What is an effective way to level Archery?
You do not receive experience for a missed shot. You do gain experience on every successful hit (does not have to be enemy!). The more damage you do, the more experience you gain. A kill also gives you a bit of experience bonus (judging by how much the bar moves).
The best part of leveling archery is that you don't have to hit an enemy to get experience, you can make target practice on your summoned minions, such as a familiar or zombie. Just summon one, shoot at it, then repeat.
There are also 3 archery trainers in Skyrim that can improve your skill for gold:
- Faendal in Riverwood (Journeyman, level 0 - 50).
- You can effectively train with Faendal for free, if you gain him as a follower through the quest "A Lovely Letter".
- Aela The Huntress in Whiterun (Expert, level 0 - 75). (Aela will only train you after you join The Companions)
- Niruin in Riften (Master, level 0 - 90)
Another way to get 5 easy levels is to go to a place called "Angi's Camp". It's a little south-east of Falkreath. Angi will give you tips for using a bow, and if prompted will take you down to some targets and tell you which to shoot, etc. etc. Doing each practice session on the targets grants you 1 level, regardless of what level you are, and there are 5 in total. I waited and used them to get from 90 to 95, though in hindsight I maybe should have waited to do from 95 - 100. Also found inside the shack at her camp is a skill book on her bedside table which will grant you another skill point. Hope this help!
There are actually six free archery levels that can be gotten from training with Angi. There are four challenges, the first grants you three archery levels, and the other three grant 1 level each upon completion. Not to mention the archery skill book called "The Gold Ribbon of Merit" available in her house by her bed, which could potentially give a seventh free archery level.
There are several effective ways to level archery in Skyrim. The first way I found was as follows:
Get a weak bow (hunting/imperial) and a ton of Iron or Steel arrows and find a giant location in the wilderness (icon looks like a mammoth head w/ tusks, or an octopus) with a few giants and a large, unclimbable rock.
Make your way to an area of the rock with a good viewpoint, and hopefully some cover to crouch back out of view and re-hide yourself. The giants and mammoths will be unable to get to you, and since they are 100% reliant on melee, you are untouchable.
Turn the game difficulty up to Adept or Master (whatever they're called if those are wrong).
Proceed to dump dozens and dozens of arrows into giants, and the mammoths if you have any left.
Another good way to level archery:
Put your companion/follower with the heaviest armor, preferably buffed with health, hit him/her with courage and rally, give them a shield and no weapon (usually it means they default to a really weak weapon. Maybe use the gloves of the pugilist found in the Rataway during the prereq quest for the thieve's guild. They may auto-equip those given that they're enchanted.)
Have them tank a large group of lowbie bandits or whatever, while you dump arrows into their backs. The best thing would be like two bears, any more and they'll die too quickly.
Yet another good way would be to find any troll, equip your Ice Form shout that freezes enemies for whatever it is, twenty seconds or whatever, and use low-damage arrows so that the troll can regen about as fast as you can damage it. When it gets close to you, shout and get some distance.
There are obviously other good ways to level archery, but hope these suggestions help. They certainly helped me. :)
One of the best ways I've seen to level archery is to get the Dark Brotherhood horse, and shoot it repeatedly. It usually regenerates whatever damage you do to it between shots, and he holds still and doesn't despawn.
Plus, he looks awesome :)