Skyrim: Dragonborn Flame vs. Frost vs. Force – Which Is Better & What Should You Choose?

One of the most important aspects of Skyrim’s gameplay are shouts. These magical abilities allow you to utilize your “dragon” voice for a variety of destructive effects. Shouts are introduced at the beginning of the game, and over time, as you collect the words, it is possible to make them overpowered even. With the release of the Dragonborn add-on, players were given a choice to upgrade one of the three most important shouts in the game, Unrelenting Force, Fire Breath, and Frost Breath. Despite all three upgrades being incredibly powerful, you can have only one at a time. Due to this, we’ve decided to create this guide. Let’s see which upgrade is better, Dragonborn flame, Frost, or Force. 

Dragonborn Force, fire, and Frost are acquired by reading a Black Book 

The best rewards in Dragonborn expansion come from the so-called Black Books. We’ve covered Black Books extensively when we’ve discussed how to refund your perks, which is likewise one of the rewards available from the books. 

During the quest, “The Gardener of Men,” you are sent to travel within a Black Book in order to obtain the words for “Bend Will Shout,” which is needed to defeat Miraak, a second Dragonborn that appears with the introduction of the expansion.

At the end of the quest, like with other Black Books, you are awarded one special upgrade, among other rewards. You can choose to upgrade 1 of 3 core shouts in the game, and the choice is between Dragonborn Force (which upgrades Unrelenting Force), Dragonborn Fire (which upgrades Fire Breath shout), and Dragonborn Forst (which upgrades Forst Breath shout). All three upgrades, in theory, sound good, but the truth is, one is much better than the others. Let’s analyze it.

Dragonborn Force allows you to disintegrate your enemies

Dragonborn Force is an upgrade of the existing Unrelenting Force shout. By having Dragoborn Force, your Unrelenting Force does much more damage, and if you have all three words of the shout, there is a chance that your enemies will instantly disintegrate the moment the shout hits them. 

As you can see, the requirement is to have all three words of the Unrelenting Force, Fus, Ro, and Dah. This is no issue since Unrelenting Force is one of the rare shouts you will acquire fully early in the game, depending, of course, on the timing when you decide to do the main story. 

Dragonborn Force is effective against most enemies since most enemies are not immune to disintegration. This, and the fact that all three words are acquired early, are the biggest selling points of this shout, and therefore it is the most useful. 

Dragonborn Flame summons fire wyrms to aid you 

Dragonborn Flame is an upgrade of the existing Fire Breath shout. Every time your Fire Breath proves to be lethal in a fight against enemy fire wyrm will spawn and will aid you in combat for 60 seconds. This highly destructive upgrade can prove incredibly lethal against a group of relatively less powerful enemies since you aren’t limited to only fire wyrm at a time. If you manage to clear part of the pack of, let’s say, low-level draugurs, each dead draugur killed by Fire Breath will spawn fire wyrm. To make it simple, you can have several fire wyrms at a time. 

Fire is especially deadly when you’re dealing with undead enemies due to their natural weakness to fire. However, some enemies, like dragons for example, and Dark Elves, are immune to fire significantly, and in that case, the shout and the upgrade prove to be less useful. Still, Dragonborn Flame is a good second choice, especially if you focus on cleaning larger packs of enemies at a time and don’t focus much on single-target combat. 

Dragonborn Frost encases your enemies in ice 

Dragonborn Frost is an upgrade of an existing Frost Breath shout, and every time the shout hits an enemy, that enemy will be encased in ice for 15 seconds, unable to move. What makes Dragonborn Frost different from the rest of the similar frost-based effects is the fact that the ice won’t break after you strike your frozen enemy once. 

Dragonborn Frost is highly effective for single-target combat and mages who want to keep a distance between themselves and their targets. However, in realistic scenarios, many of the enemies you will encounter when you’re roaming Skyrim and Solstheim will have significant resistance to frost. Due to this, and the fact that you acquire all three words of the Frost Breath shout later on, it’s the least useful of the upgrades. 

It’s not useless per se, but unlike the previous two upgrades, it’s useful only in specific scenarios for a specific type of single-target-oriented gameplay. 

If you think you’ve chosen the wrong upgrade, you can always change your mind

Like most Black Book-related rewards, you can always change your mind and choose a different upgrade when you feel like it. You can change between Dragonborn Force, Flame, and Frost by reading the Black Book Epistolary Acumen. There’s a catch, however as you need to be in Solstheim when you’re reading the Black Book; otherwise, nothing will happen. Changing an upgrade costs nothing, and you can do it as many times as you like. 

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