What is the Skyrim Max Level and How You Can Level Up Quickly

Reaching those last few levels in Skyrim was always a difficult task, and has only become worse with the update that removed the old maximum level cap.

This guide should tell you everything you need to know about the Skyrim max level of character and skills and help you get to higher levels quickly.

What’s The Skyrim Max Level?

The maximum level you can reach to progress through your skill tree depends on the version of the game you are currently playing. An update released a while after the game’s launch took off the level limit that the base game had.

When Skyrim was first released in 2011, the base game featured a level cap of 81 after which you were not allowed to collect perk points. This gave players the excitement of roleplaying as one character with distinct strengths and weaknesses that could not be changed. However, this is not what most of the community wanted.

A later patch got rid of this limit that stopped you from going beyond level 81. Instead, the game now lets you get to much higher levels with the introduction of legendary skills. While reaching level 252 should give you the chance to unlock every perk in the skill tree, you can go further up and continue increasing your health, magicka, and stamina.

What are Legendary Skills in Skyrim?

With an update, Skyrim took off the level cap of 81 and introduced the legendary skill system. This lets players make any skill legendary once it reaches its maximum value (i.e. 100). Legendary skills will be returned to level 15 and have the perk points from their skill tree refunded.

Making a skill legendary doesn’t give you any additional benefits concerning the individual skill. However, it instead gives you more of a space to level up your character as a whole. Since turning a skill legendary does not lower your character’s level, you can continue working on that skill to cross the older character level cap.

skyrim legendary skills

Skyrim Maximum Level Perks

Since the level cap of Skyrim has been removed, getting a skill to its maximum level lets you convert it into a legendary skill which lets you continue to gain XP for your overall character progression.

Crossing level 80, (which took you to the older level cap) gives you access to a quest that will not be available until that point. Once you reach level 80, the ebony warrior will appear in a major city you travel to and challenge you to a duel.

If you take up this challenge and meet him at the spot he asks you to, you will face off against one of the most difficult foes you have encountered so far. Fortunately, he does not attack you without being provoked, so the assassin’s blade perk should come in handy. Additionally, make sure to carry your best-enchanted weapons and armor for this battle.

How To Easily Reach The Max Skyrim Level

Leveling up in Skyrim may seem simple at the start. However, getting from one level to the next gets substantially more difficult as you get to higher ones. The addition of legendary skill may have made reaching the old level cap of level 81 a little bit easier, but it has also introduced the additional milestone of completing all skill trees.

Increasing a skill level contributes experience points to your overall character level. Optimizing which skills you invest in can drastically impact how fast your character levels up, especially in the mid and end game. The following methods will help you level up your character faster so you can obtain all the perks much more quickly.

Check out our list of the Best Enchantments Skyrim has to offer!

Get Early Levels In All Skills Quickly

The first few levels of all skills are easy to grind through and can give you a much-needed boost early in the game. Beginner spells of most schools are easily available and can be cast on non-threatening enemies. Skills like enchantment and smithing may require a few resources but you will be able to collect them fairly quickly through an evil mage’s lair.

Once you get through the early levels, continue diversifying your skills as and when you get a chance to. You do not need to constantly focus on them, but doing so is still a much easier way to increase your experience than the highest levels of your main skills.

Investing In The Right Legendary Skills

Not every skill in the game is equally easy to level up and trying to make all of them legendary will only make things more difficult for you. The introduction of legendary skills to the game also made it so that you no longer have to get every skill to 100 to level up your character.

Skills like Alteration and Illusion are much easier to level up than ones like Alchemy and Smithing. After you have gotten all your skills to a high enough level, it is a much better idea to make skills that are easier to grind out legendary and get them to level 15 so you can increase them all over again.

Make sure to not make a skill that is necessary for your build legendary unless you intend to change your build (as it will reset its skill tree).

Skill Trainers

If you have the right amount of gold, Skill trainers are the easiest way to level up a skill in Skyrim. You can just pay them a certain price to directly add a few levels to your skill.

While this may be the easiest method of leveling up, it does come with its limitations. Depending on their level of expertise, they might not be able to increase your skills higher than levels 50, 75, or 90.

Each trainer can only be used to increase a certain number of skill levels, so they are best used when you’re on the higher end of their skill cap.

Shadowmere

This may be the most monotonous method on this list but it is also one of the most effective ones. The horse named Showmere, found through the dark brotherhood questline is known for its ability to take a hit. It not only has a high health pool but also regenerates its health over time.

This makes Shadowmere the perfect target to train your destruction spells. You can change the difficulty to legendary and continuously throw lower leveled destruction spells at him for an easy level up. Just make sure to save your game often, in case he does die.

Shadowmere

The Guardian Stones

The Guardian stones found after you leave Helgen are a great boost to your level-up process. You will get to choose between three stones letting you boost the 3 types of skills. Depending on the type of character build you choose, the stone that works the best for you will differ.

If you are solely concerned about leveling up your character, the mage stone might be your best bet considering how many leveling up techniques include casting spells,

The Detect Life Spell

Using the detect life spell should easily be one of the quickest ways to level up. Since this is an area of effect spell, you can find a large crowd of NPCs and use it near them. Any gathering of people, especially during announcements and festivals is a great opportunity to try this out.

The Soul Trap Spell And Enchantment

Soul Trap is another easy way to level up while going through the game. Soul gems are used to enchant items and are often depleted during battle. Using a weapon enchanted with the soul trap effect or using the soul trap spell can let you fill these soul gems so you can work on your enchantment skill.

Using the soul trap spell also increases your conjuration so you can simultaneously work on two skills at once.

The Muffle Spell

Muffle is not only a useful spell for characters that sneak around but is also great for leveling up your illusion skill. You can use muffle as you travel around the land with the only thing stopping you being a depleted magicka bar.

Smithing Iron Weapons

Smithing is not an easy skill to level up. However, you can get a lot of easy early levels by producing iron equipment. Iron is one of the cheaper materials to smith with and finding it in the wild is comparatively easy.

Read our guide covering the Best Skyrim Weapon Mods!

Conclusion

With most of the game explored by the time you got to the original max level of the base game, there wasn’t much more to do. The addition of legendary skills to the game gives players room to experiment with new builds and go about town roleplaying a new character as it takes off the level cap and lets you continue getting more perks.

Dual wielders can become assassins while destruction mages can become thieves and sneak around towns finding items to steal. Making skills legendary doesn’t just let you make your character more powerful, but also enables you to try out different play styles without requiring you to go through the game all over again.

Did you find this guide helpful? What build did you focus on after accessing legendary skills? Let us know in the comments below!

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