Skyrim Character Building » Discussions


Character Build: The Revakriid

  • Member
    August 23, 2012

    The Revakriid (from the dragon words revak, meaning "sacred," and kriid, meaning "slayer") is a hunter and vanquisher of dragons and dragon priests. For every draconic foe he slays, his own power grows. He uses Alchemy and Enchanting, in conjunction with the Talos Amulet and Blessing, to achieve a complete mastery of the Thu'um: 100% Fortify Shouts (completely eliminating the cooldown time for all shouts except Dragon Aspect). This allows him to pull off some truly amazing Shout combos, granting him the ability to cut through draconic foes as if they were mere mudcrabs.


     

    I went through a bunch of revisions with this build before I found something that felt just right. I wanted to come up with something that revolved around optimizing Fortify Shouts, while still having a more lore-friendly side. I'm having a lot of fun playing this one; it's very fast-paced, and the Shouts are much more interesting and diverse than any of the standard magic schools. If you've never used Shouts as a primary mode of combat, give this build a shot.

    The Build

    · Race » Breton. Chosen for their magic resistance, but any race will do.

    · Stone » The Lord.

    · Major Skills » Alchemy, Enchanting

    · Minor Skills » Two-handed, Heavy Armor

    · Attributes » 3 Health 2 Stamina / 0 Magicka

    · Quests » Companions, Boethiah's Calling, Thieves Guild (up to becoming a Nightingale)

    · Key Passives » Blessing of Talos, Dragonborn Force

     

    Equipment

     

    Tracing the Origins

    In his youth, the Revakriid fought with the Companions, ascending to the rank of Harbinger. However, leading the guild inevitably became dull to the young warrior, so he left the Companions to seek adventure elsewhere. To this day, the Revakriid still fights with a Nord Hero weapon, a tribute to his days in Whiterun. A great perk of becoming Harbinger is that Farkas will offer 5 free levels of Heavy Armor training for every character level increase: just make sure he is your follower before you pay him, and take your gold back after training.

     

    Alchemical Aptitude

    At 100 Enchanting, the Revakriid can create a set of Alchemist gear (four pieces of your favorite clothing, each with 25% Fortify Alchemy). Wear this set of gear when making your potions, and the effects will be magnificent. The Revakriid has several key potions in his arsenal:

    Healer's Salve

    · Effect » Restoration spells and effects are 150% more effective.

    · Ingredients » Yellow Mountain Flower & Abecean Longfin

    Infusion of Infarction

    · Effect » Inflicts 150 damage, and slows movement speed to 50% for 150 seconds.

    · Ingredients » Deathbell & River Betty

    Debilitating Distillate

    · Effect » Causes 30 damage per second for 10 seconds, and 30 seconds of paralysis.

    · Ingredients » Canis Root & Imp Stool & Mora Tapinella

    Essence of Rejuvenation

    · Effect » Restores 188 health, and fortifies health by 120 points for 60 seconds.

    · Ingredients » Blue Mountain Flower & Wheat

    All ingredients except for Yellow Mountain Flower can be grown in the garden, greenhouse, or fish hatchery (via Hearthfire DLC). The mountain flower can be harvested in bulk at Ancestor Glade (via Dawnguard DLC), even if the player has not begun the Dawnguard story. Having a Hearthfire house is a tremendous asset to this build: not only does it allow you to cultivate nearly all of the important ingredients, but it also allows you to build a personal Talos shrine in your basement. This will be extremely handy for the Revakriid's key selling point: his Voice.

    Because of the awesome appearance of the kit, and the forgiving reach and swing radius of the greatsword, I suggest playing this build primarily in third person.

    Thu'um Mastery

    The secret to the Revakriid's unique control of the Voice lies in his Healer's Salve, described above. The Fortify Restoration potion effect applies to enchantments and blessings, as long as they are taken while under the potion's effects. The Revakriid uses this trick with the Talos amulet and blessing to master the Voice:

    • Amulet of Talos » (20%) × (1 + 150%) = 50% Fortify Shouts (indefinitely)

    • Blessing of Talos » (20%) × (1 + 150%) = 50% Fortify Shouts (for 8 hours)

    • Combined » 50% + 50% = 100% Fortify Shouts!

    With his theoretical foundation of the Voice completed, the Revakriid's main focus now is to collect Words of Power, as he studies to achieve a true practical mastery of the Thu'um. Experiment with Shout combos, and unlock their true potential.

    I have listed a couple of fun combinations below, but there are many, many more for you to discover! Dragons and Dragon Priests will bow before your Voice!

    With the help of Fortify Smithing potions and enchantments, you should be able to make your greatswords very powerful. Consider having one or two enchanted swords, as well as an unenchanted one for Elemental Fury. The Dragonborn DLC adds Nordic Carved greatswords, which look downright gorgeous, if you want to mix things up from the Nord Hero greatswords.

    Even though the Revakriid is not a stealthy character by nature, the Ebony Mail’s Muffle effect combines with custom potions of Invisibility and/or Fortify Sneak, allowing him to breeze through the Thieves Guild quest line for the Nightingale Hood. Your AR will be decent by default, but you can buff it with enchantments if you desire. I found it was unnecessary; with proper usage of Shouts, you can completely control every battle.

    Now, all that is left to do is to fill out the shrine at Labryinthian, hone your Thu’um, and fulfill your destiny as Dovahkiin!

    Level 35 perk selection. Click the image for full resolution.

     Special Abilities 

    Wind Dance

    Words of Power  »  Dun ·  Ven ·  Tuz  (Grace Wind Blade)

    Using an unprecedented mastery of the Thu’um, the Revakriid dances around his enemies with the speed and precision of a true Dovah.

