Barbarian Assassin

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Life is a learning experience. Gimpus v2.0 taught me that destruction is a poor choice for an end game skill. (It should be noted that this wasn't entirely my fault. In every RPG I've ever played, high level destruction magic has always been considered the top end, highest damage output skill in the game. Skyrim breaks from that script, for no real reason I can see. It also puts mages in a lousy place. Usuaully they are supposed to struggle through the early levels to own everything later on. Now they still struggle early, but with a much smaller payoff at the end.)

Anyway, I'm trying again, and I also want to try something I haven't done before. So I'm doing two things I haven't. The base build is the barbarian, so a two handed melee specialist that wears light armor, who will have bows as his long range damage dealers. But I'm also investing in Sneak, along with the backstab skills, so sort of like a barbarian/assassin. The build I have planned out will have him use bound battleaxes and bound gear bows until I can start crafting uber gear on my own. I'll consider using the battlehammer from the Malacath daedric quest, just for shiggles for a while. It may be a nice stop-gap between the bound battle axe and whatever I craft.

This build looks like an oxymoron, but it does seem like Skyrim allows you combine just about any skills you like. This concept might flop, or it may prove surprisingly effective.

The one thing I DO like about bound weapons is that I can spend the point to get automatic soul stealing on them. That seems very useful, and will allow me to only have to carry around one weapon to use against things that I don't want to use the bound weapon for. I probably will have no need to carry a bow until very late game. The damage combo of daedric bow + daedric arrows will out-damage any bow and arrow combo I can pull off until I can upgrade my own daedric bow. The other cool part is that because I'll be using bound weapons and thus leveling conjuration, there's no reason why I couldn't pick up a few summons along the way.

So we have major skills of:

Two Handed (significant perks), Light Armor (very few perks), and Conjuration (very few perks).

Minor skills of:

Archery (significant perks, I'll have them to spare) and all the crafting skills, with about 5-8 perks in each.

I will dabble in Sneak and Pickpocket, just like the two prior Gimpus iterations, and I'll probably level both illusion and alteration to a significant degree just through use of muffle and transmute, respectively.

 

So you call this build Gimpus not because of what it is but due to the fact that you pickpocket train it so that it gets gimped in the early going? Well, I guess that's just as good of a name as any, just noting that it gets confusing when Gimpus v1.0, v2.0 and v3.0 are so totally different characters.

 

Yeah, you have a point - I'll change the name of the thread. It might eventually turn into a guide, but I'm not comfortable doing so until I actually, you know, play the character. I haven't tried a two handed sword wielding brute yet, and so I may as well go with the barbarian build that focuses on light armor to keep the stamina going. I may even go all out and pick up Unhindered and Wind Walker. And the boost to defense before I start crafting my uber armor couldn't hurt either.

I guess the perk placement would be as follows:

Crafting skills: Alchemist 5/5 (you're already making crazy good potions at that point - I'm not even sure I need that many perks).
Enchanter 5/5, Insightful Enchanter, Corpus Enchanter, Extra Effect
All the heavy armor smithing to get daedric weapons, finishing with dragon armor which will be light. I'll use some combination of Dark Brotherhood and Thieves Guild armor before then.

So that's 20 sunk perks already.

Warrior:

Archery: Overdraw 5/5, Eagle Eye
Two Handed: Barbarian 5/5, Champion's Stance, Devastating Blow (saving placing points into the weapon-specific options until I figure out what I'm comfortable with regarding swing speed.

A pretty light 14 here.

Thief:

Pickpocket: Light Fingers, Night Thief (very helpful if you wait to do pickpocketing after target is asleep - you can keep waking them up to train, and they immediately lay back down and sleep), Cutpurse, Extra Pockets
Speech: Haggling 1/5, Allure, Merchant
Light Armor: Agile Defender 1/5, Custom Fit, Unhindered, Wind Walker, Deft Movement (I think Matching set can be skipped
Sneak: Stealth 1/5, Backstab, Deadly Aim, Assassin's Blade

A fairly robust 16 here.

