So, in your opinions, what is your least favorite/most difficult/least difficult/most favorite playstyle in skyrim?
My least favorite would be the stealth playstyle, getting 30x sneak multipliers just doesn't seem fun. The most difficult to me would be a two-handed warrior, ever tried playing a 2-hander on legendary, yeah, you're not gonna have a good time. Now the least difficult play-style to me would either be a mage or a stealth-character, stealth because of those multipliers, and mage because of you just being to stun-lock enemies, and never run out of magicka with enchantments. Now my most favorite playstyle is a sword and board warrior, I usually enjoy some tanking, and trying to find a way to add burst damage to the shield.
So yeah, just post below your answer to all these questions and debate among them if you wish.
Least favourite: Mage, just generally prefer melee or bows, magic just isn't my thing.
Most difficult: Mage, too reliant on magicka for me, at least a warrior can swing without stamina, but if a mage runs out of magicka, they die. Plus I'm not very good at mages.
Least Difficult: Sneaky archer, massive damage and if you move around a lot and get to high places you can avoid lots of damage.
Favourite: Two-Handed warrior. Something about taking a lot of damage in heavy armor and dealing out a lot of damage with a great big sword is fun to me
Least Favorite: Pure thief build. It's difficult to complete quests without some kind of spellcasting or combat skill, and while it may be fun to pickpocket people for their belongings, I don't quicksave in my games and you quickly end up in jail most of the time.
Most Difficult: Pure thief build. Again, it's hard to beat the game without combat skills or magic. I suppose you could technically just use your bare fists and a mountain of healing potions, but where's the fun in that? Combat should be more than a battle of attrition.
Least Difficult: Any build exploiting 100% spell cost reduction, 100% magic absorption, or alchemy / enchantment looping. It's technically possible but doesn't really feel like it's following the spirit of the game. It's also my second-least-favorite playstyle after pure thieves.
Favorite: No looting gold and no selling items, regardless of build. Playing Skyrim with vastly limited resources is incredibly challenging, even at Adept difficulty. Bonus points if the build relies less on magic and more on equipment, since magic is an essentially infinite resource while potions are not, and it makes things significantly more difficult.
Least favorite: Archery/daggers/Illusion assassin. The game stops being fun when it stops being challenging.
Most difficult: Mage without Illusion or Conjuration. Unless you're a pansy and reduce your spellcost to 0 and spam Impact.
Favorite: Weapon and Shield. Shields are just so versatile, and there's nothing like the feeling of barely blocking or bashing that otherwise fatal blow.
Least difficult: Illusion assassin. 30x backstabs and you pretty much can't be seen.
Least favorite: I don't really think there is a playstile that I don't enjoy. Probably a Paladin, to much "Holy RP" for me.
Most Difficult: Archer without sneak. Only going with your bow, light armor, and a follower isn't that easy.
Least Difficult: Henson's Necromancer or a nightblade.
Favorite: Pure thief. No weapons, no magic, all skill. My most fond Skyrim and previous elderscrolls memories are on thief builds.
Least Favorite: Stealthy Archer simply because I'm not one for the sneaky type of character. Although highly useful if played correctly I just don't have as much fun playing them as I do playing more aggressive style characters.
Most Difficult: Mage...quite simply to me one of the hardest to get used to especially at earlier levels/perks. Mages, at least pure mages, are completely reliant on their mana pool except unlike the other 2 main styles (Warrior and Rogue) they have no wiggle room. Warriors can run out of stamina and still hold their own in combat similar to rogues who can use melee weapons in the event they are engaged in close-quarters. If a mage runs out of magika to draw upon then they have no usability, of course at higher levels and getting more perks helps this issue. However, there's also the issue that many of a pure mage's spells do not scale with level (ie Destruction).
Most Favorite: Warrior, Tank, or Paladin for their great strengths in the field of close-quarters combat. For that matter almost any one-handed/two-handed warrior I can get behind simply due to their appeal to me. Powerful fighters with heavy, mean looking armors and using quick one-handed weapons or massive, devastating two-handed weapons. Then there's the utility of some warrior classes like the Paladin who can both hold their own in a fight and when needed heal themselves or use other schools of magic to further improve utility.
