In Skyrim, there are many different and varied methods of combat. From swords and axes to bows and sorcery, you can use numerous other methods to defeat your enemies and become the hero of legend.
Interestingly enough, however, one method that isn’t talked about nearly as much as the others is that of the Unarmed fighting style. It’s no secret that swinging enchanted swords or casting devastating spells can be fun, but so too can pummeling a person with your bare hands before performing a suplex.
Here, we’ve created the Best Unarmed Build guide for those that aren’t afraid to punch a dragon square in the snout or play as your favorite martial art fighter. We’ll be going over everything you’ll need to make the most powerful character never to wield a sword. From your character’s race to their skill focus to even their armor type, this is the one-stop-shop for your bashing needs.
Race
First thing’s first, you’re going to have to determine what race your character is. Now, while one might instinctively consider the Orsimer Orcs, the Redguard, or even the Nord to act as a viable combatant option, you’d be wrong.
The best-unarmed combatant race, by far, is the Khajiit.
Yeap, you heard that right. The furry, sneaky cat people are described as super thieves and assassins. Those are the number one-hitters when it comes to hitting.
This is because the Khajiit has a unique racial ability known as Claws, which essentially gives them a +12 on all unarmed attacks. Not only that, but, as Beastfolk, the Khajiit have an additional +10 to their unarmed attacks similar to the Argonians. If you’re counting, that means these mean kitties have an insane +22 to all their hits. To put into context, the Dragonbone sword, the most powerful weapon in the game, in its standard base state, +15 points of damage.
Yeah… and that’s before you even leave Helgen.
Sidenote: Just so you are all fully aware, every other race has an unarmed attack of +4. Argonians are a distant 2nd as their racial bonus bumps them to a +14, but yeah, it really is no competition.
Armor
When it comes to what you will want to be wearing, it may seem crazy considering your character’s race, but you’ll want to be completely outfitted in Heavy Armor.
Heavy Armor has several different benefits for an Unarmed Build (some of which we’ll get into during the Skills & Perks section). Still, the main one is that Heavy Armor dramatically improves your defense much more than any other base armor type.
Unlike other methods of combat, you’re going to be right in your opponent’s face, punching with reckless abandon. That means you’re pretty much leaving yourself open to longer-reach sword strikes, ranged attacks from their allies, and hard-hitting blunt strikes from hammers. If you don’t have enough padding between you and their hits, it doesn’t matter how hard you can throw a punch.
Skills & Perks
Heavy Armor
As mentioned earlier, you’re going to want to be outfitted in Heavy Armor. Because of that, and the fact that there is no Unarmed skill tree, you’ll want to divert as much of your time building up the Heavy Armor Skill Tree. Through this, you’ll become that much sturdier and faster, as many Heavy Armor perks reduce the weight of Heavy Armor.
The other factor that makes Heavy Armor and the Heavy Armor Skill Tree so vital is the perk, Fists of Steel. This perk adds the armor rating of your Heavy Armor gauntlets to your unarmed damage. That means, as an example, if a set of gauntlets had an armor rating of +10. Your overall total damage would go from +22 to +32, putting your little fists on par with some of the more powerful weapons in the game.
One-Handed
So, before anyone gets their hopes up, this is more for a practical aspect rather than for any direct stat increase. If you’d like, you can honestly skip this and still be largely on track in terms of One-shotting pretty much everyone you fight.
If you do want to maximize your damage and take your killer blows to the next level, however, there are a few skills you’ll want to grab from here.
First, you’ll want to grab Dual Flurry and max it out. This will allow you to swing dual-handed “weapons” from 20% to 35% faster than normal. Specifically referring to your fists, that means you’ll be able to fire off those +32 punches 35% faster than before when “actually trying”.
The next skill you’ll want to get is the Dual Savagery perk. This perk will allow you to perform an extra 50% damage when pulling off a dual power attack.
So in mathematical gamer speak, if we use the earlier +10 for the gauntlets to get the +32 points of damage per fist, you’ll be doing +48 damage with Dual Savagery. This is multiplied by 4 when you factor in Dual Flurry, bringing your total damage output to 192 damage.
Yeah, that’s a lot of damage.
The one downside is that you’ll have to invest some time training your One-Handed skill as unarmed attacks don’t affect it. A good method is to find various trainers in the world and pay them to train up your skill. You can also spend some time cutting away at your friend during the initial escape from Helgen, as this will allow you to level up your one-handed while not having to worry about playing the actual game with anything but your hardened knuckles.
Enchanted Items
Next up on our quest to become the true One Punch Man, you’ll need to get the Gloves of the Pugilist. These are located in The Ratway under Riften and are worn by Gian the Fist. Kill him and obtain the fur gauntlets for yourself. These gauntlets have the Fortify Unarmed enchantment on them and grant you a +10 when fighting while unarmed. These are the only Fortify Unarmed items in the game, so you must collect them. Luckily you aren’t going to be wearing them just yet since, as they are now, they’d largely just get in your way.
Next, you’ll head to the nearest Enchanting station and disenchant the gauntlets, teaching you the ability. Make sure you have a high enough Enchantment level (through normal progressive use or by stacking Enchantment Elixers) before enchanting both your current heavy armor gauntlets as well as a ring. You ideally want it above a +10, though even that is fine considering how much damage you’ll be doing.
Because of the effects of Fortify Unarmed stack on both your gauntlet and your ring, if we low-ball it to the +10 damage, that means you’ll be doing an additional +20 points of damage per swing. When used in conjunction with Dual Savagery, this turns your initial +48 to +78, while your Dual Flurry makes this a whopping 312 damage! Again, this is with slightly above average armor gauntlets with slightly above average Fortify Unarmed enchantments. This means your strength is actually on the lower end of what it could potentially become.
At this point, even with the 312 damage, you are stronger than pretty much any enemy in the game and can make short work of all but the most powerful opponents. Congratulations.
But we’re not done quite yet.
Dragon Shouts
Like I said earlier, at 312 damage, you’re more powerful than “all but the most powerful of opponents”. If you want to cross that threshold and truly get to the point where your fists alone are enough to slay Giants and murder Dragons, it may be worth it to consider learning these Dragon Shouts.
Dragon Aspect Shout
Found in the Dragonborn DLC, the Dragon Aspect Shout, when fully learned, will grant the Dragonborn an additional 25% to their power attacks. This means you’re now doing a total of 390 damage after everything is factored in.
Marked for Death Shout
Next, the Marked for Death Shout is found in the Autumnwatch Tower, Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary, and the Forsaken Cave. When fully active, this shout causes the target to lose health and suffer an armor penalty progressively every second for a total of 60 seconds. At full strength, this shout will take 180 points off of their health and incur a 4500 penalty on their armor over a 60 second period.
This works on any enemy in the game, from the lowly bandit to Alduin himself, and effectively means you truly can tear just about anything apart with your fists with no difficulty. When combined with the Dragon Aspect Shout and all the other perks, you will have no rival.
