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Event Build: The Veiled Scribe

Tags: #Character Build Shouts  #Character Build Nightblade  #Character Build Bound Weapons  #Rank:Event Mythic  #Race:Altmer  #Event:Evolution  #Dragonborn1721  #Swiggity Swag I'm stealing this tag 
  • May 18, 2015

    This is my entry for the Evolution Event, I am trying to evolve the Nightblade Class from Elder Scrolls Online into the realm of Skyrim but to take it up a level, I moved it up by swapping out the boring overpowered dagger combo we all love and changing in a Bow. But a Stealthy Archer isn't anything new, well that's where everything changes. I throw out my arrows for almost every situation and just punch them straight in the face. 

    Backstory: 

    I write a brief history of the Veiled Heritence, most accurately described  as a Cult, aimed to destroy the Aldmeri Dominion, now we are but echoes of memory, rarely mentioned or even thought about by the average Altmer. So why do I tell you this now, I tell you because now is the time where we rise, now is the time for the Veil to Blind the Dominion, and to crush it, I am Elvyasor, scribe of the New Veiled Heritence. With these words I depart to the land where the Thalmor, and thus the Aldmeri Dominion are exerting their force,  I head off now to Skyrim, leaving behind my work in case another is needed to take my place.

    (more Backstory can be read here

    Race: High Elf

    I chose High Elf because it would allow me to start with an extra 50 Magicka, the fact that is\t misses out on a starting bonus to Archery or Sneak is rather poor but, is nearly balanced out by the Conjuration and Illusion bonuses. The Highborn Power is mostly useless for this build I'll admit that but it will let me level up Illusion to the level that I need. (50 for Quiet Casting) 

    Stone: Advanced Lady 

    I'm going with the Advanced Lady Stone as my Standing Stone because it gives a massive bonus to the Stamina Regen (oh yeah and the Health Regen I guess).

    Stat Spread: 190 Magicka (4 points), 200 Health (10 points) and 300 Stamina (20 points)

    This character is based around Bow Bashing and in particularly a little trick which lets you bash repeatedly without having to do anything except have Stamina, that's why there is so much. Magicka is fairly unimportant as soon as you can cast Bound Bow considering Illusion is purely for Quiet Casting and the other spell we use requires 0 Magicka.

    Major Skills: Alchemy and Block

    Minor Skills: Archery, Light Armour, Sneak, Conjuration,  and Illusion

    Shouts and Powers: Marked for Death, Become Ethereal Whirlwind Sprint and Slow Time 

    • Marked for Death: MfD is used to boost our Bow-Bash to an even higher level then the Potions or Perks. At higher levels it is really strong and gives us a lot more damage. I used all three words whenever possible.
    • Slow Time: Slow Time, a rather simple shout that allows the character to stay alive when fighting other archers, catching arrows in midair is a useful ability for any archer to have. I'm not a fan of Slow Time but I can't deny this build uses it well, any number of words is good even if I only used two words. 
    • Whirlwind Sprint: This is actually the secondary shout of this build, being able to more or less instantly travel around the battlefield gives this character an unrivaled ability to stay alive and deal varying levels of damage. He can take a weaker long-range shot or move in for the kill in close range. I found the first word was the only one I really needed. It has a short cool-down and allowed me to get around just fine. If you're more comfortable with another level then feel free to use it.
    • Become Ethereal: The benefits of Become Ethereal are rather well known. Stamina isn't drained, no damage is taken. Just a few, the key of the two we are focusing on is the fact that damage cannot be taken for the duration of the Shout. The key thing is that it completely negates fall damage, what does this mean for this character? It gives us a large amount of mobility. 

