Skyrim Character Building » Discussions


Contest Build: The Paragon of the Tribunal

Tags: #Character Build Healer  #Character Build Sorcerer  #Character Build Illusionist  #Rank:Exemplar  #Contest Bronze  #Contest2 
  • Member
    September 22, 2013

     

     

                         

    Firstly, I would like to apologize for the mediocre quality of the build when it was originally posted for the contest. It didn't really capture the character that Brendan and I had created in terms of both role-play and gameplay. After another playthrough, and reexamination of the lore, it was time to give one of my all-time favorite playthroughs one huge revamp.

    *This build is a collaboration between Black Book and Brendan Paterson (Haunted Napkins)

    Premise

                The basis of this build is to be an extremely powerful and versatile character, using only skills that the Altmer (High Elves) receive as skill boosts at the start of the game. As a result, we have managed to create a fun battlemage-esque build based around the idea that your character is the last of the chimer, uncorrupted by Azura's curse. Yet something tugs at the character, a calming, mother-like voice guiding her to Skyrim. Who or what the voice is, is up for debate. But it bears a strange semblance to Almalexia, and this character will follow down the path to madness, just as the healing mother did many ages ago.

    *This build will go through phases replicating the turn Almalexia went through during the events of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind.*

    Statistics

    Race: Altmer

    There's no way around it. Choosing Altmer is a vital component of this build. They receive excellent boosts to your skills at the start of the game, and their +50 magicka and highborn racial ability will save you a lot of times early on. Not to mention that they are the closest race choice possible to the Chimer; of whom this build is based off of.

    Guardian Stone: The Mage Stone- This stone will help increase your skills at the earlier levels since all of your perked skills will fall under the mage category.

    Standing Stone: The Lord Stone (The Lady Stone)- The Lord Stone gives you an extra layer of defense for a relatively squishy character and some extra magic resistance never hurts. The Lady Stone will eventually be added at higher levels when the atherial crown is obtained to help offset some of the initiate weaknesses of vampirism.

    Shouts: Become Ethereal, Marked For Death, Storm Call, Fire Breath, Ice Breath

    Major Skills: Destruction, Enchanting, Illusion

    Minor Skills: Restoration Conjuration, Alteration

    Unperked Skills: One Handed, Heavy Armor

    Attributes: 4 Health / 6 Magicka / 0 Stamina

    While you do need a good pool of health, magicka takes priority over it. Stamina isn't relevant, especially once the respite perk is taken. I recommend that you stop investing in health once you reach 200-ish and then go pure magicka in order to cast higher level spells earlier in the game.

    Recommended Quests: Main Questline, College of Winterhold, Grimsvever's Return, A Daedra's Best Friend, Destroy The Dark Brotherhood, Volkihar (taken around level 20), Lost To The Ages

    Useful Enchantments: Fortify Illusion, Fortify Destruction, Fortify Magicka, Fortify Magicka Regen., Fortify Heavy Armor, Resist Fire, Resist Magic

    Perks: Level 20; Level 30Levels 40+

     

    Stage 1: The Healing Mother

     

                  A skilled healer like no other, a protector of the weak and innocent, a crusader of almsivi on a righteous journey. All these describe the character in this phase of the build. A "Goody Two-Shoes" for a lack of better words. Protecting the innocent, defending the peace, and delivering judgment to the wicked are all things you can expect to be doing in this part of your character's journey.  As a disciple of the old tribunal you strive to extend their influence through good deeds and helping others in as many ways as possible. You have no love for the empire and their divines or the self-righteous stormcloaks so avoid sticking your head in matters where it doesn't belong *cough* civil war *cough*.

     

                This stage takes place from about levels 1-20 in the early stages of the game, where you can begin building up your magical skills with the mage stone. Since this build isn't the tankiest character, and conjuration isn't going to be used until the later phases of the build, you will need a nice brutish follower to keep you company on your pilgrimage across skyrim. I recommend Lydia, Vorstag, or Stenvar.

     

                 Combat will consist of buffing your follower with courage spells and possibly using fear or frenzy spells on enemies if you feel yourself getting overwhelmed. Healing your follower when they are injured is another focus of this stage, as well as turn undead to keep from being overwhelmed by large amounts of undead enemies. Because of this, you will see restoration, a notoriously slow leveling skill, keeping pace with your other skills. With restoration leveling so quickly, you will be able to take the necromage perk as soon as you begin the turn into madness.

