I have been contemplating posting my first character build recently but the critic in me says it just isn't unique enough to justify, however I do feel one of the core aspects of the build does deserve a few words. I'm a large critic of builds that exist solely to highlight one clever or interesting thing (hence my reticence) but I do think this can make for a good discussion.
Over the past few years we have had two major DLC's that have added some fantastic Shouts to an already awesome catalogue (who doesn't love Dragon Aspect and Soul Tear!) but overall the impression I get is that Drain Vitality is, at best, nothing special and many have tossed it into the $0.99 WalMart discount bin alongside Animal Allegiance and those questionable 'previously returned' underwear. I admit it took me a while to really get my head around using Drain Vitality (hereafter referred to as DV) and, as always is the case with me, it wasn't until I leaned on my favourite skill of Alchemy that I finally unlocked it's true potential. For the sake of brevity I'm going to only discuss two core aspects and how they combine to make a very potent weapon; this discussion will focus on the DV shout and the use of Ravage poisons in Skyrim. This may seem somewhat lengthy but if you are a stat junky like me I hope you'll find it interesting.
*Note 1: All numbers quoted are based on Adept difficulty unless specified otherwise
*Note 2: All Alchemy numbers are based on 100 skill and perks and no other modifiers
To begin we must first understand how Skyrim's Ravage poisons work...so buckle up. There are three seperate types of ravage effects (one for each of the three main stats) however they don't all work the same. All Ravage poisons have the same damage base regardless of difficulty setting, a 30 damage poison will do 30 damage whether on Novice or Legendary; they are unique in Skyrim in this regard as all other poisons are subject to difficulty setting.
RAVAGE HEALTH:
Ravage Health is a flat reduction of 30 health from the enemies maximum health and stays in effect for 10 seconds after which it instantly returns back to it's previous value. You can reset this 10 second timer by applying another dose (in addition to lowering the health by another 30 points) so if one continues to hit the enemy with multiple doses you can keep them from healing and/or regenerating health until they are dead. This has many viable uses, one being busting Trolls (YouTube commenters seem immune, further tests required). Ravage Health will not be the focus of this discussion.
RAVAGE STAMINA & MAGICKA:
Ravage Stamina & Magicka both work the same way so I'll refer to them as if one poison type for now. As most are aware the 'Marked for Death' shout is bugged in that it continues to lower the enemies armour rating by 75 points (3 words) per second for the duration of the shout. It was originally intended to only lower the armour by a flat 75 and only have the lingering effect on the damage health aspect (they left a box unchecked in the Creation Kit that causes this difference); Ravage Stamina works in the same way. While Ravage Health has the box checked and thus only drops the health by 30 for 10 seconds, Stamina continues to lower the enemies stamina by 30 points every second for the duration of 10 seconds (300 total) after which it begins to regenerate back to it's previous max (it doesn't lower the max, it just damages stamina); as mentioned previously this number is regardless of difficulty. Immediately the uses for this should be apparent.
A powerful application for Ravage Magicka is against dragons. All dragons have a Magicka pool of 150 and their usage of shouts is tied to their magicka reserves, if a dragon has no magicka it can't use shouts and will just hover in mid air looking like my drunken uncle Albert on Thanksgiving (for this example he can hover...shut up); most dragons will eventually choose to land and engage on the ground so this poison can effectively be used as an alchemist's version of Dragon Rend. Ravage Stamina & Magicka will be a large part of the focus for this discussion.
Wait, wasn't this supposed to be about Drain Vitality?
