Skyrim Archery Leveling Tips and Tricks

The most useful parts of the video.
1:05 Guardian Stones
3:30 Riverwood
3:41 Getting Faendal Very Important
4:40 Faendal is follower
5:46 10-50 Archery Method
15:12 Useful perks for quick leveling archery
16:26 Switch to another save file where Alea is available
16:43 Aela the Huntress method
16:50 10-75 Archery Method
17:37 Sneak attacking the Greybeards
21:15 Bound Bow
24:53 Shadowmere Method
25:46 Normal Horse Method (Not as useful
Sorry, the timestamps are not in a pinned comment. KZbin has to verify that it's me.
I'm not as proficient with archery but I did show as many useful ideas as I know and have seen. I tried to cut out as much useless information as possible while still leaving in the useful stuff.
For those not wanting to watch the video here are the most useful things. Faendal in Riverwood can level your archery to 50, you just need to pay for it but you can take all your coins back from his inventory. Aela the Huntress to level you to 75 and has the same method but you can't recruit her until the Companions questline is complete. I do plan on making a guide to that later. The master archery trainers are Niruin in the Thieves Guild, this method cannot be done with her and Sorine Jurard, she is part of the Dawnguard and the method cannot be done with her. The final trainer is Angi and she is located at Angis' Camp south of Falkreath. She can give you six free levels that can be applied to archery at any time, but I would recommend it at level 94. She gives you five free increases by completing her mission and another free one by reading the skill book in her shack called "The Gold Ribbon of Merit".
Archery increases by how much damage you do. This means damage dealt and not potential damage. If your bow does 20 damage and you kill a chicken with 5 health. You don't get the XP for the damage dealt since it all wasn't dealt. You instead get the XP for the damage you did, being 5. That's why I would recommend using the highest difficulty and just sneaking and shooting an enemy to do extra damage. Such as a greybeard, Shadowmere, a giant and mammoth that cannot reach you. In the early game, you will have limited arrows, you can either craft some or dupe some materials to make them. Or you can level your conjuration to 40 and buy Bound Bow from Phinis Gestor in Winterhold. It gives you 100 arrows and a temporary Daedric bow. I already have a duping video on my channel if you would like to see a demonstration. My next video will be a quick leveling guide to Conjuration, which will be much faster to do and explain. I will also soon show how to get an additional XP bonus to maximize XP potential for all future skills.
I will have timestamps as a pinned comment. Feel free to tell me how to improve this or any improvement in general, all is greatly appreciated. I hope this video can give you some sort of usefulness and sorry for the appreciation rant at the end.

[@ShorkWasTaken]

For people not wanting to watch the video, the description has most of what I covered in a written format. Most useful parts of the video. 1:05 Guardian Stones 3:30 Riverwood 3:41 Getting Faendal *Very Important* 4:40 Faendal is follower 5:46 10-50 Archery Method 15:12 Useful perks for quick leveling archery 16:26 Switch to another save file where Alea is available 16:43 Aela the Huntress method 16:50 10-75 Archery Method 17:37 Sneak attacking the Greybeards 21:15 Bound Bow 24:53 Shadowmere Method 25:46 Normal Horse Method (Not as useful)

[@0oShwavyo0]

Not sure if it got mentioned later in the video, but wanted to add a comment with some details on the bound bow: - It’s regular base damage is slightly less than the Daedric bow at 18 but much higher than anything else available at low levels, however, after you get the “Mystic Binding” perk in the conjugation tree which requires 20 conjuration and the novice conjuration perk, the damage goes up to 24 which I believe is the highest base damage of any bow in the game (dragonbone is only 20 at least). If you’re not planning to level smithing/enchanting then Bound Bow is low key one of the stronger bows in the game. - You can get the bound bow at level one in Fort Amol in the Fort Amol prison. Can be tricky to do because of some powerful enemies, but if you just save outside and sneak/haul ass as needed you can ignore the enemies and just grab the spell. The spell tome is in a bucket in the far left corner once you enter the right fort Amol prison door. - The bow’s damage can only be improved via poisoning, can’t apply any enchantments or temper it at a grindstone. As a result it’s sort of bound to get outclassed eventually, from a sheer min/maxing standpoint, but it’s still strong enough to work for the role play value if you want to have a pure conjurer that only uses summoned items in combat, and the early game will be a breeze for you since you legit need like probably 70 smithing minimum to craft something with more base damage than the bound bow (I think at 70 with glass smithing perk an improved glass bow would beat it, but I’m not entirely sure)