Least Difficult: To me that's a tie between (straight-up) Warriors and stealthy archers. Super powerful warriors are pretty straight forward through the entire game: lots of health, heavy armor, powerful weapon (and/or shield) making them near invincible if they simply stock up on health potions before going out on extended adventures. Then there's the stealthy archers who literally once leveled properly can become invisible for the rest of the game, just sneak, pick a hiding spot, and shoot down enemies one-by-one.
Least favorite: Dedicated mage of any sort. I just get very easily bored with too much magic-oriented gameplay. I like magic, but it usually acts as a complement to the main melee/ranged playstyle. I can't think of any good, logical reason why magic bores me, but it always has.
Most difficult: I think dual-wielding would be the most difficult for me. I have no way of blocking and I'm right up in the action. Generally speaking, I'm not the most coordinated of people, so I tend to fair poorly when forced into close quarters with no way to control and slow down the combat for my brain to catch up. When faced with a situation in which I must quickly react, I almost always panic and try to get some distance (which is counter-productive in this case).
The only time this playstyle is useful is if I'm in a group setting where I have an ally to do the tanking while I administer the spanking.
Least Difficult: Stealth archer. Mostly because this has almost always been my bread and butter for a long time, so I'm used to it. Furthermore, of all the playstyles, this affords the most time to observe and think before getting into combat. With a stealth archer, it's very rare anything ever surprises me. Yet I never seem to get bored. I think it's because the excitement is all in the setup rather than the actual execution.
However, this kind of playstyle must be balanced. It's very easy to become overpowered, and that will eliminate the feeling of danger during the setup. So long as a sneaky archer is balanced (read: purposefully gimped) properly, it will still feel very fun.
Most Favorite: Any kind of archer, really. I love bows. I love the visceral sensation and sound of an arrow sinking into the target. I love being able to see what's happening in the battle. Of all the playstyles, it plays to my psychological strengths the best. Right now, I'm thoroughly enjoying an archer that does NOT sneak and just walks into rooms. I have to admit, it's an odd sensation to just stride into a room full of enemies and start shooting. Every time I have to fight the urge to kinda...sidle in and stare at them for a while.
Least Favorite Playstyle: Any character who only uses a melee weapon, with no stealth or magic. There's only so much fun you can swinging the same weapon in every fight.
Favorite Playstyle: Necromancer! It's not as overpowered as using Atronachs because you obviously need to make a kill first, stopping you from just sitting back and sending endless waves of Dremora Lords (although we all did that once .)
Least Difficult: Sneaky rogue type with daggers. Even when detected you can still just paralyse your opponents, but 15x damage with a decent dagger is often a 1-hit kill anyway.
Most Difficult: I'm not sure about this one. It might be a mage who only uses Destruction, Alteration, Restoration and Light Armor, before I got Impact. With no summons to take the heat off you, and no Illusion, a mage is one of the weaker playstyles.
Least Favorite: Mage. I find them hard to play because you'll get a lot of spells to switch out, if you get 100% cost reduction then you're overpowered, and i have the fear of running out of magicka.
Most Difficult: Any roleplay build. Especially ones that don't use armor or high end weapons. For instance, i'm currently playing a 'miner' build, which is more of a challenge, but i don't use armor and only use one pickaxe. So far i've barely been able to infiltrate the thalmor embassy, and i'm on adept.
Most Favorite: Again, any roleplay build. I love roleplaying and those builds always make things challenging, in a good way. Plus they're always fun to play.
Least Difficult: Stealth builds that use the Shadow Warrior perk and the 30x backstab.
Least favorite: Mage, I don't find it fun al all don't really know why. Never been a fan of it.
Most difficult: Early on when I play sneakless archer, later on you can still 2 hit on expert if you have a good enchanted bow.
Least difficult: Mage, you summon an Atronach who does damage, you don't need to watch magicka at all when you got like Morokei, Archmage robes and Ring of Erudite and you do a lot of damage. And if you would end up low HP, you just cast a spell and gain hp again.
Most favorite: Stealth or Stealthless archer, I love both. Just give me bow and arrow and I'm happy.
Least favourite: Pure mage. Enough said.
Most Favourite: Heavy Armour. Illusion (Crowd control), Alteration (Flesh spells and paralyse), Restoration (healing) and more than one companion. i call this the Warmaster because, quite simply, I am the master of battle. combat support, survivability, companionship, RP.
Kyrielle took my answer. This is me exactly.
