The Pit Fighter
Most warriors spend years training with their weapons, aspiring to become masters of the sword, axe, or bow. Armor for them is simply protection.
Not so for the pit fighter.
Stay. Down.
A pit fighter has spent years in the arenas and fighting pits that dot Tamriel. Whereas other warriors seek to do as much damage as possible as quickly as possible, the pit fighter is a creature bred to take punishment. He has been trained in some basic close-quarters fire spells for the entertainment of the crowd as well as some extra damage. For him, weapons are secondary to a good defense – and in most cases, they are not needed at all.
The idea for this build came from my initial disappointment with the Heavy Armor perk tree. There are a lot of what appear to be 'wasted' perks in that tree, especially to a character who plans on using weapons. But looking at it more closely, Reflect Blows seems pretty cool (even if you are taking the damage yourself as well as bouncing it back to your enemy), and then I looked back down at Fists of Steel. It occurred to me that there was potential for some nice synergy with an unarmed heavy fighter, and so I started thinking about other ways to deal close-quarters damage without weapons. The result is the pit fighter – an unarmed, heavy armor specialist who can set his own armor ablaze to burn his foes, call upon the power of Boethiah's Ebony Mail for even more passive damage, and still swing an axe into someone's face when he gets tired of punching throats all day.
Race: Orc (for Berserker Rage and nice initial boost to Heavy Armor and other relevant skills), Khajiit (for the Claws boost to unarmed damage), or Argonian (for Histskin and minor unarmed damage boost) are probably the best choices, but a case could also be made for Imperial (Voice of the Emperor allows you to focus on who you want, when you want) or pretty much any race.
OK, Khajiit might just work...
Stone: The Warrior at first, to keep Heavy Armor well advanced; then switch to the Atronach or the Lord
Major Skills: Heavy Armor
Minor Skills: One-handed, Destruction, Enchanting
Really Minor Skills: Archery, Smithing
Gear: Gloves of the Pugilist (to disenchant), Ebony Mail
Shouts: Disarm, Slow Time
Spells: Flame Cloak
Quests/Roleplay: I found the Companions questline to be a good fit, RP-wise, with a fighter who wanted to prove himself. It also gives access to some decent armor and weapon sets.
The Civil War questline provides plenty of opportunity for showing off your unarmed prowess – nothing like taking out an entire camp or fort of Imperials with just your gauntleted fists and your armor crackling with flames to deliver a message of utter contempt for your foes!
The Thieves' Guild seems like it would be a terrible fit for a brutish, non-sneaking thug. But along the way, you'll find the Gloves of the Pugilist (great for increasing your unarmed capability) and the third word of the Disarm shout, which lets you disarm foes up to level 30. Of course, you don't have to join the guild to get the Gloves, and you may decide the third word of Disarm isn't worth it. But doing all of those Thieves' Guild quests the 'wrong' way is just a lot of fun. Don't think of yourself as a thief – think of yourself as an enforcer who gets called in to bust heads when sneaking can't get the job done!
At Goldenglow Estate. Brynjolf said something about burning stuff, right?
The Build
Ever seen Sin City? Think of this build as a bit like Marv from that movie - a big, tough dude who just doesn't give a damn. That RP attitude will let you do pretty much any quest, good or evil, and get the most bang for your questing buck.
This build is all about getting in close and dealing damage with the various tools at your disposal while your passive abilities - like Flame Cloak, the Ebony Mail, and later on Reflect Blows - turn your foes' own proximity and damage against them. (Honestly, it's also largely about getting those rarely-seen unarmed kill cams and being a general ass-kicking tank.) You want to be in the absolute thick of combat, especially once you have Flame Cloak. Elbow your way into the midst of all your foes and lay down the hurt with your fists while everyone around you burns.
First and foremost, a pit fighter is a Heavy Armor specialist. This is where fighting unarmed comes in – at early levels (before Fists of Steel), you'll be doing less damage than with a weapon, which allows you to keep your Heavy Armor well ahead of your other skills. By prioritizing Heavy Armor perks, you will in turn be able to shrug off more damage, which allows you to stay in combat longer without resorting to a weapon... the circle of life, as it were.
Grab Fists of Steel early, along with Juggernaut perks as they become available. At some point you'll have to bite the bullet and take the Matching Set perk (which I ignore - I like my pit fighter to wear mismatched gear he has scavenged or ripped from the bodies of his foes), the sadly useless Tower of Strength, and Cushioned, which is nice but not terribly useful. After that, you're within spitting distance of Conditioning and (later) Reflect Blows – both great perks for this build.
Obviously, avoid blocking – you want to learn how to take hits directly, and blocking means your HA is leveling more slowly.