Mage:

Conjuration: Novice, Apprentice, Adept Conjuration (Bound Bow is adept level), Mystic Binding, Soul Stealer

Just 5 here, unless I decide to become more of a summoner, although really there aren't many more points to go around.

So let's see 20 + 14 + 16 + 5 = 55. So there will be some left over at the end. I can either fill in more of the conjuration tree, or possibly the weapon-specific perks in two handed, or maybe even blocking. Gimpus 2.0 made it to 67 without even trying. Or possibly pick up some illusion spells.

 

Well, the wife and kid were away for the weekend, allowing me, even with a lot of yard work, significant game time this weekend.

The barbarian assassin is now level 58, with two unspent perks. He's essentially done, and I have to decide where any remaining perks will go. I cheaped out on alchemy - I ended up only spending two perks in alchemist, and seeing as how I've maxed the skill and money is no longer an issue, I don't really see the benefit of investing any more in it. Unlike a lot of other people who use alchemy for the potions and poisons, I view alchemy as solely a means to make money. With just two points in alchemist and some alchemy gear, I was able to produce potions ranging from several hundred up to in excess of 1000 gold each.

That's more than enough for my purposes, and there's now much easier ways for me to make money. Hell, I can craft an iron dagger and enchant it with banish. They sell for around 750 gold a pop, and saves me time from traveling around for ingredients. Not that I'm upset that I maxed the skill - it gained me a ton of experience and was my main septim generating source for a good chunk of the game, it's just that its use is now limited, and I can spend less time bothering with the skill and more time playing.

So here's how the character looks at the moment. As stated alchemy is maxed, but with only two perks invested. Enchanting is maxed, and I've spent the 8 perks there as planned. Smithing is in the 80s, and presently my two unspent perks are for daedric and dragon smithing. (Note: when Dawnguard comes out, not only are they adding crossbows and spears, but you'll be able to make dragon weapons too.) I'm actually still wearing leather armor. It's pimped out leather armor, with everything geared towards raising two handed and archery damage where possible. It's all offense with the barbarian. I'm in no real rush to max out smithing - it will be done by just continually buying ore and more gold rings. I don't yet have enough dragon scales for dragonscale armor anyway. I've been terribly unlucky with gaining scales this game. You get one to three scales per dragon kill, and I've got one with all eight dragons I've killed. So it's leather for now.

As for the rest of the mage skills, illusion, alteration, and conjuration are all at 90 or higher. While alteration levels extremely slowly, I see no reason why I wouldn't be able to max the other two. Alteration was a skill I trained heavily. It works fine on your own in the beginning, but really slows down past level 50. Alteration has 5 perks, Novice and Apprentice casting, along with Magic Resistance 3/3. Conjuration has 6 perks - Novice-Expert casting, along with Mystic Binding and Soul Stealer. I'm still using the bound bow, and I frequently use the dremora lord, who is IMO, the best tank in the game. (The Frost Atronach isn't bad and is useful until you get the dremora.) Restoration is still in the 30s, and I'm currently working on training destruction - it's about 40 right now, and all subsequent training efforts will probably be spent here.)

For thief skills, I haven't trained them at all. Pickpocket and Alchemy are maxed. Speech is about 90 - fast trained to 50, and everything else was earned. Sneak, Lockpicking, and Light Armor are all around 60. I'm using all light armor, as I absolutely love the perks I've spent in it. Unhindered and Wind Walker essentially give you limitless stamina, but they only work in all light armor. I can run for ages before my stamina runs out, and about 15 seconds of walking is all it takes for my stamina bar to refill. No regrets with these 4 perks, and if I ever max the skill, I'll definitely pick up Deft Movement.

Surprisingly, even though this character is a barbarian, the warrior skills are the least developed of all of them. None of them are presently maxed out. My main damage dealing skills - two handed and archery - are both in the 60s. (Granted, I've never trained two-handed at all, and I've only trained archery with Faendal in the beginning.) I don't really have any explanation for why they're so low - it's not like I'm not using them. I haven't used heavy armor since picking up the perks in light armor, so that's in the 30s, as is block and one handed. So most of the rest of the leveling this character is going to do will necessarily have to come from this group.