[@showmeyourtuts3670]

I want to add that the bound bow is effected by all archery skills and the sneak skill "Deadly Aim" for 3x sneak damage. It's also effected by the Fortify Archer enchant as well. So investing into enchanting is definitely something worth doing for it but like OP said it will eventually get outclassed by other bows from the simple fact that it cannot be upgraded at a grindstone. All the skills and enchantments that increase a weapon classes damage scale of its base damage, but after upgrading a weapon at a grindstone those buffs scale with the new damage value. Since the bound bow can't be upgraded at a grindstone then it's damage output unfortunately cannot go past what max enchants and archery skills can provide. I do remember having a sneak archer revolved around the Bound Bow. It held up pretty well even into the Dawnguard DLC. Unfortunately I stopped playing that character so I don't know how far it really could have gotten.

[@zeroxwarrior]

And you cannot be disarmed with bound bow. Bound bow will carry you from beginning to near end game if you invest in it a little, honestly would be the way to go if you wanted a stealth archer play through. granted you could do the same investing in crafting in early game as well and have powerful weapons and armor but lower combat skills. Just depends on what you want to do in your play through.

[@Insomnia1221yt]

"Despite being classified as a combat skill, Archery receives skill gain boosts from the Thief Stone rather than the Warrior Stone. PC Only The Unofficial Skyrim Patch, version 1.2, addresses this issue. It is now boosted by the Warrior Stone perk."

[@ShorkWasTaken]

We don't use no unofficial patch around these parts.

[@Ashton_Zimmerman]

I just want to add something. If you have USSEP mod downloaded then you won't be able to get the coins out of faendal and Aela inventory!

[@mikesbasement6954]

There is a spell book for "Bound Bow" at Fort Amol.

[@bgggsht]

Haven't watched the whole video, not sure if you mentioned it but Angi's Camp is another great spot to lvl up your Archery. I think the amount of levels you get is fixed, so going there at high (90+) archery levels works the best. Edit: Ok, i've read the video description now 😅

[@mattsmith8160]

It's ironic how I'm enjoying these videos in spite of the fact that I'm generally looking for ways to slow down my leveling. With Beyond Skyrim: Bruma installed and Falskaar and Moonpath to Elseweyr and Legacy of the Dragonborn, Skyrim is such a huge game that I wind up with all my skills maxed out before I'm even half way finished with a play through and it becomes somewhat less fun when you're no longer looking forward to your next perk point to spend so that's why I'm always looking to slow down my leveling.

[@milesromine9960]

Giant toe is not the best Giant toes are kina hard to find when they are not attached to Giants. There is a more valuable potion And two of the three ingredients can found in Whiterun and the first Can be found near Riverwood. Or any where there is are rapids in The rivers. Salmon roe can only be collected from Salmon jumping through the rapids. You need to catch them mid jump to get the salmon roe. You can use your flames as the they jump and you collector salmon Roe in the river at the bottom but you have to be quick art and they will float away. Garlic can be found in many kitchens. Nordic barnacles can be found in Whierun. Search the pond in front of Jarls place

[@Dmobley9901]

