If you want to be the Dragonborn, you’re going to need to be strong. Leveling is very important in Skyrim, especially at higher difficulties. Skyrim isn’t the kind of game where things scale to you; either you’re a low-level weakling getting thrown around by giants and dragons, or you’re a buff chad swinging your sword and mowing down any and all opposition. It’s important to give yourself every opportunity to level up quickly and efficiently. Here is our guide on leveling up in Skyrim.
skyrim leveling guide: Find The Right Stone
As we have gone over in a previous guide, standing stones are incredibly useful. The three Guardian stones are excellent for our purposes as they each confer a twenty per cent boost in experience to their related fields. If you have a specific character build in mind, activating your relevant Guardian stone will make sure you’re leveling up faster, and help guide you to who you want to play as in Skyrim.
That said, if you don’t have a particular playstyle in mind, or simply want to branch out, the Lover Stone grants a universal fifteen per cent experience boost to all skills. If you’re starting out and you’re not sure which stone seems the best fit for you, definitely grab this one while you figure it out.
Leveling guide: Get Some Rest
A small but simple tip is to sleep often. Sleeping in any bed gives at least the Rested ability, and a five per cent experience boost for eight in-game hours. Sleeping in an inn or a bed you own grants the Well Rested ability, and a ten per cent boost. Then, sleeping in a home you live in with your spouse gives the Lover’s Comfort ability, and fifteen per cent more experience for eight hours.
With some preparation, this system can be taken even further. If you own the Aetherial Crown, which can store the ability of a standing stone, you can use this to store the Lover stone ability of a fifteen per cent experience boost. Rest in the home you live in with your spouse without wearing the crown for the Lover’s Comfort ability. Then equip the Aetherial Crown for a thirty per cent increase. Luckily, the crown doesn’t stop you from taking another stone’s ability. So you could also grab one of the Guardian stones for a total fifty per cent increase for some of your skills.
Money and Items
Beyond just grabbing experience boosts, there are other ways to make sure you’re leveling as quickly as possible. Making sure you’re equipping the right gear is vital. If you want to improve your magical skills you should be certain to have gear on that maximises your spell usage.
Likewise, you should think about how and where you are using your skills to level up. Detect Life is an alteration spell that makes nearby living creatures visible to you. This is a really useful spell, but using it in a crowded city means more people and more experience. Throw on some gear that ups your magicka, bring some potions. Then wander around Riften or Solitude repeatedly using this spell to become a master of alteration in no time.
Invest your money into materials to improve your smithing and alchemy, or simply find a trainer who will boost your skills for gold. There are plenty of material means for leveling up and becoming more powerful.
Finally, Diversify
This wouldn’t be much of a Skyrim Leveling Guide if I didn’t properly explain how leveling works, would it? Understanding the specifics of leveling is important, and key to leveling fast. In Skyrim, you have an overall level. You gain experience for your overall level each time you improve one of your individual stats. For example, if you’ve been using a one-handed weapon and your one-handed skill increases, that will grant experience for your overall level.
If you keep using one-handed weapons, you will reach higher and higher levels, eventually capping at one hundred. These levels take longer and longer to achieve, so gaps between overall level experience become longer as well. To give your overall level a boost, try to mix up the gear and abilities you use. You might have been swording and boarding for the last forty hours and your leveling has ground to a halt. So, try a two-hander or even some spells and watch the levels come rolling in.
This is crucial because each overall level you achieve grants a perk point. Under each skill, there are a group of perks. These require a certain level of skill to unlock but also need one of those perk points. Perk points, when attained, can be used on any skill tree. So if you have a few perks left under one-handed but leveling is slowing down, grab those easy levels from an under-utilized skill and get the perk points you need.
That’s our guide for leveling in Skyrim! Using these tips you should be well on your way to perfecting your personal Dragonborn. For more on how to build your character, check out our guides for warriors, mages or thieves. Or check out our guides on finding powerful weapons early or making money.
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Featured Image Credit: Bethesda