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WIP Event Build: The Voice of the Mountain

Tags: #Light armor  #modded  #WIP  #Speech 
  • Member
    March 19, 2017

     

    Believe it or not, one of the most powerful melee builds I've ever played is an unarmed character with only two skills to its name. By level ten or so I was two-shotting Draugr and Sabercats. By level 15 I was a legitimate solo threat to dragons, with or without shouts. Ladies and gents of the vault, I'd like to introduce you to-

     

    The Voice of the Mountain

     I'm gonna punch that dragon in the face!

     This will never, ever cease to be awesome.

     

     

    This is yet another modded Ordinator build for the 2-For-2 event, utilizing Light Armor and Speech to make an empty handed master of the Thu'um. Light Armor, with Ordinator, grants a number of perks which increase the damage of unarmed attacks, including a few which grant a direct 2:1 ratio increase of damage for every percentage point of movement increase you have (yes it's math. I promise it makes sense when you play it). Speech has a number of perks which increase the effects of the Thu'um, including one little gem which raises movement speed by sixty percent as well as damage by thirty percent, which grants this build a ninety percent buff to its unarmed damage, alongside added elemental area-of-affect damage to every strike that lands. Along the way, one also acquires steady healing, a massive boost to movement speed, and very impressive perk choices to improve the power and recharge speed of its shouts, making it an extremely fun, beast of a build to get into, even by level 25.

     

    In other words, you shout super-well, then you punch super hard. A shout-puncher, if you will.

     

    Race: Nord

    Stone: Thief (for leveling), then Lady or Lord. 

    Magicka/Health/Stamina: 0/1/1 - LOTS of Stamina and Health. Magic is for nerds.

    Shouts: Yes. All of them. All of the shouts. Collect them all like pokeymans. 

    Gear: Light Armor, the best you can find, particularly with Fortify Health/Light Armor/Stamina/Speech enchants.

     

    Perks:

     

    Light Armor: Thirteen Perk Points

    -Light Armor Mastery (2) - These perks enhance overall armor and grant a slight increase to Light Armor Exp. A worthwhile investment. 

    -Iron Fist (3) - Three perks, each of which increase unarmed damage by a percentage of yor current Stamina, topping out at 25%. These perks also grant experience for Light Armor when unarmed attacks are used. Sadly, it requires both hands free to take effect, making dark caves a bit rough since you can't fight and hold a torch at the same time.

    -Sweeping Wind - This perk grants an additional 25% damage to unarmed power attacks, and adds an additional 2% overall unarmed damage to power attacks for every 1% of movement speed boost. 

    -Rushing Tide - Unarmed attacks grant 10% increased Stamina regeneration and 5% movement speed for 8 seconds. This effect stacks. Paired with Sweeping Wind, every unarmed attack will boost the next by 10%. It's extremely easy to maintain a series of rapid-fire punches enhances by 40-50% damage.

    Evasive Leap - If wearing all Light Armor, jumping in combat causes all incoming attacks and spells to miss for 1 second, with a five-second cooldown. A tiny Become Ethereal for emergencies.

    -Windrunner - Move 10% faster in combat if wearing all Light Armor. Always faster, and your power attacks are now always going to be 20% stronger (45% with Sweeping Wind's bonus).

    -Hissing Dragon - Upon selecting this perk, you choose a particular damage type from a list. Unarmed attacks, from that point on, unleash a shockwave that deals the chosen damage type to all targets in front of you. More free unarmed damage. I chose shock damage to reflect this perk as an expansion of the Unstoppable Force Shout, but Frost would be a perfectly viable alternative. 

    -Wardancer - Your agility enables you to strike more effectively, granting 20% more attack damage and critical damage if wearing all Light Armor. This effect is lost for 6 seconds whenever you get struck by an unblocked attack or a hostile spell in combat.

    - Spelldancer - Wardancer also improves elemental spells and effects by the same amount, namely the Shock damage added to the build's fists by Hissing Dragon.

    Breaking Waves - Unarmed attacks have 15% chance of a critical strike that deals critical damage equal to 40% of your current Stamina. If you are affected by Wardancer, every hit is a critical strike.

     

    Speech: Twelve Perk Points

    - Speech Mastery (2) - Raise selling prices and increase the chance for intimidation attempts to succeed. Nice enough for two perk points.

    - And the Universe Listens - Shouting restores points of Health, Magicka and Stamina equal to your shout cooldown in seconds. Speech experience is gained based on shout cooldown times. This is an excellent recovery technique, plus one which helps level Speech dramatically.