     

             If you feel yourself getting bored with a passive approach, you can easily switch your combat style to suit a more aggressive support style. With flesh spells active and illusion's debuffs on your enemies, you can easily charge into the fray and set your enemies ablaze with fire magic and once your magicka reserves have been emptied, you can switch to your enchanted swords to deal damage. Personally, I used three silver swords enchanted with shock, fire, and frost damage respectively for different situations. Shock should be used on mages, frost on heavy hitting warriors, and fire for general purposes. With all these options, combat is sure to remain fun for a while. Soon enough, the conjuration skill will come into play and gameplay is sure to get a hell of a lot more interesting.

     

    Equipment: Atherial Crown (Mage Stone + Lord Stone), Adept Robes of Destruction or Restoration, Steel Plate Boots, Steel Plate Gauntlets, Enchanted Ring and Necklace, enchanted swords of your choice. Feel free to put some mediocre enchantments on your gear because this will not be used in the end-game.

     

    Stage 2: The Descent Into Madness

              

     

                   Moral ambiguity is the name of the game, the paragon is becoming power-hungry, and in the process, she's become a vampire. The voice tells her that she needs more. She's still "good" at heart, but her lust for power will tend to overtake her more often than not, and that will be her undoing. The Volkihar questline will give her a means to obtain this power that she desires to obtain, while giving her an appearance more similar to that of Almalexia (glowing eyes, paler skin). On the topic of aesthetics, the falmer armor found in mzinchaleft should be taken ASAP because it is the closest to Almalexia's robes in Morrowind (in my opinion). It also looks great with the atherial crown. Put whatever enchantments you need on it, the armor set respawns in mzinchaleft after a few weeks in-game, but if that doesn't work for you, simply use a duplication glitch on the armor to produce multiple sets.

     

                This phase of the build will take place from approximately levels 20-30. Enemy encounters take a thrilling twist in this phase as you will be dropping your follower in favor of illusion spells and atronachs. Illusion provides the character with the a great amount of crowd control in the form of frenzy and fear spells to invoke madness your onto your enemies and give you space to cast your spells freely, but if the situation calls for it, you can charge into battle and come out unscathed. Conjuration is lightly perked because atronachs will serve as short term distractions or a quick form of damage. For example, casting a flame atronach into a group of enemies will draw attention to it, and because it is so frail, it will die quickly and cause a burst of fire damage afterwards. The frost atronach is used for its stagger attacks and tanking abilities which can be extremely useful when facing a large group of enemies.

     

                Restoration doesn't play a huge role in this stage, its main purpose is for turning the undead as well as for taking the infamous necromage perk to improve the power of your spells and enchantments, a well deserved boost to the power of this character. Healing will rarely be needed because enemies are going to be too busy fleeing and fighting amongst themselves from illusion and turn undead spells. Flesh spells and fortify heavy armor enchantments will still make up the majority of your defense.

     

                Onto the bread and butter of the build, enchanting and destruction. These two skills begin to synergize perfectly during the descent into madness. By now, you should be aiming for the augmented flames/frost/shock perks in destruction and the fire/frost/storm enchanter perks in enchanting; these greatly increase the potency of your enchanted swords, giving you an extra edge in combat. The aspect of terror perk in illusion will boost the power of your fire spells and enchantments making fire a great all-purpose weapon. You should still have a set of enchanted swords for different situations but begin to use the different types of destruction spells with their respective swords in combat.

     

    Equipment: Atherial Crown (Lady Stone + Lord Stone), Falmer Armor, Falmer Boots, Falmer Gauntlets, Ring of the Erudite, Misc. Necklace

     

    Stage 3: The Mad God

     

    By levels 30 and on, the character has truly taken a turn for the worse. You have aided the people of tamriel countless times but what is there left for you? Desperate for attention and recognition, the paragon will go to extreme measures to be recognized as a hero by the citizens of Solstheim and Skyrim. Think of this phase of the build as a sort of aftermath to the main questlines. A feeling of "What am I supposed to do now?" has come over the paragon. She misses the praise from the citizens and will try to do all the right things in the wrong way. Soon enough, she will realize it is futile and become a blight on tamriel who is simply a pathetic being that thrives on attention: be it good or bad.

     

                            In the final stage of the build, we tried to recreate Almalexia's fighting style in the Morrowind DLC: Tribunal, with a dark twist. Destructive magic! Evil minions! Crowd-control! All of those are what this phase of the build is all about.

     

                            Conjuration takes a twist from weak distractions to all powerful minions from the soul carin. During the volkihar questline, be sure to be sure to pick up all of the spell tomes in the soul carin because each will play an integral role in your play style. Bonemen archers are useful to help pick off weaker enemies like bandits, mistmen can be very powerful for ranged support and can slow dragons down in mid-air with their ice spells making it easier to hit them while in flight, and wrathmen are all out tanks that can act as a powerful meat-shield against melee opponents.        Let's also not forget that they can be buffed with courage spells from illusion and their potency also increases from the necromage perk in restoration.