I'm content with my current rate of leveling, but at some point I'll have to go to a giant camp - that's an easy way to level both your armor skills and blocking. (Hell, if I stick a restoration skill on my right hand, I can work on that too.)

The real question is what to do with the remaining perks I'll earn. I have two saved up for the smithing skills, and I'll need two for the 5th perk in both Overdraw and Barbarian, although with both those skills in the 60s, that's a while yet. (Perhaps I'll join the Stormcloaks tonight - that should be a good way to raise two handed.) So all perks earned post level 60 can go where ever I chose.

And I'm having a hard time deciding. Illusion, which seems like a logical choice at first glance, takes a pretty heavy perk investment to get there. I figure I'll need to spend about 10 perks to get it fully functional, and waiting until level 70 to bring a skill online seems wasteful. I can get to Quiet Casting with 4 perks spent, although I typically summon the dremora lord during combat after I'm already detected. Another option would be to further develop conjuration. I can pick up twin souls with 4 perks - Summoner, Atromancy, Elemental Potency, and Twin Souls. Certainly doable, but I'm not sure I really need a second summons. Restoration and Alteration could be invested in, but restoration spells are fairly magicka cheap, and with Alteration, I'll need to switch my gear towards alteration reducing casting cost gear to cast paralysis (never mind mass paralysis), which I am disinclined to do. It will have to be a totally dominant skill for that to be worth it.

The final option would be to stick additional perks into skills I've already invested in. Critical Shot/Power Shot in Archery would cost 4 perks. Deep Wounds in Two Handed (I use greatswords) would cost 3 perks. I suppose I could add in Sweep along the way. I could conceivably more fully develop both of these skills. I could pick up Power Bash in blocking for just three perks, although I would require some block training/practicing.

As you can see, I'm not terribly excited about any of them, so I'm open to a convincing argument for which way to go.

 

Your Two-handed and Archery being only in their 60s sounds just about right. Compared to the stuff you level via pickpocket training and/or crafting, ALL of the damage skills improve at glacial speeds. Not just figuratively but in practise. My FMT did her first ever round of clearing all of the 12 Giant camps available in the game, and only gained a couple levels in Destruction while doing it. So sounds just about right. =)

 

And what do you think about the remaining perks. My initial thought is that since I've geared so heavily into two handed and archery, that it only makes sense to continue down that path and place the perks there.

 

Neither one of your main skills combine all too well with Block, so I'd skip that, or at least the perks for it. Rather, since you're already well on your way to your level max, there's no major loss in future leveling if you pick up the Illusion perks to be able to Frenzy mobs effectively. However, that would require at least some pieces of Illusion cost reduction gear and you specifically stated you're using most of your slots for both Two-handed and Archery, but there's still a free slot in Helm and two in Body armor, unless you need those for Conjuration. At the very least, go grab yourself Quiet Casting, it's a wonderfully useful perk.

Going with Light armor and its perks is the choice I'd recommend as well, since the perks are plain better in so many ways compared to Heavy armor's, and there are practically no dead weight prerequisite perks. With the huge miscalculation I did about armor improvements, it's not actually possible to reach armor cap with any light armor without any armor perks or shield, although Dragonscale comes pretty close. In practise, this turned the first two points in Agile Defender and Custom Fit from pure prerequisites into something actually useful, even more so for you since you're not maxing Alchemy this time around.

 

Yeah, I've considered my options and I'm thinking on getting quiet casting and throwing the rest into two-handed and archery. As you said, it's not like blocking is particularly effective with a two handed weapon, and it's flat out impossible with a bow.

