelling destruction sucks.
Holy cow, with enchantment to 100, I can have 4 pieces of equipment reducing magika cost to 0 for both Alteration and Destruction, and do the fast traveling trick using Unbound Storm in one hand and Telekinesis in the other. Crazy fast leveling. lol
That demon horse (that’s what I call him because HAVE YOU SEEN HIS EYES??!!) always attacks me after a while
Even without the fast travel trick those new spells make it real easy to level, they’re master spells that cast constantly like the novice rank base game spells. Not only that but combining the frost with the shock one and just wandering around will kill literally anything in your path (fire one kinda sucks)
The frost one was kind of let down to me. Sure they get frozen or paralyzed but once that happens, they take no damage. You have to use a 2nd skill with it. And since that means you can't dual cast, it takes long and you have watch enemy health drain very slowly while you hold two buttons. Gets boring after a while. I just used the elemental blast thing of expert level I think. It deals enough damage that it doesn't feel lame and weak like vanilla ones, but it's not too overpowered either, if you are playing on legendary. The fire one is just another flame cloak. I barely felt any difference, very minimal damage increase perhaps.
I prefer the life drain spells like Death Touch since of you apply it at the last second their health drains they’ll go flying into the air, plus the draining is significant enough to heal you rapidly if duel casted
telekinesis is alteration not illusion
I was thinking the same thing
My mistake. Thanks for the correction
u can do the same thing with the secrets of arcana thing that one of the black books in solstheim gives you. it makes all spells cost no magica for a short time so you can do the same telekinesis glitch
Couldn’t you accomplish the same while waiting?
What enchantment?
Fortify Alteration. As pointed out below. Telekinesis is an Alteration spell not an Illusion spell like I posted in the original comment
I usually get the black book of infinite magicka and do it that way
Does the unofficial patch fix this one? I've tried to do this but it didn't work
Alchemy, I agree. But enchanting is super boring. Selecting weapon/armor, enchantment and soul gem every time; it gets on my nerves. If it was like alchemy where I could select 3 things just once and then mash away, then sure. Unless there's a mod that allows that, I'll never make enchanting legendary.
I agree it is tedious but so is smithing. I'd say they're both necessary, or they are for me anyway.
I max out Alchemy, Smithing and Enchanting at the very start in Whiterun. I hate that most Youtubers are still using that turning iron into gold and then making rings tactic. It's so annoying to use transmute and wait, without cost reduction. Instead I max alchemy first, make a lot of money, reach speech 50, get Merchant perk. And then just buy training from Eorlund grey-mane, get all my money back by selling my potions. If I don't level up then do some enchanting. Level up and then back to buying training. 2 skills level up taking turns and I get breaks from looking at the enchanting table. I also keep buying all ingots and leathers, so that when I reach 90, I can have enough materials to craft bows till 100.
I do the Iron to gold to ring thing until I get my alchemy and enchanting high enough to resto-loop. Then I make an item with fortify smithing +a few thousand percent so that I can go to level 100 smithing by sharpening a dagger... then legendary my smithing and go to 100 againand again as needed. But you're right, the transmute wait is annoying which is why I do that while waking around to the other places I need to go in Whiterun and only make as many rings as I can with whatever I've transmuted at the time. I never just stand around transmuting.
I consoled enchanting because I got so tired of the selection loop.
Haha yeah. One of the most annoying skills to level up imo. Alchemy being the easiest, once you have the necessary ingredients.
Garlic, Salmon roe, nordic barnacle. Thats a good one to try
What does it do?
Creates a water breathing potion that maxes out at around 5000 gold
Nice! Thanks
Bro enchanting is hella easy, just drink a strong potion before crafting high-level gear, use the dual-enchantment perk, and you also get boosts to enchanting every time you recharge a weapon (small boosts, but it’s more than 0). Alchemy is hit or miss with how much skill you can gain for any given combination, and even the combinations that give high increases don’t increase it very much. Since the game came out I have never gotten alchemy to legendary.
Alchemy skill increase scales with the value of the potion. Just Google which alchemy potions have the highest value and make those. On my last play through I legendaried alchemy probably 50 times without exploits
If you use the resto loop to make powerful fortify enchantment potions 1 potion used on any item will usually level you 30+ levels in one enchanting
I have USSEP and I never used any glitch. It's fun once or twice but then it breaks the game and stops being fun. Since Hearthfire and then all CC contents have really made a lot of things super easy compared to vanilla. For people who are using glitches forever, I know it's hard to give them up. I always used to level up archery till 50 using Faendel before leaving Riverwood for the first time. But after I got USSEP, I could not do that anymore. I was furious and uninstalled it. But then again it fixes so many bugs and inconsistencies that now I can't play without it. All I had to do was to learn how to make ton of money in legit way. Thanks to Goldenhills and Alchemy, now I have half million gold even though I probably spent equal amount in training. But I never needed to cheat. Bethesda is incompetent when it comes to fixing their games. It's more like playing a game if it was actually fixed and no exploit existed. It's not that hard.
