Skyrim Any archers using magic or alchemy?

Hey all,

I've reached level 20 and just finished the Azura's Star quest which wiped me clean of most of my potions. Now I'm out of ingredients and have to choose. Do I want to go on a walkabout and spend a couple of hours to collect ingredients to make potions or resort to restoration? I do use restoration and I think it's in the low 30's but I haven't put in perks in it, therefore I can't really fire it off in tougher battles (like Azura's Star....arrgghhh).

Does anyone else have a primary archer and use restoration spells? I suppose I can use both. If you used restoration spells and put perks in it, which ones did you choose? Needless to say, I'd have to up my magicka on leveling.

I faced the same issue in Morrowind and Oblivion (for as long as I played that one) and I ended up using restoration. I love the idea of alchemy but it just seems to make it tougher when you have to gulp a bunch in battle and get wiped out of potions

Tell me your philosophy and how you play your archer

Celeste

I've used maybe 3 potions in the entire game so far, and my restoration spells maybe a dozen times or so. What I do use are shouts.....all the time. I like the mark shout, the blasting/ice one, and the timeslow one. Shouts are how I get by, and they work really well imo.



-Carn

Hehe I always forget my shouts I only just remembered on the Azura's Star quest. Oh and I used the flame one on the dragon that decided my gaming must have been boring and decided to attack right after I finished the Azura quest. The dragons aren't necessarily hard...it's just time consuming and the bones weigh Farkas down

I recommend buying potions, I always buy every healing potion available. I don't know how companions affect battles as I never use them but my character has over 500 health and a full set of daedric armour (capped AR) and still meet the occasional foe who can drop me in 3-4 hits. I'm playing on expert and I don't see how it is possible to get by without using one or the other, unless there is some el cheapo tactic I am not aware of, possibly using companions as a meat shield?

I'm a blasty mage/swordsman and I've found that potions are better to use in battle, since healing spells need a few seconds to charge, and restoration is better to recover after battle. I suppose if you're not using magic in a fight then restoration might be slightly more attractive, since you won't have to worry about running low on magicka, but there's still the charging issue. If you're fighting anything that hits hard, you don't have much of a chance to heal up before it hits you again.

I haven't had much trouble just stocking up on potions in town, with no need to rely on alchemy. In all the TES games it just seems to require a bit too much effort for little benefit.

CelesteGB said:

Does anyone else have a primary archer and use restoration spells? I suppose I can use both. If you used restoration spells and put perks in it, which ones did you choose? Needless to say, I'd have to up my magicka on leveling.

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You could just get Novice + Regeneration (spells heal 50% more) and maybe Respite (healing also recovers stamina) perks as I did (well, I also took Recovery - +50% mana regen, but that´s not all that useful).
The above perks + the healing spell you start with is all you need, other healing spells suck (bad balancing). As others pointed out, sometimes potions are necessary (but maybe less so for a ranged char), but with my mostly close combat char I´ve used the healing spell quite routinely in combat to preserve potions for tougher encounters and not having to carry a lot of them.

Menigal said:

I haven't had much trouble just stocking up on potions in town, with no need to rely on alchemy. In all the TES games it just seems to require a bit too much effort for little benefit.

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Yeah, while leveling the other crafting skills, smithing especially, is too easy, alchemy is for some reason too hard/slow .

DeepO said:

Yeah, while leveling the other crafting skills, smithing especially, is too easy, alchemy is for some reason too hard/slow .

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It's more the fact that you've got to identify all of the ingredient effects, find all of the ingredients you want for a specific potion, and then produce something you could usually have just bought far more easily. Yeah, with the proper skill yours will be better, but it's never felt worth putting in the effort to me.

I'm currently playing an archer with perks into illusion and conjuration, both schools works really well for me, I usually start off a battle with a sneak attack or a fury spell depending on how many foes there are, if I get discovered or the fury spell fail I start conjuring targets for the enemies to attack while I move back and hit them with more arrows, I use potions of course but I never had use more then what I found around dungeons.

DeepO said:

Yeah, while leveling the other crafting skills, smithing especially, is too easy, alchemy is for some reason too hard/slow .

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A tip about alchemy, the more expensive the potion you make the more it increase your alchemy skill, effects like invisibility or damage magicka reg add a lot, while other effects like damage health add almost nothing.

Ok good input! You all mirrored the thoughts I was having...it takes a lot of work and during a tough battle, you can be wiped out of potions. I dreaded the thought of spending an hour or two going to different areas to collect all ingredients etc.

Thanks, DeepO...I have several perks saved up and will save my game and then go try it out on some dungeon.

If anyone else comes up with how they deal with alchemy or restoration, please put in some input

Firestorm said:

A tip about alchemy, the more expensive the potion you make the more it increase your alchemy skill, effects like invisibility or damage magicka reg add a lot, while other effects like damage health add almost nothing.

