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Character Build: The Winter Warrior

Tags: #Character Build Mage  #Character Build Beserker  #Race Nord 
  • October 11, 2016

    You are Trevor Driskel the legendary Winter Warrior. On top of your Battleaxe and Crossbow you have the forces of Snow and Winter itself at your command. Enemies who hear your name fear you, for you are an unrivaled paragon of the fury of Winter itself. But every warrior starts as an meek boy. Abandoned at 8 you ran off and became friends with an rouge mage on the run. One day you decided to come with him to gather dwarve artifacts to pay off his bounty, only for him to be killed and you captured by the Falmer as an slave. You finally escaped after 10 years by poisoning their food. After escaping execution by imperials while trying cross the border, you trained with the Companions and College to become stronger and discovered your powers as dovakhin. Finally returning to Blackreach taking revenge on your Falmer captives.

    The Winter Warrior

    This is my first attempt at an actual build, and the end result was pretty great. I hope you guys will try it and enjoy it as well as I. Some parts will require minor fortify restoration loop usage but I will get to that in the instructions/gameplay area. If you want more info on the mage friend and the complete backstory, send a message to my inbox ( it's pretty long, too long imo for the topic)

    Race: Nord, I really can't think of a more suitable race than this one, what with his frost, and adapted to an life in Skyrim.

    Stats: Pick health for 10 levels, then stamina for the next 10, and then health. Once you hit 300 stamina focus everything into health. (Magicka will be dealt with via ring)

    Equpiment: Dukaan for frost enhancement. Then Armor, Gauntlets, and Boots of the Winter Warrior (Ancient Nord Set) Armor: 248% health and stamina regen. Gauntlets: Can forge armor, and make potions 776% better. Boots: 50% Shock and Fire resistance. Ring of Winter (Gold Sapphire Ring): -100% Destruction and Alteration cost. Enhanced Crossbow: 25 Shock Damage and health Absorption (No new name). Amulet of Talos. Bah Do Felniir (Wrath of Winter in dovah (A Stalhrim Battleaxe) 40 frost and magicka damage.

    Standing Stone: The Lord for magic resistance.

    Shouts: Slow Time, Whirlwind Sprint, Unrelenting Force, Summon Durnehviir, Call Dragon, Marked For Death, Disarm, Call of Valor, Soul Tear, Bend Will, Battle Fury, Storm Call. Become Ethereal. Ice Breath

    Spells and Daily Powers: Frost Rune, Wall of Frost, Frost Cloak, Ice Storm, Icy Spear, Blizzard, Paralyze, and Mass Paralyze. Shroud of Nocturnal.

    Quests: In this Order: Dawnguard until you reject Harkon. Companions (for Nord Armor crafting), College of Winterhold until Good Intentions. Main Quest until Dragonborn starts, then that all the way through (For Dragonborn Frost), then start A New Source of Stalhrim (need 80 smithing and ebony perk to actually smith it). Theives Guild up until you return the skeleton key and pick an ability.

    Skills

    The skills your character uses in battle. Note that some perks are unlisted. This is because some perks are behind an major perk in the tree, thus in order to get the bigger perk, the unlisted perk will have to be chosen anyway.

    Alchemy: Your mage friend taught you in these arts, and you used it to make the perfect poison over the years as an slave to save your life. You hold respect for the art and make use of poisons and potions frequently. Especially for improving the strength of your ice. Alchemist 5/5, Physician, Benefactor, Poisoner, Concentrated Poison, And Green thumb.

    Destruction: This is how you became so powerful as an ice warrior. You often combine spells like Blizzard and Ice storm with dragon shouts for devastating affects (See special abilities under gameplay) Dual Casting, Impact, Augumented Frost 2/2, Deep Freeze.

    Alteration: Sometimes it gets annoying getting inturrupted Castings blizzard, this is where spells like Paralyze and Mass Paralyze come into play. It also has useful perks such as Stability to increase the length of slow time and other Shouts, and Magic Resistance.

    Enchanting: You will need this for end armor and weapons. Enchanter 5/5. Insightful Enchanter. All 3 Elemental Enchanter. Extra Effect.

    Smithing: You prefer to craft your own weapons and armor, never purchasing it from merchants. You also need Arcane Smithing for improving your enchanted weapons, and ebony smithing to make your Stalhrim Battleaxe.

    Heavy Armor: You are an berserker, and as one you need the armor for when you get surrounded. Juggernaut 5/5. Cushioned. Conditioning. Tower of Strength. Reflect Blows.

    Block: You may charge into battle, but you know that you need more than powerful armor to stay safe, so use your weapon to reduce heavy damage. Shield Wall 5/5. Disarming Bash. Block Runner. Quick Reflexes.

    Two Handed: I wanted to emulate Ysgramor's use of the Battleaxe, but Wuthrad is not used. It seems more suitable for someone who hates all elves, not just the Falmer. Not to mention the sweep skill is perfect for when you get surrounded. Barbarian 5/5. Limbsplitter 3/3. Champions Stance. Devastating Blow. Great Critical Charge. Warmaster.

    Archery: When your enemies are too far for spell or axe does that stop you? No! Instead you whip out your crossbow and snipe from afar (the 75% stagger doesn't hurt much either.......for you anyways). Overdraw 5/5. Eagle Eye. Steady Hand 2/2. Quick Shot. Bullseye. Ranger.

