Nord Witchhunter

Alchemy

Skyrim is your home now. You’re no expert on its flora but you’ll need to know enough for reliable medicine.

• Herbalist 1 (10): Potions and poisons you make are 25% stronger.

Archery

Your bow is your main source of damage. Invest in it early; ignore it at your peril.

• Marksman 1 (10): Bows deal 25% more damage.
• Eagle Eye 1 (20): Bows have a 10% chance of dealing critical damage.
• Quick Draw 1 (30): You draw your bow 20% faster.

Conjuration

Make ‘Bound Bow’ a priority purchase. It’s much stronger than your starting bow and you need the arrow supply.

• Summoner 1 (10): Conjuration spells cost 25% less Magicka.
• Dark Oath 1 (20): Summoned creatures last 50% longer.

Destruction

A well placed ‘Frost Rune’ will buy you valuable time and space during a fight.

• Elementalist 1 (10): Destruction spells cost 25% less Magicka. 

Enchanting

You’ll be disenchanting more often than not right now, but you’ll need to start somewhere.

• Artificer 1 (10): New enchantments are 25% stronger.

Light Armor

When all else fails, a few layers of leather will save your skin.

• Scout 1 (10): Light armor is 25% more effective.
• Agility 1 (20): You gain 50% Stamina Regeneration when wearing a light armor chest piece.
• Specialist (30): You receive a 25% armor bonus when wearing a light armor chest piece.

Alchemy

By now your basic potions are barely doing the job. This should fix that.

• Concentration 1 (30): Potions last 50% longer.
• Herbalist 2 (50): Potions and poisons you make are 50% stronger.   

Archery

Your bow will truly become an extension of yourself.

• Power Shot (40): Bows have a 50% chance to stagger enemies.
• Grim Focus 1 (40): Critical hits with bows deal three times damage.
• Marksman 2 (50): Bows deal 50% more damage.
• Ranger (60): You can move faster with a drawn bow.
• Quick Draw 2 (70): You draw your bow 40% faster.  

Conjuration

Summon daedra that can last longer, both in duration and in damage.

• Armor of Shadows 1 (30): Summoned creatures gain 150 Armor Rating and 25% Magic Resistance. 
• Ritual of Power 1 (40): Summoned creatures deal 25% more damage. 
• Summoner 2 (50): Conjuration spells cost 50% less Magicka.
• Dark Oath 2 (60): Summoned creatures last 100% longer.  

Destruction

Embrace the cold of Skyrim and infuse it into your strikes.

• Augmented Frost (30): Frost spells deal 25% more damage.
• Rune Mage 1 (30): You can maintain up to two runes at once. 
• Elementalist 2 (50): Destruction spells cost 50% less Magicka. 
• North Wind 1 (60): When you have a frost spell equipped, you reduce the Frost Resistance of all nearby enemies by up to 50%. 
• Rune Mage 2 (60): You can maintain up to three runes at once.   

Enchanting

Enchanting will continue to be a long road before it pays off, but for now you’ll want to get the most from your bow.

• Resonance (30): Weapon enchantments consume 50% less charge.
• Jewelry Enchanter (30): New enchantments on jewelry are 25% stronger.  

Light Armor

Squeeze a bit more out of your armor without investing too heavily.

• Scout 2 (50): Light armor is 50% more effective.
• Agility 2 (60): You gain 100% Stamina Regeneration when wearing a light armor chest piece.

Sneak

Dabbling in Sneak will allow you to place defensive runes without alerting the enemy.

• Agent 1 (10): You are 25/50% harder to detect while sneaking.
• Silent Casting (20): Your spells are silent to others.

Alchemy

With these, your beneficial potions will push you to the edge of your potential.

• Potency 1 (60): Potions you mix are 25% stronger.
• Concentration 2 (70): Potions last 100% longer.
• Potency 2 (90): Potions you mix are 50% stronger.

Archery

Higher crit damage and greater crits against injured enemies. What’s there not to like?

• Eagle Eye 2 (70): Bows have a 20% chance of dealing critical damage.
• Steady Hand (80): Zooming in with a bow slows down time.
• Grim Focus 2 (90): Critical hits with bows deal five times damage.
• Lethal Shot (100): Your critical chance and critical damage with bows are doubled against enemies who fall below half Health.

Conjuration

Add insult to injury with an additional summon, each more powerful than before.

• Daedric Pact (70): Summoned creatures have 100 extra Health, Magicka, and Stamina.
• Armor of Shadows 2 (80): Summoned creatures gain 300 Armor Rating and 50% Magic Resistance. 
• Ritual of Power 2 (90): Summoned creatures deal 50% more damage. 
• Doors of Oblivion (100): You can summon or reanimate one additional minion.

