Honestly, the most challenging part about Survival Mode is surviving the cold weather, especially since you can't fast travel. You can keep 50 cooked beef steaks or cabbage soups in your inventory to deal with hunger and you're never too far away from a bed to rest in, inns are super cheap. Diseases can be cured really easily too, and regardless of race you should always have a few Cure Disease potions on you. That's why I'd have to put Nords as the #1 race for survival mode, followed by Orcs. 3rd place would be Dark Elves because they have ancestors wrath which can come in handy to traverse water, and you realistically won't notice a huge difference playing as any other race. My favorite race, the Argonians, would unfortunately go last because of their weakness to cold (sad face).
I’ve been really enjoying my Argonian survival playthrough. The weakness to cold doesn’t outweigh the positives to the class imo. Though, need to make a point that hot cabbage soup and torch bearing becomes a necessity.
Found your channel recently, I generally follow elder scrolls related content, but best of luck in your endeavour! Thanks for putting these up, I love talking about this game with the community. Altmer are my favourite race btw.
I almost always play Breton. That all around Mag Res is unmatched. A strange thing happened while I played Argonian in Survival. It was my 3rd character I tried in that mode. I got about 20 diseases by level 30. Considering an Argonian is supposed to get 50% disease protection, that doesn't reflect the data as this rate is double all the other characters combined (all melee fighters). It looks like someone inverted a calculation with SM.
Awww man, and here I was thinking that the argonians were already getting done extra dirty just because of the added survival mode cold weakness. This on top is just brutal 😭
The 25% buff isnt that great. You can enchant a piece of Armour without exploit glitches Up to 23% which is absolut enough since magic resistance Caps at 85%. With the Lord stone, the 3 perks and maras Blessing you have already 70% which means an enchanted Item with 15% is good enough to max out. Only after that element resistance is counted. The Maximum you can get is 54% on an piece of Armour. The norths have already 50% and the diffrence is Not even noticable in a fight because its a diffrence of 0.6 damage you earn "more" by every 100 damage Output from an enemy. Also the fear Scream ist very helpfull in the early Game and as it was mentioned somewhere else hunger and sleep are never any Problem but the coldness is really a nasty thing to deal with im survival mode. Therefore the norths without a doubt are the best race for Skyrim im survival mode with the best starting ability and Overall perfect resistance + the extra warmth
Short Guide for the best enchantments on Armour If you want the most balanced character that can do anything: Be able to enchant twice per piece. Shoes: Go for muffle and sneak. There is a lot of Argument that one is better then the other but BOTH is important. Sneak is basicly for Vision (gets calculated against the enemies sneak Level) and muffle for Hearing. So even with invisible spell/potion you can be detected when they hear you. Go for both because of you are hungry im survival mode the 40% bost will negate the minus from hunger and tiered Out. So its break even and your sneak Level will decide If they can see you. Falmer btw will never notice you with muffle so enjoy the dwemer Ruins. gloves: Go for one hand and two hand Buff. Armour - get the magic Regeneration buff because health regneration doesnt work. Technicly you could make it work because its just a -100 debuff but how in the heck and why would you buff yourself up to that to get the 0.7 standard regeneration? The second is stamina Regeneration buff because If you Switch from Magic to hand to Hand Combat you need the faster regen in the battle. Helmet: Go for Extra damage bow + waterbreating. I know some people say it is rarely used but its nice to not be botherd with that in general. Ring: get Position resistance at least 35% enchanted (you can get Up to 48% or so but thanks to the perk that gives already 50% only 35% is needed) + shock resistance 54%. Note: you will never need any resistance against illness because you just Go Werwolf most of the time anyway. That maxes out resistance to illness too. And Werwolf is a nice thing to Go If you are close to freez to death because the Werwolf is Not affected by coldness - so double win. Shield: Go with Block obviously and Extra health. Its the only things that are left anyway for it lol. Last but not least the neckless: Depending on If you are a north or Breton etc. You go for the missing resistances as north its fire resistance and Magic resistance. Because You already have 50% ice resistance since element resistance is calculated after Magic resistance you only miss out 0.6 damage every 100 Magic attack from an enemy. Thats not even noticable in any Fight i once fought a Frost Dragon on legendary and IT was only then that i noticed after the fight that i was like missing 10 hitpoints more than with breton build. Its not deciding the battle trust me. If you are low to 20 hit points you will be either dead or drink a poition anyway or use Magic heal. With that enchantments your Dragonborn is almost immune to damage, illness, posion, perfect sneak and has extra magix and stamina regenl in survival mode and water never bothers you again + nices buffs to hand to hand and bow. Using the norths also adds the 25% warmth which is the highest in Game making this Armour enchanting and the north the most resistance to everything Race in the game. Taking bretons for 4% / 0.6 damage reduction freeze damage vs extra 25% warmth bonus makes IT clear i think which Race you have to Go If you want to be unable to take damage. Also the strongest Armour in the game is the Madness Armour and on legendary enemies can have the mace peark which ignores Up to 75% Armour. So If you want to max out Armour points you need 2268 Armour points to negate every Armour ignoring perk and still end up with the max value of 567 to have the full 80% caped damage reduction. If you Go without exploits and have 100 in heavy Armour perks with Madness