At some point, there won’t be much left to do in Skyrim besides playing it over and over again. To make that more difficult, you should play the game on Legendary difficulty.
But that mode is hard, so players will have to change how they play to deal with it. Lucky for players who want to waltz through Legendary, a treasure trove of information about Skyrim’s most powerful builds is easy to find.
Skyrim players might as well choose the most fun builds in the game while they’re at it. After all, almost everyone has played Bethesda’s game, which has been out for ten years.
Even without mods, these tried-and-true Skyrim builds should make players want to go to the Cloud District often to spice things up and make some of the game’s content easy.
Even though Skyrim has been out for more than a decade, it is still very popular.
As a sign of how good the game is to play, there are a lot of different builds that give players a lot of different ways to play as the Dragonborn.
Skyrim builds are all different and fun, and even if some of them are too strong or don’t work, you can still enjoy them because of their quirks and different way of playing.
In other RPGs, overpowered builds are all about dealing godlike amounts of damage. In Skyrim, however, some overpowered builds still fit the game’s theme and are funny.
9. Daedric Princess/Princess of Dread
The Princess of Dread from the popular Skyrim build creator Fevvy is one of the newest builds in the game, but it still powers through the content like a Daedric sword through melted butter.
If you were wondering, the Daedric sword swap was done on purpose because this is a dual sword build first and foremost.
Most of the time, the build likes to use attacks with two kinds of power to kill enemies in one move.
It can sometimes lead to a jerky or abrupt death animation, which makes the build a little bit funnier.
The beginning of this build is a little boring because players have to level up their smithing and crafting skills to the maximum. This will let them make some broken weapons and armour for Daedric.
After that, you can just cruise through most of the game, using the power attack to cut off two heads at once. Most of the time, the Daedric Bow is used as a ranged backup.
8. Punch Cat
As most players will have guessed, Punch Cat is a Khajiit who doesn’t have any weapons. It uses the Khajiit’s “paws of power” and “claws of calamity,” which make their unarmed damage higher.
The build isn’t as strong as min-maxed standards like the Stealth Archer, but punching dragons to death as a karate cat is about as broken as it gets in Skyrim.
As usual, there are some items and instructions that make this build possible and, at the very least, make it workable. For it to work, players will need to wear either heavy armour gloves or the item Gloves of the Pugilist.
The problem with Punch Cat builds is that at high levels, the fists can fall off. With this in mind, players will need to use a mix of spells that destroy and spells that fool the enemy.
Destruction spells are great for making enemies weaker until they are close enough to attack. Meanwhile, illusion spells like “Mayhem” will cause a big fight where a Punch Cat can shine as a bar brawler. Other illusion spells are great for keeping people in line.
This kind of interaction involves taking advantage of a glitch, so it’s less of a build and more of a way to abuse the system. Here are some basic instructions on how to do it.
- Have an Alchemy level of at least 40 (grab Alchemist level 3, Physician, and Benefactor).
- High Enchanting and Smithing skills are also advised.
- Start the quest “Ring of Pure Mixtures” from Frida in Mortar and Pestle (Dawnstar).
- Pickpocket Frida for the Ring of Mixtures.
- Remove the Fortify Alchemy enchantment and place it on a helmet, bracer, necklace, and ring.
- Equip the crafted Fortify Alchemy armor set.
- Go to an Alchemy Lab then craft Fortify Restoration.
- Drink the potion, then unequip the Fortify Alchemy armor set while staying on the menu screen.
- Equip the Fortify Alchemy armor set again while still on the menu.
- Craft another Fortify Restoration potion again, then unequip the Fortify Alchemy armor set.
- Re-equip the Fortify Alchemy armor set without closing the inventory menu.
- Repeat steps 9 and 10 around 10 more times.
- The glitch should take effect after that.
- Craft a Fortify Smithing potion, it should show a smithing percentage increase of more than five million.
- Drink the Fortify Smithing potion.
- With the Smithing skill marked up at more than five million percent, players can now craft the best armor and weapons in the game.
- This could also work with other Fortify potions.
Voila, now the player’s alchemist is an immortal being with the best items in the game. Players should note though that as the glitch becomes increasingly popular, Skyrim‘s developers might catch wind of it and they could fix it in a future update.
Given that some Skyrim bugs and glitches have persisted for more than a decade though, this seems a little unlikely.