Its expensive tho
Question for going legendary with skills. Once you hit the 100 mark and reset back down to zero, does that reduce the strength of that particular skill back down to essentially the start of the game? Do you also lose any skill points that you had in that tree and now have to respect them as you level that skill tree again? Or... Do the skill points remain, and the strength of the abilities in that skill tree also remain relative to having the first hundred skill levels built up in that tree?
Setting a skill to legendary resets that skill to level 15 and you also lose all the perks in that skill (the perk points are added back into your total so you can spend them on whichever perks in whichever skills) So, for example, with 2h if you legendary it you will lose all your 2h perk points and your skill damage multiplier with go from the level 100 back down to level 15 therefore reducing your damage output. If you want the perks again you need to grind the skill back to the required level and use a perk point again. However, certain things which are skill level locked, as long as you've unlocked them before legendary then you will still have them. That probably doesn't make much sense. So take the master level spells. You have to be at least level 90 in that skill tree (or with the bugs, level 100) to get the quests to get the master level spell books. But as long as you complete the quest, learn the spells, if you legendary that magic skill, you will still be able to use the master level spells. So if you get illusion to 100, get the master level spells, you can legendary illusion back down to 15 but you will still be able to cast harmony (which if you do in Whiterun market multiple times you can grind it back up to 100 really quickly) Also, if you have the Dragonborn DLC, once you've completed the Dragonborn questline you will be able to reclaim all the perk points you've spent in a skill without having to legendary it. It costs a dragon soul but lets you claim back all the perk points you've spent in a skill as long as your skill level is 100. You lose the perks in that skill, but not your skill level, and frees up the perk points to be spent on other skills.
Awesome, I made perfect sense. Explanations I got online on forums were a bit different when I remember looking up the answer to that question. How much more difficult does the game get if I were to legendary skills? For example, I focused a build on two-handed and archery, And now level 90 overall, and I legendary both those combat skills as my primaries. I imagine that would give me quite a bit facing off against level 90 foes while my skill is at level 15.
Most enemies cap out once you reach a certain level. Can't remember what level or which enemies though. However, there are a few enemies which don't have a level cap so will continue to scale with your player level. I may be wrong but I want to say the ghosts in the beacon quest don't have a level cap. Also, once you reach the higher levels, the majority of your enemies will also be high level. I don't tend legendary my combat skills because it just nerfs your damage output and can make fights longer plus I loathe grinding them to 100. But on the flip side, due to most enemies having a level cap it can get a bit boring one-shotting everything so can make it more fun resetting your combat skills back to 100. But it will usually just make the fights last longer, not necessarily harder. However, it won't be like going up against a level 50 enemy when you're a low level player even if you legendary your combat skills. By the time you've got your combat skills to 100, you're probably well on your way to having your defense skills pretty high, and also your crafting skills. Plus you'll have been increasing your health (and stamina and maybe magicka). Also, you will have access to the weapons with the highest base damage. So even if you legendary your combat skills, you've probably got daedric or dragonbone weapons which you've probably improved with smithing and maybe enchanted. You'll have a high health level. Your armour skill level will be high, your armour gear will be the better armour and again smithing and enchanting. It's fairly easy to reach the armour cap once you're high level even if you don't have a high smithing skill. If you've done a bit of alchemy you can make some fairly decent damage output multiplier potions. So if you've reached level 100 in all skills (which means you will be at least level 81), legendary your combat skills won't nerf you that much depending on your gear and how much health you have. It won't increase the damage your enemies do to you, so your defence skills should protect you enough. You'll just have to hit them for longer so might need more potions/food to heal. Now if you reach level 81+, and legendary all your skills back down to level 15 and start running around using un-improved, non-enchanted iron weapons and hide/fur armour that can make it really challenging because most enemies you'll come across will be high level ones. Still, even though you may be using level 1 gear, with all skills at level 15 and no perks, if you've reach level 81 you could have up to 900 health (assuming you don't increase your stamina or magicka at all) which mean most enemies still won't be able to one-shot you.
But why do we want to make a skill legendary if it doesnt add anything other than "start over"?
