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Character Build: The Transcendent.

Tags: #Character Build Illusionist  #Character Build Enchanter  #Character Build Bound Weapons  #Race:Breton  #Rank:Recognized 
  • Member
    November 10, 2013

    Hello there (Again) SCB. My Archangel build was an absolute flop, so I thought I would post the build I have been working with for the last month and a half. I have never played a full magic user, and this was my attempt at using that. There have been only a few builds out there that take complete use of the Become Ethereal shout, and this is my take on how to use it to it's full potential. Combining Bound Weapons, Mass Hysteria and Dragon Priest Masks, here is...

    You have lived for hundreds of years. You saw the rise of the empire, witnessed Martin Septim sacrifice himself to stop the Oblivion Crisis and the birth of a new era. You are one of the few who have achieved actual immortality. Through the years you have learned to warp through the dimensions and control time around you. You have transcended this plane of existence.

    Race: Breton. I originally was thinking Altmer at first, but then I realized how much I hate their looks. Breton's +10 to conjuration and +5 in Illusion and Restoration are really helpful. Bretons also start with the Conjure Familiar spell, which can help level your conjuration fast.

    Standing Stone: I could not think of an extremely useful stone to augment this build, so I went with the mage, which helped get the illusion and conjuration up pretty fast. I then went over to the Apprentice Stone because it works nice with the build. This build focuses extremely on magic regeneration, so this really helps speed up this build. When stacked with Morokei, that is already 200% Magic Regeneration, not to mention the other enchantments.

    Dragon Shouts: This build uses two shouts to their full potential. They are not directly offensive shouts, but when combined with other skills and perks, they create devastating effects that can heal, deal damage and many other useful things.

    Become Ethereal: This is the key aspect in this build that makes it so fun to play. The ability to warp through dimensions and be unable be harmed is a fantastic aspect in this build. It provides a safe way to cast the master level illusion spells. The whole point of this shout is to buy you time to cast your big moves. You should meditate on this shout with Paarthunax for the health regeneration. 

    Slow Time: This is used as a more "Offensive" shout, because it is used to get behind people and manipulate or kill them. This one is not used as much as the other, but it was still used heavily.

    Essential Quests

    College of Winterhold: This is how you get the Morokei Dragon Priest Mask, which is a key part of this build. The college gives you a setting where you can practice your magic and level it quickly. It gives you many useful items that come in handy while attempting to obtain the endgame items. After you become the archmage, you have access to an enchanting table and many other useful stuff. This is the only quest that is really needed, but almost any other one can be joined without a cost to the roleplay. I did do the Dragonborn DLC and Main Questline myself. The whole idea of this build is one of "Neutrality", but in the sense of carelessness. You have seen empires rise and fall, kingdoms get crushed and many other things, so what is a civil war to you? Becoming a vampire represents achieving true immortality, and becomes a major part of this build.

    Major Skills:

    Illusion: This is what made me fall in love with this build. Hysteria and Mayhem are one of the best spells in the game. I love the ability to control the battlefield with these spells. When combined with Become Ethereal, it becomes a devastating skill to have. Although Illusion has no outright offense, the ability to cause mayhem and hysteria to the battlefield while you observe or charge in is amazing. It fits into this build as someone who loves to observe and has otherworldly powers.

    One Handed: You primary offense is bound weapons. You do not use summons or reanimate bodies (Except in the start with conjure familiar). It is kinda nice to have a warrior who warps through dimensions using a sword that was conjured up. The bound bow is used at times, but you do not perk archery at all (Though by the end of the play-through it was at 50).

    Minor Skills:

    Conjuration: This is not a heavily perked skill, because the only thing it is used for is bound weapons. The ability to soul trap your enemies and banish summons becomes very useful later on when you fight against necromancers and other conjurer enemies. Also you should keep a large supply of soul gems on you because of the soul traps.

    Restoration: You do not involve heavily in restoration, but it helps to heal you when needed. It comes in handy later on when you need time to heal fast or something else. I did not make this an extremely perked out tree, but I gave myself the magic regeneration which is nice and supplement's this build.

    Light Armor: Although you do not get hit often, the ability to protect yourself is very nice and helps immensely. Thank God Morokei is light armor, because if not this build would be a considerable amount weaker and less protected.