    Gameplay

    What you want to do when starting is level up to 7 and immediately gun it for the dawnguard. This is because near level 10 vampires begin randomly attacking cities. This does not float well for me as it has the potential to kill important npcs. Thus starting the dawnguard significantly reduces their attack rate. After this start leveling your 9 skills I listed, especially enchanting, smithing, and alchemy. Alchemy improves decently with paralyze poisons. And finding items to disenchant seriously increases enchanting. And you need smithing for better equipment, and the Stalhrim Battleaxe. Be sure to gather 10Cyrodilic Spade tale, 10 Abecean Longines, and 20 salt piles for the restoration loop. Then snowberries and blue butterflies for enchanting potions. Salt piles and the spade tail, and long fin can all be found in finding barrels on the riften docks. And in the rivers in the rift where dragonflies are above water. Snowberries can be found out of Windhelm, and butterflies near the fields of Whiterun. After gathering ingredients things get tricky, be sure to save, and make sure you have extra effect before the loop. Loop until you can make enchanting potions 500%. This gives you roughly 2.4x health and stamina regeneration for the Nord armor. Go even further with the restoration loop until your enchanting potions are 10000%-20000% this more or less gives 700% higher smithing and alchemy. Create another of that same enchanting potion and use it for fortify Destruction and Alteration on a Sapphire Ring. After this just put a normal enchantments boots and weapons (the listed enchantments can be found in the equipment area). You don't even need the loop except for amulet of Talos. You hold bitter hatred for the Falmer, you know well their story, but does this change what they did to you? No, you can never forgive, and never forget their torment. As for your persomality? You are not above having followers to help in an tight spot, but for the most part you are a loner. You are cold, and bluntly state your opinions no matter who you offend because you simply don't care if you sound offensive (an obvious result of an godawful childhood). Though you do have an soft spot for the children who are homeless, feeling empathy for them, and give coins to them whenever you can. You at one point even adopt some to try and get one off the cold streets and give a better childhood than what you had. Marriage is entirely optional. As you travel you slowly warm up to people, but you can never let go of your cynical worldview. When not adventuring you either spent time with your kids, or at an inn getting drunk and full. You often hunter any game you can for food (eat 5 weight units of food per day, uncooked meals count as an half unit)

    Combat

    You will start off by shooting enemies from afar until the get close, then pick up your axe or spells and attack. If you get surrounded, the sweep perk works great, and does a lot of stagger damage. In weapon combat you let your enemies exhaust their stamina so they can't retaliate when you strike them. Often you will coat your weapon in a poison of damage health, or use an weakness to frost to increase your weapons power. Archery is used for far off enemies, and keeping them back via stagger. Magic is used at mid range, and frost spells combined with fortify Destruction do wonders to damage, and slow enemies. It also softens them up for melee by taking Thier speed and stamina. But what really gives the build its strength is the usage of spells and combat in conjunction with shouts. For example storm call and blizzard put together are devastating combinations, and slow time thrown in the mix makes them last longer. Slow Time, blizzard, and an invisibility potion (or Shadow cloak of Nocturnal) creates an invisible warrior who blends in the snow itself while his enemies fumble around. Marked for Death used in combination with ice storm create an ice storm that weakens armor and deals damage. Which brings me to my favorite part

    Special Abilities

    Fortify Destruction Potion recommended to increase abilities

    Bitter Winter: Ice Storm+Marked For Death. You send forth an storm of snow so cold that it cracks your enemies armor and makes it brittle.

    Ice trap: Ice Breath (Dragonborn Frost version)+ice Rune+wall of frost. You lay down an trap of ice, your enemies think it is an normal ice Rune, but this advanced Rune will freeze them to their core, helpless as the cold of death embraces them.

    Grand Snowball: Slow Time+Ice Storm spam. An massive Whirlwind of Snow that causes devastating damage to your hapless foes.

    Frozen Soul: Ice breath+Soul Tear. You turn your opponent into an soulless statue by freezing them, then stealing their soul.

    Winds of Winter: Disarm+Unrelenting Force. Blow your opponents, and their weapons away, by conjuring the north winds themselves.

    Snow Warrior: Slow Time+Blizzard+Shadow cloak of Nocturnal (or invisibility potion). Create an Blizzard and disappear into the snow as part of the Blizzard itself, and split your bumbling enemies in twain.

    Wrath of Winter: Slow Time+Blizzard+Storm Call. Call forth the ultimate storm of snow.

    Time Freeze: Slow Time+Quick Reflexes. Use your powers over ice to such an extent that time not only slows but freezes temporarily. One of your greatest abilities.

  • October 11, 2016
    Wait what the heck? Why are my paragraphs not showing? Hold on don't remove it, I think I can fix this
  • October 11, 2016
    OK I thinks it's clear I need some help. For whatever reason the spacing is not showing up. Could someone explain what the problem? Is it because I'm on a phone?
  • October 11, 2016

    Hi Anubis 11, and welcome to Skyrim Character Building.  Your issues are probably due to the fact you are using a phone to post this.  I would strongly suggest you not post builds using your phone, the formatting is not going to work out properly otherwise. 

  • October 11, 2016
    @Vargr Whitehorse I don't have an computer. Is it possible for an administrator to edit it correctly?
  • Member
    October 11, 2016

    I organized your text a bit but do not expect favors like these next time. :P Do yourself a favor and find a computer in the future. This is your work after all. I'd hate to let other people mess with my content.

  • Member
    October 11, 2016

    Oh, and you're allowed only a maximum of three Character Build tags.

  • October 11, 2016
    Sorry but It's not as if I have a choice, my old computer is broke beyond repair. I never expected this mess to happen. I mean this has never happened on my phone. But thanks for the help.
  • October 11, 2016
    Only 3? I think I've seen more than 5 before. My bad.
  • Member
    October 11, 2016

    There's always 3x for Character Build, 1x for Race and 1x for Rank.