Destruction spells can be used to great effect in conjunction with unarmed fighting. Just equip Flames in your left hand, and keep your right hand unarmed. Then alternate blasting and swinging. Eventually you will buy or find Firebolt, which will come in handy – but the ultimate use of this skill is for Flame Cloak. Flame Cloak will let you keep fighting unarmed and doing damage. No need to buy this spell – just head due south of Yngvild Barrow (which can be found E/NE of Dawnstar). Right on the shoreline, near the burned corpse surrounded by flames, is your free spell tome of Flame Cloak.
The challenge with Flame Cloak is getting the Magicka to cast it. At early levels, this will simply be impossible. You could grind out your Enchanting skill quickly to get some cost reduction gear, but I'd advise against this – you don't want to screw up the balance of leveling your combat/armor skills. I just opted to buy Destruction training for a few levels. You're only aiming for a 50 in Destruction here; with that, plus the Atronach stone's 50 points of Magicka, plus the Adept Destruction perk, you'll be easily able to cast Flame Cloak with a minimum of level-ups in Magicka, leaving you plenty of room to focus on Health.
Of course, sometimes an opponent (or several) will be too tough and you'll want a weapon. A pit fighter should be capable with some weaponry other than his own fists and spiked armor; I chose to work up One-handed so I could keep casting Destruction spells in my left hand. A war axe seemed the most fitting weapon. Getting this skill around 50, and climbing the tree up to Savage Strike, is a good goal. Critical Charge is also worthy of note, as it allows you to leap into the center of the action all the quicker.
Enchanting will keep your unarmed strikes viable for longer. But there's not a great need to focus on Enchanting until after level 20 or so. With your hefty pool of Health, the Atronach's defense against mages, and your Flame Cloak, you may be surprised at how effective you are with just gauntleted fists. Still, now and then it's nice to make some gear to boost your resistances – and eventually, yes, you'll want the Gloves of the Pugilist to learn the Fortify Unarmed enchantment.
Other skills will be used much less frequently and may never get perked. Archery is pretty much a necessity against fire-breathing dragons until they land (against others Firebolt will be used instead, at least early on). Smithing can keep your gear in decent shape. But I haven't felt the need to perk either of these skills.
Level 30 Perk Spread
Heavy Armor - Juggernaut (5/5), Fists of Steel, Cushioned, Conditioning, Well-Fitted, Tower of Strength, Matching Set, Reflect Blows
Destruction - Novice-Adept Destruction, Destruction Dual-casting
One-handed - Armsman (4/5), Fighting Stance, Savage Strike, Critical Charge, Hack and Slash 2/3
Enchanting - Enchanter (3/5)
Special Moves
Fist of Flame – With one fist ablaze with flame and the other clenched and ready to strike, the pit fighter is able to burn and pummel his foes at the same time. Requires Flames/Firebolt and Fists of Steel.
Challenger's Boast – Most of your enemies will have a hard time believing an unarmed foe can be a threat. The Disarm shout is a great way to level the playing field. Not only will your foes drop their weapons, but they'll suffer a not insignificant stagger effect, allowing you to get several punches (or axe swings) in before they can recover.
Boethiah's Champion - Cloak damage is nice, but twice as much cloak damage is better - and better still is the ability to deal all that damage at super-speed. Once you've acquired the Ebony Mail, you'll have a 5 pt/sec poison cloak effect working for you automatically when foes get close. Set your own armor ablaze before they get in melee range, use a Slow Time shout, and start swinging away. Cloaks - and unarmed fighting in general - is quite a bit more effective, even with just one word of this shout. You'd think the two simultaneous cloak effects would make it impossible to see, but not so. And few things look as badass as your character getting one of those epic unarmed kill cams while on fire and steaming with tendrils of black poison.
A note about hotkeys: With this build, you'll find you're frequently switching between spells, weapons and unarmed fighting. This can be achieved on PC quite easily, without ever having to go into a menu. Simply favorite a weapon, a spell/spells, and a shield. Say your war axe is hotkey number 1, your Flame Cloak is 2, and your shield is 3. To go from having axe and flame cloak equipped to fighting totally unarmed, simply press 3 twice (once to equip the shield; twice to unequip the shield and leave you with a bare hand) and press 1 once (to unequip the axe). You now have both hands free to pummel away.
For non-PC users, I fear this playstyle will require lots of menu juggling.
This is my first build for this site, so let me know what you think. I'm not entirely finished with it, but I figured I'd better get it up before the impending Dawnguard release! I'll be back over the next several days to update a few things.
Thanks for reading! - and thanks to No Snakes aLive for the 'Khajiit' pic and Boethiah's Champion move idea.