Destruction

Bring the temperature even lower as a master of frost itself.

• Augmented Frost 2 (70): Frost spells deal 50% more damage.
• Permafrost (80): Frost spells reduce enemy attack damage by 25% for 10 seconds. 
• North Wind 2 (90): When you have a frost spell equipped, you reduce the Frost Resistance of all nearby enemies by up to 100%. 
• Deep Freeze (100): Frost spells have a chance to freeze targets who fall below half Health.

Enchanting

Your patience pays off here, and you’ll have the soul gems to enjoy it with.

• Armor Enchanter (40): New enchantments on armor are 25% stronger.
• Artificer 2 (50): New enchantments are 50% stronger.
• Corpus Enchanter (60): Health, Magicka, and Stamina enchantments are 25% stronger.
• Soul Siphon (60): Enchanted weapons regenerate some of their lost charge when they deal a killing blow.
• Elemental Enchanter (70): Elemental enchantments are 25% stronger. 
• Insightful Enchanter (80): Skill enchantments are 25% stronger.
• Twin Secrets (100): You can place two enchantments on a single item.

The Thief (Guardian)

Cheater’s Luck: Your Stamina is increased by 50, you move 10% faster, and you take 50% less damage from falling.

Drawing a bow can be draining on stamina and the extra move speed can help distance you from an opponent. This is a great stone to start with as it’ll keep you alive until other options are available.

The Atronach

Sorcerer’s Oath: Your Magicka is increased by 100, and you have a 25% chance to absorb the Magicka from incoming spells. However, you cannot regenerate Magicka in combat.

Ideally you’ll be summoning your frost atronach and setting runes out of combat, making the Magicka regeneration penalty less harsh. The extra Magicka allows you to focus your attribute points elsewhere, such as in more Stamina for shooting.

The Ritual

Mother’s Sorrow: You can summon or reanimate one additional minion, but your summoning and reanimation spells last half as long.

In the late game, your summoning durations will be obnoxiously long. Cutting them in half for the benefit of having a 2nd or 3rd atronach is a powerful trade worth considering.

Akatosh

You gain 10% more experience.

You can never go wrong with the chief deity as he’ll provide you with a solid experience boost. Faster leveling means faster access to powerful perks that will keep your adventures moving smoothly.

Julianos

Your Magicka is increased by 25.

Alternatively, a boost to your Magicka may be the difference needed to cast a higher tier spell. This option is especially suitable when leaning into life at the College of Winterhold as you’ll be more in touch with your magical studies there.

Kynareth

Your Stamina is increased by 25.

Extra stamina is always useful and the shrine can be found early on in Whiterun. You can’t go wrong with this choice. At some point you may feel that your Stamina Regeneration makes the extra Stamina less useful. If that happens, consider switching to another deity.

Conjuration

Every ranger needs a companion and Conjuration provides. The summon is the star of the show, no two ways about it. The only question is how do you plan on advancing your skill to the point of binding one to this plane?

• Soul Trap (Novice+): If a target dies within 60 seconds, fills a soul gem.
  You’ll need soul gems for enchanting and you’ll also need to level Conjuration a fair bit for your other key spells. This will help you towards both ends.

• Bound Bow (Adept): Summons a Bound Bow for 120 seconds.
  In another universe this build would take all of the bound weaponry perks. In this universe, this is a early-to-mid-game option to help conserve arrows and level Conjuration.

• Conjure Frost Atronach (Adept+): Summons a Frost Atronach for 60 seconds.
  Your best friend. It’s large, tanky, and slows your opponents with its aura. Shooting around it can be a pain but you’ll be glad it’s there.

Destruction

Destruction is a strong backup plan to your bow and you could easily learn and utilize the entire portfolio of Frost spells here. The spells below synergize best with the build and concept, however.

• Frostbite (Novice+): Deals 8 Frost damage per second to Health and Stamina.
  A staple Destruction spell that will help you get through the early game. Use this every once in awhile to save on arrows.

• Frost Rune (Apprentice+): Creates a rune on the ground that explodes when enemies approach, dealing 40 Frost damage to Health and Stamina.
  Placing these ahead of you before a fight can save your life. In addition to the damage it will apply an additional slow to the enemy, giving you extra time to finish them off.

• Ice Storm (Adept+): Deals 40 Frost damage to Health and Stamina in a large area.
  Due to your atronach’s resistance you can freely cast this in an area centered around them, dealing damage to anything unfortunate enough to be caught in the radius.

Call of Valor

Cooldown: 180/180/180 seconds

• Hun: Summons Gormlaith Golden-Hilt for 60 seconds.
• Kaal: Summons Felldir the Old for 60 seconds.
• Zoor: Summons Hakon One-Eye for 60 seconds.

