"You cast me out, to endure the land of skyrim. Hoping I would be fodder to the wolves, or at best a bear. Oh but you were wrong. I survived, I thrived and now, I'm coming for you Yamarz."
A brutal but ruthless assassin who respects strength and power above all and despises anything he sees as a weakness, this outcast among outcasts now follows a code of his own. While his combat style seems to clash with the orc style of life and their age-old customs and traditions, the outcast is not your typical assassin either, drawing heavily upon his orc heritage as he chooses axes over daggers and brutality over subtlety. No matter the challenge or the target presented to him, aided by his trusted greataxe, his dual war-axes, his poisons, the shadows and of course the power of his own blood, he will overcome it.
The outcast, is as you should already have gathered, an orc. Their racial power, the berserkers rage is key to the gameplay and the power of this build so there really is no other choice. As a non magical assassin, the outcast will only need two of the primary stats, those being health and stamina. While it may surprise you, thanks to the low weight of the main weapons you'll be using, the investment in stamina is mainly going to be used for movement. This high cost in movement is somewhat related to the reasoning behind the health investment. This character is very lightly armored and buffing it's health to making this orc somewhat sturdier can be a real boon.
Staying in the same theme, it is a good idea to take pick either the atronach or the lord stone for some extra resistance, especially when confronting mages. You'll have to pick a favourite though, the atronach covers more of the magic damage you may recieve but the lord buffs up your armor rating as well, making for a nicely balanced effect. In the meantime I suggest you pick your favourite guardian stone.
So let's sum it all up:
Race: Orc
Stat distribution: 0/1/2
Standing stone: Atronach or Lord
Two-handed: while it might surprise you, this skill is going to be used to assassinate your targets from the shadows. This has however two small inconvenients: unlike daggers a two handed greataxe isn't silent, what a surprise eh? And of course it doesn't profit from any stealth related perks. But don't worry I've got you covered on both accounts.
One-handed: With the sound produced by our greataxe it is necessary to have a backup in case of open combat, this is where the one handed skill and the outcast's waraxes come in. Thanks to the great bleeding damage and the support provided by your alchemy skills you'll be able to take down larger groups of foes.
Alchemy: Taught by the wisewoman of his tribe, the outcast is capable of harnessing the power of nature through the use of fortifying tonics and devastating poisons. This skill is to be used to buff up your one handed damage mostly and can enhance your berserker rage thanks to the "fortify archery" glitch.
Sneak: Usually this is a staple for any assassin if only for the sneak multiplier perks, but due to the outcast's weapon of choice that part of the skill branch can be completely avoided. We will however want to get the silent roll perk as it combines marvelously with "great critical charge", allowing us to not simply do 4x more damage on our two handed sneak attacks but also having double critical damage.
For the perks I used I will redirect you to this page whil I get a perkspread up and running (don't worry it's just a perk calculator).
"An Equipment spread is on it's way as well, just like the perk spread"-Teineeva
The outcast will not be wearing any type of heavy armour, and should even be playable with nearly no armour at all. So this armour is chosen mainly for aesthetic purposes. I wanted it to show that the outcast is a so called "city orc" that is still proud of his heritage. So I went for Stormcloak officer's hood, gauntlets, and boots for the more barbaric physique and either the yelow dunmer clothes, thieves guild armour or the guildmaster's armour.
As for the weapons, we will be going with the rueful axe and dual orcish war axes. Unlike the armour, these two weapons were as equal a statistical choice as they are aesthetic.
The Rueful axe is one of the coolest looking weapons to be found in Skyrim in my opinion, but it is sadly also the slowest weapon in the game, which caused me to avoid it when playing as a warrior. However as an assassin typically needs but one strike the speed of the weapon is completely irrelevant, making the weapon's other attributes shine. While it may be the slowest weapon in the game it is most likely one of the lightest weapons as well, and with it's low weight of ten units, it is the second-lightest two-hander in the game. This allows for a devastatingly low stamina cost when power attacking.
Thanks to this last property you will be able to enter the fray with one enemy down (or seriously injured) and a lot of remaining stamina, even if using a power attack, to start the offensive.
This is where the dual axes come in, while devastating for stealth the outcast will be using them in open combat for their fantastic bleeding damage. Second to only daedric Equipment the orcish waraxes do most bleeding damage and have the advantage of being considerably faster and lighter than daedric axes allowing for a flurry of attacks.
As a general rule the outcast will sneak up to his target, assassinate it with the rueful axe, then if necessary he will take out his dual waraxes to defeat his remaining foes.
