Mastering Skyrim: Which Perks Should You Maximize First?

The best perk to increase in Skyrim depends entirely on your playstyle and character build. However, for most players, prioritizing perks in Smithing, Enchanting, and Alchemy early on offers the most significant advantages. These crafting skills provide powerful gear, potent potions, and lucrative income, allowing you to dominate the game regardless of your chosen combat style.

Why Crafting Perks are King Early Game

Investing in crafting early unlocks a cascade of benefits:

• Superior Gear: Smithing allows you to craft and improve weapons and armor far exceeding what you can find or purchase at low levels. This drastically increases your damage output and survivability.
• Powerful Enchantments: Enchanting allows you to imbue your gear with powerful effects like increased weapon damage, magic resistance, or skill boosts.
• Lucrative Income: Alchemy lets you create valuable potions to sell, providing a steady stream of income to purchase training, spells, or other essential items. Early game money problems? Solved.
• Character Optimization: Tailoring your gear to your build gives you an upper hand in even the hardest situations.
• Faster Leveling: The process of gathering materials and crafting items itself contributes to character leveling, accelerating your overall progression.

While other skills such as combat skills are important, their direct impact on character power is often outpaced by the advantages gained from crafting, especially in the early to mid-game. You can then transition to combat skill perks to further refine your character’s abilities once your gear is optimized.

Diving Deep into Perk Priorities

Once you’ve set your eyes on smithing, alchemy, and enchanting, which sub-perks should you prioritize?

Smithing

• Steel Smithing: This is your gateway to improving most early-game equipment.
• Arcane Blacksmith: Crucial for improving enchanted weapons and armor, allowing you to maximize their power. This perk pairs incredibly well with Enchanting.
• The Crafting Path: As you level further, follow the path relevant to the armor type you prefer (e.g., Elven, Glass, Dragonscale for light armor; Dwarven, Orcish, Ebony, Daedric for heavy armor).

Enchanting

• Enchanter (5/5): Increases the strength of your enchantments. This is a fundamental perk for maximizing the impact of your enchantments.
• Insightful Enchanter: Provides a 25% bonus to skill enchantments.
• Corpus Enchanter: Allows you to apply health, magicka, and stamina enchantments with 25% bonus.
• Extra Effect: Arguably the most powerful enchanting perk, this allows you to place two enchantments on a single item.

Alchemy

• Alchemist (5/5): Increases the strength of potions you create. A core perk that significantly boosts the effectiveness of your concoctions.
• Physician: Potions you mix restore more health, magicka, or stamina. Crucial for survivability and resource management.
• Benefactor: Potions you mix with beneficial effects are stronger. Maximizes the positive effects of your potions.
• Experimenter: Eating ingredients reveals more of their effects. This perk significantly reduces the trial and error needed to discover potion recipes.

Early Combat Choices

While crafting skills reign supreme early on, don’t neglect your combat prowess. Choose one combat style to focus on initially to avoid spreading your perk points too thinly. A popular early-game choice is Archery, as it allows for ranged combat and can be paired well with Sneak. Other early-game perks can be one-handed and light armor.

Sneak

• Stealth (5/5): Increases the difficulty of being detected while sneaking. A fundamental perk for stealth-based characters.
• Muffled Movement: Reduces noise from armor by 50%. Essential for quiet movement while sneaking.
• Backstab: Sneak attacks with one-handed weapons deal six times normal damage. A powerful perk for assassination builds.
• Assassin’s Blade: Sneak attacks with daggers deal fifteen times normal damage. This is a high-risk, high-reward perk for dagger-wielding assassins.

Archery

• Overdraw (5/5): Bows deal more damage. Crucial for increasing your ranged damage output.
• Eagle Eye: Pressing Block while aiming will zoom in.
• Steady Hand (2/2): Zooming in with a bow slows time.
• Power Shot: Arrows stagger almost all targets.

