Skyrim Character Building » Discussions


Character Build: The Avarice

Tags: #Character Build Battlemage  #Character Build Bound Weapons  #Character Build Mage Armor  #Race:Breton  #Rank:Exemplar 
  • Member
    May 26, 2014

    Welcome to the new and improved Temple Knight. There have been big changes to just about everything from the previous version.

    Lore lovers be warned, most of the later roleplay of this build likely breaks lore rules and such, I present...

    A Breton scholar with an insatiable greed for money and power, The Avarice's personality is reflected in his motives...

    His thirst for domination is only strengthened by his new-found Dragonborn powers. His prowess as both an intellectual and battlemage has been proven time and time again, outsmarting even the most cunning of enemies and easily decimating them in combat.

    Wielding the very weapons of Oblivion and protected by the spells of Alteration, this talented mage is ready to achieve maximum power, and kill anyone in his way...

    Race: Breton

    Standing Stone: Mage/Warrior -> Atronach

    Stats: 2 / 3 / 1

    Major Skills: One-Handed, Alteration, Archery

    Minor Skills: Sneak, Restoration, Conjuration

    Equipment: Cultist Robes and Boots, Brown Gloves

    End-Game Equipment: Miraak's Robes and Boots, Brown Gloves/Vampire Gloves

    Weapons: Bound Sword, Bound Bow

    End-Game Weapons: Miraak's Sword

    Quests: Main Quest, Dragonborn, The College of Winterhold, Black Books

    Shouts: Dragon Aspect, Slow Time, Unrelenting Force

    The Build

    The Avarice is a sort of battlemage build. Combining the badass and devastating bound weapons of Conjuration, fast-paced unarmored action, full spell absorption, and a few key shouts to create a fast-paced action-packed gameplay experience.

    Completely unarmored for speed and elegant swordsmanship, the Avarice rolls with Alteration to provide additional protection from attacks. Alteration also plays a key role mid-game whenever Miraak has been defeated, providing the last bit of Spell Absorption required to reach 100%.

    The Avarice utilizes the powerful Bound Sword and Bow while in combat, and compliments them with sneaking skills. Miraak's Sword plays a lesser role as a roleplay-friendly weapon.

    Combat is approached primarily as an archer. Devastating enemies at a safe distance, and falling back quickly if needed. Should an enemy be too close then the Bound Sword or Miraak's Sword become the primary weapon. Always open up with a sneak attack from long range, and cast a flesh spell if an enemy get's too close. Spells like Healing, Fast Healing, and Close Wounds should be used if health is being depleted fast, if the enemy is a weak hitter with a ton of health, then dual-wielding becomes a viable option. Enemies like Dragons and Mages are dispatched with ease thanks to being immune to magical and nearly immune to physical damage.

    Black Book abilities are, in my opinion, a great addition to any build that goes to Solstheim. As are the various powers from the All-Maker Stones. Some of my favored ones were Dragonborn Force and Secret of Arcana from the Black Books for some boosted damage to Unrelenting Force, plus the awesome ability of disintegrating an enemy upon death. Secret of Arcana makes whipping out spells like Dragonhide and Close Wounds together much easier, and opens up an efficient way of getting Alteration maxed out with assistance from the Telekinesis spell. As far as the stones abilities go, Bones of the Earth and Root of Power are what I view as the most useful. Root of Power is essentially a backup for Secret of Arcana, and Bones of the Earth is a back backup of Dragonhide for when magicka reserves are super low.

    Level 50 Perks

    The Avarice has a very focused approach with perks. A lack of crafting skills makes for constant action, but use of perks and shouts opens up new abilities at later levels to make up for the lack of power added by crafting skills.

    One of the perks that really stands out is the Atronach perk from Alteration. It synergizes with the Atronach stone to add up to a nice 80% spell absorption, then later with Miraak's gear to achieve the 100% spell absorption promised above.

    As far as other perks go, the Recovery and Mystic Binding perks both have a big impact on build gameplay, Recovery eliminates the negative attributes of the Atronach while Mystic Binding essentially makes Bound Weapons some of the most powerful weapons early to mid-game.

    Perks in general are pretty spread out amongst the skills, having no armor ensures we get the most out of Alteration by combining the already powerful spell absorption with a nice armor rating from flesh spells. Further possibilities can be obtained by throwing Dragon Aspect in the mix for some awesome bonuses.

    Fusion with Miraak...

    Upon completion of the Dragonborn questline, roleplay gets all the better. After absorbing Miraak's soul the Avarice essentially fuses consciences with the First Dragonborn. Rather than the two former Dragonborn, the character becomes an entirely new aspect, The Only Dragonborn.

     

     

     

    The Only Dragonborn...

    A form that basically achieves complete immunity from everything without glitching the hell out of the game. Combining Dragon Aspect, The 100% spell absorption, and Ebonyflesh/Dragonhide together, nothing will be a threat for a good 5 minutes or more depending. Add in Slow Time for an even better advantage. Truly a boss-killing combo...

     

     

    Equipment

    Equipment was a no-brainer, I've always wanted to do something with the awesome look of Cultist Robes. Upgrading to Miraak's equipment later on meant that I not only had the same, albeit slightly altered style as earlier. Not only that, I was able to achieve 100% spell absorption with the help of it as well as a pretty awesome yet random ability to have tentacles explode all over the enemies.

    As for weapons, Bound Weapons were another great choice for their appearance of a battlemage's weapon as well as the bonus attributed to them. Damage was never really a problem thanks to the Mystic Binding perk. Miraak's Sword made a nice backup weapon for when I was feeling more mundane about weapon choice. That stamina absorption enchantment kicks ass as well.

    Credits

    Big thank you to Nebula for ongoing support throughout.

    Every screenshot you see here was taken by Tae-Rai.

    Thanks to all the people that helped me out with the writeup.

  • Member
    May 26, 2014

    Some of your backstory got cut off - "Wielding the very weapons of Oblivion and protected by the "

  • Member
    May 26, 2014

    Fixed

  • Member
    May 26, 2014
    Looks good! I'm happy to give you it's first like :)
  • Member
    May 26, 2014

    I like it. Not sure how I feel about the Sneak skill though, but I like the build as a whole!

  • May 26, 2014
    I like the build itself but it seems like the pictures dominate the entire build.
  • Member
    May 26, 2014

    It's very helpful, especially at later levels when damage is hard to come by. 

  • Member
    May 26, 2014

    I tried keeping it shorter this time around to make it a speedy play. I don't want people reading the build for 20-30 minutes, and get frustrated trying to put all the pieces together.

    I won't deny the dominance of the pictures, but I really wanted to get as many of them into the build as I could! Most of them were too awesome to not put in there!

  • May 26, 2014
    Yeah they are same great pictures for sure.
  • Member
    May 26, 2014

    I understand. I just have a particular disdain for the sneak skill hehe.