Frost Atronachs are great but Nord heroes are even better and still in theme. Since they count towards the same conjuration limit, this is a good backup plan should you be short on Magicka for summoning. They have access to shouts such as Unrelenting Force so they can sometimes be a better ally for crowd control than your usual ally.

Frost Breath

Cooldown: 30/45/60 seconds

• Fo: Deals 50 Frost damage to Health and Stamina.
• Krah: Deals 75 Frost damage to Health and Stamina.
• Diin: Deals 100 Frost damage to Health and Stamina.
• Meditation: Frost Breath deals extra Stamina damage over 30 seconds.

Very much in theme for the build. It won’t benefit from your perks but it will replace a spell in an emergency, especially if you want to keep your bow out at the time. Keep it equipped for emergencies.

Ice Form

Cooldown: 60/90/120 seconds

• Iiz: Reduces enemy Movement and Attack Speed by 25% for 20 seconds.
• Slen: Reduces enemy Movement and Attack Speed by 25% for 40 seconds.
• Nus: Reduces enemy Movement and Attack Speed by 25% for 60 seconds.
• Meditation: Ice Form has a chance to encase enemies in ice for 10 seconds.

An excellent crowd control option. A 25% malus is very noticeable and buys you a lot of space. With the meditation this has a chance of freezing them outright for 10 seconds, giving you even more time.

Weapon

• Frost Damage: Deals 30 Frost Damage to Health and Stamina.
• Weakness to Frost: Reduces enemy Frost Resistance by 50% for 30 seconds.
• Absorb Magicka: Absorbs 30 Magicka.

It’s hard to say which is better of the Frost enchantments. Additional damage does not benefit from your multitude of perks however it’s an additional way to apply slow effects to your enemies. Lowering their resistance is beneficial for subsequent arrows or if you’ve laid runes or summoned an atronach. You can choose both eventually, thankfully. Otherwise, Absorb Magicka can mitigate the drawback of the Atronach Stone if you’re running into issues managing Magicka.

Head

• Fortify Archery: You deal 25% extra damage with ranged weapons.
• Fortify Destruction Cost: Your Destruction spells cost 25% less.
• Fortify Conjuration Cost: Your Conjuration spells cost 25% less.

If you have the ability to boost your Archery damage, do so. Otherwise, you cast enough spells from either school that the Magicka savings are noticeable and better than other options you have in this slot.

Chest

• Resist Magic: Your Magic Resistance is increased by 25%.
• Fortify Destruction Cost: Your Destruction spells cost 25% less.
• Fortify Conjuration Cost: Your Conjuration spells cost 25% less.

With your atronach and your bow you aren’t usually in the crosshairs but extra Magic Resistance never hurts. Otherwise, you can use this slot to make your spells cheaper, or even cheaper if you’ve the same enchantment on your head.

Gloves

• Fortify Potion Duration: Your potions last 50% longer.
• Fortify Sneak Attacks: You deal 25% more damage with sneak attacks and spells.
• Fortify Magicka: Your Magicka is increased by 50.

Your investment in Alchemy gives you access to powerful potions and not just the healing variety. You can capitalize on that here or you can embrace your inner stealth archer for more damage. Lastly, a Magicka boost can be the lift needed to cast a more powerful spell in a pinch.

Boots

• Fortify Stamina: Your Stamina is increased by 50.
• Fortify Stamina Regeneration: Your Stamina Regeneration is increased by 50%.
• Fortify Sneak: You are 25% better at sneaking.

Extra Stamina will help you fire more arrows and run when needed. Otherwise, this slot is flexible and can bolster your resistances, carry weight, or stealth. While this isn’t your typical “Stealth Archer” build, the bonus to staying undetected never hurts.

Necklace

• Fortify Archery: You deal 25% extra damage with ranged weapons.
• Fortify Destruction Power: Your Destruction spells are 25% stronger.
• Resist Magic: Your Magic Resistance is increased by 25%.

A very high-value slot. You’re able to boost your main sources of damage here or further protect yourself from nasty magical attacks. Getting more out of your bow is always a win but necklaces are lightweight. You could easily carry multiple as needed.

Ring

• Resist Magic: Your Magic Resistance is increased by 25%.
• Fortify Destruction Power: Your Destruction spells are 25% stronger.
• Fortify Conjuration Duration: Your Conjuration spells last 50% longer.

The ring slot is similar to your necklace. Use it to shore up your defenses against the arcane or, if you’re feeling secure, boost your Frost damage further. This is another place where you can carry multiple options without weighing yourself down.