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Event Build: The Twinblade

Tags: #Rank:Event Recognized  #Event:Artifacts  #Chris Diokno Build 
  • Member
    February 28, 2016

    Hello everypony, and welcome to my Artifacts Event Build. With this build, I endeavored to recreated two of my favorite swords in ES lore, Goldbrand, the golden katana, artifact of Boethiah, and supposedly crafted by dragons, and Umbra, the ever changing blade that drives its wielders mad, was crafted by a witch at the request of Clavicus Vile, and took on human form in the canon novels. With that, I welcome you all to....

     

    The Twinblade .png

    Twinblade´s Theme

     

    Born within a gang of bandits, The Twinblade learned how to wield weapons and kill from a young age. He always sought adventure and wealth. While venturing into a cave while two of his comrades stood outside, the Twinblade discovered a pair of blades embedded in a stone. Marvelling at their sheer beauty, the Twinblade drew them, sentient Umbra and majestic Goldbrand, and felt a dark, murderous presence overtake him. Voices whispered in his mind, urging him to feed the dulled blades with the blood of mortals. Stepping outside, the Twinblade let out a feral cry, as he cut down his  brethren.  Coated in blood, he next slew everyone in the camp he had called home. Seeking immortality to continue killing after he would lose his peak of physical ability, the Twinblade obtained vampirism via a pact with Molag Bal. With murderous intent, the Twinblade stalked into the night, the blades calling him to the nearby land of Skyrim, where war awaited to feed his newfound bloodlust......

    What I wanted to do with this build is a character driven by nothing but pure, animalistic rage. Using a mixture of dual wielding, and spellsword combat, you´ll be slicing through baddies with twin badass blades.

     

    Race: While Nord would fit surviving the harsh climate of Skyrim, Vampire Redguards gain a +10 to One-Handed, and +5 to Destruction, as well as Adrenaline Rush allowing once-a-day boost to Stamina Regen, and a redundant +50 Poison Resist.

     

    Standing Stone: The Warrior to start with, to allow faster leveling of One-Handed, though you can also use the Lovers as a starter. then switch to the Lord, for increased Physical and Magic resistance.

    Stat Spread: 1/3/2 in Magicka, Health, and Stamina. We'll need a bit of Magicka for certain spells, and Health can stop being perked around 260-270, and Magicka around 320.

    Major Skills: One-Handed, Enchanting, Destruction, Light Armor

    Minor Skills-Illusion, Speech, Lockpicking

    Primary Quest-Main Quest (Stop after finishing Diplomatic Immunity), Volkihar, Dragonborn, Dark Brotherhood, Civil War (Either Side), Thieves Guild (Stop after Dampened Spirits), Laid to Rest, Ancestral Worship

    GAMEPLAY

    From Helgen, siding with either Ralof or Hadvar doesn´t matter too much. Though, if you go with Ralof, then you can swap an Imperial Light Helmet with the Imperial Officer Helmet you get from the captain. You'll also want to grab either two Iron Swords, or Imperial Swords.

    After completing the old song-and-dance of Bleak Falls Barrow, you'll want to head to Bloated Man's Grotto. There you'll get Bolar´s Oathblade, a decent enchanted Blades Sword. Or, if you prefer, you can head to Nightgate Inn, ¨discreetly¨ kill the implied hidden Blade Fultheim, and take his sword as your own.

    You can then dash over to Falkreath, find the amazing dog Baurus, and give ol´ Clavi that Rueful Axe that only has one Albino build centered on it, cause no one really likes it anyway. The Masque, among other useful bits, including looking really freaking sweet, is that it boosts your sell prices and lowers your buying prices, and personally, I like the Masque with the rest of the gear, since certain gear, like the Guild Master Hood, is glitched with Vampires, and clips through your head giving you either A. a fully bald character, or B. A strange, grey colored patch that looks like the hood has fused with your character's head.

    When dealing with mages or low/unarmored melee fighters, using a quick fire spell blast to deal DOT to them, then either keep blasting them while using Umbra to either trap their soul in the Black Star, in order to be able to recharge your weapons, or Goldbrand for some extra fire damage, or swap to dual-wielding and slice them into ribbons. If you find yourself running out of Stamina, a quick dose of daily Adrenaline Rush, couple with the Stamina Regen on your Bandit´s Footwraps to keep on your murder rampage. Most fights will end up like this awesome Legends of Tomorrow fight with Black Canary and Time Master Rory Williams/Rip Hunter and a group of bankers. In the end, you´ll have several charred bodies with more missing limbs, and you being the last (wo)man standing.

    Dragons, meanwhile, are a bit tougher. The Lord Stone will offer you some protection from their Shout-based breath, though not so much from the Over-Powered Instant Kill Death Chomp of Murder-Death. With that, you'll want to whack them with your blades or slam them with a flame spell to stun them into not eating you. Another solution is to stay around their midsection, so they would have to turn to either use Tail Whip on you (Not super effective), or to bite you, allowing you to deal some damage to them before they turn around/get skyward again.

    The only poisons I used were basically found, or bought (Just some Nightshade and Deathbell), which, even without perking Alchemy, still helped out, especially with the fire damage.

    Fire and Frenzy Runes are more or less only used in cramped areas, such as fighting in a hallway.

    I personally stopped the main quest after completing Diplomatic Immunity. Of course I massacred every Thalmor I could, and used this glitch to get back in and finish off Elenwen.