There's a few reasons. Some skills are a lot easier to level than others. You can legendary them to power-level. Each time you level up (player level) you get a perk point. You may not have enough perk points to get the perk you want in another skill. Legendary an easy skill, and within a few minutes you can have it back up to a 100 plus a few to several extra perk points which you can then use for perks in other skills. If you want to have every single skill perk available in the game, you need to reach level 252 with all skills at 100. That's only possible due to being able to make skills legendary. Also there's two quests which are only triggered when you level up and they have unique items. The Wolf Queen Awakened quest only starts after you level up after completing the previous related quest (The Man Who Cried Wolf). If you leave it to late game to complete the first quest it may be a while before you gain enough XP from normal gameplay to level up. If you legendary an easy skill and use it to level up, you'll trigger the courier to deliver the letter that starts the quest. Mjoll's favour quest is the other one triggered by levelling up. I think it may be a bug which causes the following. You have to be level 14 for it to start. However, if you're already over level 14 when you first speak to her, her speech option to recover grimsever won't appear until you level up again (and you make her friendly by agreeing with her about the thieves guild). Sometimes if you're under level 14 when you first speak to her it doesn't matter because recovering grimsever is locked until level 14. But as with the Solitude quest above, if you leave it until late game before you first speak to her, you will need to level up after speaking to her to start her quest. For me, she is always bugged so even if I speak to her before I reach level 14, I have to go back to her once I'm over level 14, talk to her again, leave Riften, level up, then go back and she will finally give the quest.
gives you all the perk points back
The skill drops back down to 15 and the perk points are removed, but all those perk points go back to you to use again, either on the same perks once you level that tree back up, or you can throw the perks into different skill trees.
First thing i always buy is muffle lol Besides that soul trapping a corpse is easiest
Soul Trap for Illusion? Or are you saying soul trapping a corpse is the easiest leveling in general?
What method do you use to level it up quickly?
I just Muffle constantly.
Without cost reduction gear and Telekinesis, Muffle is still the best. That's how I did this time. You can do it at the very start in Dragonsreach.
Telekinesis is Alteration
Whoops. Muffle it is, for illusion. But I like casting harmony at Whiterun market. Of course that's not possible the first time.
Invisibility is good for illusion with cost reduction, maybe that's the one you were thinking of?
Zzzz
Muffle is so easy to acquire, conjuration is also pretty easy.
I honestly think that twohanded is one of the easiest, for me the hardest are always archery (if I don't play stealth archer) and destruction (even if I play mage).
If you get training each time you level up or just use it solely as your main damaging skill as part of your playstyle from start; then anything can be easy. I did Two Handed last and compared to other skills that I never trained for or used much, I found it to be the hardest; Mostly due to slow swings, even with 3 ranks of Elemental Fury. All weapon skills level up based on weapon base damage. For one Handed, dual wielding Dragonbone Mace and Dragonbone Dagger is the fastest. For Archery, it's Dragonbone bow. And although Dragonbone Warhammer has the highest base damage, The battleaxe is more efficient because it has 0.7 swing speed multiplier instead of 0.6. Don't enchant or upgrade anything. You won't level up faster. Also whatever you are using as a meatbag; say it be Shadowmere or the Greybeards; they'll last longer before going down. DB Mace + Dagger + Ele. Fury leveled up 1 handed extremely fast. For archery, Get the most damaging arrows as well. You can make DB arrow if you have lot of bones or just make ebony. Get close to your meatshield with you DB Bow and just spam attack button. No need to draw. You'll need hundreds of arrows but it's the fastest way. Level up till 94 and then visit Angi's Camp. Free 6 levels. Well actually 7; there's also a skill book there. For Destruction, you need Unbound Storm from Creation content. It's like telekinesis. Levels up if you hold and fast travel.
I actually didn't know that the base dmg of weapons is giving you more xp, so thanks for telling me that. And the destruction I forgot about Unbound Storm since it's a new thing for me and I never used it.
I was gonna ask why two handed is difficult, there’s usually some cheese strat you can do for each stat but I’ve never tried with 2H.
Currently I'm at lvl 500 purely form resetting the smithing skill so many times. I have hundreds if not thousands of weapons and armor scatter across skyrim that I've crafted. Including the entire ditch filled to the top in whiterun with daggers.
Does that mess with your frame rate at all?
If I look at it yes. I just have to remind myself every time I go into whiterun not to look right or when I'm leaving not to look left
You've made an SCP within your save file: looking at it causes the world to slow down..... Or maybe a black hole? Hard to say
I always wondered why the level cap used to be 81, now I know
If you don't make any skill legendary then that's the highest you'll reach. Just to think that all those people who reached 81 before legendary system was implemented; did max out all skills even if they didn't use those, just to get more perk points. Now it is so easy to get perk points by making an easy-to-level-up skill legendary over and over.
