Concept:
The idea behind this build is to take the concept of self-sacrificial Blood Magic and develop complex and dynamic gameplay for it using Enai Siaion's mods. With so many powerful and destructive abilities activated at low health, and most of the best Heavy Armor abilities in Ordinator only applying when you sponge a few hits in a row (something you really need full health for), this build is an exercise in extremes. Through self-damaging abilities like Aurora's Blood Price and health-absorbing abilities like Sacrosanct's Hemomancy spells, this character can use the control it has over its own health percentage to switch seamlessly between tank and glass cannon playstyles. Both tend to be pretty damn good at their respective jobs, but most fights will pretty much require you to constantly cycle between the two. It's a build with extremely high offence and equally high defense, just never at the same time. The strategy rests in deciding how to approach different situations and when to time it so that you trade defense for DPS (and vice versa) when it's most tactical to do so.
Background:
In the second era the son of the Jarl of Riften fell victim to the spreading vampire plague. In response to this travesty, and the looming threat of vampire attacks he created the original Dawnguard. Kain was among the first to join and quickly moved up the ranks of the organization.
As a powerful mage Kain faired well in battle, but as an intellectual he spent much of his time studying the vampires and what he believed to be the source of their power: their blood. This lead to a great many discoveries about the nature of the enemy, as well as their strengths and weaknesses.
Kain was the first to develop spells, weapons and enchanted armor specifically for battling the vampire menace. However, his growing knowledge did not fair well with his superiors. Fearing his power and suspecting him of becoming a monster sympathizer, the leaders of the Dawnguard eventually turned against him.
They snuck into his lab and beat him nearly to death. They ransacked his experiments and burned his research. They staged it to look like a vampire attack, but in doing so they doused his corpse in Sanguinare Vampiris infected blood. They left him to die, but the disease was already flowing in his veins.
After waking as a vampire himself, Kain vowed vengeance on the traitorous Dawnguard and set off to Volkihar Castle. Well informed of the politics and egos at play within the guard, Kain was instrumental in their eventual disbanding. However, there's been rumors of its resurgence recently, and that is simply something that he cannot allow to happen...
Build:
Race- Nord Vampire
Imperious gives Nords the Warriors Heart ability that raises your spell damage as your health gets lower. Giving you an inherent buff whenever you use Blood Price.
StandingStone - The Serpent/The Atronach
Combining these two stones from Aurora is the core of the build. The Serpent Stone's Star Curse ability will reduce everyone's Stamina and Magicka to 0 at the start of battle, while The Atronach's Corrupted Arcana effect will keep your Magicka from regenerating. Instead, it'll give you the Blood Price power which allows you to instantly convert half your current Health into Magicka.
Magic/Health/Stamina - 0/1/0
The Atronach Stone's Corrupted Arcana will also reduce all spell costs by 75% (applied before cost reducing perks). This makes even master spells viable without mana investment. Health is much more important for this build, since you'll be relying on Blood Price to cast spells.
Skills- Destruction, Conjuration, Heavy Armor, Smithing, Enchanting
Smithing and Enchanting are both optional, but I recommend using them. Do two crafting skills make this build a bit OP at full health? Yes...but if you think you'll be staying at full health long, then you haven't been paying attention!
Shouts- Curse
Curse is a shout added by the Thunderchild mod that causes affected enemies to receive 3x any damage you take for its duration. This includes harm you cause to yourself, meaning that it will do damage equal to 150% of your current health every time you use Blood Price. It is immensely powerful but potentially very dangerous, so use with caution.
Powers- Blood Price, Lamae's Pyre
You'll have to rely on Blood Price for mana, so don't be afraid of using it often (even in quick succession). It only ever converts half of your current health, so you'll never die from the spell itself. Though you'll still have to be weary of how vulnerable it can leave you to attacks.
Abilities- Blood Knight, Tooth and Claw, Vicissitude, Daywalker
These couple well with your Hemomancy and they can be pretty fun to acquire. They aren't required, so do so at your leisure.
Armor- Jagged Crown, Dragonplate Armor, Dragonplate Gauntlets, Dragonplate Boots
Enchant with Nova to add a fiery explosion whenever you fall below 25% health. Cheat Death is similar except it reduces incoming damage under 25%, and Deadly Reach will allow for powerful on-touch spells like Scorching Hands to be used as a ranged attack.
Jewellery- Aetherial Crown, Necromancer's Amulet, Ring of the Beast
This build can be played with no magicka investment. However, at 600mp to cast, Lamae's Pyre will still be out of the reach even at 25% cost. It's an awesome power (Basically a GIANT flame cloak...with bats) and well worth the stunted regen from the Necromancer Amulet if you'd like to go that route.
Spells:
Destruction- Flames, Fireball, Incendiary Flow, Bombardment, Scorching Hands, Forbidden Sun, Flame Strike
Fire damage is this build's massive damage dealer. These spells require health to cast and won't be replenishing it, but in the right circumstances they can be quite devastating. It's often a good idea to switch to fire spells only after setting up conjures and a health draining DoT or two with your Hemomancy. Incendiary Flow is a large fire hazard like wall of Flames, Flame Strike is a Meteor Shower and Forbidden Sun drastically reduces Fire resistance of enemies. Though the star players are going to be the concentration spells, Flames, Bombardment and Scorching Hands.
Conjuration- Consuming Power, Summon Dremora Churl, Summon Dremora Pit Fighter, Summon Dremora Champion, Dremora Honor Guard
Dremora are a hearty choice of minion. They resist your fire magic, they make for good meat shields when you've drained too much of your health, and they are sturdy enough to survive most Hemomancy spells in the event that you want to use them as walking cattle. Dremora Churl is unique in that it is automatically re-raised under the control of whoever killed it, but that includes you killing them yourself. So Consuming Power (raised Attack for a short time then dies) or Blood Seed (DoT leading up to a blood explosion that heals you) are both good ways to make this work to your advantage.
Hemomancy- Vampiric Drain, Blood Seed, Blood Brand, Blood Ankh, Profaned Sun
These are your utility spells. They aren't as powerful as fire damage, but are largely lingering effects that, with the Starving Artist perk, will restore your health over time. Vampiric Drain will restore health the fastest in close range and doesn't require a perk to do so. It can also stagger enemies when dual cast with the Exsanguinate perk. Blood Brand is the best way to steal health from a safe distance, it's a projectile spell that causes a small DoT and a delayed blood explosion that heals you a large amount.
Perks:
Destruction - Make your way up the Fire branch, most importantly grabbing perks that take advantage of consecutive fire like Scaring Burns (that reduces Fire resistance for 5sec), Flash Fire (That ignites targets and causes the next Fire spell to explode on contact), and Cataclysm (hitting targets affected by burning ground causes a large explosion). As well as Outburst that creates a massive explosion wherever your health drops below 75pts.
Conjuration - You'll want the Deadra related perks for your Dremora summons so focus on the far left. Signed in Blood is an important perk to get early if you're going to be using your summons as walking blood bombs/health reservoirs (which is highly recommended).
Heavy Armor - Get Battle Weary as soon as you can. It reduces incoming damage based on enemy stamina, so with Star Curse active you'll start battles off well protected. Making it an opportune time to start converting your health to magicka.
Vampire - First use Vampire Lord form up until you can grab the Court's Chef perk. After that, scavenge the castle for potions and human flesh and you should be able to reach White Wolf through consuming potions. After this, retire VL form and focus on the perks that affect mortal form.
Smithing - These perks are for obtaining Dragonplate Armor. If you go the route detailed in the Tip/Tricks section, then these are five free skill points you can use elsewhere (like destruction).
Enchanting - I grabbed Enchanting Mastery early just to give Nova a little boost, but Outburst will end up outshining it anyway, so you can use the perks elsewhere if you like.
Special Tactics:
Terror Stricken - Battle Weary is a great ability that lowers enemy's attack damage based on their current stamina. There's no better way of taking advantage of this than with a Standing Stone power that reduces their stamina to 0 immediately at the start of battle. Combine with Rise Above (which lowers their damage even further) and Primal Fear (which may send some enemies fleeing battle at the mere sight of you) for the ultimate Bloodmage entrance.
Required: Star Curse, Battle Weary
Recommended: Rise Above, Primal Fear
Covenant - Low-health activated abilities tend to be pretty powerful considering they're designed to turn the tide of a losing battle. However, the Bloodmage can cast them at will by using the Blood Price power. Just one word of the Curse shout will deal enemies 3x any health you sacrifice, Warrior's Heart boosts spell damage as your health lowers and Nova/Outburst may explode for massive damage whenever you fall below 25% or 75pts health (respectively).
Required: Curse, Blood Price, Warriors Heart
Recommend: Outburst, Nova
Boiled Alive - Concentration spells are treated as multiple small attacks in quick succession. So while you wouldn't expect a spell like Flames to compete with much higher levelspells, the frequency with which it can activate powerhouse perks like Flash Fire and Cataclysm will keep it relevant for a long time. Once reach Expert level Destruction, Bombardment has much better range at a slower fire rate, while Scorching Hands out performs them both if you can find the Deadly Reach enchantment.
Required: Flames, Flash Fire, Cataclysm
Recommended: Scorching Hands, Deadly Reach
Blood Oath - Blood Brand's explosion deals pretty decent damage, and with Starving Artist it's one of the safest ways to heal. Casting it on your own Deadra to distract enemies and ensures that they'll be close enough to be hit by the gory shrapnel. Dremora are a great choice because most of them are sturdy enough to survive the explosion, which they quickly recover from if you have Signed in Blood. Even Churls, who won't survive, will be immediately resummoned under your control.
Required: Summon Dremora, Blood Brand
Recommended: Starving Artist, Signed in Blood
Required Mods:
Aurora - This is a great mod that replaces all the current Standing Stone effects with new ones. Each stone will give the player both an active power and a passive ability. The core concept of this build is the combination two Aurora Standing Stones, so it's important to have.
Sacrosanct - Sacrosanct is a total overhaul of vampirism in Skyrim. It's a revamp (get it?). It gives VL tree a bunch of new powers, but most importantly it gives vampires more combat viability in mortal form by way of hemomancy.
Ordinator - This will provide many of the interesting perks like Outburst and Battle Weary that this build is based around. The build may very well be feasible without it, but it would be a very different experience so I don't recommend it.
Recommended Mods:
Apocalypse - With Sacrosanct providing the all important Hemomancy spells, this build can easily get by without all of awesome magic that Apocalypse adds to the game...but why would you want to?
Imperious - Imperious changes racial stats and abilities. For this build it provides Nords with the Warriors Heart ability letting you double down and really take advantage of reducing your own health... however it's hardly necessary. The build will be nearly the same without it.
Summermyst - Finally, this mod adds some great new enchantments. Like above, the build won't suffer much without them. Unlike above, some enchantments (like Nova) can even be replaced by other abilities later on.
Tips/Tricks:
Bulkingup Early - With Deadly Bosses installed you can pick up Dragonplate Armor by killing Vaarg just outside of Bleak Falls Temple. A full set of Dragonplate Armor may seem like it would be really OP so early in the game...and it is, right up until you remember that you can't fight back until you trade half your health to be able to cast spells. Then it overcorrects itself and leaves you pretty damn vulnerable, so don't feel cheap if you choose to go this route. Balancing extremes is the point of the build.
Concept:
The idea behind this build is to take the concept of self-sacrificial Blood Magic and develop complex and dynamic gameplay for it using Enai Siaion's mods. With so many powerful and destructive abilities activated at low health, and most of the best Heavy Armor abilities in Ordinator only applying when you sponge a few hits in a row (something you really need full health for), this build is an exercise in extremes. Through self-damaging abilities like Aurora's Blood Price and health-absorbing abilities like Sacrosanct's Hemomancy spells, this character can use the control it has over its own health percentage to switch seamlessly between tank and glass cannon playstyles. Both tend to be pretty damn good at their respective jobs, but most fights will pretty much require you to constantly cycle between the two. It's a build with extremely high offence and equally high defense, just never at the same time. The strategy rests in deciding how to approach different situations and when to time it so that you trade defense for DPS (and vice versa) when it's most tactical to do so.
Background:
In the second era the son of the Jarl of Riften fell victim to the spreading vampire plague. In response to this travesty, and the looming threat of vampire attacks he created the original Dawnguard. Kain was among the first to join and quickly moved up the ranks of the organization.
As a powerful mage Kain faired well in battle, but as an intellectual he spent much of his time studying the vampires and what he believed to be the source of their power: their blood. This lead to a great many discoveries about the nature of the enemy, as well as their strengths and weaknesses.
Kain was the first to develop spells, weapons and enchanted armor specifically for battling the vampire menace. However, his growing knowledge did not fair well with his superiors. Fearing his power and suspecting him of becoming a monster sympathizer, the leaders of the Dawnguard eventually turned against him.
They snuck into his lab and beat him nearly to death. They ransacked his experiments and burned his research. They staged it to look like a vampire attack, but in doing so they doused his corpse in Sanguinare Vampiris infected blood. They left him to die, but the disease was already flowing in his veins.
After waking as a vampire himself, Kain vowed vengeance on the traitorous Dawnguard and set off to Volkihar Castle. Well informed of the politics and egos at play within the guard, Kain was instrumental in their eventual disbanding. However, there's been rumors of its resurgence recently, and that is simply something that he cannot allow to happen...
Build:
Race- Nord Vampire
Imperious gives Nords the Warriors Heart ability that raises your spell damage as your health gets lower. Giving you an inherent buff whenever you use Blood Price.
StandingStone - The Serpent/The Atronach
Combining these two stones from Aurora is the core of the build. The Serpent Stone's Star Curse ability will reduce everyone's Stamina and Magicka to 0 at the start of battle, while The Atronach's Corrupted Arcana effect will keep your Magicka from regenerating. Instead, it'll give you the Blood Price power which allows you to instantly convert half your current Health into Magicka.
Magic/Health/Stamina - 0/1/0
The Atronach Stone's Corrupted Arcana will also reduce all spell costs by 75% (applied before cost reducing perks). This makes even master spells viable without mana investment. Health is much more important for this build, since you'll be relying on Blood Price to cast spells.
Skills- Destruction, Conjuration, Heavy Armor, Smithing, Enchanting
Smithing and Enchanting are both optional, but I recommend using them. Do two crafting skills make this build a bit OP at full health? Yes...but if you think you'll be staying at full health long, then you haven't been paying attention!
Shouts- Curse
Curse is a shout added by the Thunderchild mod that causes affected enemies to receive 3x any damage you take for its duration. This includes harm you cause to yourself, meaning that it will do damage equal to 150% of your current health every time you use Blood Price. It is immensely powerful but potentially very dangerous, so use with caution.
Powers- Blood Price, Lamae's Pyre
You'll have to rely on Blood Price for mana, so don't be afraid of using it often (even in quick succession). It only ever converts half of your current health, so you'll never die from the spell itself. Though you'll still have to be weary of how vulnerable it can leave you to attacks.
Abilities- Blood Knight, Tooth and Claw, Vicissitude, Daywalker
These couple well with your Hemomancy and they can be pretty fun to acquire. They aren't required, so do so at your leisure.
Armor- Jagged Crown, Dragonplate Armor, Dragonplate Gauntlets, Dragonplate Boots
Enchant with Nova to add a fiery explosion whenever you fall below 25% health. Cheat Death is similar except it reduces incoming damage under 25%, and Deadly Reach will allow for powerful on-touch spells like Scorching Hands to be used as a ranged attack.
Jewellery- Aetherial Crown, Necromancer's Amulet, Ring of the Beast
This build can be played with no magicka investment. However, at 600mp to cast, Lamae's Pyre will still be out of the reach even at 25% cost. It's an awesome power (Basically a GIANT flame cloak...with bats) and well worth the stunted regen from the Necromancer Amulet if you'd like to go that route.
Spells:
Destruction- Flames, Fireball, Incendiary Flow, Bombardment, Scorching Hands, Forbidden Sun, Flame Strike
Fire damage is this build's massive damage dealer. These spells require health to cast and won't be replenishing it, but in the right circumstances they can be quite devastating. It's often a good idea to switch to fire spells only after setting up conjures and a health draining DoT or two with your Hemomancy. Incendiary Flow is a large fire hazard like wall of Flames, Flame Strike is a Meteor Shower and Forbidden Sun drastically reduces Fire resistance of enemies. Though the star players are going to be the concentration spells, Flames, Bombardment and Scorching Hands.
Conjuration- Consuming Power, Summon Dremora Churl, Summon Dremora Pit Fighter, Summon Dremora Champion, Dremora Honor Guard
Dremora are a hearty choice of minion. They resist your fire magic, they make for good meat shields when you've drained too much of your health, and they are sturdy enough to survive most Hemomancy spells in the event that you want to use them as walking cattle. Dremora Churl is unique in that it is automatically re-raised under the control of whoever killed it, but that includes you killing them yourself. So Consuming Power (raised Attack for a short time then dies) or Blood Seed (DoT leading up to a blood explosion that heals you) are both good ways to make this work to your advantage.
Hemomancy- Vampiric Drain, Blood Seed, Blood Brand, Blood Ankh, Profaned Sun
These are your utility spells. They aren't as powerful as fire damage, but are largely lingering effects that, with the Starving Artist perk, will restore your health over time. Vampiric Drain will restore health the fastest in close range and doesn't require a perk to do so. It can also stagger enemies when dual cast with the Exsanguinate perk. Blood Brand is the best way to steal health from a safe distance, it's a projectile spell that causes a small DoT and a delayed blood explosion that heals you a large amount.
Perks:
Destruction - Make your way up the Fire branch, most importantly grabbing perks that take advantage of consecutive fire like Scaring Burns (that reduces Fire resistance for 5sec), Flash Fire (That ignites targets and causes the next Fire spell to explode on contact), and Cataclysm (hitting targets affected by burning ground causes a large explosion). As well as Outburst that creates a massive explosion wherever your health drops below 75pts.
Conjuration - You'll want the Deadra related perks for your Dremora summons so focus on the far left. Signed in Blood is an important perk to get early if you're going to be using your summons as walking blood bombs/health reservoirs (which is highly recommended).
Heavy Armor - Get Battle Weary as soon as you can. It reduces incoming damage based on enemy stamina, so with Star Curse active you'll start battles off well protected. Making it an opportune time to start converting your health to magicka.
Vampire - First use Vampire Lord form up until you can grab the Court's Chef perk. After that, scavenge the castle for potions and human flesh and you should be able to reach White Wolf through consuming potions. After this, retire VL form and focus on the perks that affect mortal form.
Smithing - These perks are for obtaining Dragonplate Armor. If you go the route detailed in the Tip/Tricks section, then these are five free skill points you can use elsewhere (like destruction).
Enchanting - I grabbed Enchanting Mastery early just to give Nova a little boost, but Outburst will end up outshining it anyway, so you can use the perks elsewhere if you like.
Special Tactics:
Terror Stricken - Battle Weary is a great ability that lowers enemy's attack damage based on their current stamina. There's no better way of taking advantage of this than with a Standing Stone power that reduces their stamina to 0 immediately at the start of battle. Combine with Rise Above (which lowers their damage even further) and Primal Fear (which may send some enemies fleeing battle at the mere sight of you) for the ultimate Bloodmage entrance.
Required: Star Curse, Battle Weary
Recommended: Rise Above, Primal Fear
Covenant - Low-health activated abilities tend to be pretty powerful considering they're designed to turn the tide of a losing battle. However, the Bloodmage can cast them at will by using the Blood Price power. Just one word of the Curse shout will deal enemies 3x any health you sacrifice, Warrior's Heart boosts spell damage as your health lowers and Nova/Outburst may explode for massive damage whenever you fall below 25% or 75pts health (respectively).
Required: Curse, Blood Price, Warriors Heart
Recommend: Outburst, Nova
Boiled Alive - Concentration spells are treated as multiple small attacks in quick succession. So while you wouldn't expect a spell like Flames to compete with much higher levelspells, the frequency with which it can activate powerhouse perks like Flash Fire and Cataclysm will keep it relevant for a long time. Once reach Expert level Destruction, Bombardment has much better range at a slower fire rate, while Scorching Hands out performs them both if you can find the Deadly Reach enchantment.
Required: Flames, Flash Fire, Cataclysm
Recommended: Scorching Hands, Deadly Reach
Blood Oath - Blood Brand's explosion deals pretty decent damage, and with Starving Artist it's one of the safest ways to heal. Casting it on your own Deadra to distract enemies and ensures that they'll be close enough to be hit by the gory shrapnel. Dremora are a great choice because most of them are sturdy enough to survive the explosion, which they quickly recover from if you have Signed in Blood. Even Churls, who won't survive, will be immediately resummoned under your control.
Required: Summon Dremora, Blood Brand
Recommended: Starving Artist, Signed in Blood
Required Mods:
Aurora - This is a great mod that replaces all the current Standing Stone effects with new ones. Each stone will give the player both an active power and a passive ability. The core concept of this build is the combination two Aurora Standing Stones, so it's important to have.
Sacrosanct - Sacrosanct is a total overhaul of vampirism in Skyrim. It's a revamp (get it?). It gives VL tree a bunch of new powers, but most importantly it gives vampires more combat viability in mortal form by way of hemomancy.
Ordinator - This will provide many of the interesting perks like Outburst and Battle Weary that this build is based around. The build may very well be feasible without it, but it would be a very different experience so I don't recommend it.
Recommended Mods:
Apocalypse - With Sacrosanct providing the all important Hemomancy spells, this build can easily get by without all of awesome magic that Apocalypse adds to the game...but why would you want to?
Imperious - Imperious changes racial stats and abilities. For this build it provides Nords with the Warriors Heart ability letting you double down and really take advantage of reducing your own health... however it's hardly necessary. The build will be nearly the same without it.
Summermyst - Finally, this mod adds some great new enchantments. Like above, the build won't suffer much without them. Unlike above, some enchantments (like Nova) can even be replaced by other abilities later on.
Tips/Tricks:
Bulkingup Early - With Deadly Bosses installed you can pick up Dragonplate Armor by killing Vaarg just outside of Bleak Falls Temple. A full set of Dragonplate Armor may seem like it would be really OP so early in the game...and it is, right up until you remember that you can't fight back until you trade half your health to be able to cast spells. Then it overcorrects itself and leaves you pretty damn vulnerable, so don't feel cheap if you choose to go this route. Balancing extremes is the point of the build.