Which brings me to an anecdote about last night. I stumbled onto a giant camp. There were only two giants, so I dispatched one and decided to try to level block a bit with the other. I knew that my equipment for the task was suboptimal. I mean, if you're going to level block, you probably want to bring a shield with you, preferably one with a fortify blocking enchantment. While I was able to avoid death, I was also only able to pick up a few levels in block. Nearly every hit gained a level, but I also was taking significant damage, and my healing spells couldn't keep up with it.

So now I've decided the following. Job one is to get my dragon armor online before trying this again, and it will include a shield that has the block fortification on it. I'm going to place restoration cost reduction modifiers on a piece or two of equipment - that will help too.

Part of the problem is that my restoration skill isn't even 40 yet. So the best healing spell available to me is fast healing. Once I get to adept level at 50, I'll be in much better shape. Close wounds offers a 100% increase in healing for only about a 30% increase in magicka cost.

By reducing the amount of damage I take through better blocking, and being able to stay in combat longer because of a better healing rate, it should make the process go considerably faster. Although I'm not sure exactly how the leveling system in block works. I don't know if it's based on how much damage you block, or the amount of damage the enemy is capable of inflicting per hit. If the former, block should level much faster with the use of a shield. If the latter, a shield will aid in survival, but will not increase the rate at which I level the skill.

Another idea I had when my magicka reserves start to run out is to equip the Nightingale Blade in my right hand. I didn't finish the Thieves Guild quest until I was already over level 45, so I got the best version of the Nightingale Blade - steals 25 points of health and stamina per hit. Sneaking in an attack or two with that will also heal me, and at the same time improve one-handed skill.

Which means the only skill that will truly be really bothersome to level will be heavy armor. There's just not too much I can do about it other than putting on a bunch of heavy armor and have someone beat on me. At least while leveling blocking, I will be actively participating in the game through the use of blocking and healing. With heavy armor, I'm just standing there, although I guess it would still be a good idea to bring a shield with me, as it will contribute to the overall defense value, if I'm not already at the cap - although it's hard to see how I wouldn't be - I have all the perks in heavy armor smithing, so I should be good.

But to get a full set of dragonscale, you'd almost certainly need the relevant perks to make it yourself. While dragonscale and dragonplate armors are possible to find in chests at high character levels, you'd need an incredible amount of luck to actually find a full set by chance. (Although last night I did find a dragonscale helmet as loot - that will save me a bit of time when it comes to finding the materials for my armor, as I now only need one scale to improve it.)

Yeah, but I've gone light armor and used dragonscale before. In that go around, I did max out alchemy, and my full set of tricked out dragonscale armor (with a dragonscale shield) put my armor rating above 800. So those perks help on your way to dargonscale, but are largely superfluous once you actually get there.

 

With the shield, yes. Without it, you need at least one perk point in Agile Defender or some other effect boosting your armor to make it to the armor cap with Dragonscale set. Assuming already you go full bore with *all* three trade skills. Your Barbarian did NOT max Alchemy so you're quite likely going to need Custom Fit and/or more points in Agile Defender as well to get anywhere near armor cap.

 

Yes, I already have Agile Defender and Custom Fit, so I should be OK.

I agree though with just about everything you said about light armor. I feel that heavy armor is only superior if you're going for the most defense with the minimum perk investment in armor. Once you throw perks into the mix, I think light armor is clearly the superior choice. I'll take Deft Movement over Reflect Blows any day. I'd rather avoid the damage all together rather than having the enemy take equal damage in return. Unhindered and Conditioning basically do the same thing, but Unhindered doesn't require you to take two pretty useless perks - Fists of Steel and Cushioned - and is available earlier. Finally, there is no equivalent perk to Wind Walker on the Heavy Armor side.

 

Ok, so you have at least +20% from the first perk, cumulative +25% from Custom Fit and should get yet another +25% from Ancient Knowledge, depending on its actual implementation in the newest patch. That's already 162.5% improvement (at 100 skill) in armor over base values, or "only" 153% if AK is counted together with the perk percentage as UESPWiki suggests. That's plenty of headroom for skimping in Alchemy, although 2/5 Alchemist and no Benefactor (?) is a whole lot less than max. Try creating a +smithing potion and see what you get as the improvement percentage? 130% being the maximum.