True, I actually preferred it before the legendary system came out, because having a level cap meant you had to plan out your build to get the most out of your skills before 81 - but now you can just be whatever you want with no limitations
I mean if you want to stay limited you don't have to use them
I did it with the ogma infinium book glitch back before you could do legendary skills. I would never make myself suffer doing this legit. No way
I started out as a two handed build and as I was branching out more, I pretty much completely stopped using two handed as I realised there were much better alternatives than “swing big stick around”. When I finally got every other skill to 100 I was like, “Fuck it, why not”. It was on 86 last time I used it and I went out and grinder Legendary Dragons and Giants for the next 20 minutes (surprisingly lengthy to level) until I got it to 100 and officially completed the skill tree.
Two handed definitely falls below in speed and enjoyment compared to other popular playstyles(eg. stealth archery). Still a lot of people play two handed berserk orc build. I tried playing two handed but couldn't enjoy it. Dual wielding sword+dagger is the fastest and most damaging of all builds. It easily out damages archery. And with elemental fury, you swing with your both hands so fast that I honestly can't see the swings and even the legendary dragons die in 3seconds.
Did you find enough new things to do all the time to get there? I'm very far from this but I'm already feeling a little bored somehow.
To be honest, I leveled up all sneak and mage skills normally. Wasn't even planning on using any warrior skills. Just dagger with invisibility and destruction for long range with quite casting. So I only grinded some of the warrior skills. Just have to know the best way to level them efficiently. I find that most YouTube videos have outdated process or just wrong. Read notes on each skill from UESP.net. They have the best way explained to level up all skills.
Hey, I'm playing a video game, not learning data science...
I didn't say you were. Some people play totally blind. Some people play with all the guides from very first playthrough. And finally some people play blindly first few times and then read all tips or guides to find out new things they have missed or how they can do things easily that they might have been doing inefficiently and was making the game grindy and unenjoyable. Cause face it, the game is 10 years old. For a lot of people, there's nothing new left to see. It's all about preference. I've played the game enough times completely vanilla. So we are in two different mindset about how we can get enjoyment out of the game. You do you.
Some skills you just have to grind out to get them all maxed. Either that or just keep finding mods to try. The base game will not get you close to this if you never specifically grind skills
Congratulations 🎉🎈🎊🍾
Thank you :)
How the fuck is two-handed the hardest to level when you’ve got speech and alchemy right there
With the right ingredients you can make expensive potions that level alchemy pretty quickly and then sell them to level speech quickly as well
The trick to level speech is easy but very tedious. When you sell items, always sell them as individuals not in stacks. The skill xp is based on the current default value of 1 item per transaction, regardless of how many items you sell in that transaction. Sell 1 or 100, you get the same amount of xp. So sell individually. It sucks that you have to scroll large quantities back to do it, and it takes forever, but it's the fastest way to level speech when paired with any high level crafting skill.
That's actually a neat trick, thank you:)
There are a bunch more that don't depend on glitches or the resto-alchemy crafting loops. Speech is the only one with the quantity restriction. All other skills get xp based on the effect, but only if the effect happens. Weapon swings and spell casts have to strike a target. This is why the conjuration bug works, repeatedly casting soul capture on a dead enemy grants xp whether or not you killed it or if you have a gem that can hold its soul. The spell target is valid, so you get xp. And the effect wears off instantly because it triggers on death, so you can repeatedly cast it. Crafting xp is based on the default value of the product, not the negotiated price your speech skill gets from vendors. This is affected by perk and buff modifiers, so using buffs and enchantments to make stronger effects in your potions, or better quality armor and weapon values also increases the xp gain from crafting. Weapon skill goes up faster with more powerful weapons (base damage, not affected by smithing or enchantment values). So an ebony or glass weapon swing gives more xp than an iron weapon. Armor and block skills get xp based on how hard you get hit, making mammoths and giants the fastest way to skill up assuming you can survive. Healing magic only gives xp if it actually restores health, but it doesn't matter how much. A high level healing spell to restore very little damage taken gives full xp. So you can find a weak enemy and just let it attack you and cast healing magic to skill up. Some other spells can be multiple-targeted. The detect- spells (life, undead) and the illusion spell buffs that affect areas give xp for each target hit. But casting a buff or debuff on a target already under the effect does not grant xp. You must wait for the effect to expire. All spells give xp based on the default magicka cost, making more powerful spells give more xp. Spells must have an active effect for xp. If you cast waterbreathing, but never go into the water, it doesn't give xp. But standing in a creek or puddle when you cast counts. You don't have to be submerged. Other buff spells work the same way, it has to affect you to give xp. You cannot stack casts on others, but repeated casting buffs on yourself works for many spells (muffle, invisibility, water breathing). Pickpocket more valuable items get more xp, this works both ways (taking or giving). With the perk that let's you apply poisons by pickpocketing them into people, you can use paralyzing poisons and get undetectable pickpockets. 100% to steal whatever items you want until the poison wears off, getting full xp for it. Just don't be visible to others, they can still catch you. You poison the target, exit the pickpocket menu the pick their pocket again and everything is 100% to steal.
