Hi, TED here with a new build after several months! I try my best to pitch different, innovative ideas for a character to play as. After theorizing and testing my latest creation, I can safely say this is a very fun build that I think all of you will enjoy! Dragonborn DLC spoilers will follow; read at your own risk.

The Stormlord

High up in the mountains of Skyrim lived a clan of battlemages known as the the Stormlords. They were highly gifted with controlling electricity, whether it be channeling it through their body, handling staves or commanding the clouds to fight by their side. When they weren't training in electromancy, they would develop their skills to become adept archers. Reverence is given to Kynareth and Talos, for they believed these Aedric gods were the source of their power.

Whenever they could, they would gather plants and herbs to make potions and poisons. As if they weren't powerful enough, drinking their brews would momentarily make them gods on the battlefield. The Stormlords would never be foolish enough to go out without being heavily armored. One could easily be recognized by the Akaviri designed armor they wear.

Race: For this playthrough, I decided to go with the Nord. Although they would not be the ideal race for initial skill boosts, they do boast a strong Frost Resistance and impressive racial power. In the case of being overwhelmed by most enemies, Battle Cry gives you a minute to recover and whether you decide to charge back in is up to you.

Stats: Starting out, I would recommend 2/3/0. The Stormlord utilizes a bit of magicka and a lot of it is needed for one of the higher ranked lightning spells

Stone: The Lord Stone offers decent armor protection when working with a relatively low armor rating.

Skills: Destruction, Archery, Alchemy, Heavy Armor, Conjuration

Shouts: Storm Call, Dragon Aspect

Quests: Main Quest-line, College of Winterhold, Destruction Ritual Spell, The Final Descent, Dragonborn Quest-line, A Return to your Roots

Equipment: Blades Armor, Blades Gauntlets, Blades Boots, Zahkriisos, Amulet of Talos, Ring of Major Destruction

The Build

 

It's heavy metal thunder up in here! Speaking of which, the Stormlord wouldn't have its name if it had nothing to do with producing a little electricity. Off the bat, Shock Damage is the main school of Destruction that will be focused on. Although it costs more than the other schools of magic, the higher leveled Shock spells will reach enemies quicker than the other elemental counterparts. With 2 perks in Augmented Shock and wearing the Zahkriisos mask, the Lightning Bolt spell will deal 42 points of shock damage to any enemies that get hit by it. Add to the fact that it also does magicka damage and you have yourself a bonafide electromancer based witchhunter all in one package! That's a deal you can't get anywhere else!

When the Stormlord is depleted of magicka reserves, she relies on her trustworthy Bound Bow. Packed with 100 arrows to boot, it is one of the fastest bows you can shoot with in the game! With the Quick Draw perk, you can land many arrows right in that peasant's eyes. But wait, there's more! Once Archery is maxed out, the real fun begins with the Bullseye perk; with a 15% chance to momentarily paralyze a target, that gives you more than enough time to prepare for an onslaught of pure, unadulterated electromancy! This can be done in the form of many Lightning Bolt spells or the ultimate weapon: Lightning Storm!

Speaking of depleted magicka reserves, there's several ways to regain that lost magicka. It so turns out that Alchemy is the one resource that the Stormlord uses! Through experimenting trial and error, potions that fortify the power of lightning spells can be made, as well as potions that give the build more total magicka. But I'm just getting started; to add a little punch to those lightning spells, Weakness to Shock poisons can be made and applied to the Bound Bow! When supplemented (oh yeah, we're talking all kinds of gains) with the Green Thumb perk, you're going to be able to grab two of each alchemy ingredient you can collect from the wilderness! This is very ideal when you go to Solstheim, where you can gather Ashen Grass Pods and Trama Roots to make Weakness to Shock poisons. And if you complete A Return to your Roots, you have a 25% chance of producing any concoction!

 

What would a heavy metaled electromancer be without some metal to wear? I am OF course endorsing Heavy Armor; while it's not the lightest armor, it provides a shit ton of protection when you're wanting to electrocute some filthy peasant or wreck their knees with an arrow! The Zahkriisos mask falls under the Heavy Armor category and provides 25% more shock damage to all of your spells. This is a fantastic deal that you can't get anywhere else! If that doesn't convince you, then you should try looking at it on top of some fine ass Blades Armor; it looks good and the colors match perfectly! The Tower of Strength perk allows helps the Stormlord get up a little bit faster after being staggered. That's pretty helpful when you want to aim correctly while you have your bow out.