 

If I'm being honest, I wouldn't be completely opposed for dropping an extra perk or two in light armor. Presumably, the reason that there is a light armor tree is that they expect you to actually spend some perks there if you want to have a really high defense with light armor. I'm not sure if I have the skill yet for matching set, but even throwing an extra perk or two in agile defender wouldn't kill me. As I said above, I have some point to spare with this build.

 

Even with less than maxed Alchemy, you ought to be able to get at least +108% or even +112% Smithing apparel, which is mighty close to what you could get at best. The biggest drop will be not being able to get the really good +smithing potions.

Going backwards from the 130% maximum, you're at 104% without Benefactor and 72% with 2/5 instead of 5/5 Alchemist. That's still slightly more than half (53%) of what you could get. (Double-check with the actual alchemy skill formula gives 69,8%, fairly close.) In other words, although you can kiss goodbye to the +92/+46 improvements, you ought to still get +48/+24 or thereabouts, and together with Dragonscale without shield puts you at ~202 base armor. So all you need is a +180% armor bonus vs base.

As I calculated above, just 100 skill together with the two first perks and Ancient Knowledge (assuming it still works) gives you at least +153%, so all you need is another point in Agile Defender and you're over the cap again.

 

I actually sunk one additional point into agile defender, and another perk into matching set, and I'm now at the armor cap. The reason I decided to spend the perks is because the most points I can ever see me needing beyond what I already have will be 4, which I'll obtain upon reaching level 70. I need one more point in Barbarian and Overdraw, and I can place a 3rd perk into Critical Shot and Deep Wounds, to maximize the chance of a critical hit with both weapons. The only other thing I could possibly see that may be useful to increase damage is Quick Shot, as presumably being able to draw a bow 30% quicker would result in 30% more damage output against things that take more than 1 arrow to kill, like dragons. (And the only reason I don't have these perks yet is I don't have the prerequisite skill level to get them yet.)

I've decided against going for Quiet Casting - I have used it before to great effect, but after some thought, it was a perk that would have been a lot more useful if I got it earlier, but would be of marginal use now. I have never been detected casting muffle, and the dremora lord is always cast after combat has commenced. Quiet casting would have been great when I was casting bound weapons (I did get detected quite a bit doing that), but now I have all crafted weapons.

Further discoveries - Block can be firmly relegated to the column of "skill you should never train because it's easy to level yourself". Last night I took my block from base to 100 in about 20 minutes - and that counts a trip to Winterhold for mandatory training, so I wouldn't double level. Made a dragonscale shield with fortify block on it, and headed to a giant camp. I counted to see how many times you need to get hit to level up.

At first, it's nearly every hit. Then it's every other hit. You don't get to the point where I giant has to hit you 4-5 times to level up until your block gets to about 60. It increases to 9 hits at level 90, and tops out at 11 hits to go from 99 to 100. Giants attack once every 2-3 seconds, so it's ridiculously fast. Ironically, the process actually takes a bit longer in the beginning, because when you aren't good at blocking, you'll have to break combat because your healing spells have a hard time keeping up. However, as the skill levels, you negate a greater percentage of damage each time you get hit. By the time you get your block to about 50 (and that's fast - when you only need a couple of hits to level), you can calmly stand there, blocking everything, and your healing spells provide all the health you need.

And yes - it's borderline cheesy. And yes - it's borderline exploitative, but I don't consider it anywhere near as bad as casting soul trap on corpses or any of the other clearly exploitative means to level certain skills in the game because it's not something you can do as soon as you leave Helgen. You already have to be a fairly high level character to do it. There are two requirements for leveling block in this manner that you simply won't have during the early part of the game - 1) A fairly large base health pool and 2) An enchanted shield with fortify block. Even with a health pool of over 400, I had a hard time keeping up with the healing spells when my block level was low, having to break combat a couple of times to heal up. Trying to do this with a health pool of 200 would be suicidal.