But before we continue and go into greater detail, I would like to bring the marvel that is the berserker rage to your attention. While most people tend to think of orcs as a warrior race, their racial ability lends itself particulary well to assassins. First of all it allows to double your damage, which if you would be wielding a dagger, have the assassin's blade perk, and are wearing the shrouded gauntlets could bring you up to 60x your daggers normal damage when sneaking. Which is quite monstruous. However as we are not going to use a dagger but rather a greataxe this multiplier will only be of 4x (especially since the shrouded gauntlets don't seem to affect swings from the greataxe), don't fret this is still a huge amount when you consider the difference in base damage between the rueful axe and higher level daggers. Also, I'll have to admit that sneaking up to someone only to burry your greataxe in their back is very satisfying.
The other advantage of the berserker rage power that is usefull for assassins is the fact that it halfs all incoming physical damage, which means that if you are detected and you'll have to face your foes in open combat activate your racial ability to negate half of the incoming damage, therefore we don't need to invest into any armor skills as long as you don't forget to dodge those pesky fireballs. And if you already chose to activate berserker rage for the stealth strike you should be able to kill everyone in the room before it runs out.
Statistics and damage calculations aside, the first phase of combat is all about choosing your target and wether or not a berserker rage (and it's added bonus of the 4x sneak multiplier) is needed. Most base enemies will die regardless of wether or not you have the 4x multiplier instead of the 2x one (note that with the rueful axe this best the damage dealt by a dragonbone dagger with the backstab perk, regardless of other damage enhancements), especially unarmoured foes should fall easily. But on sturdier foes and bosses you should definitively consider it.
As for selecting your target: prioritize mages, archers and high level enemies! Especially the mages can become a real pain in the behind if left unchecked as your armor will not counter any of their damage and neither will your berserker rage. Archers and high level foes will still do half damage as long as your rage is activated but can be very harmful in open combat if you can't deal with them quick enough so killing them beforehand is almost a good idea.
The second phase of combat is all about enhancing your damage and résistances through the help of your potions and letting the blood flow. Using "fortify one handed" and "fortify archery" potions as well as elemental resistance potions when you engage in combat is a smart idea, better yet, use a "fortify restoration" potion beforehand. As far as poisons go, a paralysis poison can be used to exclude a foe from combat while you get rid of his allies or smash him to bits, lingering damage poisons will help you get rid of your enemies just that bit quicker (and so will regular damage poisons) especially when combined with the massive bleeding damage from the war axes. Don't tire yourself on finishing yielding enemies: the poison will fester in their wounds and kill them anyway.
Background:
Born in Largashbur in southern Skyrim, the outcast competed with his brother Yamarz about succession. Favoured by his mother Atub, he quickly became the stronger brother, but unlike Yamarz, the outcast disliked the code of Malacath and prefered using his guile rather than his brutal strength or to fight from the shadows rather than fighting his foes head on. And as soon as he was capable of doing so, he decided to join the legion.
After he left his stronghold and joined the legion, his superiors rapidly noticed his affinity for infiltration and brutal assassination and he was promoted to a small squad of special forces during the great war.
When he returned home after the white gold concordat was signed, he discovered that his brother had become warchief in his absence and banished him. Angry and betrayed by his own kin, the outcast clung to what he knew: murder. He rejoined the legion and climbed the ranks.
Until he discovered a plot against the emporer and was found out by the conspirators. The next day, he was being shipped to Helgen for execution.
Guilds and Quests:
After escaping Helgen, the outcast will avoid doing the main quest, why should he care about the security of a little hamlet like Riverwood. If they can't defend themselves they are not worthy of survival.
As he arrives in Whiterun he'll come accros the companions and hear rumors of a boy trying to contact the dark brotherhood. Hell, there might be some merit to contacting Mercer at the thieve's guild, they used to be friends.
-Avoid coverting with any daedra other than Malacath, even after his expulsion and his dislike of the code the outsider can't help but to think of the prince as his god, after all who is he but an outcast among outcasts?
-Clavicus vile's quest is the only exception to that first rule, after all the prince offers you to show that you are capable of killing a daedra (after all that(s what Barbas is).
-While joining the thieves guild seems contradictory to your skillset, having contacts all around the province can be more useful than one might think.
-The companions offer training and are strong and capable warriors, worthy of respect. However becoming a werewolf doesn't sit right...
-Of course the dark brotherhood would be interested in your capabilities, why wouldn't they? Ha, the face on that Motierre kid, when the man he had convicted would be the one to bring his little plot to an end...
"I'll be watching you Yamarz, Oh can't you see? You belong to me."
Thank you for reading through the outcast 2.0, I had been feeling it could use some streamlining for a while but what finaly prompted me getting to work on it were the talks I had with Karver about his story over in the tamriel tales. He helped me in the process of remaking my beloved first build and has been making a great portrayal of this build through Lorbulg, a character in his story. So thank you Karve.
And before we continue I would like to urge you to go ahead and read it: it's really cool and no, I'm not just biased because one of the characters is inspired by this build. There you go, you'll thank me.
If you are curious to the original build, you'll find it here for the meantime.