    Spells: 

    • Bound Bow: Bound Bow will become my weapon of choice later on, because of it's speed and more importantly base damage, this weapon is ideal for this character. This character can usually cast it fairly soon after getting out of Helgen (hitting 200 Magicka early on might be a good option) and can be acquired at Fort Amol under a Bucket in the Prison.  
    • Arniel's Shade: This spell is weird. It costs 0 Magicka, gives no experience and he isn't affected by perks...Now Arniel here has a lot of things going for him. high damage, 0 cost, can't be harmed by melee attacks and has access to rather powerful Lightning and Fire spells.

    Weaken the Thalmor's operations:

    "Master Scribe, it is your duty within the land of Skyrim to do what all our other agents are doing. To weaken the Aldmeri Dominion in any way possible. Killing high priority members, stopping their patrols and making sure they don't gain influence in any other areas. Below is a hit list of Thalmor Members who we know of in Skyrim and it is your duty, and yours alone ti kill all of them. I don't care how you do it, or when you do it. As long as it is done I am happy. Master Scribe, you will most likely e in Skyrim for many years and I wish you all the luck, but do not fail us."

    Killing Ancano (College of Winterhold): 

    Ancano is currently at the College of Winterhold, acting as an adviser. We cannot say when you will get the chance to kill him here, if he disappears from the College with no trace after you show up then people will begin to wonder. Be patient with this mark but make sure he dies. 

    Killing Ondolemar: 

    This man is in charge of all the Justiciars in Skyrim at the moment. He can be found in Markarth (Understone Keep) and because of this is a highly visible target most of the time. Caution is obviously very important for killing him but it must be done, silently if possible and remember that the locals have no love for him. 

    Killing Rulindil (Diplomatic Immunity):

    Rulindil is one of the highest ranking Thalmor in this land. He is third Emissary and works directly under First Emissary Elenwen in the Thalmor Embassy. He is a very politically powerful and difficult to reach target and should be taken with forethought, and a large amount of patience, do not rush this kill. 

    Killing Elenwen (After Season Unending):

    First Emissary Elenwen is your primary target in Skyrim. Unfortunately she is very difficult to reach and is quite often in Public Eye, one cannot simply walk into the Embassy and kill this woman. All of your patience, skill and Power will be needed to kill this target, and her protection of course. 

    Potions: 

    The Arrow Elixir: (Canis Root/Elves Ear and Juniper Berries)

    Fortify Marksman %60

    The Marksman's Heart: (Blue Mountain Flower and Wheat: Fortify Health)

    60 points and Restore Health 94 Health

    Swift-Step: (Fly Amantia and Mora Tapinella:)

    Regenerate Stamina %75

    Nightblage's Sanctuary: (Snowberries, Ash Creep Cluster and Purple Mountain Flower:)

    Resist Fire %45 and Resist Frost %45

    Restorative Drought: (Yellow Mountain Flower + Abecean Longfin/Cyrodilic Spadetail)

    Fortify Restoration %75

    Any text in blue is the end game calculations for this character, all other information is how the testing is done and is there mostly so you can do it yourself if you want to make it more or less powerful. Also a reminder that all calculations were done with Adept, on Master difficulty you do 1/2 of any damage listed (still pretty boss).

    Only one of Alastor's amazing finds are used, while others can be used this build is just actually quite damaging later on with one of them 

    The Crouch Bash

    The player can bash with a bow and follow up by crouching and un-crouching to indefinitely bash with a bow even after Stamina is drained. It may look ridiculous but could be devastating with Block's Deadly Bash perk, Fortify Archery potions, and Marked for Death.

    Being able to bash for an indefinite amount of time. That is all.

    The main things we are looking at are the general numbers for all Bash Damage, Marked for Death and it's effect and Fortify Marksman and how it effects our Bow-Bashing Damage. 

    All weapons bash for 25% of their BASE damage rating

    A Mystic Bow (our main weapon) has a base damage of 24, in other words without any modifiers we will hit for a rather low 6 damage.  Deadly Bash  will give us a solid  30 damage with just the single perk. With Marked for Death we can hit for 60 damage after only 11 seconds of waiting, if you want to take it a step further then it will do 162 damage after 60 seconds.