I also did some testing to see if a giant is a good candidate to level the armor skills. My answer to that is "not particularly". Giants are great for block because you're reducing the incoming damage of each hit, so your healing spells work once you get over that initial hurdle of getting to level 50 block or so. But standing there and letting them beat your ass without blocking is not sustainable, even once you get Close Wounds. I did it for a while, because my light armor skill was 68, and I wanted to get it to 70 to pick up the Matching Set perk. It took about a full 5 minutes for those two levels because I had to continually break combat to heal. So it's NOT a good leveling method, unless you want to sink about 4-5 of RL time to do it.

Leveling your armor skills in the most efficient manner requires picking an enemy that does enough damage that it contributes a fair amount to your armor skill level with each hit, but not so much damage that you're healing spells can't keep up. A giant works great for the first part, but fails miserably in the second part. Conversely, a wolf certainly meets the second criteria, but it does so little damage that it isn't a great choice either. The next candidate I'll try this on is a troll, and see how that goes.

Unfortunately, while Block has moved to the "never train" bin, I've added a skill to the "should train" bin. Restoration. It levels at glacial speed, even when I was healing regularly during block training. Wait a second... I might have a solution to BOTH problems of armor and restoration. I should craft a mixed set of heavy and light armor with reduced restoration casting cost, in conjunction with magicka recovery. The mixed set would allow leveling of BOTH armor skills, and if I reduce the casting cost and increase the magicka recovery, it may well be possible to level up both skills while casting healing spells at a much greater rate. Restoration levels so slowly that it still won't be great, but it should at least make it go a bit faster.

So that leaves me down to the 18th and final skill - one handed. I've already started on this. I carry around a daedric sword and dagger that I'm using in combat against everything that's easy to kill - basically all of the regular animals in the game. I'm also planning on re-crafting my boots to give both increased one handed and two handed damage.

So here's where I stand skill wise:

Mage skills: Enchanting, Conjuration, and Illusion are all at 100. Alteration is at 94, and continues it's slow, inexorable march to 100 through transmutation, and the occasional water breathing. Restoration is a pitiful 42. It's one of very few skills I'm genuinely concerned with, since I don't have enough remaining training, and there doesn't seem to be a great way to increase it through normal game play. (I don't mind sinking 20 minutes of play time to fully level a skill like block - I'm no where near patient enough to invest 4-5 hours casting restoration spells.) Destruction needs 4 more training sessions to reach level 90. After that, I'll do the bards college and pick mage with the Oghma Infinium quest. So I can get that to 96, perhaps more with a skill book found here or there.

Thief - Pickpocket and Alchemy are maxed. Speech is at 91, so that's just a matter of time. Lockpicking and Sneak are both in the 70s, and I feel those will also take care of themselves through use. Light armor is 70, and I may have a solution outlined above.

Warrior - Smithing and Block are maxed. Archery and Two Handed are both in the 70s, but since those are my two main attack types, they'll continue to make progress. Heavy Armor is in the 40s, and I'll level that the same way I level Light Armor. One Handed is just 32! That's a problem. I backstab, I use swords against weaker enemies, but this is the other genuine problem.

I'm currently level 67. That this will be the first character that levels to 70 is assured. Heck even 75 looks nearly certain. Getting to 80 seems doable if the armor solution works. If I can find a non-cheesy way to level One Handed (I refuse to repeatedly attack an unkillable character - that's too exploitative), 81 may not be out of reach.

As a side note, I became Thane of Markarth last night. I have to look up the info on the house I bought - I honestly don't even know where the player's house is located within the city.

 

Another decent time to level your Block a bit is on your very first trek from Helgen Keep to Riverwood, as any armor is good armor at that point and you can't possibly dualcast spells at that point for any good effect. Same applies between Riverwood to Whiterun and during the early voyage to Halted Stream Camp. Even if you only get five skill-ups, it's still five less you need to train later.

