The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim has inspired countless games and has given gamers around the world countless hours of fun, exploration, and excitement. With a huge player base and a seemingly endless progression to make their characters more powerful, gamers have not been able to put the game down, and with the recent release of Skyrim: Anniversary Edition, the game has grown into a much larger game than it initially was. However, one aspect of the game that has remained constant through all the updates and additional content has been the various classes and how many players find themselves falling back to the same archetype.
Arguably the most overpowered class in Skyrim is the Stealth Archer, with a high-level character in this class being able to take out an entire city without even being detected. While this is not the only class that is incredibly overpowered to the point where other playstyles seem pointless, it is the most obvious and the one that has garnered the most notoriety. The Elder Scrolls 6 needs to ensure that its classes are equally balanced to ensure that any high-level character, no matter the play style and class, will have unimaginable power, giving players a lot more to do.
Skyrim’s Overpowered Classes
Players have a nearly endless amount of classes to explore in Skyrim and one of the greatest things about the game is that it allows players to switch classes whenever they want. While this does give the player a lot of freedom in the game, it takes away from the importance of understanding a certain class and prevents players from falling back to certain powerful Skyrim classes that can easily take out any enemy. These classes usually deal a lot of damage, enough to take out foes in a single strike, or completely prevent enemies from hurting or attacking the player.
Skyrim’s most popular overpowered class is likely the Stealth Archer, which can take out hordes of enemies quickly, either with a bow or dagger, and ensures that the player is never seen. Another extremely overpowered class and contender for the most powerful classes in the game is the Werewolf Warrior, especially when paired with the orc race, which gives players access to the Berserker Rage ability that deals more damage while decreasing the amount of damage inflicted on the player. These two races alone attract many players who are stuck in a particular quest, and the power they wield means that they are often the most obvious choice for players when starting a new game.
The Elder Scrolls 6 Needs More Balanced Skills
There are many skills in Skyrim that are considered more useful than others, so these skills often get more attention, leading to players sticking to certain classes. The best example of this is the importance of the Sneak skill tree, where players not only gain boosts to their stealth stats but also gain massive buffs to dagger and bow attacks. On the other hand, skills like pickpocket and illusion do not offer much in terms of damage output or buffs to weapons and armor. Instead, they are mostly used outside of combat or to flee from combat.
In recent times, many players have tried to create an illusion-only mage, and this has resulted in some powerful characters and classes being created, however, these classes still need to rely on other skills like one-handed, destruction, enchanting, and restoration to compete against powerful enemies. As a result, the illusion mage can easily get converted into a battle mage or a pure mage focused on using destruction. Issues like this arise in multiple skills including alteration, speech, and, block, and fixing it means giving each skill tree perks that can deal damage and that players can rely on to get out of sticky situations.
What Balanced Classes Can Do For The Elder Scrolls 6
One of the biggest things that more balanced classes can do for the next Elder Scrolls game is give players more reason to start up new playthroughs and explore the different classes available to them. It will encourage them to completely explore every skill and perk available to each class as well as all the weapons and armor sets. It also encourages players to spend more time with each character and understand the ins and outs of the classes.
This in turn means that players will spend much more time exploring the game with each character they create, and with specific quests rising from certain factions and guilds geared toward particular classes, there will likely be a lot to keep players busy. Balanced classes also mean that players will not fall back on another class if they are finding it too difficult to progress in a quest or storyline. Instead, it encourages players to make their character stronger by completing other quests first in order to level up and gain skills to make fighting tougher enemies a bit easier.
Well-balanced classes can lead to a lot more freedom when it is done right, and while Skyrim did encourage players to play the game however they wanted, it fell short in giving them numerous exciting builds to try out. The Elder Scrolls 6 needs to rectify this and ensure that whatever path the player chooses to go down, it will lead them to a powerful character that can take out hordes of enemies effortlessly. With so many skills in the game, and so many combinations to create classes, it is imperative that The Elder Scrolls 6 finds a way to balance the classes, as it will give players a lot more to do and encourage them to venture away from their usual choices.
The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim is available now for PC, PS3, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox 360, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.