I discovered we had a new patch recently and it feels right to start a new character so before I go building a shadow conjurer mage I wanted to share some of my experience as a combat archer.

The build is simple, fully loaded heavy armor and archery with first point in restoration early on for tight spots. Also exclude 100 archery perk as it annoys me when it causes misses. Standing stone Steed because it helps with weight, movement, and stamina usage.

I went straight for Faendal then off to the companions questline. Leveraged his training to 50 archery as I leveled and then kept companions. Progressing through the companions line gives you many opportunities to hang with the heavy armor and archery trainers so you don't risk missing levels of you have money on hand. The skinner fight is tough, take out the lower health targets first so you can manoeuvre better for the big guy; I didn't have a lot of heavy armor skill at this point.

After companions I did dragons, no big deal there as a follower would always distract the dragon and I would pluck from a distance and use terrain. With the heavy armor I could take some chomps as they got desperate and even go toe to toe with them just plucking them in the face. Obtaining dragonrend was just icing on the cake.

After Dragons I went for Dragonborn DLC and by this time I had the sidestep nailed down and didn't even need heavy armor for enemy archers. Was also nearing 100 archery by this time so took a step away to visit Angie for archery 95-100. Swiftly took care of the rest of the Dragonborn quest, but Miraak was mighty tough; I died once and on the second attempt spent a bit of the fight runhealing, but did eventually pull through.

At this point the only thing to improve the build is by crafting but it is perfectly capable of conquering the rest of the game regardless. I got tired halfway through the Dawnguard questline and just haven't played recently.

Lessons learned...

You can never have enough arrows. I can't stress this enough; buy them, pick them up, craft them, but charging in without stealth you will use them all. Even after getting Ranger perk I would eat through them.

More on arrows. The anniversary edition arrows are really cool and great for tight spots, bosses, and target rich environments, but very annoying when you auto switch to them. I usually tried to equip the arrows I had the most of as damage and survival were pretty well balanced regardless of arrow type.

I didn't do any crafting at all so didn't get a chance to tinker with a souped up hunting bow, so stuck with the strongest bow I could find at any point. I ended up using the bow of Shadows for it's raw damage over it's free invisibility spell. I imagine Zephyr would do this build justice.

Any item with magical or elemental resist was well worth it to defend against mages and dragon's breath. Anniversary edition has a nice set of dragon plate armor with 100% fire resist on the chest piece.