     

                            Although heavily utilized in the earlier stages of the build, alteration and restoration won't see that much use during the mad god stage side from the occasional paralyze or turn undead spell. You won't need them anyway! Illusion becomes an excellent defense once the master of the mind perk is taken, and anything still unaffected by it has to go through a group of angry zombies and a layer of enchanted heavy armor.

     

                Destruction will act as your usual form of damage, more so than illusion and conjuration that will act as a defense outside of enchantments. With both destruction and enchanting maxed out, you will be able to recreate some of the most powerful artifacts from the time of the events of the Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind:

     

    --Hopesfire: A dwarven sword enchanted with fire damage and fiery soul trap.
    --Trueflame: A dwarven sword enchanted with shock damage and damage magicka.
    --Sunder: A dwarven mace enchanted with frost damage and damage stamina.

                By enchanting these weapons, the paragon will truly become the disciple of Almalexia. But RP aspect aside, these weapons pack a serious punch. Hopesfire will be your default weapon as will fire magic because it is a great all-purpose magic and its damage is further increased through the aspect of terror perk in illusion that will boost the power of fire spells a great deal. Trueflame will be the bane of all mages you come across because when coupled with shock magic it will quickly deplete the magicka of any magic user, rendering them helpless. Finally, sunder can wreck the stamina pool of any warrior. The slow attack speed of the mace is tolerable due to the slowing affect of the frost enchantment and the frost spells that will be used with it.

     

    Equipment: The Masque of Clavicus Vile, Falmer Armor, Falmer Boots, Falmer Gauntlets, Enchanted Jewelry

     

    Special Moves

     

     

    Wrath of the Mad God

    Requires: Poison Rune, Marked for Death, Fear/Rout

                This move allows you to remove a tough opponent, such as a heavily bandit chief, from a fight so you can make quick work of their less powerful allies. Three words of Marked for Death and Poison Rune will take a large chunk out of your target's health, while the fear spell keeps them off of your back and allows Marked for Death to fully run its course. This means that the target of the move will come back severely weakened, letting you make quick work of them. Once rout is purchased, you can use this tactic on large groups of enemies at once, allowing you to single out an adversary.



     

    Authority of the Tribunal

    Requires: Become Ethereal (one word), Whirlwind Cloak

                This move is great for when you are  overwhelmed by a large group of enemies. By using Become Ethereal, you can surround yourself with enemies without the fear of being overwhelmed, and since whirlwind cloak flings away all enemies within range of you when cast, it flings all enemies a safe distance away from you.

     

    Closing Thoughts

     

                While I had originally intended to release this much earlier, my computer decided it was going to break down. Nonetheless, I'm glad I could finally revamp this because it was great fun to play and I hope that you will enjoy as much as we have. We'd like to thank Zimbu for the amazing screenshots, and I'd like to thank Brendan for being such a joy to work with on this build. Thank you for reading and be sure to leave a comment if you have anything to ask!

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Member
    September 22, 2013

    Submissions for the Contest have been closed...Not sure if they will allow this through, but +1 Anyway.

    Great Build!

  • Member
    September 22, 2013
    Pretty good build, but like Elyssius said, you missed the closing. You'll probably have to remove the contest 2 tag.
  • Member
    September 22, 2013

    I REALLY love this build the concept is great and the idea of playing as a chimer really interests me, but I would go into more detail with the roleplay of the descent into darkness and Mad God.

    but I still love the build and I hope that they still accept your build for the contest as I would love to see how it fares. +1

  • Member
    September 22, 2013

    I just left ponty a comment about the contest and I'm awaiting his reply, I will fix it up as soon as I get the opportunity to do so. Thank you all for the positive feedback.

  • Member
    September 22, 2013

    Since you asked nicely I'll let this one through

  • Member
    September 22, 2013
    Ponty, could the nest contest please be a lore one? Where we have to create a build based off lore? I'm making a character already.
  • Member
    September 22, 2013

    This is a nice build! +1

    I suggest to somehow single-out the perk spreads, right now they are in the text and can be hard to find. You are also wrong in your enchantments - you can't put neither Fortify Magicka nor Fortify Heavy Armor on boots. Other than these, its a very good build and I'm interested to see its fate in the contest!

  • September 24, 2013

    Good build the Masque of Clavicus Vile looks funny on her though

  • Member
    October 9, 2013

    Love the idea of this build! Wrath of the Mad God, is that a Feist reference?

    Liked it