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WiP Event Build: Old Man of the Desert

  • August 30, 2019

    Event Build: Old Man of the Desert

    A sacred flame rises above the fire,
    The ghosts of great men and women without names,
    Cities long dead rise and fall in the flame,
    The Dioscori Song of Revelation,
    Bursting walls and deathless rock,
    Fiery sand that heals and destroys.

    Above the sea Sentinel shines,
    Her domes agleam in the Iliac dawn.
    Her people throng the bazaars, and find
    Their way between man's walls of stone.
    But even in the towered town,
    Sandals tread tracks in Alik'r sand.

    For all those born of Redguard blood
    Bring the wastes with them where e'er they go.
    The desert grips our hearts and souls,
    Its flame within our eyes and ears,
    Dust cannot die, and we are dust,
    Windblown, ephemeral, eternal, all.

    On the Immortality of Dust by Weltan of Sentinel

     Race: Redguard Vampire

     Skills: Restoration, Destruction, Illusion and Block

     Standing Stone: The Apprentice (Andromeda)

     Stats: 5 Magicka, 1 Health, 4 Stamina

     Key Mods: Ordinator – Perks of Skyrim, Imperious – Races of Skyrim, Andromeda – Unique Standing Stones of Skyrim, Sacrosanct – Vampires of Skyrim, Apocalypse – Magic of Skyrim, Wildcat – Combat of Skyrim, TK Dodge (with the option to side-step rather than roll dodge)…some other stuff I’ll add later.

     Key Spells: Blood Seed, Vampiric Drain, Blood Brand…Blight (Undeath)

    Early Gameplay (1-20):

    The core concept for the build at this point essentially relies on the Key Spells listed above. You could arguably remove Blight because Undeath is not a major component of my playthrough (yet, it may be later) but I essentially ended up using it as a cheap option for the early game to stack a bit of poison DoT on enemies that you can't otherwise until Restoration is more heavily perked. 

    So, lets talk about the other spells in a bit more detail. Vampiric Drain is probably the most basic spell in our arsenal, and at the very least you'll all know the basics of the spell. Concentrate, drain health, win. But Sacrosanct, Ordinator and Andromeda combine to offer unique changes to the spell that can boost the power to a reasonbly terrifying degree. Sacrosanct changes the damage of the spell as you become more Blood Starved (the longer you go without feeding) to the point where it can dish out 20 dps without changing the Magicka cost. This is boosted by Destruction Mastery, the Apprentice Stone and a host of other effects will boost it even further. It's a spell that can be earned at Level One and continues to be useful throughout the entire playthrough because of these boosts. 

    Blood Seed is a tad more interesting because it's totally different from any other spell you can get in Vanilla. What's really fun about it is that it sort of acts as a base spell that a lot of the other Sacrosanct spells, powers and passive abilities enhance or base themselves off of this spell. Vicissitude for example enhances all of the other Sacrosanct spells by 25% when they're used on a target already hit by Blood Seed. It's a pretty simple spell that does damage over time, what is worth pointing out about it (other than the many things I've already mentioned) is that it's a relatively slow moving spell that can take awhile to hit an enemy which can make aiming it harder. Blood Brand is basically another version of Blood Seed (it can stack on top of it) that has an AoE explosion at the end that deals another bunch of damage. 

    So, already, the core concept for the build is to use Blood Seed, Brand and Blight to stack up damage over time for our offense and...oh right yeah need to talk about the actual fun stuff, defense. So the build is actually a bit interesting because it's a Shieldmage (yes I know) that...actually focuses heavily on blocking attacks rather than the arguably more effective technique of bashing enemies to stun them. No, this build is going to rely heavily on Timed Blocks from Ordinator, which is pretty basically just blocking at the right time to reduce damage and then a whole host of other bonuses that I'll talk about later (once I start stacking up with these perks). The other aspect is TK Dodge which is a pretty simple mod, install mod (and other mod), set to side-step option, dodge attacks. For the most part this is used more against Power Attacks and Two-Handed opponents, or to avoid arrows in the early game, but adds a fun flair to combat that is off-set pretty heavily by being a Redguard and thus instantly regenerating Stamina once combat ends.

    Early Combat:

    During the earlier portion of the game defined above, combat is the focal point of the build. Personally I have accomplished, next to nothing in terms of quests and in some ways that's actually been a good thing because it's allowed me to just stroll down the mountains (and through valleys and up mountains and all that) killing anything that gets in my way and honing the way combat works with this particular build. Because, I don't really have a great comparison for it, the ability to dodge attacks, 

    Closing Notes or Just Some Other Stuff

    Just getting this up so no crazy mishaps can happen with the image above and I've already got something down below. Uh, anyway yeah this is basically where I'm at right now. Still going to jump into some Character/Roleplay stuff but for the most part my focus really is going to be on the gameplay. Even that section is probably going to be re-named to 'Basic Combat Options' or something because it doesn't actually go into full detail on how to fight and tactics and all that. Yeah, this is going to be a really gameplay, combat oriented build which is something that has fallen out of favour a bit recently but I really love. 