DRAIN VITALITY (All effects last for 30 seconds)
- 1 word: Drains 5 points of Stamina (30s recharge)
- 2 words: Drains 5 points of Stamina and Magicka (60s recharge)
- 3 words: Drains 5 points each of Stamina, Magicka, and Health (90s recharge)
*Note 3: Dragon Aspect increases the duration to 45 seconds and necromage affects usage on undead
Drain Vitality is basically a 30s DOT (Damage Over Time) that slowly eats away at the above stats working the same way a poison of lingering damage does, it does not absorb the damage like an 'Absorb health' enchantment does. This shout is effected by difficulty level so if you play on Master/Legendary it will pretty much only be doing 1 damage per second which is likely what has led many to regard it as approximately as useful as a screen door on a submarine. In order to understand the true power behind DV we must look beyond the numbers and consider what it does...for 30s DV prevents these stats from regenerating. Hopefully most of you can see where I'm going with this.
On my character I use for 90% of my gameplay (the character I am thinking of posting) I play as an Alchemist Archer which are my two favourite skills. Since Skyrim was released I've mainly relied upon 'Lingering Damage' and 'Slow' poisons combined with the 'Ranger' perk to maintain distance and deal damage (this isn't a sneak archer it's a straight-up Ranger). Disgracefully it took me until about 4 months ago to actually start looking into those useless ravage posions that always seemed crappy and upon realizing the full potential of ravage Stamina/Magicka I immediately thought of Drain Vitality and how they could combine for an incredibly powerful tool. I'm going to go over how I fight dragons (I play on Legendary) with this character to highlight how they work. I use an 'Amulet of Talos' plus the blessing to reduce shout timer by 40%, you can increase this by using fortify restoration potions but I've always distanced myself from that whole can of worms.
If I am able to creep up on a dragon (I have 100 sneak but it's only perked 1/5 and up to 'Deadly Aim') I will hit it with two words of DV and as it begins to take off I'll shoot it with a dose of Ravage Magicka; If I can't get the drop I will shoot the dragon with the poison first then hit him with the shout when possible. For fighting dragons I only use 2 words since the health is virtually unnoticeable and adds too much to the timer recharge; To make usage easier you can prevent yourself from getting all 3 words, then it's only a matter of tapping shout for Stamina and holding it for both. After 5 seconds the dragon's magicka is completely drained and DV prevents it from recharging for ~30 seconds...I have now effectively grounded the dragon and it is only a matter of keeping distance between us to prevent melee damage. With -40% shouts the recharge on 2 words is 36 seconds so there is an overlap between it wearing off and me being able to hit it again, if we reapply another dose of ravage magicka it will stop regen for another 10 seconds which will give us time to shout again. I would estimate 80% of my dragon fights end up being entirely on the ground with the dragon unable to use it's shouts, if we apply a poison of slow or just use good terrain coverage most fights are over the second they begin.
This same tactic can be used on melee enemies by using 1 word of DV and the Ravage stamina poison. The benefits of this are they are reduced to walking speed and are unable to use any power attacks if they somehow get within range (close quarters this will happen). With your 'Ranger' perk you should be able to kite virtually any enemy you come across be it a Giant or those arseholes that Ysolda sends after you for stealing her sweetroll. For complete battlefield dominance we can make an absolutely brilliant poison using Deathbell as the linchpin ingredient resulting in RavageStamina+Slow...they are reduced to an absolute crawl and you can pretty much drink a few bottles of Skooma and still keep pace.
A caveat must be noted that while DV works against the undead, those smelly buggers are immune to poison. In these situations it isn't unreasonable to switch to a different shout but against magic users like vampires it might still be a viable shout since the single greatest threat vampires pose is their strong destruction magic and their incredibly OP vampiric drain which makes them total ballers. It won't stop them completely but DV will eventually deplete their magicka to 0 and they won't be able to regen it for a short while, this reprieve can be the difference maker.
Well that's about it for now. Drain Vitality isn't the greatest shout in existence but I feel it gets an unfair shake sometimes and I wanted to state my case for why I think it is an incredibly useful tool in the correct situation. If you got through this wall of text without having a stroke (you kids and your ADHD these days) I'd like to thank you for your time and perhaps some of you will give this fantastic shout a try.
-James
P.S.
