Skyrim Character Building » Discussions


Character Build: The Revenant

Tags: #Character Build Juggernaut  #Character Build Necromancer  #Rank:Legendary  #Race:Orc 
  • May 29, 2012

    It took me several playthroughs to get this build right. I wanted to use two handed weapons and wear one of the weaker armor sets; the problem is that I hate switching out two handed weapons for healing and other spells during combat; it’s just too clumsy for my playstyle. After a number of failures I tailored this build to allow for better two handed gameplay by letting him competently use one handed weapons as well. The result was a very pleasing abomination.

    The Revenant

    "When his prize awaits, the Revenant strikes! At the heart of any man, the heart of any ghost."

     

    A dark scourge has come to Tamriel, leaving a trail of half eaten walking corpses in its wake. The Revenant is a foul creature and a true servant of Namira, rumoured to be the only being to emerge from her realm of The Scuttling Void.

    The Revenant has no direct means of healing and is constantly compelled to feed on the bodies of others to sustain itself. It can typically be found in deep barrows or scavenging battlefields feeding on the wounded or dead. 

    Race: Orc

    Stone: The Lord

    Major Skills: Heavy Armor, Smithing, Conjuration, Block.

    Minor Skills: One Handed, Two Handed, Enchanting.

    Armor: Ancient Nord Armor and Targe of the Blooded.

    Weapons: All Ancient Nord Weaponry, Duskbreaker.

    Essential Quests: Namira & Azura’s tasks, Kjenstag Ruins, Unfathomable Depths, Alftand, Destroy the Dark Brotherhood (optional).

    The Build

    So this guy is rank!! He gets plenty of negative attention from guards and they will often comment on the stench from his armor and his corpse breath, if they aren't complaining about the smell they will definitely not appreciate the small horde of half eaten corpses that follow him around leaving lumps of flesh behind.

    Ancient nord armor is arguably one of the best looking sets you can pick up in Skyrim. Unfortunately because of its rarity most players encounter it too late in a playthrough to consider it worth using; this build aims to change that and allows you to look imposing for the entire game.  Because this armor is statistically one of the weaker sets we will be using both smithing and enchanting to enhance it during play.

    The armor doesn’t come with a shield which leads us to the amazing Targe of the Blooded found in Alftand.

    Not only is this unique shield a perfect match with ancient armor it’s secretly a very powerful piece of kit and adds a new distinct flavour to the block skill.

    It features a nasty bleed effect that can actually be stacked; five quick shield bashes from this item will leave an enemy losing health at an alarming rate.

    The targe's spike design is very similar to a meat tenderiser, amusing considering that this character will likely be eating whatever remains of his opponents after battle.

    Unlike the bleeding effect from the hack and slash perks the Targe of the Blooded works on constructs and undead making it very useful at any stage.  It’s another item that is not usually encountered till late in the game and is easily dismissed; The Revenant will be picking it up very early in his travels.

    This character will be using draugr weaponry almost exclusively; it’s perfect for this build. Honed draugr weapons do nice damage and the two handed greatsword and greataxe are vicious looking instruments and pleasing to use in combat. The game has a nice scattering of unique draugr weapons, like The Pale Blade & Red Eagles Bane, this character gets to use them all, and looks great doing so!

    "Duskbreaker" is the Revenants primary weapon. Its obviously my parody (and opposite) of the popular "Dawnbreaker" sword given to the character during Meridia's quest.

     

    Duskbreaker is a honed draugr greatsword, self enchanted with 20 points of health absorption, 10 points of fire damage and steals a targets soul if killed within 5 seconds.

    When combined with the black star from Azura's task the Revenant will be able to recharge this hungry weapon during combat and constantly regenerate streams of health.

    Its possible to start creating weaker versions of Duskbreaker at lower levels by completing the quest 'Destroy the Dark Brotherhood' and disenchanting the Blade of Woe for its powerful absorb health enchantment.