The Road to Godhood

Remember, the path to mastering Skyrim is a marathon, not a sprint. Focus on a core set of skills early on to establish a strong foundation, then gradually expand your repertoire as you level up and gain more perk points. Consider the option to make skills Legendary to continue your advancement. The Games Learning Society offers resources and insights into game design principles, which can deepen your understanding and appreciation for the complex systems within games like Skyrim. Visit GamesLearningSociety.org to learn more.

FAQs: Maximizing Perks in Skyrim

1. How many perk trees should I focus on early in Skyrim?

For the early game, focus on 3-4 perk trees at most. Spreading your points too thin will result in a weak and ineffective character. Prioritize crafting skills first, then choose a combat skill that complements your preferred playstyle.

2. Can you get all perks in Skyrim without cheating?

No, it is impossible to obtain all 251 perks in Skyrim without utilizing exploits or console commands. You must be committed to making skills Legendary to continue leveling up and gaining perk points.

3. What is the fastest skill to level to Legendary in Skyrim?

Alteration is often cited as one of the fastest skills to level to Legendary. Using spells like Telekinesis or Detect Life repeatedly, especially with cost reduction gear, allows for rapid skill progression. Another good one is Illusion, using the spell “Harmony” in crowded areas.

4. Should I make my skills Legendary in Skyrim?

Yes, making skills Legendary is beneficial if you want to continue leveling your character and acquiring more perk points. This resets the skill to 15, allowing you to level it up again and earn another perk point.

5. What is the best race to choose for crafting in Skyrim?

While any race can excel at crafting, High Elves (Altmer) and Bretons have initial skill bonuses that can be helpful. High Elves have +10 to Illusion, which can aid in leveling Enchanting, while Bretons have +10 to Conjuration, which can help with Alchemy. Ultimately, race choice has less impact than strategic perk allocation and skill training.

6. What is the most underrated skill in Skyrim?

Alchemy is often considered underrated. While it may seem less directly impactful than combat skills, Alchemy provides powerful potions for healing, buffs, and even poisons, making it a valuable asset for any character build.

7. Does loot scale with my level in Skyrim?

Yes, loot in Skyrim does scale with your level. As you level up, you’ll encounter more powerful enemies and find better quality gear in chests and as loot drops.

8. What happens when you max out a skill tree in Skyrim?

When you max out a skill tree (reach level 100), you can either leave it at 100 or make it Legendary. Making a skill Legendary resets it to 15 and refunds all perk points spent in that tree, allowing you to level it up again for more character levels and perks.

9. What is the easiest skill to max in Skyrim?

Sneak is often considered the easiest skill to max. You can start leveling it early in the game by sneaking near unsuspecting NPCs.

10. What are the hardest skills to level up in Skyrim?

Some of the hardest skills to level up include Restoration, Destruction, Heavy Armor, and Smithing. These skills often require more dedicated effort and specific training methods to level efficiently.

11. What should I do first when starting Skyrim?

Upon starting Skyrim, focus on the main questline to gain access to dragon shouts and essential locations. Visit the Guardian Stones near Riverwood to choose a beneficial standing stone that boosts your skill progression. Also, start gathering ingredients for Alchemy and materials for Smithing.

12. How do I level up fast in Skyrim?

To level up quickly, prioritize skills that contribute to your character’s progression, such as crafting and combat skills. Utilize training services, complete quests, and exploit skill-leveling mechanics like spamming Muffle or crafting valuable potions.

13. What is the maximum level in Skyrim?

Skyrim technically has no level cap. Your level increases as you level up your skills, each skill maxing out at 100.

14. Should I choose light armor or heavy armor?

The choice between light armor and heavy armor depends on your playstyle. Light armor offers better mobility and stealth, while heavy armor provides more protection at the cost of mobility.

15. How do I unlock shouts in Skyrim?

To unlock a shout, you must find a Word Wall, learn the word, and then absorb a dragon soul to activate the shout. There are multiple words of power for each shout.