7. The Immortal Alchemist
The Stealth Archer is probably the most common and well-known character build in Skyrim that is too powerful. It’s mostly about using the broken Sneak skill tree and Archery to sneak up on enemies and kill them.
Most of the time, a Dragonborn who uses this build can one-shot enemies who aren’t paying attention. It does have a major flaw when it comes to dragons, but that can be easily fixed with summons or companions.
For this build, you can use almost any of the playable races in Skyrim. But a Bosmer (Wood Elf) seems like a good choice for a more themed way to play and roleplay.
The game is easy to play: just hide behind a wall and shoot at enemies. Aim your bow at their heads. If a single stealth arrow can’t kill an enemy, sneak up on them and stab them with a dagger.
Use Conjuration summons to take hits from dragons and bosses. The Slow Time shout is also a great back-up for combat if something goes wrong.
6. Stealth Archer
The most common and popular overpowered Skyrim character build is probably the Stealth Archer. It’s all about using the broken Sneak skill tree and Archery to sneak up on enemies and kill them.
Most of the time, a Dragonborn with this build can one-shot enemies who aren’t paying attention. It does have one obvious weakness against dragons, but that can be easily fixed with companions or summoned help.
Almost any of the playable races in Skyrim will work for this build. But a Bosmer (Wood Elf) seems like a good choice for a more thematic way to play and roleplay.
The way to play is easy: get low and shoot enemies while you’re not being seen. Aim a bow at their heads.
You can use a dagger to kill enemies that can’t be killed with a single stealth arrow. Use summons from Conjuration to take hits from dragons and bosses.
The Slow Time shout is also a great back-up for combat in case something goes wrong.
5. Illusion Assassin
The Illusion Assassin is like the Stealth Archer, but it focuses more on close combat and uses the Illusion tree more often. When compared to bows, stealth daggers tend to deal more damage.
The game play is also pretty easy to understand. The only thing players have to do is sneak up on enemies and stab them. It’s really that simple, and if they do it, they’ll make the Dark Brotherhood proud.
Fairly, any race will do, but the Illusion skill bonus of the High Elves gives them an edge. Also, High Elves begin with an Illusion spell ready to use.
Here, players will have to use two daggers at once and use a power attack to backstab enemies.
Since players put a lot of effort into Illusion, they can use Frenzy to make all the enemies in a dungeon or small area kill each other. This makes it easier to sneak-stab people.
4. Fortified Sword & Board
Even though sword and board builds look simple, with the right enchantments and combinations, they can be very powerful and tanky. It’s great for people who are sick of hiding.
High Elves are best here because they are the tallest race, which means they can move faster than any other race. Berserker Rage is an orc trait that can do a lot of damage.
Bretons, on the other hand, have a natural resistance to magic that can be improved with other items. This makes them almost immune to magic.
3. Dunmer Warmage
The power of a Dunmer mage is hard to beat when it comes to pure magic destruction. They have a trait that gives them a huge damage boost, which is perfect for spells that destroy things.
As we’ve already said, Dark Elves deal more damage when their health is at 50% or less. For the most damage, players should keep their health above 50% so that the Dark Elf racial skill can be used.
They can protect their health from the risks of being in such a bad state by putting enchantments on their gear.
2. Vampire Necromancer
The Vampire Necromancer is not hard to understand. At night, players go out and hunt normal people while getting their own followers to fight for them.
High Elves tend to be great at magic, and Bretons get a boost to Conjuration.
Other requirements
Players can just keep summoning and letting their temporary summons do the work for them. If they want quality summons, however, these corpses deal good damage under the effect of Dead Thrall:
- Forsworn Ravager
- Arch-Curate Vyrthur
- Master Vampire
- Bandit Marauder
1. Orc Werewolf
The Orc werewolf is all about being wild and mauling everything, even dragons, to death. It gets stronger as it attacks and is almost impossible to stop when things go right.
Orcs’ racial skill gives them a huge boost to their melee damage. When they use Berserker Rage, they take half as much damage and do twice as much damage for a minute.
When used with the werewolf transformation, the results are pretty brutal.
Other requirements
Players mustn’t forget to activate Dragon Aspect and drink some damage potions before transforming into a werewolf.
Also, they’ll need to activate Berserker Rage before mauling Whiterun guards and Nazeem.