Armour i think with shield you can still not get more than 2150. So you will always See a tiny diffrence If an enemy has an Armour ignoring Bonus. And i know what you are thinking now. WAIT mage built is Not benefiting from that. Well you have the most resistant armour/character/race with norths in survival mode now. I would never leave Out in the extra bow damage because legendary without Sneak Archer is insane. And If you Go mage the stamina Regeneration enchanting is still better because your Maximum use of Magic Will not be botherd by it but your stamina is. So the only enchantments you could Switch is on the gauntlets. You can mix the bow from the helmet and sneak from the shoes Up to get the two enchantments spaces free for Magic cost reduction enchantings. But are they Really worth IT? No. The extra damage is noticable on legendary with one and tw hands while you would need both slots for one Magic school basicly to make it even worth. Since Illusion, conjure, Restoration and alteration are usally Not so Magic intense or used before and after battle you can Counter these with Just having 500 Magic Points. So it would Go down to Magic Regeneration or destruction cost reduction. Destruction reduction cost Always outclasses Magic Regeneration so you would Go with that and get a total cost reduction of 58% without glitches. Compare this to the 38% Extra damage with one and two handed you see that the last once outclass together the cost reduction. For the most balanced and resistant amour you need to Go for one and two handed + 500 Magic points. You can still use every spell for fun. Use Illusion, conjure a deadra throw fire balls and after your Magic is depleted you Smash the enemy with your axe. For a Real mage build you cant have a maxed out balanced and resistance Armour. To Make destruction cast liable you need at least 3 enchanting Slots with a total of 86% cost reduction alone otherwise its not working Well and on legendary without 100% reduction cost in destruction to fight endlessly you are out of the game. Btw. 430 magic is the bare Minimum You will need in Game with level 100 and no perks to cast every spell possible with cost reduction perks its less like 330 but a good Magic build should always have around 400 in my opinion.
Another Note for survival: why stamina Regeneration and Not Magic in the chest Armour: you will Run away a lot...Not only on legendary so having at least this buff once is absolut necceessary. For the mage built: From the total of 12 enchanting Slots at least 8 are a Must have already. 3 restinsces, potion, stamina and magic regen, muffle and sneak. If you are Not Breton or north or dunmer, you are already on 9 slots because you Miss one resistance race benefit. Which makes a legendary mage destruction spell Run with max resistance already near Impossible. But here is another catch you cant Switch much around with the Helmet enchantings. Beside bow damage, destruction cost, Magic regen and waterbreating there is not much going on for it. So it means even with norths, Breton or dunmer you cant have more than 2 enchantings for one magic school If you want the full resistance. Making the build i recommended about the only real one when IT comes to resistance all and a balanced character that Fights with everything. A pure Mage build would Go best with 4 cost reduction in destruction health and stamina reg because of survival and legendary. And you could get 3-4 resistances depending on race but you will Miss out on muffle, waterbreating, damage one, two and bow. And you will end up with two enchantments spaces left that cant havy any of these. I guess you could Go for Magic regn then to balance out the missing cost reductions on the other schools but yeah. Thats your unbalanced mage built
Actually the Khajiith has a stealth bonus of 25, and everything else is twenty Archery pickpocket light armor Speech . The wood elf actually have a stealth bonus at fifteen, but they do actually have a twenty-five Archery bonus. Compared to twenty of the Khajiith
Did you ever played survival mode? Probably Not because then you would know that Norths are the best race. Orcs seem like it and kajith Had so many stuff going on too but Overall its all useless you need 200 and above warmth to survive in a Blizzard and only norths can achive that. I played kajith too and the 10% diffrence is a game changer. Orcs only have 10% and the rest litterly nothing. Argonia even -25.
Minor correction, Khajiit's Night eye skill does not have the "once per day" limit. You can reuse it immediately after the 60 second limit, and they're the only race to have this. That being said, thanks for this little guide. Gonna be useful for when I do a new game survival run and are debating what race i'd want to play.
Orc prob best for any sneak character you can pop the racial and hit way harder sneak attacks having lower base Stats for sneak and bows is actually way better than having them because you will gain extra lvls early but I like to do heavy armor enough sneak to get the perk for extra sneak attack on bows and 2 hander with restro magic and conjuring for summons this gives you pretty solid kit for taking on anything
Thank you for the video man. I am about to do a survival livestream playthrough and be a fisherman/farmer for the Anniversary Edition so your videos are super helpful! Gonna go Nord and really pump up speech for trading. It will be interesting for sure
In the Console version of Skyrim (Switch, at the least), there’s no way to actually raise Brightness in-game. This is why I find the Night Eye power to be all but essential when exploring caves, which is why I frequently end up being a Vampire in my playthroughs more often than not. But having access to Night Eye as a Racial Lesser Power allows me to pick Werewolf. This honestly puts a Khajiit warrior/thief closer to #1 for me, though I prefer Bretons above all else.
Thank you, for uploading. With the new updates for skyrim and the release of survival mode i needed to look into what i have gotten myself into in terms of already existing characters.
Gotta lower the A+ to an A to A- because it’s really difficult to make an attractive female Orc. Survival or not, if you don’t look good doing it, it’s not worth doing.