     Requires » Slow Time, and Elemental Fury.

     

    Frost Grip

    Words of Power  »  Iiz ·  Laas ·  Diin  (Ice Life Freeze)

    The Revakriid freezes the enemy in its tracks, while sucking health away passively via shouts and enchantments.

     Requires » Marked for Death, Storm Call, Ice Form, and Ebony Mail.

     

    Acknowledgements

    · Ponty » For providing the awesome screenshots.

    · lingy-0 » DeviantArt user who made the header image. View his page here.

    · Adrik » For discovering the use of Yellow Mountain Flowers in Fortify Restoration potions. See his Celestial Warlock build here.

     

  • Member
    August 24, 2012

    Good work here, I think it has to be seen to be believed! I might actually give this a try myself (of course just consoling all my skill and such up). Unfortunately it requires heavy investment in all 3 crafting skills - I think you could more or less drop Smithing completely, using Enchanting and Alchemy buffs to improve your equipment. This has alot of potential for cool special abilities too (I'm thinking an Unrelenting Force+Whirlwind Sprint combo), perhaps you should do some testing with the summoning shouts from the end of the MQ, it could be quite interesting since I don't believe it uses your atronach/undead summon cap.

    Once I get time I'll likely redo screenshots for this, I'm away all weekend and will probably be busy most of next week... so many requests...

  • Member
    August 24, 2012

    The Smithing actually leveled a lot on its own; I crafted a bunch of Iron Daggers to get Enchanting up to 100, and my Smithing was nearly 50 by then.  I just trained with Balimond in Riften for the last few levels to unlock Arcane Blacksmith.  But you're right, it's not really necessary.  The Restoration aspects are also somewhat unnecessary; I really like Stendarr's Aura, and my original vision for this build was purely a Dragon Priest hunter, so it would've been more appropriate.  But it's really not worth taking the time to level it up, or to complete all the quests that unlock Stendarr's Aura.  You could definitely take away the Restoration perks, and put them into Juggernaut to make up for the lack of Smithing though, if you decide not to invest in the latter skill.  Tossing Fortify Heavy Armor on a custom ring would also go a long way toward replacing the tempering.

    I definitely plan on testing more combinations of shouts.  I originally wanted to include a special move that involved summoning multiple allies via shouting, but I haven't unlocked the shouts to test that out yet.  I'll update when I do get to that point.  Currently I'm using Unrelenting Force and Elemental Fury pretty much every battle.  It's a lot of fun; you can be more free about using shouts, knowing that a mistake won't keep you from shouting for the rest of a fight.  I like the idea of Unrelenting Force + Whirlwind Sprint, I'll have to try that out tomorrow.  And yeah, it really does feel so much better in action than I can convey through words.  I wish I could make a video, but I'm on Xbox, and my webcam doesn't play nice with my TV.  Playing this in 3rd person is so enjoyable though.  So fast-paced and visceral, and just a very unique experience using on shouts so prevalently.

  • Member
    August 24, 2012

    A video eh... I might be able to arrange that

  • Member
    August 24, 2012
    This is one of the coolest builds I've seen! +1
  • Member
    August 24, 2012

    A video would be seriously cool.  I'm probably going to tweak the perk selection today. I like your idea of dropping Arcane Blacksmith (I think I might keep Steel though, just for the Nord Hero Greatsword).  I'm getting rid of Fire Enchanting as well; that was a relic of a previous draft that I forgot to remove.  I'm also planning on dropping Restoration and Sneak; I've barely used either of those skills, and Alchemy can make them completely redundant anyway.  So I'll probably drop it from a level 40 spread to level 35.  I need to decide where to place a couple of those lost perks though; dropping all those perks puts me down to 32.

  • August 24, 2012

    Wow, really awesome build.

    The aesthetic of the Ebony Mail and Nightingale Hood really caught my eye.

    I think the Ebony Battleaxe would look really awesome with this build.

    Definitely going to try this. Great build, mate. +1 from me. 

  • Member
    August 24, 2012

    Thanks.  Yeah, I gotta say, I think this is the coolest looking set of equipment in the game.  Picking up the bleeding damage perks for battle axes would also help replace the lost perks from Sneak, Restoration, etc (as I mentioned above).  Combined with Slow Time, and the Ebony Mail effect, you can do some serious damage that way.  I'll probably test that out later today.  Hell, you can alternate between a greatsword and a battleaxe, since the Deep Wounds perk is pretty much useless, so you don't have to "specialize" in greatswords to use them effectively.

    I'll post a revised perk spread within the next day or two.  In the meantime, I suggest holding off on Sneak and Restoration if you want to give this bulid a try.

  • August 24, 2012

    Depending on the shout cooldown you could combine slow time, fire/frost breath and unrelenting force to force enemies through the shout 3 times. Anyway great work and +1

  • Member
    August 26, 2012

    Update (I hope this is significant enough to warrant a bump) – Changed the perk spread quite a bit.  Dropped Sneak and Restoration completely, got rid of a couple additional frivolous perks, added some to Heavy Armor and Two Handed, and made some tweaks to the write-up that affect gameplay/setup.  I think it's a more solid build now.  The Fortify Shouts is seriously cool; it's going to be hard for me not to replicate it in future playthroughs.

    Also, a question.  Do you guys like the name "Revakriid"?  I wanted to use a dragon language name, and I especially like the -kriid suffix.  Not 100% sure about the revak- prefix though.  I was also considering Dovahkriid, but that felt a little to similar to Dovahkiin...