    - Windborne - Shouting summons up a divine wind, granting 30% extra attack damage and 15% increased movement speed for 15 seconds, which due to the effect of Sweeping Wind, gives another 30% damage to unarmed power attacks, putting them at a 60% total boost whenever a shout is used. This effect stacks. It is beautiful.

    - Force Redoubled (2) - With two perks in this skill, you now have a 50% chance to reduce the cooldown of any shout to 3 seconds. Outstanding for your damage, but makes Universe Listens a little less reliable for healing in a pinch. A worthwhile trade, in my experience.

    - Speak with Animals - This perk allows you to "activate" animals to tame them, turning them into followers until such time as you choose to release them. I chose to grab a bear, whom I named Dorris.

    - Hurricane Force - Shouts that affect others are 1% more powerful per level of Speech. Yes. I want double-power shouts, please.

    - Thu'um of War - Shouts will now also stagger enemies within 20 feet, dropping armor by 300 points for 10 seconds. Enemies below 25% Health are knocked down. On a high-shout-recharge build, this is devastating, and makes Wardancer much easier to keep up.

    - Merciless Storm - Once a day, the greater power this perk grants can cancel an active shout cooldown, allowing you to shout again immediately. In some circumstances, this allows for an emergency heal, an emergency knockdown, or an emergency shift into Become Ethereal. It's a nice took to keep in your box. 

    - Kinship - Buy items for 15% less when trading with the same race. As a Nord, this means roughly half the merchants in the game.

    - Salesman - Can sell any type of item to any kind of merchant. With all the weapons the Voice isn't using, this is a loverly way to cap things off. 

     

    Gameplay

     

    The Voice's mighty shout-punchery, or Thu-um-Pugilism, is rooted in using the Speech tree perks chosen to drastically enhance the strength and speed of the character's unarmed combat, rendering him with a potential (SPACE FOR MATH HERE WHEN YOU CAN FIGURE IT OUT, STUPID!)  percent increase to movement speed, (MORE MATH I HATE MATH!) percent boost to normal attacks, and an overall (EVEN MORE MATH THIS BUILD WAS A HORRIBLE IDEA!) percent boost to power attacks. This leaves the character in a very good space as far as damage is concerned. Defense and survival, in many ways, are supplied by Shouts, with Speech perks granting an increase to recovery time and staggering foes in melee range. Most of the time, pulsing one-word shouts to keep up the Windborne perk's effect and maintaining small amounts of health recovery can provide a stable, powerful gameplay, but Force Redoubled and Merciless Storm help ensure that ripping off an explosive, three-word shout won't leave you defenseless and de-fanged. 

     

     

     

     

    To-Do list: More pics, Perks, Gameplay, Roleplay, Quiet Sobbing in the corner. 

     

  • March 19, 2017

    More Ordinator! I hope you all aren't Ordinatored out by the summer, but I think not. It's a good mod. Just be sure when you post the final build, list that it's Ordinator. So people know. 

    But a thu'um master. This is gonna be fun!

  • March 19, 2017

    Nice! Do you have Thunderchild shouts too?

  • Member
    March 19, 2017

    Lissette Long-Chapper said:

    More Ordinator! I hope you all aren't Ordinatored out by the summer, but I think not. It's a good mod. Just be sure when you post the final build, list that it's Ordinator. So people know. 

    But a thu'um master. This is gonna be fun!

    I'm sure gonna try and make it fun! There is enough randomness to those fantastic Thu'um perks that you always have a choice of playing it safe and keeping your buffs to movement speed and damage or deciding to play dangerous and mash a three-word shout for a large heal and thu'um effect.

     

    Plunders-The-Mountains said:

    Nice! Do you have Thunderchild shouts too?

    I was thinking about adding Thunderchild for myself later, but I suppose there's nothing wrong with slapping it into place now, is there? I'll boot that sucker up once company leaves and I have a few hours of relaxation time. 

     

  • Member
    March 20, 2017

    Edited to include perks and a rough beginning to gameplay. Thunderchild was added, but I kind of feel like it doesn't need to be in the final build. Those shouts feel way too powerful to be used on a build like this which already has a lot of plusses. 

  • Member
    March 21, 2017

    Note for self before sleeping: Spamming Three Word Throw Voice would be a constant PBAoE stagger every five seconds which also bumps damage and movement speed, guaranteed. Takes some of the gambling out of the playstyle at the cost of really good shout effects, but in a lot of cases this would work just fine.

     

    Kind of a big deal.

     

    Edit further: Or hey how about Clear Skies maybe? For theme? Idiot? I am not a smart man. Clear Skies works VERY well, though.