Good point about training Block vs Restoration. You kinda need to go out of your way to accrue damage both so that you don't get killed but still fast enough so that Restoration has lots to work on. Block is easy enough to level by just playing dare with the enemies - "I know you guys are five more than me, but try to get through my Block first. I dare you."

So we have either one of one/two-handed (the one you do NOT use), Destruction and Restoration on the "should train" list, while Block requires just a bit of silly play with Giants (or similar). You know, having FUN for a change? Everything else levels either all by itself or with minimal effort. Not exactly a bad thing when extremely high character levels and the amount of perks you could use for a character build are considered.

 

Yes, restoration does belong on the list of skills to train. In the time it took me to level block about 80 levels, I leveled restoration from 39 to 42. And it's not like I wasn't using it a lot.

But one handed training isn't that bad in the early going. Even though I only use one-handed against the wimpy creatures of the world, I've already gone from 20 to 32 with relatively little use. Now obviously, that won't continue forever. The melee weapon skills are definitely ones that require a ton of use to get to high levels. But seeing as how one handed is likely to be my lowest skill at end game, I'll take every little bit that I can get.

I'm going to make a level 81 character. It's not if, it's when. I'm not giving up on this character being the one to do it either. It started off with train as much as you can. Then it was optimizing order of training. Now we have got to the point where we know exactly which skills are the hardest to develop through use. Destruction, Restoration, and either one/two handed definitely seem to be the top 3. But that's doable. It's 225 skill ups, or 45 level ups, to take each of them from 15 to 90, even if you never raise any of them yourself (which you certainly will).

It also brings a rather odd dynamic into play. You almost pick skills based on what's easier to switch to later. For example, it's probably a bit easier to skill up light armor, possibly with perks, and switch to heavy armor further down the line, than the other way around. Similarly, it's also probably easier to switch from two handed to one handed than the other way around, because you can dual wield.

 

One minor note about Restoration: It's not something you necessarily NEED to be training straight away, out of the three big ones to be trained. You can easily let it tag along and get the easy early level-ups when you do the normal post-battle recovery speed-up by healing yourself to full before carrying on with adventuring. And for this very spesific purpose, picking the first Restoration talent Novice Restoration early on ain't a bad thing at all since it practically doubles your magicka reserves for healing. Although slow, Healing (the concentration spell everyone starts with) has wonderful hp healed/magicka used ratio. But only if your final build includes this perk for whatever reason, of course.

You most definitely can't do that in any meaningful way with the one out of one/two-handed you're NOT using (by definition, no less) and Destruction is a bit wonky in that the really low levels are hard to train without risking your life since you don't have Impact, and later on it just takes too long.

 

That's absolutely true - it's also true of the first Destruction perk for use of flames/sparks/frostbite. Your best bet in the early going is to cast that spell with both hands (not dual cast it, but single cast simultaneously) to maximize the amount of damage you can do.)

 

Since destruction leveling was mentioned above, here's an anecdote. Last night I cleared all of Avanchnzel (for Unfathomable Depths) using Destruction spells alone. At Master difficulty, although I don't see how that would make a difference, but anyway. That place is HUGE, but all I got was just slightly over ONE (1) skill level's worth of improvement to my Destruction skill, from 66 to 67. In other words, I'd need to clear about three such places to go from 99 to 100. Sheesh, that skill levels SLOW !!

 

Actually, that begs a question - since Destruction leveling is based on damage dealt, and on master difficulty enemies have more health, shouldn't skills based on damage dealt level more rapidly on higher difficulty levels?

Here's another funny anecdote for you. Last night I had a few hired thugs accost me as soon as I set foot outside of the College of Winterhold. Completely unprepared for the battle, I ran. All the way down the stairs toward the town. As I neared the final down ramp, Faralda sees the thugs chasing me and starts kicking ass. Kills all three of them. So of course at that point I turn around to loot the bodies. Turns out that the contract that they had for me was signed by Faralda! (And to be fair, I did steal a bunch of stuff from her room.) She killed he own hired thugs!