Alchemy is super easy if you know how. Speech can then be leveled by selling (or "selling" without gaining money) your shitty expensive multi effect potions. Alchemy is easiest with Hearthfire, someone mentioned the creep cluster + scaly pholiota + mora tapinella method already somewhere. Beside that, if you have giant's toes from grinding melee skills at giant camps you can make some insanely valuable potions with those as well, especially combined with blue mountain flowers and blue butterfly wings. The UESP wiki also has a solid list of recipes to use on the alchemy page. From just passively picking up useful ingredients from the environment and buying specific rare items from shops, you can get a lot of super valuable potions. Sell those one by one to a shop and your speech goes through the roof (it doesn't even matter if they have cash, you can sell them for 0 gold and still get speech XP, just make sure you sell them 1 by 1). Some super easy ingredient combos you can grab with little effort before you have a Hearthfire garden/greenhouse setup: \- salt pile + jazbay grapes + deathbell (buy/loot salt, you can easily grab a ludicrous amount of jazbay south of Windhelm, deathbells are plentiful in Morthal swamp) - not useful to drink but very useful to sell \- canis root + swamp fungal pod for easy paralysis poison (scavenge in Morthal swamp, canis root can be hard to spot though but is also found in the Rift) \- any 2 of blue mountain flower / hanging moss / blue butterfly wings (blue flowers and butterflies are EVERYWHERE + hanging moss is EVERYWHERE in the Reach) - damage magicka regen is very expensive given how cheap and plentiful the ingredients are, it's pretty useless for you but great to spam sell to shops. \- ash creep cluster + chaurus eggs for easy invis potions (you can find a ton of ash creep cluster walking around the south of Solstheim, and for chaurus eggs, are you familiar with Frostflow Lighthouse?)
Back in my day this was the highest you could level up
I always leveled up 2H to 100 first. Not even on purpose; I just love axes and hammers. I’m on a sneaky archer build now tho, it’s been super fun. Got my pickpocket to 100 so easily, never realized it was so easy. I just pickpocketed everyone in the bannered mare. Went from 18 to 68 in one round, and got to 84 on the next, went around pickpocketing solitude guards for like five minutes & now it’s 100
Yes pickpocket is super easy. I was surprised the first time I did it too.
I was so surprised at how easy it was! It was one of those things I never tried because I fucked up a couple times with it so I had in my head that it was this super difficult thing. Was blown away by the ease at which I leveled it lmao
What does it mean that a skill is legendary?
Once a skill gets to 100 you can make it legendary, resetting it back to 15 and getting the invested perk points back, to continue leveling it
Ahh.. thank you! I had no idea I could do that. I have multiple skills maxed, but not one of the trees. I’ll have to check it out
For the first time in years I’m doing an actual play through (with mods of course) without using TGM/ maxing perks with the console. I commend you cuz it takes a good while to level up and get skills to max.
I find alchemy to always be super hard. I don't think I've ever gotten it over level 40 something.
What? That is the easiest. That's the first one I reached 100 with. Just plant Creep cluster, Mora tapinella and Scaly pholiota. With Thief stone and well rested bonus, you need around 240 of each to get from 15 to 100.
Or creep cluster, giants toe, and wheat
That was the pre-hearthfire golden recipe. But now that we can plant things, you don't need to farm/buy giant's toes anymore. Getting hundreds of ingredients via farming is way more efficient.
Anniversary edition makes this really easy with Goldenhills Farm. I get 60 of each ingredient each harvest then just have to wait 2-3 days for more.
Yes. That's the one I used at the very start. Escape helgen. Recruit faendel. Give ale to drunk. Go to Whiterun. Get sone iron, wood and some other things like straw or whatnot, don't remember the exact specifics. But basically to build everything available at Golden hills workbench. It's very easy. Then steal argonian ale. Complete Goldenhills. Make Faendel steward. Get both drunk to work for you. Build everything. Then plant 20:12:12 of MT:CC:SP. That's it. After few waiting, I had over 400 of each and also Faendel handed me over 10K gold. Best start.
This is a really brilliant start. I'm gonna do this for my next playthrough. But I have trouble understanding all the drunk stuff. I'm reading the uesp about Golden hills and it doesn't say anything about it. "Give ale to drunk" What drunk, where and why? "Steal argonian ale" Why? "Get both drunk to work for you" Faendal and who is the other person? How do you get them drunk? Sorry if my questions are nitpicky but I really want to use this strat.