    Fortify Marksman Potions effect our Bash Damage Canis Root/Elves Ear and Juniper Berries gives us a potion of %60.This stacks with all our other effects to create a rather ridiculous amount of 259 Damage on Adept, With all effect counted for we can hit for 96  after only 11 seconds and much larger 259 after the full 60 seconds of the potion and MfD. Remember that each bash will do more damage over time upto that 60 second mark.

    • Advanced Stone by Mason, Method by Ponty and Calculations given by Teccam and Nikolaj

    The Advanced Stone technique (I'm a little unsure if Mason used it first but he is the most notable user of the technique) is a technique that involves staking Fortify Restoration Potions in some way to increase a Standing Stone's Effect. 

    With the method below and adding a %50 bonus from Wind Walker we end up with %175 Stamina Regen and %125 Health Regen.

    1. Equip Fortify Alchemy item(s)
    2. Create Fortify Restoration potion. (Restorative Drought is the combo to use)
    3. Drink Fortify Restoration potion
    4. Unequip Fortify Alchemy item(s)
    5. Repeat steps 1-4 until you have 400% 
    6. Head off to the Lady Stone, drink the potion right before equipping the stone.

    Stamina Regen with 300 Stamina

    With potion:  52.5 Stamina/Second ( In combat 18.375)

    Without Potion: 41.25 Stamina/Second (In combat 14.4375)

    Health Regen with 200 Health

     3.15 (2.205 in combat)

    • %100 Shout Reduction:

    Alright so we get lucky here, well those who don't want to read as much do. The general method of achieving %100 Shout Reduction is the exact same as our method for picking up the Advanced Lady Stone, however the numbers are slightly different.

    1. Equip Fortify Alchemy item(s
    2. Create Fortify Restoration potion.
    3. Drink Fortify Restoration potion
    4. Unequip Fortify Alchemy item(s)
    5. Repeat steps 1-4 until you have a %400 
    6. Equip an Amulet of Talos

    The main Shouts to use is Whirlwind Sprint, this shout allows you to almost teleport around the field (with a slight delay) and makes this a very agile character.

    Thanks to Teccam for the video below. It  displays a way to hit exactly the %400 needed and is a very useful way of doing it. I personally didn't bother but for you perfectionists it's perfect. 

    • Shout Preparation (Bow) by Dragonborn1421 (Similar to Soneca-the-Exiled's Block-Shouting

    My very own Trick. I'm not sure how heavily this has been discussed outside of this build, I'm sure it's not something that a lot of people know about. The technique is rather simple but also one that can become quite powerful if used in the right way, at the right time

    1. Equip your Shout (In this case Whirlwind Sprint)
    2. Ready an arrow but don't fire it yet
    3. Activate the Shout (It will not activate at this point which is good) 
    4. Release the arrow
    5. Look in any direction and the Shout will instantly trigger after about 1-2 seconds Note: It works best with One Word Shouts.

    Now that we have all of the tricks and skills out of the way we can truly discuss the damage that this character can do, of course how fights tend to work as well. 

    The General Style:

    Mobility, everything this build aims to do is become more mobile. Stealth, Whirlwind Sprint, Silent Roll and Become Ethereal combine to create a warrior that can move around the battlefield, before and during battle, to decimate all her foes. 

    Stealth (Best against everything) gives this character more time to start combat out. Stealth attacks aren't our focus, we use it for positioning, firing off a Marked for Death and then coming in. Quiet Casting is what really blends this together. It makes casting Bound Bow, Arniel's Shade and using Shouts much easier. It gives our combat a massive amount of strategy. 

    Whirlwind Sprint (Best against Warriors) is our fast movement option. Combined with %100 Shout Reduction, this Shout really becomes quite powerful, being able to more or less teleport around the field (not completely of course) gives this character a lot of mobility. Using it in combination with Shout Preparation is a particularly deadly tool against warriors of all kinds, bashing, firing arrows and bursting around a battlefield is a very fun and unique method of combat.