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Yeah, also, potions with more effects are more expensive.
Still, leveling alchemy is not straightforward and you need to level it quite a bit if restore health potions are to be of any use.

I also use potions during combat and restoration only afterwards. Like Menigl have said, potions are fast to use while spells need charging. Can make a difference when mobs are beating on you.

I hardly ever use potions, especially not as an archer. High level archery combined with a bit of sneaking and light armor meant I often started out with sneak attacks, which do a lot of damage.

I did use quite a bit of magic as an archer though, specifically Restoration and Conjuration. Conjuration for Bound Bow, summoned creatures and two of the perks that improve bound weapons (improve damage + let them cast soul trap means you can use Bound Bow to fill extreme amounts of soul gems in a short amount of time).

For Restoration, I recommend getting three perks: Novice, Apprentice and +50% to healing spells. Combine that with the spells Healing and Fast Healing, and you're good to go. Don't really need more than that.

I use healing potions when fighting tough dragons, because I sometimes have a hard time dodging their breath.

Other than that, I'm pretty much using archery/sneak exclusively - and I've had great success with that. I play without companions - because that's just how I roll.

On Expert, the game is occasionally somewhat challenging - moreso than Oblivion was on a similar setting. But, ultimately, the game is not geared for optimised characters and ranged combat. It's not disappointing to me, because I knew what to expect. I haven't really played an open world game that got ranged/stealth combat right.

Still, it would be nice with a "hardcore" mode. I'd like "no potions in combat" for instance. Also, the pathfinding needs to be improved, and the AI in general could stand a lot of tweaking.

Most importantly, I think Sneak is too powerful - and they should have made it less trivial to remain hidden once you reach 50+ in sneak. That goes for the whole stealth skill-tree - as everything from pickpocketing to lockpicking is too trivial or simplistic.

Still, it's way better than Oblivion - and sometimes it's almost on par with dedicated stealth games.

DArtagnan said:

That goes for the whole stealth skill-tree - as everything from pickpocketing to lockpicking is too trivial or simplistic.

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I'm sure they could create an annoying Newgrounds-type minigame to force you through, if you really want.

Menigal said:

I'm sure they could create an annoying Newgrounds-type minigame to force you through, if you really want.

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I don't know what that is, but I get the feeling it's not the kind of thing I'd enjoy

Yes, I agree, it's a bit too simple. In fact, you don't even have to invest perks in stealth/pickpocket/lockpicking to do it well - just grab the ranged stealth perk (3x sneak damage) and you're good to go.

Sadly, that's pretty much true. I like the perk that makes you silent regardless of what you're wearing - because it means you're free to enchant your boots with something else. Also, the double backstab perk is great for silent kills on the select few missions where it makes a difference.

But the pickpocket/lockpicking perks are pretty much worthless. Which is a shame.

I think they made some mistakes in how they tried to streamline everything into separate skills - but it's still infinitely better than Morrowind/Oblivion. But stuff like smithing/pickpocketing/lockpicking and so on should have been separated somehow. Either by making another skill category (like minor skills) or just removing them from the skill-set entirely.

DArtagnan said:

I don't know what that is, but I get the feeling it's not the kind of thing I'd enjoy

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Newgrounds is a site for people to show off their (usually awful) Flash games. It's what all of the minigames developers feel the need to force into RPGs make me think of. Thankfully lockpicking's the only one now, and it's not too terrible.

I'm an archer/destruction mage, so I don't use many health potions. I definitely need to take the time to get the recover skill from the restoration/alteration school. I need all the magicka I can get. I like messing with alchemy and there are super ingredients that are doubly effective when used in certain combinations. An archer with a slow/damage health combo is super deadly. When your opponents are running in quicksand it's amazing how quickly they become pincushions. So save up some River Betty, Deathbell, etc, and your archer won't have to drink as much red Kool-Aid I think alchemy is tailor-made for archers. So many poisions, so little time.

Let me explain the super-potion thing: I haven't read any guides, but it seems like there are a handful of ingredients/or ingredient combos that do way more than normal damage. Let's say normally a damage potion will do 15 points of damage. However if you use the super-modifier ingredient that same potion now does 27 points of damage at the same skill level. The super ingredient, is normally but not always, something pretty rare.

What I would love to see, would be a way to combine weak potions into better potions, thus extending their usefullness. For instance, mixing two restore minor health potions becomes one healing potion. Two healing potions become a plentiful healing potion, etc.

I find a combination works well, I use restoration magic when there is either a lull in the combat or afterwards, I picked up the novice feat and that's it. Potions on the other hand are great for when you need healing NOW.

Every now and again I go through and eat anything I don't have any effects for, (as this reveals the first effect) then just make every potion I can. Afterwards I sell everything apart from a few healing/magika potions, it's a great moneymaker! I never buy ingredients you find plenty just wandering about.

Daniel.