    Enchanting: This is why you need all of the soul gems. You are constantly enchanting items you get from loot so that you can make money to buy end game armor. When dungeon delving, you are finding random iron swords and steel battle-axes. I would take all of those with me and enchant them when I got back to the college. It was the most simple way to make money in the game for me. The goal of this build is to create your                            "Philosopher's Stone", and enchanting is the only way to do that. You also use this to                            continually enchant your armor.

    It takes exactly 567 iron ingots (When making daggers) to get yourself to 100 smithing. I chose to wait, but If you really want to smith you can.

    Perks:http://skyrimcalculator.com/335840

    Stat Distribution: 2/1/0

    Armor/Weapons

    Head: Morokei; The 100% magic regeneration is a key part of this build. Thank God it is light armor, or this whole build would be ruined. As said in this build, Magic Regeneration is a key aspect, and no otherhead item would work as well as this. I originally was thinking of the Aetheial Crown, but this was better.

    Chest: Dragonscale Armor: It should be enchanted with Fortify Illusion and Magic Regeneration. It can get pricy to buy all of the armor, but through enchanting different items you get the money. You can get the enchantment by disenchanting Novice Robes of Illusion. Before I could get the armor, I used Riften Guard's Armor, because it is one of the coolest looking pieces when combined with Morokei.

    Hands: Dragonscale Gloves:Fortify Magic. Although this build has extreme magic regeneration, you need some magic to actually regenerate. Before I could get these I used scaled bracers and worked my way up.

    Boots: Dragonscale Boots:Fortify One-Handed. You need to bounce the one handed damage up a bit, so this helps that happen. I mainly used Vampire Boots until I could get the end-game armor.

    Ring: Fortify Magic Regeneration and Health. Use the highest level possible enchantment you can get.

    Amulet: Philosopher's Stone. A necklace that has the most powerful enchantment of Fortify Magic and Health Regeneration possible. With it you are "Immortal". This is what you need to continually enchant items to get. 

    As you can see, This build stacks magic regeneration. By the end, I had over 200% magic regeneration. I chose not to use the Archmage's Robes because you could not enchant them and they did not fall under the light armor category. You will be buying all of your dragonscale armor when you are able to, and you make the money to do that through enchanting.

    Weapons:

    There are no real "Weapons" used in this build, but as a hobby I collected all the staves I could find. It was cool and you get a decent amount in the College quests. If you are going to use staves, I would use these staves, because they provide bonuses in different ways that help.

    Forsworn Staff: The fire is pretty cool, and it has one of the coolest looks in the game.

    Staff of Jyric Gauldurson: This was a life saver in the battle against Morokei. Takes away lots of magic and health.

    Staff of Magnus: This is the final staff I used. It really helps against magic users and the draining spell is really effective.

    Vampirism: 

    You have achieved the Philosopher's Stone. The power that gave you was not enough. You sought something more than that. You wanted something that would give you immortality at it's true potential. 

    Due to many people's suggestions, I tried out vampirism in this build, and oh my Lord was I missing something amazing. Not only does the theme fit amazingly into the role-play, but the game-play aspect as well. The 25% boost to illusion made your spells god-like, and Embrace of Shadows acts as a second invisibility (if you run out of magic that is) when needed. The hardest part about vampirism is the weakness to fire that you get when contracted. The Breton's 25% magic defense is really helpful against fire based destruction spells. When I found out that there were Potions of Blood, it finalized it for me. The ability to not have to risk being discovered, but to keep the symptoms of Vampirism at a manageable level is what sold it. For those that did not know, you get Vampire Lord form from Lord Harkon during the Dawnguard DLC expansion.

    Role-Play: You are hundreds of years old, and you have become indifferent. You are searching for true immortality, not the kind your amulet (The Philosopher's Stone) gives you, but the ability to continually live forever without reliance on anything else. If you choose, you can become a vampire, but I did not. Choose whichever side of the civil war you want because it does not matter to you. Go in whatever dungeon you can find, in the hopes of finding the "Philosopher's stone. After you have the stone, your goal is to finish the DLC questlines and then you are done. The big thing about this build is the search for the Philosopher's Stone, and the way you do that is through enchanting a ring when you hit level 100. That is your main goal of this build, and after you get all of your gear, you are pretty much done.