The Pit Fighter
Most warriors spend years training with their weapons, aspiring to become masters of the sword, axe, or bow. Armor for them is simply protection.
Not so for the pit fighter.
Stay. Down.
A pit fighter has spent years in the arenas and fighting pits that dot Tamriel. Whereas other warriors seek to do as much damage as possible as quickly as possible, the pit fighter is a creature bred to take punishment. He has been trained in some basic close-quarters fire spells for the entertainment of the crowd as well as some extra damage. For him, weapons are secondary to a good defense – and in most cases, they are not needed at all.
The idea for this build came from my initial disappointment with the Heavy Armor perk tree. There are a lot of what appear to be 'wasted' perks in that tree, especially to a character who plans on using weapons. But looking at it more closely, Reflect Blows seems pretty cool (even if you are taking the damage yourself as well as bouncing it back to your enemy), and then I looked back down at Fists of Steel. It occurred to me that there was potential for some nice synergy with an unarmed heavy fighter, and so I started thinking about other ways to deal close-quarters damage without weapons. The result is the pit fighter – an unarmed, heavy armor specialist who can set his own armor ablaze to burn his foes, call upon the power of Boethiah's Ebony Mail for even more passive damage, and still swing an axe into someone's face when he gets tired of punching throats all day.
Race: Orc (for Berserker Rage and nice initial boost to Heavy Armor and other relevant skills), Khajiit (for the Claws boost to unarmed damage), or Argonian (for Histskin and minor unarmed damage boost) are probably the best choices, but a case could also be made for Imperial (Voice of the Emperor allows you to focus on who you want, when you want) or pretty much any race.
OK, Khajiit might just work...
Stone: The Warrior at first, to keep Heavy Armor well advanced; then switch to the Atronach or the Lord
Major Skills: Heavy Armor
Minor Skills: One-handed, Destruction, Enchanting
Really Minor Skills: Archery, Smithing
Gear: Gloves of the Pugilist (to disenchant), Ebony Mail
Shouts: Disarm, Slow Time
Spells: Flame Cloak
Quests/Roleplay: I found the Companions questline to be a good fit, RP-wise, with a fighter who wanted to prove himself. It also gives access to some decent armor and weapon sets.
The Civil War questline provides plenty of opportunity for showing off your unarmed prowess – nothing like taking out an entire camp or fort of Imperials with just your gauntleted fists and your armor crackling with flames to deliver a message of utter contempt for your foes!
The Thieves' Guild seems like it would be a terrible fit for a brutish, non-sneaking thug. But along the way, you'll find the Gloves of the Pugilist (great for increasing your unarmed capability) and the third word of the Disarm shout, which lets you disarm foes up to level 30. Of course, you don't have to join the guild to get the Gloves, and you may decide the third word of Disarm isn't worth it. But doing all of those Thieves' Guild quests the 'wrong' way is just a lot of fun. Don't think of yourself as a thief – think of yourself as an enforcer who gets called in to bust heads when sneaking can't get the job done!
At Goldenglow Estate. Brynjolf said something about burning stuff, right?
The Build
Ever seen Sin City? Think of this build as a bit like Marv from that movie - a big, tough dude who just doesn't give a damn. That RP attitude will let you do pretty much any quest, good or evil, and get the most bang for your questing buck.
This build is all about getting in close and dealing damage with the various tools at your disposal while your passive abilities - like Flame Cloak, the Ebony Mail, and later on Reflect Blows - turn your foes' own proximity and damage against them. (Honestly, it's also largely about getting those rarely-seen unarmed kill cams and being a general ass-kicking tank.) You want to be in the absolute thick of combat, especially once you have Flame Cloak. Elbow your way into the midst of all your foes and lay down the hurt with your fists while everyone around you burns.
First and foremost, a pit fighter is a Heavy Armor specialist. This is where fighting unarmed comes in – at early levels (before Fists of Steel), you'll be doing less damage than with a weapon, which allows you to keep your Heavy Armor well ahead of your other skills. By prioritizing Heavy Armor perks, you will in turn be able to shrug off more damage, which allows you to stay in combat longer without resorting to a weapon... the circle of life, as it were.
Grab Fists of Steel early, along with Juggernaut perks as they become available. At some point you'll have to bite the bullet and take the Matching Set perk (which I ignore - I like my pit fighter to wear mismatched gear he has scavenged or ripped from the bodies of his foes), the sadly useless Tower of Strength, and Cushioned, which is nice but not terribly useful. After that, you're within spitting distance of Conditioning and (later) Reflect Blows – both great perks for this build.
Obviously, avoid blocking – you want to learn how to take hits directly, and blocking means your HA is leveling more slowly.
