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Event Build: The Huntsman

  • May 27, 2017

    The Hunter is kind of a weird build that obviously came from my subconscious desire to combine Medium Armour and Spears even if it isn’t the most logical character in the end. The Hunter is basically half Legionnaire and half Hunter, a weird mix of course and there’s no real justification other than he’s a Nord and he wanted to join the Legion...in Morrowind, where he lives for reasons. Yes that is a good character, he is doing things because reasons and is there because other reasons.

    The Build:

    Race: Nord

    Major Skills: Spear, Athletics, Medium Armour, Acrobatics and Armorer

    Attributes: Agility, Strength (Speed and Endurance)

    Birthsign: The Steed

    Level: 20

    Right, so Nord because I felt like it fit all parts of the character. Both the Imperial Legion and the Skaal are natural directions for any Nord in Morrowind to head off, and combining the two, well it seemed to make some tiny amount of sense. The most important part is of course that Nords get bonuses to Medium Armour and Spear, not to mention the higher Strength, Endurance and mediocre Speed that they get. Focusing on Agility and Strength as our two ‘main attributes’ allows for combat to be a little easier at the beginning of the game, and The Steed Stone really helps create the character.

    Think of it this way, in Medium Armour with a base of 65 Speed, The Hunter is going to be pretty fast (Add in the Athletics and your even faster) which allows for Medium Armour + Spear to be a bit of a better combination than it’d usually be, especially for a character that isn’t optimized much at all.

    Equipment:

    Weapon - Spear of the Hunter

    Armour - Ice Armour

    The Spear of the Hunter is by far the most important, and deadly part of The Hunter’s arsenal. I went off and attempted Bloodmoon earlier than I usually would (because otherwise I’d end up getting to use it for 10 minutes and that’d be it) around Level 10 and while it was difficult I did end up pushing my way through the quest so that the Spear is actually going to be used to get through the Legion quests. The Ice Armour is honestly only used because it’s the best set of Medium Armour that I could find at this point, and it suits the character well enough. The Bear Armour is a decent substitute if you wanted something more fitting.

    Combat:

    Gee, how do you sum up Combat for this character...Move around, don’t get hit and smack people with a spear (well poke them). Early on most enemies are either going to be almost impossible to take down or relatively easy because of our higher Strength, it’s just actually hitting them that can get a little difficult at times. Later on as our Agility and Strength rise and combat gets, not easier, but at least you can hit things more than 60% of the time is where the build shines, the Spear is a pretty good weapon (naturally) and with the speed of this character you should be able to weave around foes pretty easily and dish out damage.

    Archers are a bit of an issue throughout the whole game, it’s basically a process of hoping their aim is shit (which to be fair is often the case) or that your going to see them shoot in your direction and can dodge. If more than one decides to come at you it can get a bit tough but nothing insane.

    Mages are both great and shit to fight. On one hand, Frost Mages are never going to be that much of an issue and most spells are pretty easy to dodge since they do that glowy thing. When you do get hit by a spell it’s going to suck, like a lot but it’s easy enough to dodge most spells thrown your way. Conjurers are annoying as all hell though, especially if they get something moderately bulky up (or early on, anything with Ghosts sucks...I never found a Silver Spear or anything and had to rely on shitty enchanted ones).

    Warriors are a piece of cake...seriously, they run at you, don’t get hit, smack ‘em in the face with the pointy end of your spear and then they do that dying thing. Of course, I was killed by more Warriors than anything else, but that’s expected since I swear 75% of Morrowind is trained to be very annoying with a sword.

    Quests:

    Bloodmoon - So, I have to be honest, doing Bloodmoon first (more or less, I did some basic stuff with the Legion as well) seems like it was a bad idea. It was undeniably difficult to deal with (a right pain in the ass at times) but in the end the reward of getting The Spear of the Hunter early on was well worth all the pain and reloading time. The end fight with Hircine was freaking hard, the Guile form feels like it’s the hardest and it took me a few dozen tries to get him (which felt brilliant by the way, loved having a hard fight in a TES game) but yeah, the whole questline was definitely rewarding. From a Roleplaying point of view, the whole island is a little difficult, I mean from memory you weren’t usually forced into choosing the Skaal or the Legion, or at least I didn’t pay enough attention to it (I did kind of try and fly through quests to get the Spear) but I did have a bit of a struggle deciding who to help first so to say. I ended up doing most of the Raven Rock/East Empire Quests before the Skaal, but really there’s no need to do it in any particular order.

    Pre-Bloodmoon - I want to stress that Bloodmoon (and the Tribunal DLC) are really hard, Solstheim is reached by going to Khuul, is a rather difficult area and isn't for low level characters. Because of this I heavily reccomend getting to at least Level 8 if your experienced with Morrowind and Level 12 if it's your first time (as a complete minimum). Before doing Bloodmoon I reccomend mainly focusing on doing some of the early Legion quests. They're pretty easy, some of them actually involve no combat and the rewards are decent enough to get you through the early game. Combine that with the quests you can do in the regions that are relatively easy, and you've got an excellent base for a starting character. Things like Fargoth's Ring (and the related quests) are great to do early on because it means your 

    Imperial Legion - Right, it’s all fairly simple. Honour the Legion, do Legion stuff and be a Legionnaire. There’s nothing fancy about the Roleplaying and by the time you’ve gotten The Spear of the Hunter the whole questline is relatively easy (not straight up easy, but relatively). I'd recommend doing some of the early quests (from Gnisis and possibly Buckmoth Legion Fort) before heading off to Khuul and then completing the rest once you get back from completing the Bloodmoon Quests. 

    Misc Quests - I found it helpful to do quests whenever I could, if I was in a town I just chipped away doing minor quests while I was there (not quite clearing the town, but enough to feel good about helping the locals) and generally being a good person. There are too many side/minor quests for me to delve into but just doing any that have decent rewards or doing ones that are morally correct (AKA, don’t go off murdering people, stealing or anything like that) should give you plenty to choose from.

    Closing Notes:

    Thanks for reading everyone, this is my first completed Morrowind (Classics) build and I'm really glad that I managed to get it out. It isn't the most complex build around, nor does it deal with the Roleplaying involved in playing the game but that's simply because I wanted to leave it to anyone who wants to play. Morrowind can be difficult enough without throwing in RP for your first journey so this build has all the essential information without trying to stuff you full of extra stuff. Later on my builds will include plenty of that (though with my current completion rate, well we'll see that in 2020 :P), but I just wanted to get a good start in how to make a build for the game first.