Board Thread:Skyrim/@comment-11766885-20140101070929/@comment-218.186.253.214-20140101092817

Always remember to wear armor and keep a good melee weapon. Even as a mage or archer, you never know when some creeps ambush you. Pure mage is for more advanced players that want a challenge.

For mages, get 100% destruction cost reduction and shock spells. They are easy to aim and hit instantaneously, so not much leading or estimation is needed.

Good starting builds for new players include Battlemage/Spellsword (Heavy armor mage with one handed), Pure Warrior/Paladin (one hand, shield, heavy armor), Nightblade (sneak, light armor, one handed and invisibility spell). They are resonably tanky and hard to kill, and they are able to deal good continuos damage as well as burst damage. They also all can make use one handed swords, which are the best balance of attack speed and damage, which means that missed attacks do not subtract so heavily from DPS and attacks are easier to land.

I don't recommend two handed for beginners, mainly because some of the power attacks can end up tricky to land if you do not understand how the character will move, but if you like big weapons, its good to start with a greatsword to get a feel of how the attacks will hit so that its easier for you to estimate power attacks. Missing with a greatsword is also less dangerous as a follow up slash is reasonably fast.

Remember to level up your crafting - self made armor/enchanted equipment/potions are often better than anything you can get at the store. Dual enchanting allows you to make equipment that has no buyable equivalent.

At very low levels, scavenge EVERY single potion (especially health) because you don't ever know when you need them.

Always get some health upgrades. Have at least 200 magicka and 200 stamina. It never hurts to use fast healing and have some more carry weight, even if its off build. An Ideal battlemage, for example, by level 50, should have 350 magicka, 250 health, 200 stamina. An Ideal warrior will distribute between health and stamina like this 6:5 or 5:4, depending on playstyle. A mage will distribute magicka:health as 5:3 or 2:1, depending on skill.