    I like to get in ‘costume’ quickly with my characters. Kjenstag Ruins is the location of a full set of ancient nord armor; I picked mine up at level 4.

     

    • Travel to Morthal and wait till after 8pm, save your game.
    • Proceed east to Kjenstag Ruins.
    • As you approach the ruins a Nordic ghost will appear and begin to sprint north.
    • Kill the ghost to receive the full set of ancient armor.

    The ghost moves quickly and will disappear forever once it reaches its destination, it’s sometimes best to use novice flames to kill it quickly.

    So its an unusual choice of perk placement, most characters will stick to the same weapon type for the entire game. For this playthrough i started with one handed and only placed perks into armsman, any power attack i made was using the targe of the blooded so i didn't feel the need to branch out into the one handed perk tree.

    Once my character had toughened somewhat i began mixing in two handed (around level 20 - 25). Its worth noting that i placed every single stat point into health because the more health you have the more benefits you reap from the health regeneration from the ring of Namira. Namira's quest is not level locked meaning that we can complete it as early as we like (level 6 for me).

    A level 6 character wearing a corpse fueled ring of Namira has the stat points of a level 16 character and a very strong health regeneration to go with it. It surpasses the Gauldur amulet.

    Dwarven smithing is not a wasted perk. All 'honed' draugr weapons are enhanced by dwarven smithing. This character will be completing Deepest Fathoms and Alftand, this nets you over 200 dwarven ingots (i counted) which can create over 100 dwarven bows at a forge taking smithing from 30 to 60 and unlocking the arcane blacksmith perk.

  • May 29, 2012

    great build as usual mason I like the use of ancient nord weapons and targe of the blooded.  

    one thing I noticed is that you listed duskbreaker which i've never heard of so I looked it up and only results for dawnbreaker came up is possibly a misstype?

  • May 29, 2012

    lol this guy is completely nasty!

  • May 29, 2012

    Looking good as always! Although I have seen the longhammer in Ricardo's Thor Build. Also love the Targe of the Blooded, it is a devilishly awesome shield. Great work again and looking forward to the spread.

  • May 29, 2012

    Aha! You spotted that did you! Hehe!

    "Duskbreaker" is this builds self enchanted version of "Dawnbreaker", Its kind of like the dark version.

    I'll be posting it up shortly! Bit tired tonight!

  • May 29, 2012

    Gah! Just checked that! I think ricardo must have updated his build since i last read it! He's completely right it is one MONSTER of a weapon! Thought i was the first to mention it!

  • May 29, 2012

    I believe Volendrung is actually higher damage per second because it has the damage of a daedric warhammer and the speed of a greatsword

    agree? disagree?

  • May 29, 2012

    Haha! Like i said in the build description there have been multiple arguments on other forums about the Longhammer, its a cool weapon and does great damage plus it doesn't require you to reach lofty heights in smithing to enhance.

    Now that Evans pointed out Ricardo's Thor build using the longhammer i'll probably edit it out and stick to using my Duskbreaker creation instead! Looks like Evans saved me a smithing perk!

  • May 29, 2012

    Longhammer combined with elemental fury has to be the greatest source of damage this game may provide! I had thought about this combination with my Thor build, but it wouldn't go with his lightning powers and, besides, the elemental fury shout doesn't work with enchanted weapons. But it should work nicely with an unenchanted Longhammer and I'm sure your ravenant will be a nasty enemy with this move - it will be like a melee machine gun. Congratulations on yet another perverted and disgusting piece of your imagination to feed the nightmares of our fellow bloggers.

  • May 29, 2012

    Well I'm glad I could be of help :) To bad it means the longhammer has to go. I won't know for sure until I see what you have in mind with the spread but until then i'm thinking i'll be doing a playthrough of this character but with the longhammer as my weapon of choice still. Of course I can't wait to see what this Duskbreaker is, sounds awesome!