Destruction spells can be used to great effect in conjunction with unarmed fighting. Just equip Flames in your left hand, and keep your right hand unarmed. Then alternate blasting and swinging. Eventually you will buy or find Firebolt, which will come in handy – but the ultimate use of this skill is for Flame Cloak. Flame Cloak will let you keep fighting unarmed and doing damage. No need to buy this spell – just head due south of Yngvild Barrow (which can be found E/NE of Dawnstar). Right on the shoreline, near the burned corpse surrounded by flames, is your free spell tome of Flame Cloak.
The challenge with Flame Cloak is getting the Magicka to cast it. At early levels, this will simply be impossible. You could grind out your Enchanting skill quickly to get some cost reduction gear, but I'd advise against this – you don't want to screw up the balance of leveling your combat/armor skills. I just opted to buy Destruction training for a few levels. You're only aiming for a 50 in Destruction here; with that, plus the Atronach stone's 50 points of Magicka, plus the Adept Destruction perk, you'll be easily able to cast Flame Cloak with a minimum of level-ups in Magicka, leaving you plenty of room to focus on Health.
Of course, sometimes an opponent (or several) will be too tough and you'll want a weapon. A pit fighter should be capable with some weaponry other than his own fists and spiked armor; I chose to work up One-handed so I could keep casting Destruction spells in my left hand. A war axe seemed the most fitting weapon. Getting this skill around 50, and climbing the tree up to Savage Strike, is a good goal. Critical Charge is also worthy of note, as it allows you to leap into the center of the action all the quicker.
Enchanting will keep your unarmed strikes viable for longer. But there's not a great need to focus on Enchanting until after level 20 or so. With your hefty pool of Health, the Atronach's defense against mages, and your Flame Cloak, you may be surprised at how effective you are with just gauntleted fists. Still, now and then it's nice to make some gear to boost your resistances – and eventually, yes, you'll want the Gloves of the Pugilist to learn the Fortify Unarmed enchantment.
Other skills will be used much less frequently and may never get perked. Archery is pretty much a necessity against fire-breathing dragons until they land (against others Firebolt will be used instead, at least early on). Smithing can keep your gear in decent shape. But I haven't felt the need to perk either of these skills.
Level 30 Perk Spread
Heavy Armor - Juggernaut (5/5), Fists of Steel, Cushioned, Conditioning, Well-Fitted, Tower of Strength, Matching Set, Reflect Blows
Destruction - Novice-Adept Destruction, Destruction Dual-casting
One-handed - Armsman (4/5), Fighting Stance, Savage Strike, Critical Charge, Hack and Slash 2/3
Enchanting - Enchanter (3/5)
Special Moves
Fist of Flame – With one fist ablaze with flame and the other clenched and ready to strike, the pit fighter is able to burn and pummel his foes at the same time. Requires Flames/Firebolt and Fists of Steel.
Challenger's Boast – Most of your enemies will have a hard time believing an unarmed foe can be a threat. The Disarm shout is a great way to level the playing field. Not only will your foes drop their weapons, but they'll suffer a not insignificant stagger effect, allowing you to get several punches (or axe swings) in before they can recover.
Boethiah's Champion - Cloak damage is nice, but twice as much cloak damage is better - and better still is the ability to deal all that damage at super-speed. Once you've acquired the Ebony Mail, you'll have a 5 pt/sec poison cloak effect working for you automatically when foes get close. Set your own armor ablaze before they get in melee range, use a Slow Time shout, and start swinging away. Cloaks - and unarmed fighting in general - is quite a bit more effective, even with just one word of this shout. You'd think the two simultaneous cloak effects would make it impossible to see, but not so. And few things look as badass as your character getting one of those epic unarmed kill cams while on fire and steaming with tendrils of black poison.
A note about hotkeys: With this build, you'll find you're frequently switching between spells, weapons and unarmed fighting. This can be achieved on PC quite easily, without ever having to go into a menu. Simply favorite a weapon, a spell/spells, and a shield. Say your war axe is hotkey number 1, your Flame Cloak is 2, and your shield is 3. To go from having axe and flame cloak equipped to fighting totally unarmed, simply press 3 twice (once to equip the shield; twice to unequip the shield and leave you with a bare hand) and press 1 once (to unequip the axe). You now have both hands free to pummel away.
For non-PC users, I fear this playstyle will require lots of menu juggling.
This is my first build for this site, so let me know what you think. I'm not entirely finished with it, but I figured I'd better get it up before the impending Dawnguard release! I'll be back over the next several days to update a few things.
Thanks for reading! - and thanks to No Snakes aLive for the 'Khajiit' pic and Boethiah's Champion move idea.
