Does leveling skills in Skyrim increase strength or do I need to buy the perks?

Question

I am level 51 in one-handed combat. However, I still cannot kill Trolls, Giants and some "Bandit" leaders easily.

Do I need to buy perks to increase my strength? Or leveling only will guarantee my success?

Answer 1

There is no strength in Skyrim. Increasing your skill with a weapon type will make your attacks with weapons of that type stronger, while buying some perks will make your attacks stronger or give you some new abilities (bleeding wounds with axes, bypassing armor with maces, beheading, etc).

Answer 2

When I did armor rating research, I found that raising an armor skill to 100 gave about a +35% modifier, while the armor perks gave a +200% modifier (aka multiplied by 3). Skill levels serve mainly as a way to get character levels and perk points, and secondarily to gate perk spending. Perks are the main way to improve your character's capabilities. If you don't spend your perks, you will be very weak.

Answer 3

As your skill level increases, the effectiveness of that particular skill increases slightly. ex. You will hit harder with one handed weapons at level 100 than at level 10. The perks in the one-handed tree also provide bonuses, so if you choose to spend points in that tree, you will perform better with one-handed weapons.

Answer 4

Why wouldn't you buy the perks? It's not like you can spend the perk points elsewhere.

Also, it's worth mentioning that the hostiles of the world (and possibly the friendlies, I'm unsure of this part) level up WITH YOU, so just because you've gained some levels doesn't automatically mean your gonna roflstomp the next troll you find.

Answer 5

You will raise the damage of your one-handed weapons by raising your level in this skill (up to 100) and by getting Armsman perk (up to 5 levels).

Answer 6

If you define killing monsters easily as 1 hit-KO then it is quiet impossible to achieve, especially with end-level monsters (mammoth, giants, Alduin(?), Deathlord Draugr etc). But in my case I can kill practically anything easily with only 3-4 hits by using one-handed war axe and a shield. My advice:

1. Try to focus on spending perk points into these perks upgrade: One-handed → Block → Heavy/Light Armor → Smithing → Enchanting.
2. Get level 100 for One-handed, Heavy/Light Armor and Smithing perks. Get at least Block Runner perk (Block level 70) and Frost Enchanter perk (Enchanting level 40).
3. Focus weapon perks on only one type of weapon. Swords can do extra critical damage with perks and swing faster. Maces have huge damage but slow. Axes are somewhere between the two.
4. Enchant and improve all you items when you can. Nothing is more important for a mele-type character than an enchanted sharp weapon and improved hard armors.
5. Use your dragon shouts. Best shout to use with mele weapons is Elemental Fury.
6. For shield my favorite will be Spellbreaker because it can block any magic attacks and also dragon breath.
7. Learn to use shield bash to disrupt enemy attacks and use power attack whenever you can. Be careful about your stamina though.
8. Ditch Magicka upgrade and focus on Stamina and Health upgrades. My Stamina:Health ratio is about 6:5. For me more stamina = more power attacks.

And last, to answer your question, don't accumulate your perk points. Use it when you can. Remember that enemies will get sturdier and stronger as you level up so without perks, you're basically the same as any enemy inside the game.