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I have a few level 30-ish Skyrim characters, but I have a concern about what life will be like at levels 50-80.

At level 30-ish, I have maxed out all my important fighting skills. For instance, as an assassin rogue my: one-hand, sneak, light armor, and alchemy are all topped out. In order to level to 80 I am going to have to level things I don't need: destruction, heavy armor, two-hand weapons, etc.

I am concerned that while I am spending 30-50 levels improving skills that don't help me fight, all my enemies fighting skills will still be improving.

Is this a reasonable fear? If I am level 80 will I still be fighting like a level 30 toon?

What about raiding a dungeon at level 60-80? Is it harder or easier than at level 30?

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  • Looking at how Oblivion ran at higher levels. Important question. So thanks. I'm going to remove the direct question "have YOU" as this leads to chatty answers. But thanks, I wondered about his to.
    – Ids
    Jul 26, 2012 at 21:12
  • Are you seriously worried about getting weak on high levels ? The only worry you should be having is to get over-powered. With a lot of effort, you can one-shot kill dragons on levels 10~19 and usually people get over-powered after level 25 or 30. The more you level up after that, you only get more over-powered which ruins the challenge and the fun to play and you probably start another character.
    – Ramirez
    Jul 26, 2012 at 22:44

3 Answers 3

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Although you're correct in your statement that you won't get as much of a benefit from gaining the last 30-50 levels as you would early on, when you're leveling "core" skills to your character, there are a few other things to consider.

One is that there is a maximum level for your enemies:

Enemy types also seem to reach a plateau where they stop getting stronger. The strongest bandits (non-boss) are mid-20s. The strongest generic vampire is 54, and guards seem to stop scaling at 50. This implies that the difficulty of many areas will not increase beyond certain levels, except perhaps in frequency of difficult encounters.

This means that past about the mid-50's, you can expect monster difficulty to plateau. There are a few exceptions, such as Magic Anomalies and Legendary Dragons (in Dawnguard), however.

At the same time, you're still going to be gaining health, magicka, stamina, and perk points. If you spend these level upgrades wisely, there's no reason why you can't be gaining some advantage, while most of your enemies are gaining none.

Another factor that occurs to me is that gear is important - depending on at what point you max these trees, you might get a significant boost from alchemy, enchanting, and blacksmithing. If you hadn't invested in crafting skills by the time you were in the 30's or 40's, you've still got significant gains to be gotten from making/improving your own equipment.

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  • THAT is all highly encouraging. Your first link was particularly helpful. Thank you. Jul 26, 2012 at 20:27
  • Have you, personally, gotten past level 50? Did fights start to get easier? Jul 26, 2012 at 20:28
  • @theJollySin, I think I quit in the 40s. For me, the fights got easier once I mastered the blacksmithing, enchanting, and alchemy trees. I was one-shotting everything, and it seems like I was experiencing close to the hardest monsters the base game has to offer.
    – agent86
    Jul 26, 2012 at 20:45
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    @theJollySin I have a few characters that went up above Level 70. In my experience, the game keeps getting easier after Level 30 or so, because you tend to become more powerful quicker than your enemies. I have heard of some players complaining about how difficult the game is at high level, but those complaints are rare and I think they are just bad players or have bad builds. Most complaints I have heard are about how easy the game gets at high level, but you can control that by varying up your style of play or changing your gear.
    – Anderson
    Jul 31, 2012 at 16:23
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    @theJollySin does your assassin do archery? Does he use shouts? If so, try using Marked for Death shout. It's incredibly effective against dragons and other high health enemies. Shout a few times, and evade and hide for a bit, while the shout does its magic. After a minute or so, you can kill them with one or two arrow shots.
    – Anderson
    Jul 31, 2012 at 18:28
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I have played Skyrim many times over and all my characters reached at least level 60 (one of them got 75 i think).

I always play on master difficulty. The main way i stayed alive with all characters was enchanting. You choose an attack skill (One Handed, Archery or Two Handed) then enchant four pieces (depending on what skill you use) with X% more damage. With four pieces, you gain a 160% damage increase with those weapons. I also tend to imbue the items with some form of elemental or magic resistance as well to stop getting smashed at higher levels by mages.

If you prefer to play as a mage, just enchant your gear with X% spell cost reduction. One of my characters used Alteration and Destruction. I had four pieces of gear each with 25% reduction costs for both schools of magic. I could repeatedly cast any Alteration (Dragonhide, Paralyze, Mass Paralyze etc.) and any Destruction spell for free. The Master destruction spells can be particularly nasty as they can be held down for a constant shit storm upon the enemy. Combine those with Mass Paralyze and the reckoning is at hand.

Armour can get you the maximum 85% damage reduction Stones, perks and enchantments can get you the maximum 85% magic or elemental resistance

Never underestimate the value and power of your crafting skills. Alchemy can be great as you can get almost all magically effects from potions (Restore Health, Restore Stamina Invisibility, Paralyze etc.). Smithing is excellent as you can make your weapons and armour legendary for HUGE damage and defense increases. Enchanting is (in my opinion) essential. Play around with your own crafting and enchanting recipes and see what you come up with.

Another tip is if you like to play as a Vampire get the Restoration perk "Necromage" it makes all your enchantments stronger. Instead of 160% more damage it goes upwards of 200%.

Dont stress about being a high level, you really can become the most incredible force in all of Skyrim. You just need to know how and its really quite daunting not knowing where to look for info or how to make a supreme being.

There are some very helpful sites around and places like this that can help with your confusion. Always ask questions mate, you can only gain knowledge by asking or searching!

Hope this helps on your quests my friend! Goodluck and just have fun man, dont stress about levels just get out there with some sweet gear and kick some arse!

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Try restoration looping and fortify restoration to get it to a incredibly high number. Then do fortify blacksmithing, enchanting. If you're confused check it out on google or youtube video.

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  • Didn't the loop get patched out?
    – Dragonrage
    Feb 2, 2016 at 16:58

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