Last, but not least, this wouldn't be an Elecromancer build if we didn't have access to an electrical buddy. Storm Atronachs are one of the most buff daedra you can conjure that fits the theme of this build. By taking Elemental Potency, any one of them you summon will come out with 140 more total Health Points. But that's not the end of it; once you can use master level Conjuration spells, you can summon a Storm Thrall! Not only do these stay with you until they die; that means no more pointless magicka being wasted on a temporary Storm Atronach! Unfortunately, they do not regenerate health like their Flame and Frost Thrall counterparts do. So suck it up and enjoy shooting people's heads in with your Bound Arrow while your Storm Thrall does a lot of tanking!

Concoctions

I wouldn't sell you a quality product if I didn't tell you some recipes that you can use to accompany the build! Most of these ingredients are abundant in resource, so you shouldn't have to worry about them being scarce to find.

To tap into the raw power that resides in the Stormlord, first coat your bow with the Aetherial Bane poison and shoot the target. This should make your target more vulnerable against magic attacks. The Venom of the Storm poison can stack on top of that to make your enemy more vulnerable against Shock damage. Then you can drink the Storm Caller's Brew to begin feeling those electrons awaiting to electrocute mortal flesh!

Should you run out of magicka, the Aetherial Tonic can be drunk to both restore your magicka and boost your total overall magicka! That gives you plenty more reserves to tap into. Of course, there may be times where you don't have enough Aetherial Tonic to continue shocking foes. That's where some of the other concoctions come in! The Arbalist's Elixer infuses the blood of the Stormlord with the cleansing tears of Kynareth; this allows for each arrow to be stronger than its base form!

And if that doesn't entice you, wait until you get a load of The Fall of Man. This baby is a 3 in 1 hell-raising poison that you can't get anywhere else; it damages your target's maximum Health points, as well as reducing the value of your target's Health with both an instantaneous effect and a lingering effect!

Healing Tonic: Effects > Restore Health

Ingredients > Butterfly Wing, Blue Mountain Flower

Aetherial Tonic: Effects > Fortify Magicka & Restore Magicka

Ingredients > Red Mountain Flower, Tundra Cotton, Creep Cluster

Storm Caller's Brew: Effects > Resist Shock & Fortify Destruction

Ingredients > Glowing Mushroom, Nightshade, Snowberries

Arbalist's Elixir: Effects > Fortify Marksman & Regenerate Health

Ingredients > Juniper Berries, Nordic Barnacle, Spider Egg

Venom of the Storm: Effects > Weakness to Shock & Slow

Ingredients > Ashen Grass Pods, Deathbell, Trama Root

Aetherial Bane: Effects > Weakness to Magic

Ingredients > Creep Cluster, Salt Pile

The Fall of Man: Effects > Ravage Health, Damage Health & Lingering Damage Health

Ingredients > Imp Stool, Scathecraw, Skeever Tail

Gameplay

The Stormlord can charge into the battlefield with multiple Lightning Bolts or by simultaneously cast Sparks to boot. If you happen to run out of magicka, pull out your bow for the time being until you can cast the Bound Bow. By then, you can tip the edge of your arrow with a Weakness to Shock poison to make the target vulnerable to your shock spells. Simply replenish your magicka reserves with the Aetherial Tonic and start frying that fine piece of bacon!

When you get to a higher level with the Stormlord, you will be able to use the Bullseye perk to your advantage. Once an enemy becomes paralyzed by it, you can attack the corpse with either Lightning Bolts, Sparks or the legendary Lightning Storm. An early in-game substitute you can use is a Paralysis poison made with Imp Stool and Canis Root until you reach level 100 in Archery.