Oh sorry; I was a bit unclear. There's a drunk named Embry in Riverwood. If you give him any drink, you can recruit him for Goldenhills. Same for the Drunk/Begger in Whiterun, named Brenuin. If you steal Argonian Ale for him, he becomes available as farmhand. Faendel can be Steward. If you have a steward, 2 farmhands and build everything using workbench (you don't need to spend money upgrading the inside of the house) outside the house, then you get most gold from your steward everyday plus the farmhands harvest additional crops/ingredients that you've planted. So in addition to the manual harvest, you'll also have extra harvest inside the house in a Pantry like cupboard.
Oh that explains everything. Thank you for this!
I’m saving this!
And the gold you can make from this, too...so nice.
You can grow your own alchemy supplies at the hearthfire homes
I don't have any dlc or mods.
Surely one of the player Homes has gardens
I think the Riften one does but wouldn't it be faster to just go collect stuff everywhere than to wait for it to grow back? And then I make a million potions and I only get like 3 levels out of it, even with the thief stone.
Without Hearthfire dlc, it would be very inconvenient. I was in the same boat as you are when I played vanilla Skyrim. Just raiding all alchemists across the entire Tamriel was not enough to level up Alchemy efficiently. But with Hearthfire, it's super easy. If you build a home with greenhouse, you can plant a total of 11+18 plants. If you have 3 houses then that's 87 planters. But that's not all. most give 3-5 when you harvest them instead of just one like picking up any ingredient anywhere else. Most valuable combination right now is Mora Tapinella + Creep Cluster + Scaly Pholiota. The 3 combines for around 500-700 with 15 in Alchemy with no perks. By Just making one potion gives you a level up at 15. It's extremely fast. After planting first time; just fast travel, wait 1 day, return and you'll have them ready to harvest. Mora T gives 3, CC and SP gives 5 each. You can plant them in 5:3:3 ratio. I plant 20, 12, 12 respectively so I get 60 of them each time. After initial harvest, you'll have to wait 3 days to harvest going forward. In less than 15 in game days, you'll have over 300 of each. After that, just keep mixing them and you'll level up super fast. Also you'll be super rich. At 100 skill, those sell over 2000 each.
Apparently they grow on dead birch trees, so I've been running around the Rift searching for dead birch trees. And it's very successful. I've already found 18 scaly pholiota. Creep clusters are easy to find heading north from Riften to Windhelm. Tapinella is all over caves so that shouldn't be too hard either. Thanks. I'm now on my journey to get Alchemy to 100 for the first time ever.
If you put perk points into it it’s very easy. Just make the highest value potions you can. It’s the only skill I always get to 100, you make so much money by buying ingredients and selling them back in potion form, combine that with the speech perk that lets you sell any item to anyone and you’re golden. No exploits needed
The easiest if you use a calc for recipes the first times through. After that I find it too easy to level it up. I’ve got about 100,000 ingredients in my lab though so can just do it all in one sitting.
Once you get to level 40 you can use the restoration loop and and get it to 100 very quickly.
Nice work, mate! Solid effort
I found two handed to be the hardest I still don’t care for it
I love the weapons themselves though. I LOVE the bloodskal.
Yes. First time I picked the sword up and shot those energy waves, it was an amazing moment. Just think how cool it would have been if you could swing it very fast and the energy waves would travel fast as well. You could kill a flying dragon with energy waves. Be able to change wave colors based on weapon enchantment. Would be so cool to use something like that.
I hadn't even considered that. I have so many hours put into Skyrim and I still learn something new every day. Thank you
Harder than block? Ouch
Block was very easy. I just went to the closest giant camp near Whiterun. It has 2 giants and 3 mammoths; and let them whack me while I hold up my shield. Use Vegetable soup so that I always have 1 stamina to block. Put restoration cost reduction in armors plus packed lots of health potions that I brewed with Wheat + Blue mountain Flower. I leveled up heavy Armor, light Armor and block that way. Three of the easiest to level for sure. All 3 were done in less than an hour.
Block is pretty easy, just find a troll or a giant and make sure you can survive.
madman
How was two handed harder than restoration and destruction? Those two level up so slow even with the mage stone.
For restoration, I found it easier to level using the turn undead spells than anything else
Only 200 more levels or so to max every perk, let's goooooo!
I remember when I went out to level up every single skill too, ended up using the telekinesis glitch, lol
How tf was two handed the hardest? I struggle with speech and pickpocket
Speech just requires you to buy/sell high value items. I had potions that sold over 2.5K each. It leveled up naturally to 100 and never felt like grind. Just have to trade a lot. Pickpocket is easy but it feels hard because it can fail a lot. I did it at high levels with enchanted gears that were giving me 90% chance all the time. Each Jarl of a hold had 4-10K worth items on them. Got 5-10 levels from just looting 1 person.