Most favorite: I LOVE archers of any kind. I could sneak around and shoot a bow forever. I don't usually take the whole sneak tree though. I don't enchant my bows and I sometimes I limit the type of bow I can use. This keeps archers more balanced. Other times I do enchant the bows and then limit the type. Depends on my mood. I can barely play another class. You can also wear clothes and be an archer. My first archer had no points in armor. Lately I have moved up to Expert.
I also enjoy what I call battle archers. No sneak just a bow. No back up weapon. I like to bash with the bow too.
I also enjoy spell swords or battle mages. Light or Heavy armor, doesn't matter. I like to carry a weapon and use spells but I get bored around the 40's with this type of play style.
Lately I have gotten into a barbarian class. Uses a bow and 2H sword when things get up close and personal.
Most Difficult: Learning to dual wield and use a bow. I can't seem to figure out how to hot key on PC two different weapon types and also switch to a spell. So for now I use the same daggers.
Least Favorite: Pure mages of any kind. Too squishy. I really like using some sort of weapon always.
Least difficult: Stealth archer because it is my play style.
Least favorite: Any pure warrior playstyle. I find that a pure warrior class no matter what type is boring past level 10 when the same old swing, swing, heal, swing monotony drives me to delete the character.
Most difficult: A pure destruction mage without enchanting. The hardest playthrough for me was an Altmer mage with destruction, restoration, alchemy, and block. It was a roleplay of a shield mage apprentice I tried. It was tough even on Adept.
Most favorite: My favorite playstyle is a toss up between spellsword and conjuration archer. I have had the most fun with hybrid builds. My absolute favorite playthrough was my personalized version of Henson's Hashashin where I tried like hell to utilize sneak (the build is centered on it) as little as possible. The challenge was ridiculous on expert difficulty until you get the paralyze spell.
Least difficult: The least difficult playstyle for me is the battlemage type of character. Heavy armor..check, shield...check, destruction...check, enchanting...check, annihilate everything in an OP elemental storm of death...check.
The aspect of Skyrim I loved most over the other ES games is the ability to wield something in each hand, not just shield in the left and everything else in the right. I had a great roleplay experience playing a left handed melee spellsword. Always only wielded my sword in the left hand. Good Times.
You really only need like 3 perks into sneaking to be even remotely effective. You could probably even get by with only one perk. You definitely don't need all the perks in the archery tree. I don't always take everything in Critical Shot and I never take Bullseye. I usually don't enchant my bows, nor do I use the best bow.
Those tend to help me keep sneaky archery from being too easy. It's also fun to use clothing to make yourself a true glass cannon.
Least Favorite: Pure mage. I hate leveling magic skills, I always forget to cast flesh spells, I loath the atronach-stone-absorbing my-summons glitch, too much spell juggling and not enough hotkeys for an Xbox user
Most Difficult: Pure mage. Destruction becomes too weak as you level
Most Favorite: Sword n Board warrior all the way! I Love being up in people's faces, absorbing damage and then dealing it right back. I'm not a big fan of magic
Least Difficult: Ranged Assassin. Going the entire game without being seen is not fun for me
Least Favorite: Stealthy types or users of ranged weaponry. I loathe ranged weapons and instead use magic for ranged attacks should I need them. I hate stealth because I would much rather fight than cower in the shadows. Dual wielders haven't gone over well with me either, but they aren't as bad as stealthy characters.
Most Difficult: Evil builds. I'll always be the good guy, the last time I tried to be evil in Skyrim my character reverted before level 8. It's difficult for me to try stealing or murdering the innocent while I play. I've played users of conjuration and illusion before but they always end up using their dark magic on the bad guys only. I must have a permanent hero complex or something...
Least Difficult: Pure warriors. This is always what I turn to first in RPGs when I play them the first time. After then I usually mix in some magic or keep them pure melee warriors. I prefer to use the large two-handed weapons most of the time, and choose light armor over heavy. I think the playstyle just gets easier the more times I play it.
Most Favorite: Greatsword wielding warriors. Usually with some magic thrown in depending on how the magic spells work in whichever game I'm playing. I try to go lightly armored because it makes it feel even more awesome to me. Sometimes the playstyle doesn't always work, but it's incredibly satisfying when it does. It works well for me in Skyrim, and I can only hope it will work in ESO and future ES games.