    Once you join the Thieves Guild, I pretty much stopped the guestline after finishing up Dampened Spirits. After this, if you have the Dragonborn DLC, help out the Raven Rock blacksmith, Glover Mallory, brother of our friendo Devan, to gain access to him basement, where, among other nice loot, is a respawning set of Blackguard Armor, though this could have been an, admittedly awesome, glitch. Personally, the Hood and Armor are the only two pieces of this armor that I truly like, though the Boots and Braces can work with some other parts. If yah don´t have the DLC, *Cough*#GetShinjinTheDLC*Cough*, then saving before getting the odd job from Vix or Devan, and make sure it's from WIndhelm. From here, you´ll get my favorite Thieves Guild quest, Summerset Shadies, er, Shadows. The titular Altmer only graverobbing group. I suggest you burn their armor, after killing their leader, Linwe, and taking his armor. At high enough levels, then you can grab an Ebony Sword from him, or one under the counter in the Blackbriar Meadery. Do NOT disenchant Linwe´s armor to learn its enchantment if you do not have Dragonborn.

    Fire spells were chosen, even if I personally prefer lightning based magics, due to the fact they allow easier leveling by doing quick bursts of fire spells at your foe, few enemies are immune or have some resistance to enemies (Dunmer, non-Frost-Type Dragons, Flame Atronachs, etc), and deal quite decent Damage Over Time. Plus, it allows you an easier time of setting off oil traps to burn your foes to a crisp, and weaken more powerful ones.

    EQUIPMENT

    EquipmentSpread3ChrisDiokno.jpg

     

    Skills

    Level50PerkSpreadforChrisDiokno5.jpg

    One-Handed: Your primary form of damage. Not only will this skill boost the damage of both our  Umbra and Goldbrand reborn, it will allow us to either go with a dual-wielding ravager, or a spellsword style. Plus, as far as I can recall (Even if I never really got Gold or Eltonbrand in Morrowind), all iterations of these two weapons, including the Umbra found in the Lord of Souls/Infernal City novels where Umbra creates a Dunmeri avatar if I recall, were always one-handers, so it fits.

    Enchanting-One of the key skills of this build, and probably a majority of the Event builds. will allow us to recreate both Umbra, and Goldbrand. Sadly, the katana blade is not gold, but, for PC users reading this, InsanitySorrow has made Goldbrand and puts it in the game.

    Destruction-Used for bursts of fire damage, and to boost the fire damage on Goldbrand, as well as Runes.

    Light Armor-While we won´t get the much use out of the all light armor perks, keeping this skill up will keep us alive for longer.

    Illusion-Primarily used to Fury an Enemy into running into our blades like an utter foal, or run away, and allowing us to chase him down.

    Speech-While not the biggest skill to this build, increased sell prices, ability to sell to any merchant, and higher Intimidation success rate help with training.

    Security-As a Bandit, the prospect of having a chance to find more gold and enchanted/valuable loot appeals to both this character, and me.

    Tactics of the Twinblade



    Hot Dervish-Spewing a gust of flames at his foe, the Twinblade places a tether on their soul, before Goldbrand follows up.

    (Fire Breath+Soul Trap+Damage Health Poison+Goldbrand)




    Daedric Bloodlust-His blades whisper in his ear, as his rage blocks out the sun. With a feral charge, the Twinblade carves through his enemies, savoring the taste of their blood.

    (Auriel´s Blow w/ Bloodcursed Arrows+Adrenaline Rush+Dragon Aspect)


    Roleplay

    • Don't spend too much time inside towns, otherwise your desire to feed them to Umbra and Goldbrand will make you kill people

    • Try and buy only from Khajiit caravans, or any wandering merchants.

    • Don't go too long without killing something, a day or two tops.

    • Try and use the intimidate option whenever possible.

    Thanks

    Thanks to Lee, and to an extent Relycs, for the awesome spreads. Thank you my dear reader for reading, and I hoped you enjoy the build.

  • Member
    February 28, 2016
    Cool stuff.

    I dont know why, but I think you never made a build where the tags weren't messed up...
  • February 28, 2016

    I dare say this is by far your most well presented build. You kind of messed up on the roleplay section as well as your tags. I can fix those for you if you'd like. 

  • Member
    February 28, 2016

    Two of my all time favorite artifacts. That's an instant plus 1. Great presentation, should earn you a +2, but unfortunately that is not within my power.

  • Member
    February 28, 2016

    They've already addressed the tags... maybe a picture to breakup the text wall in Gameplay.  Definitely looks like a fun build.  Great job!  Oh, you can note there is a Steam mod for tracking the Khajiit caravans if you want.  It's pretty helpful to roleplay that if they can use mods. 

  • Member
    February 28, 2016

    Thanks Curse, for some reason, even if I put it in the correct format, it goes like that. Perhaps it has to do with some of my keys acting weird

  • Member
    February 29, 2016

    Cool, but couldn't you find a first picture that better resembles your character? 

  • Member
    February 29, 2016

    True, I tried to look for a demonic swordsman wielding two blades, let me see what''s good on the internet

    EDIT: Tried looking up twin bladed swordsman, and its mostly pictures of Kirito, and one of Zolo from One Piece

  • Member
  • Member
    February 29, 2016

    Thanks Rel, added the Shay Cormac one