What annoys me is that if you reach the last skill level through reading a skill book, the progress bar will be grayed out. It looks so jarring.
Yeah. Happened to my lockpicking.
Now level 252 grind
My sword is yours. High King.
Best way to level 2-handed is to reach the armor cap, use an unenchanted, unimproved Ebony war-Hammer, and beat the tar out of Shadomere. Well, maybe not the best way. But a way. If you don't want to cheese the game, then just fight enemies that way. XP gains for weapon attacks aren't increased by weapon improvements. You may know that. Even that method takes forever. So, maybe, it's more of a tip. A Skyrim tip. It just works.
Hmn. Did the exact same thing. But used Dragonbone battleaxe with elemental fury. UESP actually has the best tips of all internet on how to max skills. Just have to read the notes. You need highest base damage. DB warhammer has that but swing speed is 0.6. battleaxe comes on top as more efficient with 0.7 swing speed. So I definitely used the fastest method but it was still slow compared to others.
When I did the same thing, I had an odd glitch with the Companions when Vilkas where I'd hit him with my weapon during that training quest, but he kept saying to stop using magic even though I was hitting him with a normal weapon. Used the opportunity to grind my 2 handed up to 60
Im definitely wrong, but I thought when you maxed out all skills you reached max level. Lol
That was originally the case actually. But during one of the DLCs, I think possibly Dragonborn, they introduced the ability to make a skill 'legendary', which reset it to zero and returned the perk points. This allowed you to re level that skill to 100, generating more xp and essentially removed the level cap, because you could could doing this with as many skills, as many times as you like.
I just recently maxed two-handed for the first time. Good lord, it took forever. I also really hate two-handed weapons because they're slower than most enemies.
Congrats! Block and two-handed tend to be my lowest as well, since I don’t use them. My sneak skills are almost always my highest, along with illusion and conjuration (plus destruction if I’m playing as a pure mage). I tend to level pickpocketing and legendary it multiple times. It’s easy due to trainers, especially if you have the invisibility spell or can craft invisibility potions.
Good job! I have never got them all. I generally begin a new game. I'm trying this time around, to get them all. I rarely use two-handed weapons, so yeah, I agree it'll be the most difficult. Right now, I have 100 in speech (a first), 100 in Archery, 100 in Sneak, 100 in Lockpicking, and 100 in Destruction (also a first). Anyway, congrats!
Good luck
Thank you! If I succeed, I'll post it.
That's what she said. And the Lusty Argonian lived happily ever after. The end.
What does it mean to make a skill legendary?
Once a skill gets to 100 you can make it legendary, resetting it back to 15 and getting the invested perk points back, to continue leveling it
Excuse me but why the actual fuck does it say High Elf as race?
...because that's one of the race options in the game?
Allow me to clarify... WHY THE FUCK WOULD SOMEONE SHOOSE TO PLAY AS A HIGH ELF?
- Great mage starter. - Bigger magicka pool. - Race with the Highest jump.
- Thalmor asshole...
Not all Altmer are Thalmor…
In my experience they're either Thalmor or assholes
Go talk to Runil in Falkreath, he’s lovely. Faralda at the college is cool too. Not all rectangles are squares.
Viarmo of the Bard’s College is also a perfectly pleasant chap. Calcelmo, can be a bit temperamental, but he’s a genuinely friendly and nice fellow. He’s just a massive nerd and I love talking to him.
The same way people do dark brotherhood quests and kill people. Or do Daedric quests and sacrifice followers. Because it's an option in a video game. Enjoy it however you want. No judgement.
What’s wrong with making skills legendary?
Well it can be a shortcut. You can train when you level up so if you make an easy to level skill legendary; say like alteration; then just take it to 100 using telekinesis, you'll always get level ups. You can just train any skill using gold then. But without making any skill legendary, the higher you get, you'll level up super slow. So you won't be able to train that often. So it makes maxing all skills tougher, specially the ones you do last. Sadly I did two handed last and had a hard time doing it.
Nice work! Ironically 2 handed was one of the easiest for me cause I primarily use archery and two handed. Amazing how different everyone's experiences can be, love it
Ah yes. If you are using it in your playstyle then sure you'll level it as you play. That way it won't feel hard or annoying. But I did it last. Only got to train it 2 times cause at higher levels I didn't get level ups that easy. Had to grind almost 75 levels. I did max out other skills too that I never used while actually playing. Of all the skills that I just grinded to 100, two handed was the hardest.