    The mod list does look pretty massive but I'll be honest and say that I'm going to alter it a bit. The core concept only requires Sacrosanct, Ordinator, TK Dodge and a few difficulty enhancers to make it fair (and it is brutally fair. I literally can't take a direct hit but dish out some serious damage) but at the same time it will be so much better with the whole list of mods. 

  • Member
    August 30, 2019
    Not enough images of old desert men in skimpy outfits, but it's not a huge complaint and easily overlooked. I'll keep checking back just in case you add some in ;) This is a solid start, already I'm liking the idea of Blood Seed acting as a primer spell, so I'm curious to know more about that. Can you tag multiple enemies with it, or is it best to use it on the biggest bad in the area? I'm just wondering if it's cumbersome to ensure everything is hit by it at combat start, or if you deal with mooks quickly and save the combos for the chief. You surprise me with the shield vamp concept. Is there nothing you could put in that hand that would be more useful? :D
  • August 30, 2019
    Not enough images of old desert men in skimpy outfits, but it's not a huge complaint and easily overlooked. I'll keep checking back just in case you add some in ;)
    This is a solid start, already I'm liking the idea of Blood Seed acting as a primer spell, so I'm curious to know more about that. Can you tag multiple enemies with it, or is it best to use it on the biggest bad in the area? I'm just wondering if it's cumbersome to ensure everything is hit by it at combat start, or if you deal with mooks quickly and save the combos for the chief.

    To be honest, the main issue with Blood Seed so far is the speed of the spell. It's not quite as bad as say, Bone Spirit but it does make it a bit of a pain to hit enemies at times. You can 'prime' multiple enemies with multiple Blood Seeds at the time so it isn't a huge deal, though there's also an AoE Expert level spell that would 'prime' multiple enemies at the same time so I'll see how that works. I will say that combat is still fast enough to work. With Illusion any distance based combat boils mostly down to trying to force a one on one, and then uh, close combat is actually super fast paced because your only using Timed Blocks and dodges to avoid damage, not hunkering down or spending a lot of time running. 

    You surprise me with the shield vamp concept. Is there nothing you could put in that hand that would be more useful? :D

    Actually I think it might be the best bet for this build. It adds a real complexity to the character beyond normal mages because she has a pretty potent defensive option especially with the Timing Streak thing being able to disarm opponents. I think it plays really well into the thematic aspect of the build to strip an opponent of any hope of winning, especially the finality of disarming an opponent. But yeah, realistically I think he does actually need it to stand a chance of lasting through combat.

    What's more important is the sheer use of the shield during daytime whenever your caught unaware. Being able to stagger a few opponents is really, really useful at that point because it reduces the chance of enemies hurting you. Dunno, might get some recordings of gameplay to show off the use of the shield a bit because it's hard to word how useful it is. But mostly just me loving Shieldmages here :P

  • Member
    September 6, 2019

    I've always enjoyed shield mages and the Timed Block mechanic from Enai's mods. I wonder if using a walking stick or unenchanted staff might fit the asthetic you are going for, but still allow for the use of block as a core mechanic. A shield just doesn't scream speed to me. A staff seems more fitting for someone relying on reaction and agility.

  • September 9, 2019

    Yeah, to be honest the shield, and really blocking as a whole doesn't really feel like it's working. I want to up the speed of combat, but...also maybe try and bring in the DoT effects a little more because I want those two aspects to...try and work together. I might try changing the build to focus purely on Restoration and Destruction, even Illusion is just survivability and I like the idea of going full(er) glass cannon.

  • September 11, 2019

    After a bit more contemplation I'm at least 60% sure that I'm going to be dropping this build for the event. At the moment I think it doesn't really have a clear identity in any way at all (it lacks cohesive gameplay, has no story and thematic connections are slim at best). I still like the idea but at the moment I'm sort of thinking more on Poison/Blood and it just being something I toil with over the rest of the year. 

    I am still going to create an event build, I just want it to be a bit more...planned out from the beginning. I think what I'm going to do is try and play a Blackguard type character (anti-Paladin) and create a build focused around twisting some of the core aspects of Phil's Moth Priestess. I love that build and the idea of playing, essentially the corrupted version of that playstyle is incredibly enticing to me...