Just making a note here, since I'm using these videos as a rough guide to leveling everything- All weapon skills function more or less the same for leveling. BASE damage out = XP in. Most efficient weapon type for two handed is battle axes, particularly anything dragonbone or equivalent/better in terms of DPS, basically just use good weapons if you're training manually. Bows I believe is calculated factoring in the base damage of the arrows, plus base damage of the bow, factoring in whatever firing speed you can reasonably achieve. Best set up I've seen so far for one handed is dual wielding a bone dagger in your left hand and a bone mace in your right, and using the dual tapping dual wield attack, as it gives you the most damage with the fastest speed. 75-90% of leveling though seems to be possible to skip just by using companion members as followers. As mentioned here, Aela can train archery up to 75, Athis (the dark elf) can train one handed up to 75, and Vilkas can train up to 90. (Note that master level trainers can only train you up to level 90, meaning you need to naturally get at least the last 10 levels yourself, though 90 is enough to unlock most if not all skills in any given tree.) Also just a mention Farkas can ALSO train your heavy armor up to 90. So the companions basically have a monopoly on training warrior skills, since they also have Njada stone arm who can train block up to 75 too, meaning that the companions alone can help you skip through 5 out of the 6 warrior abilities up to level 75 at a minimum, albeit not all at once, and it's relatively slow still compared to other skills, as you can only train 5 times PER CHARACTER LEVEL, meaning if you train entirely archery, without a level up you can't train any other skill until you level up, which isn't TOO bad for early levels, but eventually you'd reach a point where each level would take multiple legendary levels to compensate if you ONLY used this method- Though, to be fair, practically speaking warrior abilities kind of...suck in comparison to all other abilities? Like if you wanna make a strong warrior, you don't even need warrior skills, just train smithing and enchanting, crafting is infinitely easier to train and easier to exploit, and even without exploits, leads to directly better damage and defense. Even alchemy alone can get better results. But I digress, still a good video, just that weapon and armor skills are kind of underwhelming in comparison to everything that's meant to "supplement" them. Also weird point, but technically, for weapons getting more perks actually makes it harder to train effectively, as perks that increase damage don't actually effect base damage or XP gain, although perks and spells that effect speed DO, since it's higher base DPS, so the fewer hits you kill things, the less XP you get per enemy/horse that has volunteered as a training dummy. Again, the warrior skills aren't based on trying to be as effective as possible, but how many times you can hit something with the most expensive weapon you have, that isn't enchanted or enhanced in any way. You get a finite amount of experience from every base hit, and that's it, that's why power leveling these suck so much. I repeat, higher damage multipliers DO NOT speed up your progress when leveling, only faster attack speed does, which also, drawing your bow doesn't increase your base damage, just the range. Bound bow (with the conjuration mystic binding perk) has the best base dps, even accounting for arrows, in fact it has the highest dps by all factors based on our purposes. Quickshot is the only perk that speeds up bow speed, and it's not available until 70. But yeah, generally speaking, perks will never let you level faster unless they specifically make an action faster. If I'm wrong about any of this, I'd be happy to be wrong, as I'd love to know how to make grinding these abilities not a pain without actually playing the game as intended. But this is all the confirmed information I have on the topic of weapon skills. You can shoot an orb at the tip of a mountain and get maxed alteration in a matter of seconds, but try and pick up a bow or melee weapon, and it'll take ages even if you're attacking something mindlessly without any worry of dying without stopping at all, at least by comparison. I don't know if sneak attacks actually effect the rate of xp gain at all, it looks like it might but it's tough to tell when every other form of damage multiplier doesn't effect XP explicitly. Also for one handed and two handed, power attacks are confirmed to not effect xp gain.

[@BluMNBafnGaming]

You can actually max out sneek before even leaving helgan

[@ShorkWasTaken]

You can, it will just be very slow

[@jimmy10764]

@@ShorkWasTakenits actually pretty quick you just need one perk in sneak then go behind ralof or hadvar and get him stuck and keep hitting him with a dagger you can also do your 1h and 2h but they are extremely slow

[@Gazbeard]

@@ShorkWasTakenTook me under 15 minutes to hit lvl 100 sneak PLUS lvl 50+ one handed in the Helgen cave, immediately before the bear, by backstabbing Ralof or Hadvar in several playthroughs. It speeds up if you throw a couple of points into the stealth perk to get improved dagger damage - and before that perk use the steel dagger, then the iron dagger after getting the improved dagger perk (reduces risk of overdamaging the target).

[@jimmy10764]

@@Gazbeardyeah you need to put your first or whatever perk in sneak then your good takes about 15-20 mins

[@MatheusFelipe-rf1xe]

Very helpful as always

[@joshuaarmstrong377]

Hey man great video, and just in case you didnt know you can just use a platter and go through the side of jorvaskr to get to the skyforge chest easier, saves a good bit of time

[@scottmurphey5272]

You can use paralyze, for example staff of paralysis, and then steal your money for training back. If you join the Companions and use this method on Aela the Huntress there’s usually no repercussions.

[@omnesignis2714]

Do you have a 100 conjuration? I appreciate how comprehensive and simple your videos on skill leveling are.

[@ShorkWasTaken]

Yes, conjuration is complete and just currently unlisted . I just need to do the time stamps and the thumbnail once I get home from work. In around 8 hours or so.

[@omnesignis2714]

@@ShorkWasTaken cool, conjuration is one of my favorite skill trees! hope work goes well, I'm watching your videos at work!