[Insert random 
here since this is a Blog]
I have been contemplating posting my first character build recently but the critic in me says it just isn't unique enough to justify, however I do feel one of the core aspects of the build does deserve a few words. I'm a large critic of builds that exist solely to highlight one clever or interesting thing (hence my reticence) but I do think this can make for a good discussion.
Over the past few years we have had two major DLC's that have added some fantastic Shouts to an already awesome catalogue (who doesn't love Dragon Aspect and Soul Tear!) but overall the impression I get is that Drain Vitality is, at best, nothing special and many have tossed it into the $0.99 WalMart discount bin alongside Animal Allegiance and those questionable 'previously returned' underwear. I admit it took me a while to really get my head around using Drain Vitality (hereafter referred to as DV) and, as always is the case with me, it wasn't until I leaned on my favourite skill of Alchemy that I finally unlocked it's true potential. For the sake of brevity I'm going to only discuss two core aspects and how they combine to make a very potent weapon; this discussion will focus on the DV shout and the use of Ravage poisons in Skyrim. This may seem somewhat lengthy but if you are a stat junky like me I hope you'll find it interesting.
*Note 1: All numbers quoted are based on Adept difficulty unless specified otherwise
*Note 2: All Alchemy numbers are based on 100 skill and perks and no other modifiers
To begin we must first understand how Skyrim's Ravage poisons work...so buckle up. There are three seperate types of ravage effects (one for each of the three main stats) however they don't all work the same. All Ravage poisons have the same damage base regardless of difficulty setting, a 30 damage poison will do 30 damage whether on Novice or Legendary; they are unique in Skyrim in this regard as all other poisons are subject to difficulty setting.
RAVAGE HEALTH:
Ravage Health is a flat reduction of 30 health from the enemies maximum health and stays in effect for 10 seconds after which it instantly returns back to it's previous value. You can reset this 10 second timer by applying another dose (in addition to lowering the health by another 30 points) so if one continues to hit the enemy with multiple doses you can keep them from healing and/or regenerating health until they are dead. This has many viable uses, one being busting Trolls (YouTube commenters seem immune, further tests required). Ravage Health will not be the focus of this discussion.
RAVAGE STAMINA & MAGICKA:
Ravage Stamina & Magicka both work the same way so I'll refer to them as if one poison type for now. As most are aware the 'Marked for Death' shout is bugged in that it continues to lower the enemies armour rating by 75 points (3 words) per second for the duration of the shout. It was originally intended to only lower the armour by a flat 75 and only have the lingering effect on the damage health aspect (they left a box unchecked in the Creation Kit that causes this difference); Ravage Stamina works in the same way. While Ravage Health has the box checked and thus only drops the health by 30 for 10 seconds, Stamina continues to lower the enemies stamina by 30 points every second for the duration of 10 seconds (300 total) after which it begins to regenerate back to it's previous max (it doesn't lower the max, it just damages stamina); as mentioned previously this number is regardless of difficulty. Immediately the uses for this should be apparent.
A powerful application for Ravage Magicka is against dragons. All dragons have a Magicka pool of 150 and their usage of shouts is tied to their magicka reserves, if a dragon has no magicka it can't use shouts and will just hover in mid air looking like my drunken uncle Albert on Thanksgiving (for this example he can hover...shut up); most dragons will eventually choose to land and engage on the ground so this poison can effectively be used as an alchemist's version of Dragon Rend. Ravage Stamina & Magicka will be a large part of the focus for this discussion.
Wait, wasn't this supposed to be about Drain Vitality?
