Am I overthinking the early game or is it actually brutal on Legendary?

[RiftenWanderer]

Started a new run on Legendary after years of playing on Normal and honestly I'm getting my ass kicked by basic stuff. Level 12, just got out of Helgen, and draugr are taking forever to kill. My sword does like 15 damage per hit and I'm chugging healing potions constantly.

Everyone says "just get better gear and perks" but like... the perks I actually want are locked behind higher skill levels. I'm stuck in this weird zone where my damage is terrible but I'm not strong enough to farm better loot efficiently. Stealth helps but I can't stealth everything.

Is this just the Legendary experience or am I doing something dumb? Playing on Switch so no mods to help. Should I just bite the bullet and grind through it, or is there actually a smart way to make early Legendary not feel like a slog?

 

[TamrielTactician]

You're not overthinking it - early Legendary is genuinely rough, especially at level 12. That damage wall is real. But there's a middle ground between "grind forever" and "just accept the slog."

First thing: are you using any standing stones? The Warrior stone early on cuts through a lot of that tedium since you're already sword-focused. Swapping to it for a few hours can speed up One-Handed gains and get you into perks faster. The Apprentice stone if you're using magic at all.

The bigger issue is probably that you're trying to fight fair. Legendary rewards you hard for using the environment - shout cooldown abuse, positioning, using terrain to separate enemies. If you're in a dungeon with draugr, can you kite them through doorways? Use their own fire breath against them? Pull one at a time instead of fighting groups? On Legendary those things matter way more than they do on Normal.

Also, what's your actual gear situation? Even basic iron or steel smithing gets you a huge damage bump if you haven't touched it. And if you haven't looted anything decent yet, some dungeons have better gear than others - Bleak Falls Barrow has decent early loot, but so do places like Ustengrav if you can handle the path there.

The grind from like level 8-20 on Legendary is legitimately the worst part of the whole run imo. Once you hit level 20-25 and get access to better perks and gear, it gets way better. So yeah, bite the bullet a bit, but play smarter about it rather than just trading blows.