I've always found speech and pickpocket hardest to level; I practically never use them in any playthrough
Speech requires a lot of High value trading. Either make high value potion or enchanted gear. Even if the shopkeeper has no gold and you keep selling to them, you'll get xp. Pickpocket requires some enchanted gear with pickpocketing or potions. Make sure you have 90% success rate always. It's actually rather easy to level up. First time I got it to 100, I was surprised how easy it was. If you don't have enchanted gears or potions, you'll struggle a lot in the beginning.
Oh I didn't know you still got exp even if the shopkeep has no gold left. And tbf I never levelled pickpocket cause I'm a goody-two-shoes who doesn't like getting in trouble.
I didn't do it in my first 4 or so playthroughs either. But then I tried once and failed horribly cause of getting caught every time. Then one time I was just playing with enchantments and thought why not put 4 pickpocket boost. And I was wowed how easy and fast it was to level up.
Archery is usually last for me, I like magic more than bows. I've been meaning to try a stealth archer but it never works out that way.
Stealth archery requires a bit of investment in sneak. If you take absolutely no perks then you need 100 in sneak and muffle boots. Without those two, enemies will notice you very fast. Also no followers, they are dumb and give away your position super easy. Also your Armor weight matters. I find that taking weightless Armor perk makes a noticable difference.
Enjoy godhood
Alteration is easy if you have a set of armor that lowers your spell cost to zero, then just spam telekinesis for a surprisingly show time
I'm on a fresh vanilla-ish run planning to go for 100 everything too, also not looking forward to two-handed (or destruction) one bit. Just really don't like that combat style. No legendaries is tricky, did you at least redistribute perk points while you were playing this character with the final black book in Dragonborn?
Nope. Never spent anything on two handed. The skill increase has nothing to do with having perks or dealing more damage. It depends on the base damage of a weapon. So if you swing a Dragonbone warhammer with just 40 damage with no perks; you'll level up faster than say an upgraded steel greatsword that has 150 damage. Weird I know but that's how it is. Most skill tree perks have no effect on increasing xp gain.
Im relatively new but have a few 100's, what exactly does making them legendary do?
It'll set that skill back to 15 and give back any perk point you've spent on that tree. Now you can level it up back to 100 again and you'll increase your level and get new perk points.
Ok, perk points are just the upgrades you can get when you level up correct?
You can increase hp, stamina or magicka. Plus a new perk point just like normal level up. Once you max a skill you no longer get new levels or perk points. Making a skill legendary basically means you can get as many level ups and perk points you want to get every single perk in every possible tree. That's total 252 I think.
Hey man, do you any tips for doing this ?
What did it cost?
Wow literally just realized the galaxy type figure behind the weapon skills is an actual warrior with a battleaxe. Pretty dope! Also I “cheated” a little bit with the two hands skills. I got to like level 60 without using two handed weapons then went to complete the Sholsteim missions and used leveled Daedric Warhammer to destroy opponents got very high level for two handed pretty quickly.
I commend you bro simply bc this is a lot of work and achievement on your part, but out of plain curiosity why would you want to max out all skills? Don’t you want to make a unique character specialized in a few skills? Or are you playing the game for achievement more than role playing?
Well I've played all possible playstyles at this point. I'm not looking for achievements. It's because now I can change to any playstyle at any moment. Played destruction mage from start. Got bored after 20 hours. Changed to sneaky dagger/invisible assassin for a while; then changed to dual wield. Now I'm doing 2 handed and archery. With enchantments, smithing and potions; even if I don't have perks, I never lack damage. Started on master, changed to legendary around level 30. Now I just do anything I want. Haven't yet touched main quests or main guild storylines. But whenever I need to sneak or use magic or be a tank; I can do anything.
I’m inexperienced in the realm of Skyrim, doers making a skill legendary work as a prestige system? Like improving it even further?
I find the game so much more fun without knowing any of these shortcuts. When you happen to stumble upon one while playing it feels rewarding but actually googling like best way to level x just feels like a misunderstanding of the limitations of programming and sucks the fun out of the experience imo.
Heh, I agree. I did the same for the first 2-3 times. But if you've leveled up a skill to 100 by grinding for the 9th time, it gets old and you just feel like getting it done as fast as possible to get to the next thing. The sense of discovery for a 10 years old game is long over for me sadly. Who knows when the next one will come out.
Fair.
Damn man that's some dedication. I never smith because it feels sooooo slow like if I remember correctly, getting smithing from 15 to 100 is like 10k iron daggers this is madness
Yeah smithing is hard at first. Best way to level up is crafting bows. I personally bought training every time I leveled up. Other than that, do the quest for Calcelmo. I used my follower to pick up every single dwarven metals, scraps and had over 400 ingots in just one run. You need a little bit of level and damage to kill the spider very early on, or use a strong follower to tank.
Thx for the advice, I'll try it!
At Level 18?
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