[@jacksonakson8224]

You can get the bound bow spell book at any level in the fort Amol prison. It is somewhat hidden in a bucket to the left side in the first room. It is defended pretty well by mages however.

[@exorias625]

a method i love is pay to train then pick pocket the gold to train again 2 birds with 1 stone 3 if youre sneaking

[@BoldCaster]

Another banger Fyi though, archery is technically a thief stone skill, not a warrior stone Great guide though Just got to the end: my take is that your videos are great even with minimal editing, as long as the information is dense. This one was good, but it wasn’t as good as the smithing one and the main difference I noticed content wise was that the other one was more tight and you got to the information with minimal stumbling. Also don’t feel the need to upload every single day if you’re gonna make worse videos. KZbin also likes to recommend your most recent video more than others. So leaving a video you think has some more distance to go in terms of potential views on top of your channel might be a good idea. Then you can focus on making the next one sharper as well (I’m not trying to sound like a know it all, but I have some personal experience with this and I’m just trying to give the best feedback I can cause I think this style of video has an audience out there)

[@ShorkWasTaken]

I do appreciate all the feedback. I did the smithing video so well mostly because I know the most about maxing out smithing fast. As you can see with how easily I got to it. I think archery counts for both thief and warrior because it's in the middle and that's what I saw online but I could be completely wrong with that. I am going to start writing scripts as well.

[@BoldCaster]

@@ShorkWasTaken oh ok my bad I like the unscripted format tbf. Kind of a Sam Sulek vibe. You learn something, but it’s not like I’m at school type thing

[@obliviousthunder]

it depends, if your play skyrim vanilla with no mods yes you are right, but if anyone plays with the unofficial skyrim patch that bug is fixed and warrior will lvlup archery. i think it should be mentionned :)

[@BluMNBafnGaming]

Archery is under the thief stone not the warrior

[@ShorkWasTaken]

Yes, I know I got the wrong one. You do know that you can write one long comment instead if 3 different ones?

[@danteeightsix9069]

The Greybeards help the dragonborn to train in skills other than just shouts? Learning more about Skyrim every day.

[@jasonw3204]

The real trick is to use them for sneek archery and distuction but do it b4 starting there missions by sneeking just inside the door and attacking

[@xor6297]

nice video , it was very helpfull :)

[@andreasadi591]

not worked after latest patch.the best method is attacking ralof/havtar at the beginning in bear cave or worshipper at high hothar.

[@ShorkWasTaken]

It works

[@JeremyNoblitt]

Archery is a Warrior skill. So that was good you went warrior stone. Great videos. Keep em up!

[@ShorkWasTaken]

Turns out it was a thief skill but thank you

[@JeremyNoblitt]

It receives the bonus from warrior stone is why I said that. Maybe next Elder scrolls they won't have a gray area ability.

[@zeroone8800]

It is Thief skill in game, but it appears to be a bug as that makes 7 thief skills, 6 mage skills, and 5 warrior skills, and the official game guide lists it as a "path of might" skill. This is changed by the unofficial patch to be the Warrior stone. The unofficial patch also stops the trainer exploits.

[@taudvore259]

@@zeroone8800 So that’s why it didn’t work when I tried it. Thanks.

[@Insomnia1221yt]

"Despite being classified as a combat skill, Archery receives skill gain boosts from the Thief Stone rather than the Warrior Stone. PC Only The Unofficial Skyrim Patch, version 1.2, addresses this issue. It is now boosted by the Warrior Stone perk."

[@cianmoriarty7345]

3:58 ah yes, Camala Harissus, deputy commander of the Penitus Oculatus 😂

[@tomascernak6112]

Yeah, playing Bughesda game in 2024, 12 years after release and like seventh rerelease and having still same glitch to exploit. Meanwhile Unffocial skyrim patch corrected it like 10 years ago. So no, in working and patched game, you can not glitch anything.

[@taudvore259]

By this point it’s a feature, not a bug.

[@DracLtr]

Very weak video. I didn't learn anything. I can summarize tricks and tips as cheating. Clear the game and level 100 archer build. No cheating, no mistakes. At legendary level. Then it has some meaning. This video has educational value = zero.

[@ShorkWasTaken]

Why did you watch it then

[@BluMNBafnGaming]

Sneek attacks level up sneek more than just sneeking around.

[@ShorkWasTaken]

I'm aware.