Skyrim: How to be a Two-Handed badass (or any other kind)

Channel:

Robert Dodd

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1,010

Published on January 9, 2017 3:48:40 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Df-EF4cLUv8

Category:

Guide

Duration: 23:20

25,563 views

222

For years after Skyrim came out, I mostly played sneaky thieves or assassins and believed that the two-handed skill was weak compared to one-handed and particularly compared to dual-wield. The truth is however that with skill two-handed can be a great focus to a character and I do two-handed characters a lot now and often lack patience for sneaky ones.

One main secret to being a powerful two-handed character is a main secret to being a powerful character in Skyrim period: focus. The most important fact to know is that your overall level is not a measure of how tough you are, it is a measure of how tough your enemies are. Spreading your experience among many skills is a recipe for a weak character. Focus your experience among 4 or so main skills and avoid leveling other skills. For instance, if you want to mainly be an archer, don't even pick up a one-handed or two-handed weapon. Only use the bow. Same with being a pure mage, don't carry a dagger around for when you run out of magicka. One-handed won't reinforce your main skill in Destruction. Level your alchemy and drink potions instead, or just run. For a two-hander, don't use a bow, don't sneak, and don't cast spells: just use your two-handed weapon. By focusing on 4 key skills and avoiding using others when at all possible, you can become more powerful in your primary form of dealing damage, especially if those 4 skills are mutually reinforcing. For my two-hander, I focus on two-handed of course, smithing, enchanting and heavy armor. Smithing obviously improves your damage output and so does enchanting.

One thing that I didn't mention in the video but which is true is, in Skyrim race does matter. Sure you can overcome your initial skill deficit and become a two-handed Altmer or a sneaky Nord, but why? If you choose a race with a bonus to skills you won't use, you're just wasting skill points. If you want to be a mage choose Altmer or Dunmer, if you want to swing a two-handed sword choose a Nord or an Orc, if you want to use one-handed choose a Redguard or an Orc, and so on. No point in shooting yourself in the foot straight out of the gate.