DRAIN VITALITY (All effects last for 30 seconds)
- 1 word: Drains 5 points of Stamina (30s recharge)
- 2 words: Drains 5 points of Stamina and Magicka (60s recharge)
- 3 words: Drains 5 points each of Stamina, Magicka, and Health (90s recharge)
*Note 3: Dragon Aspect increases the duration to 45 seconds and necromage affects usage on undead
Drain Vitality is basically a 30s DOT (Damage Over Time) that slowly eats away at the above stats working the same way a poison of lingering damage does, it does not absorb the damage like an 'Absorb health' enchantment does. This shout is effected by difficulty level so if you play on Master/Legendary it will pretty much only be doing 1 damage per second which is likely what has led many to regard it as approximately as useful as a screen door on a submarine. In order to understand the true power behind DV we must look beyond the numbers and consider what it does...for 30s DV prevents these stats from regenerating. Hopefully most of you can see where I'm going with this.
On my character I use for 90% of my gameplay (the character I am thinking of posting) I play as an Alchemist Archer which are my two favourite skills. Since Skyrim was released I've mainly relied upon 'Lingering Damage' and 'Slow' poisons combined with the 'Ranger' perk to maintain distance and deal damage (this isn't a sneak archer it's a straight-up Ranger). Disgracefully it took me until about 4 months ago to actually start looking into those useless ravage posions that always seemed crappy and upon realizing the full potential of ravage Stamina/Magicka I immediately thought of Drain Vitality and how they could combine for an incredibly powerful tool. I'm going to go over how I fight dragons (I play on Legendary) with this character to highlight how they work. I use an 'Amulet of Talos' plus the blessing to reduce shout timer by 40%, you can increase this by using fortify restoration potions but I've always distanced myself from that whole can of worms.
If I am able to creep up on a dragon (I have 100 sneak but it's only perked 1/5 and up to 'Deadly Aim') I will hit it with two words of DV and as it begins to take off I'll shoot it with a dose of Ravage Magicka; If I can't get the drop I will shoot the dragon with the poison first then hit him with the shout when possible. For fighting dragons I only use 2 words since the health is virtually unnoticeable and adds too much to the timer recharge; To make usage easier you can prevent yourself from getting all 3 words, then it's only a matter of tapping shout for Stamina and holding it for both. After 5 seconds the dragon's magicka is completely drained and DV prevents it from recharging for ~30 seconds...I have now effectively grounded the dragon and it is only a matter of keeping distance between us to prevent melee damage. With -40% shouts the recharge on 2 words is 36 seconds so there is an overlap between it wearing off and me being able to hit it again, if we reapply another dose of ravage magicka it will stop regen for another 10 seconds which will give us time to shout again. I would estimate 80% of my dragon fights end up being entirely on the ground with the dragon unable to use it's shouts, if we apply a poison of slow or just use good terrain coverage most fights are over the second they begin.
This same tactic can be used on melee enemies by using 1 word of DV and the Ravage stamina poison. The benefits of this are they are reduced to walking speed and are unable to use any power attacks if they somehow get within range (close quarters this will happen). With your 'Ranger' perk you should be able to kite virtually any enemy you come across be it a Giant or those arseholes that Ysolda sends after you for stealing her sweetroll. For complete battlefield dominance we can make an absolutely brilliant poison using Deathbell as the linchpin ingredient resulting in RavageStamina+Slow...they are reduced to an absolute crawl and you can pretty much drink a few bottles of Skooma and still keep pace.
A caveat must be noted that while DV works against the undead, those smelly buggers are immune to poison. In these situations it isn't unreasonable to switch to a different shout but against magic users like vampires it might still be a viable shout since the single greatest threat vampires pose is their strong destruction magic and their incredibly OP vampiric drain which makes them total ballers. It won't stop them completely but DV will eventually deplete their magicka to 0 and they won't be able to regen it for a short while, this reprieve can be the difference maker.
Well that's about it for now. Drain Vitality isn't the greatest shout in existence but I feel it gets an unfair shake sometimes and I wanted to state my case for why I think it is an incredibly useful tool in the correct situation. If you got through this wall of text without having a stroke (you kids and your ADHD these days) I'd like to thank you for your time and perhaps some of you will give this fantastic shout a try.
-James
P.S.
[Insert random here since this is a Blog]
Two recipes can be even more beneficial to this:
