The Shadowmancer: because assassinating and raising the dead are both supremely awesome things in their own right, and combined they only serve to reenforce each other's strengths and eliminate one another's weaknesses. How is a Necromancer supposed to find all those corpses necessary to raise his zombie army? What is an Assassin to do with the trail of dead bodies he's left in his wake? Bingo!
The only thing more evil than stabbing someone in the back is raising them to do your bidding afterward.
The Shadowmancer
Role-play perspective aside, the most successful hybrid builds always seem to be those that combine the gameplay elements of certain class archetypes that have the best synergy with each other. That could mean having the strength of one class make up for another's weakness (your Warrior lack range? Throw some Mage-iness on top with Destruction magic and you've got your run-of-the-mill Spellsword). It could also mean having two classes' similar strengths combine for even greater effect (doesn't everyone and their mother love a good Paladin build not just because of that whole holy knight r.p.'ing thing, but because in a game where avoiding death is always the primary objective, nothing combines toward that ultimate goal of survivability like a Knight's tanking and a Priest's healing?).
Well, the Shadowmancer runs a goddamn clinic on how to combine elements of different classes that go together like throat-slitting & reanimation peanut butter & jelly. What's a Necromancer's one glaring weakness? The fact that Skyrim isn't just some meatlocker full of fresh bodies laying around at every turn. What class can slit some throats in the blink of an eye and more or less turn Skyrim into said meatlocker on a whim? An assassin. The synergy is apparent and the gameplay is thrilling: gone are the days of backpedaling and hurling ice spell after ice spell at an enemy just to get the ball rolling on your zombie parade.
Voted most likely Skyrim build to wind up on a death metal album cover
The Build
Race: Just about any could work (Breton for the head-start, Dunmer for the Quan Chi-esque look, etc.)
Stone: Ritual
Skills: Conjuration, Sneak, One-Handed, Light Armor, Restoration
Gear: Apprentice Hood + Vampire Armor (black/gray) + Ancient Shrouded Cowl, Gloves & Boots
Weapon: Bound Dagger
Shouts: Throw Voice, Become Ethereal, Slow Time
Spells: Various Raise Undeads & Necromantic Healings
How awesomely straightforward, no? Only five skills taken, none of which belong to the category of pure tedium known as "crafting." The only thing this build crafts is swift death and the ability to capitalize on it afterward. Between your stealth perks (Assassin's Blade), found gear (Ancient Shrouded Gloves) and clever tactics (Silent Roll + Critical Charge), there isn't an enemy on any difficulty you won't drop in one swift maneuver. And that's when the fun begins: do you continue to dart from enemy to enemy dropping them like flies or begin to raise your army before the remaining enemies become alerted to your presence and barrel down on you? It's a race to accumulate as many corpses as you can before you turn them into your giant meat-shield, hopefully in time not to join their ranks!
Illusion - and Quiet Casting in particular - are intentionally avoided despite their seeming synergy with stealth casting and assassin types, and Bound Daggers are also deliberately chosen over their silent metal counterparts because of the fact that they make noise, exactly for the purpose of creating some truly exciting, edge-of-your-seat gameplay. Some builds may find enjoyment in being able to sit back in the cover of darkness to cast and kill without repercussion. This build forces you to think and act with haste: add another body to the count as those who remain alive begin to take notice of your presence, or raise those you've already downed and take charge alongside their ranks? Without a large enough tally of corpses you may not be able to overcome the rest of your foes, and yet if you wait too long to begin your necromantic tide-turning, it may just be too late. That kind of high-risk, high-reward scenario you encounter in every battle with this build is sometimes also known more simply as FUN.
You'd be emo too if all your friends were dead.
Level 50 Perk Spread:
Again, just five very straightforward skills to allow you to jump right into the action without wasting any time. The Ancient Shrouded Set is crucial to this build, whether you want to obtain it by joining the Dark Brotherhood and completing the necessary questline or simply use the Ritual Stone in Hag's End. Necessary double backstab bonus on the gloves and superior stats compared to the regular set aside, the Ancient Shrouded Set's Cowl is the best thing going for any Light Armor build: it's glitched and allows you to wear another hood over it (which is great, since shrouded cowls look god-awful) while still retaining its armor rating and allowing you to benefit from the full-set Light Armor perks! We'll receive some bonus magicka from an enchanted mage hood as a result, and look way better in the process. And taking advantage of the Light Armor perks means that we can hold our own and join in on the fun with our zombie cohorts rather than just have to sit back and cower in the shadows like most Necromancers.
And so your primary tactics take shape as a natural progression of your gameplay: your most potent offense comes from the ability to stack bonus upon bonus of backstab damage via sneak attacks as well as the strength in numbers of joining your army of darkness once their ranks reach a large enough number to overrun the rest of your foes. Your defense comes from your ability to remain undetected during your initial strike, the utilization of a rather large distraction of zombie minions during the final wave of your attack, and your natural ability to take more of a whollop than your average Necromancer to begin with. Everything circles back to the gameplay and the synergy shines throughout.
Special Moves:
Swift Death:
Bonus critical damage is the name of the game when you perform rolling power attacks with the right gloves and perks, and in turn multiply your damage by fifteen twice and then twice more again or something ridiculous like that. Look, the math doesn't matter: things die. Ancient Shrouded Gloves + Assassin's Blade + Silent Roll & Critical Charge.
Army of Darkness:
As your enemies become alerted to your presence from the sounds of you opening up their comrades' throats, fearlessly wait until the very last second before they pounce on you to counter-attack them with an army of said open-throated, former comrades of theirs. Become Ethereal + Ritual Stone
So there you have it, my first build revamped a tiny bit in the face of how far I've come since it was initially posted. Slit as many throats as you can stand before the itch to raise them back to life (of servitude) takes over. If you're looking for a fun and unique take on how to combine some of the more badass of the most popular build archetypes to maximum effect, give this one a whirl!
The Shadowmancer: because assassinating and raising the dead are both supremely awesome things in their own right, and combined they only serve to reenforce each other's strengths and eliminate one another's weaknesses. How is a Necromancer supposed to find all those corpses necessary to raise his zombie army? What is an Assassin to do with the trail of dead bodies he's left in his wake? Bingo!
The only thing more evil than stabbing someone in the back is raising them to do your bidding afterward.
The Shadowmancer
Role-play perspective aside, the most successful hybrid builds always seem to be those that combine the gameplay elements of certain class archetypes that have the best synergy with each other. That could mean having the strength of one class make up for another's weakness (your Warrior lack range? Throw some Mage-iness on top with Destruction magic and you've got your run-of-the-mill Spellsword). It could also mean having two classes' similar strengths combine for even greater effect (doesn't everyone and their mother love a good Paladin build not just because of that whole holy knight r.p.'ing thing, but because in a game where avoiding death is always the primary objective, nothing combines toward that ultimate goal of survivability like a Knight's tanking and a Priest's healing?).
Well, the Shadowmancer runs a goddamn clinic on how to combine elements of different classes that go together like throat-slitting & reanimation peanut butter & jelly. What's a Necromancer's one glaring weakness? The fact that Skyrim isn't just some meatlocker full of fresh bodies laying around at every turn. What class can slit some throats in the blink of an eye and more or less turn Skyrim into said meatlocker on a whim? An assassin. The synergy is apparent and the gameplay is thrilling: gone are the days of backpedaling and hurling ice spell after ice spell at an enemy just to get the ball rolling on your zombie parade.
Voted most likely Skyrim build to wind up on a death metal album cover
The Build
Race: Just about any could work (Breton for the head-start, Dunmer for the Quan Chi-esque look, etc.)
Stone: Ritual
Skills: Conjuration, Sneak, One-Handed, Light Armor, Restoration
Gear: Apprentice Hood + Vampire Armor (black/gray) + Ancient Shrouded Cowl, Gloves & Boots
Weapon: Bound Dagger
Shouts: Throw Voice, Become Ethereal, Slow Time
Spells: Various Raise Undeads & Necromantic Healings
How awesomely straightforward, no? Only five skills taken, none of which belong to the category of pure tedium known as "crafting." The only thing this build crafts is swift death and the ability to capitalize on it afterward. Between your stealth perks (Assassin's Blade), found gear (Ancient Shrouded Gloves) and clever tactics (Silent Roll + Critical Charge), there isn't an enemy on any difficulty you won't drop in one swift maneuver. And that's when the fun begins: do you continue to dart from enemy to enemy dropping them like flies or begin to raise your army before the remaining enemies become alerted to your presence and barrel down on you? It's a race to accumulate as many corpses as you can before you turn them into your giant meat-shield, hopefully in time not to join their ranks!
Illusion - and Quiet Casting in particular - are intentionally avoided despite their seeming synergy with stealth casting and assassin types, and Bound Daggers are also deliberately chosen over their silent metal counterparts because of the fact that they make noise, exactly for the purpose of creating some truly exciting, edge-of-your-seat gameplay. Some builds may find enjoyment in being able to sit back in the cover of darkness to cast and kill without repercussion. This build forces you to think and act with haste: add another body to the count as those who remain alive begin to take notice of your presence, or raise those you've already downed and take charge alongside their ranks? Without a large enough tally of corpses you may not be able to overcome the rest of your foes, and yet if you wait too long to begin your necromantic tide-turning, it may just be too late. That kind of high-risk, high-reward scenario you encounter in every battle with this build is sometimes also known more simply as FUN.
You'd be emo too if all your friends were dead.
Level 50 Perk Spread:
Again, just five very straightforward skills to allow you to jump right into the action without wasting any time. The Ancient Shrouded Set is crucial to this build, whether you want to obtain it by joining the Dark Brotherhood and completing the necessary questline or simply use the Ritual Stone in Hag's End. Necessary double backstab bonus on the gloves and superior stats compared to the regular set aside, the Ancient Shrouded Set's Cowl is the best thing going for any Light Armor build: it's glitched and allows you to wear another hood over it (which is great, since shrouded cowls look god-awful) while still retaining its armor rating and allowing you to benefit from the full-set Light Armor perks! We'll receive some bonus magicka from an enchanted mage hood as a result, and look way better in the process. And taking advantage of the Light Armor perks means that we can hold our own and join in on the fun with our zombie cohorts rather than just have to sit back and cower in the shadows like most Necromancers.
And so your primary tactics take shape as a natural progression of your gameplay: your most potent offense comes from the ability to stack bonus upon bonus of backstab damage via sneak attacks as well as the strength in numbers of joining your army of darkness once their ranks reach a large enough number to overrun the rest of your foes. Your defense comes from your ability to remain undetected during your initial strike, the utilization of a rather large distraction of zombie minions during the final wave of your attack, and your natural ability to take more of a whollop than your average Necromancer to begin with. Everything circles back to the gameplay and the synergy shines throughout.
Special Moves:
Swift Death:
Bonus critical damage is the name of the game when you perform rolling power attacks with the right gloves and perks, and in turn multiply your damage by fifteen twice and then twice more again or something ridiculous like that. Look, the math doesn't matter: things die. Ancient Shrouded Gloves + Assassin's Blade + Silent Roll & Critical Charge.
Army of Darkness:
As your enemies become alerted to your presence from the sounds of you opening up their comrades' throats, fearlessly wait until the very last second before they pounce on you to counter-attack them with an army of said open-throated, former comrades of theirs. Become Ethereal + Ritual Stone
So there you have it, my first build revamped a tiny bit in the face of how far I've come since it was initially posted. Slit as many throats as you can stand before the itch to raise them back to life (of servitude) takes over. If you're looking for a fun and unique take on how to combine some of the more badass of the most popular build archetypes to maximum effect, give this one a whirl!
Cool, this is the first Nightblade build I've seen on this site! Even though I just posted one like 40 seconds before you, coincidentally enough. I like the detail you go into with everything; there's not too much, but not too little as to detract the reader from the ultimate goal.
Cool, this is the first Nightblade build I've seen on this site! Even though I just posted one like 40 seconds before you, coincidentally enough. I like the detail you go into with everything; there's not too much, but not too little as to detract the reader from the ultimate goal.
Haha! Its the first time ive seen two builds that are so similar posted at the same time!
This kind of gameplay is always fun! I posted a build called a shadowmancer months ago that got so little interest that i eventually deleted it from the shame.
By combining stealth with conjuration you become a little like an observer of chaos, silently raising foes and watching from the shadows laughing! Its alot of fun! After plenty of testing i can promise you that just running illusion alongside sneaks combat skills (backstab -> assassins blade) is more than enough to keep you safe for your entire playthrough. There is no need to take all the sneak perks.
If you add illusion to this build you can influence the tide of any battle and dominate anything one on one.
Haha! Its the first time ive seen two builds that are so similar posted at the same time!
This kind of gameplay is always fun! I posted a build called a shadowmancer months ago that got so little interest that i eventually deleted it from the shame.
By combining stealth with conjuration you become a little like an observer of chaos, silently raising foes and watching from the shadows laughing! Its alot of fun! After plenty of testing i can promise you that just running illusion alongside sneaks combat skills (backstab -> assassins blade) is more than enough to keep you safe for your entire playthrough. There is no need to take all the sneak perks.
If you add illusion to this build you can influence the tide of any battle and dominate anything one on one.
Haha, yeah. I'm was both glad and a little irritated to see that someone else thought of posting a stealth mage build, and even called it the correct name according to TES Lore. I, too, was relieved to see differences like the lack of Vampirism, the use of smithing and light armor, more assassin-based gameplay than mage.
I agree with Mason that illusion would make a Nightblade build far stronger. Illusion is like stealth and magic came together and formed synergy. With Invisibility and Muffle, you don't even need half of the perks in stealth.
Of course, there's always preference to stray from what everyone else does. Like how I chose not to include smithing and enchanting in my build.
Haha, yeah. I'm was both glad and a little irritated to see that someone else thought of posting a stealth mage build, and even called it the correct name according to TES Lore. I, too, was relieved to see differences like the lack of Vampirism, the use of smithing and light armor, more assassin-based gameplay than mage.
I agree with Mason that illusion would make a Nightblade build far stronger. Illusion is like stealth and magic came together and formed synergy. With Invisibility and Muffle, you don't even need half of the perks in stealth.
Of course, there's always preference to stray from what everyone else does. Like how I chose not to include smithing and enchanting in my build.
Your absolutely correct! Illusion does hamper progression alot! As does a necro/illusion combination. Its powerful but very slow paced....
Fair enough mate, i personally love running combat builds that use the assistance of two schools of magic. Ie) Restoration/Alteration or Conjuration/Restoration. Always fast paced, powerful and fun to use! Illusion/Restoration works very nicely with a melee buld (typical knight).
Good stuff! I hope you continue contributing builds!!
Your absolutely correct! Illusion does hamper progression alot! As does a necro/illusion combination. Its powerful but very slow paced....
Fair enough mate, i personally love running combat builds that use the assistance of two schools of magic. Ie) Restoration/Alteration or Conjuration/Restoration. Always fast paced, powerful and fun to use! Illusion/Restoration works very nicely with a melee buld (typical knight).
Good stuff! I hope you continue contributing builds!!