Should you find yourself far into the Dragonborn quest-line, you can use the full Dragon Aspect shout to reduce the total Shout cooldown of Storm Call, when wearing the Amulet of Talos and receiving the Blessing of Talos, by 60%! What's even more awesome about Storm Call is that for every time an enemy is struck by lightning, they stagger on the spot. That gives you time for perfect aiming! Of course, you can summon a Storm Atronach to boot with Storm Call and go pew pew pew with your lightning spells with your new comrade. It almost feels like cheating at this point when you think about it!

End-note

Many thanks to Fallout 3 for being the inspiration behind this build! It's a great game that I'm sure a good handful of you have played. If you haven't already, go buy it now and get to gaming!  I thank my euphoric comrade Ponty for helping me out with a new name for this build after realizing the original name was taken.  Cheers mates!

Click Here For CB Anonymous

 

 

 

 

 

Nice Mr. Mays what better way to return to the building scene than with a quality build that I believe was inspired soley on the Tesla Cannon, correct? Tis a favored weapon of mine to be honest, anyway I've gabbed enough enjoy the +1 boyo.

Hi Curt, CB Host Billy Mays here!  I don't believe I ever came across the Tesla cannon, despite having the Broken Steel DLC.  However, the build is definitely inspired by both Energy Weapons and the Tesla Armor.  Gotta love dat Tesla Armor!  

Billy.....I love this! It shows your badass talent at build crafting, but also....

I BUCKING LOVE LIGHTNING! UNLIMATED POWERRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!

Anyway, awesome work, as always 

You get the coil for the cannon during the extended campaign that broken steel brings I do believe and let me tell ya that thing is a lil OP as if I remember right it deals 20+ dam over 10 seconds, though this is offset by slow firing speed(1 shot per reload i do believe) and the muscle you need to fire accurately is around 7-8 but still tis quite strong.

I'm curios how battle works with this character. So do you use up your magicka with lightning bolts until it's empty, then drink potions until you can cast bound bow, then fire off a bunch of "weakness to..." poisons, then potion up again until you can use more shock spells? Wondering because with no conjuration reduction armor and bound bow's fairly high cast cost, it doesn't seem too feasible to switch between it and the higher cost shock spells without going to the menu a bunch to refill on magicka potions (not to mention the pricey storm atronach cost). Are you using several fortify alchemy pieces to make them powerful enough to only need a few each battle?

Hi BRT, CB Host Billy Mays here!  If you want to cast the Bound Bow, you don't have to use up all of your magicka.  You can cast a few Lightning Bolts and then cast it while you're waiting for your magicka to regenerate.  Your magicka should be high enough to where you can get in a couple lightning bolts and conjure a bow.  

I never used Chain Lightning or Thunderbolt in my playthrough because I felt that Lightning Bolt was very powerful even in late game due to the low cost and high damage output, which can be further increased by Fortify Destruction potions.  I never used any Fortify Alchemy pieces for the build because once I got to late game, this character got strong enough without relying on pre-enchanted gear.

I gotta say, you rrally surprised me just now. I always thought of you as a polite and mature person, judging by how you always introduce yourself. So I was thrown off guard when I read the build and all the jolly and fun way you wrote it. Overall I really enjoyed reading the build, it was... Catchy lol Anyway, I don't really like shock spells, so I never really used them. But your build made me want to do it anyway, so I might just try it sometime. So you got my +1 :)

Nice Build.... That is all.

It's heavy metal thunder up in here!

+1 just for using an awesome looking yet tragically underused armor set, not to mention that it's a great build. Also, did I ever mention that you have the best tags?

My only question is regarding the Master Conjuration perk. Why bother with it? Since you're using the Dragonborn DLC anyway, you could just use Secret of Arcana to summon Storm Thralls even if you didn't have enough magicka without the perk, and if you weren't up for picking that power, or grabbing the Black Book at all, you could just buy a Necklace and Ring of Peerless Conjuration from Radiant Raiment, equip them whenever you need a new thrall (since two items of Peerless Conjuration reduces the spell cost as much as the Master Conjuration perk would) and then swap them out for your regular jewelry once you've conjured your thrall.

In Master Conjuration's place, you could perk Twin Souls, Steady Hand (1/2), Rune Master (a Lightning Rune would be great to throw down before summoning your bow), Impact, and Disintegrate, bringing you to Level 50. That's a perfectly good endgame level for a 5 skill build.