    Game-Play: The whole point of this build and what makes it special is the use of the the Become Ethereal shout to it's full extent. The other key aspect of this build is your extreme magic regeneration. You have the possibility to have over 200% regeneration, so do not be afraid to use your large spells that require a large amount of mana to use. If you run low on magic, just "Fade away" into the another dimension to regenerate a bit more. When fighting one enemy, it's usually hack and slash with your bound swords If you prefer to dual wield go ahead, but I tended to only use one sword so that I could block if needed. When fighting large boss enemies like Dragons, Centurions or Giants, you should try and keep distance with a bow, and if your health gets to slow drop into Ethereal state to recover do to the meditation. When I was going against Dragons, I would pull out my bound sword when on the ground and cause bash the dragon each time it tried to take off. When I ran out of stamina, I would switch over to flames until stamina was back up. When fighting multiple enemies you use your master level illusion spells and your bound swords. The main use of Become Ethereal is to give you time to charge up your master-level illusion spells, but can also be used as a form to escape, set up damage or anything else that requires safety. There will be a section on vampirism added soon, because I need to finish up the questline and narrow it down.

    Screams of the Dimensions (Defensive): 

    You fade away and your enemies flee, giving you time to heal and regenerate your magic. This is your simple move if things are getting tough that gives you time to heal and regain your footing.

    (Become Ethereal + Hysteria

    Dimension Warp (Defensive/Offensive)

    You fade out of this realm of existence and warp behind the enemy. This can be used to get out of battle quickly, or to get behind an opponent to backstab them.

    (Become Ethereal + Muffle + Invisibility)

    Ethereal Terror (Offensive)

    People flee from your swords as you warp the space around you into a slowed time paradox.

    (Rout + Bound Sword + Slow Time).

    Thanks for reading! Take a look at my other builds please. Any criticism is welcome say lay on the hate. I need some help with the tags if anyone can help. My goal is to get at least one of my builds out of bloodworks, so if there is any advice that can make it worthy, let me know

    Special Thanks to Curse Never Dying for the pictures, Ben C for the tags and many others who have helped this build become what it is.

  • Member
    November 10, 2013
    It was martin septim who stopped the oblivion crisis not tiber septim
  • November 10, 2013

    The title is a bit confusing, since it has nothing to do with alchemy in the 'Elder Scroll Game' sense (potions) nor much in the traditional sense (transmuting base metals to gold)... yes there the whole search for the 'philosopher's stone' but that is the only link I see with alchemy.

    I too am a big fan of 'feim' (   : ignore this emoticon, private matter).

    I think this can be fleshed out a tad more (perhaps explain some difficulties you had & how you overcame them, how you battled dragons, etc.), but all in all, I think that it is a decent build, and I appreciate the work you have put into it. (a +1 from me).

  • Member
    November 10, 2013

    Thanks. I always get those two confused.

  • Member
    November 10, 2013

    Thank you. I have been looking at the elder scrolls style of alchemy, but do you have any suggestions of what to change it to?

  • Member
    November 11, 2013

    I am thinking of changing it to something like "The Trancendent" or something like that, but the concept of someone who has transcended the mortal plane of existence Is hard to come up with.

  • November 11, 2013

    Off the top of my head:

    Dimensional Wizard, Dimensional Enchanter, Dimensional Mystic, Dimensional Traveler, Dimensional Mage.

    Optionally use Aetherial, Ethereal, or Astral instead of Dimensional, with the previous suggestions.

    (just check and make sure no one has used the name in a build)

  • November 11, 2013

    That sounds good.

  • Member
    November 11, 2013
    I can tell you out a decent amount of effort in on this one and that earns my like any day. You have a really neat concept here, Rune said you could flesh it out a bit and I agree but I think the big problem is format. It's not appealing to the eye. You need uniform pictures and you need to separate some of those last chunks a bit. I usually go to thraen.minus.com I'm pretty sure there a gallery set for other worldly things there. Btw for tags it is "Character Build Illusionist", "Character Build Blah Blah", Rank:Bloodworks , Race:Breton
  • Member
    November 11, 2013

    How do the pictures look now? I tried to clean them up