    Silent Roll (Best against Archers) isn't just useful for rolling around in the Shadows, dodging arrows with Silent Roll makes it feel like an actual dodging motion, dodging arrows is insanely useful and kept a faster pace character when I would be seen. 

    Become Ethereal (Best against Dragons and Mages) an often used panic button when fighting Dragons and Mages, I felt that using Become Ethereal for something a little more would be slightly more interesting. Being able to leap around a battlefield is something that is always heavily restricted by Fall Damage, this is one character that for 8/13/18 seconds at a time can do this with absolutely no problem. It is also one of the best techniques for dealing with Mages and Dragons because Frost effects will not slow you down. 

    Right where to start. The Art Guys were great here. ShinJin edited those really great banners that give this character a real Anti-Dominion feel that it really needs. Vazgen helped me figure out all the HTML stuff to place them next to the Cooltext (which looks really great). Golden Fool for teaching me most of what I know about Perk/Equipment Spreads and in general making stuff look decent. Finally we have Noodles himself for some of the pictures seen in the build which originally came from Helmuttt.

    Next the Tips and Tricks guys. I think they're all listed in the Evolving Section but I have to thank Teccam, Nikolaj and Alastor above all. These three helped me at times with testing and numbers, without them this build would be boring as all hell. Thanks for helping me create a fun, interesting character guys.

    And all of the guys who dropped opinions, help or anything else in the Workshop (even if it was correcting my typos a little) without everyone there this build would never have been something I so heavily worked on (over 2 months of writing and gameplay with me working on it for almost all of them).

    Thanks for reading everyone and see you next time.

  • Member
    May 18, 2015

    Great build, Dragonborn. 

  • Member
    May 18, 2015

    I think this is your best build yet, DB. The presentation is fantastic, and it does a great job of sticking to the event theme while still being totally worthy of posting on its own merits. I like the idea of presenting attributes as end-game levels, with the number of increases given in parens. Easier to keep track of for people who actually play the build, compared to the convention of "X Health / Y Magicka / Z Stamina".

    Also, CROTCH BASHING!

    FYI, I'm pretty sure Salt Pile overrides Yellow Mountain Flower in terms of priority, meaning you won't actually get the +25% modifier. Try using Abecean Longfin or Cyrodilic Spadetail instead of Salt Pile, and see if it's any different.

  • May 18, 2015

    I agree with Tec-support. This is easily your best build yet. I give you my seal of approval.

  • May 18, 2015

    Keep up that joke and I'll fly to America and bash your crotch

    Okay no more jokes, I swear this time, I'll get through an entire sentence without including a joke. As one of the people who helped me out here Teccam I must say I couldn't have done it so well if you hadn't helped. Thanks for the praise and help Teccam and I'm glad that you found the attributes listing useful, I find it really necessary when exact numbers are involved for Stamina/Health Regen and a different ratio would throw the whole thing out.

  • May 18, 2015

    Right. Time to add that to the bottom of the build. Seal of the Slender is worth a lot these days.

    Thanks Curse, means a lot coming from you. 

  • May 18, 2015

    Thanks Rogue 

  • Member
    May 19, 2015

    I still like those spreads. I'd add my seal of approval, but it needs remodeling and I'm afraid that I might run that joke into the ground 

  • May 19, 2015

    That Equipment Spread took me way longer then it should have. I ended up redoing it a couple dozen times I think and getting the title just right took too long. 

    You can give me a seal of approval anytime, I would put it with Curse's. Two Art Group Hosts down, all I need is Alice's and I have the Trinity (Which is going up know that I have time.)

    Anyway thanks Golden Fool for the comment and like. This wouldn't be half as good if you hadn't helped out so thank you again for that.

  • Member
    May 19, 2015

    Wow, this build is amazing, it's been said before but I think this is indeed your best build so far, the presentation was amazing, and the theme fits the event perfectly, I'll give you my +1